European Banks Set for Greece Discussion

Wall Street Journal
July 5, 2011

European banks are set to gather Wednesday in Paris as they discuss how to participate in a second rescue plan for Greece without triggering a default, a day ahead of a meeting between France's new Finance Minister François Baroin and his German counterpart, also on the topic of Greek debt.

The meeting of banks will bring together private-industry creditors and will be chaired by Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, an IIF spokesman said. It will be one in a series of meetings coordinated by the Washington-based association, which comprises more than 400 financial institutions world-wide. The meetings are running in conjunction with technical discussions that followed an IIF meeting in Rome on June 27, the spokesman said.

In his first public address since taking over the finance-ministry post, Mr. Baroin called on Tuesday for as much private-sector involvement as possible to solve Greece's debt crisis.

"The Greek economy will also benefit from support from the private sector, according to terms that are still to be defined," Mr. Baroin told the annual Europlace financial forum in Paris. "I would like it to be as large as possible, and still on a voluntary basis."

More