Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Expecting an early Greek default

by Felix Salmon

Reuters

April 20, 2011

Greece is going to restructure its debts — and it’s going to do so before mid-2013. That’s the clear message sent by the latest Reuters poll of 55 economists from across Europe: 46 of them saw a restructuring in the next two years, with four saying it would happen in the next three months.

This is a major development. The markets haven’t believed Greece for a while — but now they don’t believe the European Union, either. Remember that back in November, the EU put out a statement laying out a mechanism for restructuring a member’s debt “in the unexpected event that a country would appear to be insolvent”. It clearly says that “any private sector involvement based on these terms and conditions would not be effective before mid-2013″.

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