GREECE IS WAITING on a decision regarding its delayed €31.5 billion aid package as divisions between the IMF and the EU have emerged over how quickly the troubled country should reduce its debt burden.
As a meeting of EU finance ministers gets under way in Brussels today, a split between the head of the eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker and the International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde emerged last night at a joint press conference.
The Financial Times reports that at the post eurogroup meeting press conference Juncker told journalists that the target for Greece to reduce its debt levels to 120 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020 should be moved to 2022 to give Athens some breathing room.
But Lagarde visibly disagreed when Juncker told the press he was not joking, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
“In our view, the appropriate timetable is 120 per cent by 2020,” Ms Lagarde is reported as saying. “We clearly have different views.”
YouTube: Euronews
Officials from both sides will now meet again next Tuesday, 20 November in a bid to reach an agreement, delaying the pay out of Greece’s long awaited aid for at least another week.
The 2020 debt sustainability agreement was thrashed out as a condition for the IMF’s involvement in a second Greek aid package that was agreed last March.
The decision of the EU to shift the goalposts could now threaten the entire deal, The Telegraph reports.
Asian markets fell in overnight trading amid the uncertainty in Europe and the looming fiscal cliff in the United States.
EU finance ministers are meeting this morning as part of their regular Eco-Fin summits to discuss ways to bolster the the continent’s flagging economy.
French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici and his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble are also holding a joint news conference.
- with reporting from AFP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say