Greek debt crisis: what the experts say

Guardian
June 21, 2011

Paul Donovan of UBS

While some countries can manage without a government, it would probably be a good idea for Greece to keep one. We think the government wins, and in that case the EU will supply the necessary cash.

The UK government revealed that it has been preparing contingency plans for a Euro meltdown. Meanwhile the EU's Rehn stressed that the banking stress tests would not include any Euro country defaulting, because even under the most stressed scenarios he did not think that plausible.

Giovanni Zanni of Credit Suisse

The Greek economy appears to be off the lows but the pick up in Q1 11 was in all likelihood only tentative. A general view is that there has been some timid rebound in Q1, although signs for Q2 were not suggesting a continuation of the expansion, probably due to the global slowdown but also to renewed uncertainties at the political level, in Greece and in Europe.

There were some tentative indications that the tourism season would be good and much better this year than last year, with cancellations in north Africa benefiting Greece, amongst other things, and hope for some respite at the political level (that seems less secured), in our view.

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