Saturday, February 25, 2012

Eurogroup head cannot rule out third Greek bailout

Reuters
February 24, 2012

The head of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, said on Friday he could not rule out that Greece may need a third bailout.

Euro zone finance ministers struck a deal on Tuesday for a second bailout program for Greece that includes new financing of 130 billion euros and aims to cut Greece's debt to 121 percent of GDP by 2020.

Asked in a television interview if he could be sure Greece would not need a third bailout, Juncker said: "You cannot really exclude that, although we should not have as a starting assumption that a third program will be (needed)."

"We made it clear last Tuesday in Brussels that we are standing ready to support Greece even beyond the time period of this program but I have good reasons to believe that we should now not engage ourselves in a debate on a 'maybe' third program. We should now ... implement the second one," he said, interviewed by David Frost on Al Jazeera.

Asked about some experts' view that a Greek default is inevitable, Juncker said: "I don't see that Greece would go for a default."

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