ECONOMY

Finance Ministry insists Greece is fully funded until mid-2015

Greece’s Finance Ministry has insisted that the country is fully funded until the summer of 2015 in the wake of comments by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble that a new loan package of less than 10 billion euros would be needed.

“As is known and was accepted at the last Eurogroup, Greece’s funding needs are covered until mid-2015,” the Finance Ministry said on Sunday.

“For the 2015-16 period the country’s financing needs will depend to a great degree on the results of the bank stress tests that will be carried out by the European Central Bank on a pan-European level.”

The ministry issued the statement after SYRIZA pointed out Schaeuble’s comments and the International Monetary Fund noting that further fiscal adjustment is needed as evidence that the government’s policies are not working.

“The government cannot hide its devotion to a catastrophic policy that is exhausting the Greek population and includes new measures that are against the interest of society,” said SYRIZA. “Nor can it hide that the public debt, the basis for the memorandums, is in no way sustainable.”

The Finance Ministry accused SYRIZA of populism and “seeing ghosts everywhere.”

“In 2022, according to the troika’s forecasts, Greece’s debt will reach a level that can be described as sustainable so it may be that Greece will need to make use of limited aid again,» Schaeuble told Focus magazine.

Such a package would be a «much smaller sum than in the first two programs – so more like a one-digit billion amount,» he said.

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