Voluntary Greek debt plan ‘unrealistic’

Financial Times
July 7, 2011

Jan Kees de Jager, the Dutch finance minister, has called for private-sector holders of Greek government debt to be forced to participate in a second debt-relief support package.

Mr de Jager said it was “unrealistic” to expect significant voluntary participation in such a plan, and said mandatory participation should be considered even if it led to rating agencies downgrading Greece’s credit rating.

“I think we have to accept that a voluntary contribution is unrealistic,” Mr de Jager told the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad after a meeting on Wednesday in London with George Osborne, the British chancellor. “If a mandatory contribution from the banks leads to a short-term and isolated rating event, that is not so bad, because Greece cannot go to the credit markets anyway now or in the near future.”

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