February 21, 2012
Asked whether he believed the scenarios under which the new €130bn bail-out for Greece would allow it to reach sustainable debt levels by the end of the decade, Wolfgang Schäuble on Tuesday chose to quote an American.
“Naturally they come with, as Mark Twain said, a significant amount of uncertainty,” the German finance minister quipped following marathon negotiations in Brussels. “Forecasts are always difficult, especially those about the future.”
Mr Schäuble’s jest reflected a widespread concern among officials and analysts as they picked over the details of the new rescue package: that while it is far more realistic than the first €110bn Greek programme launched nearly two years ago, it still contains assumptions that even its architects acknowledge are highly suspect.
“There are notable risks,” analysts for international lenders wrote in a confidential report on Greece’s debt burden, which called the programme “accident-prone” with “questions about sustainability hanging over it.”
More
No comments:
Post a Comment