Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-12-05

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Venizelos: Political uncertainty makes negotiation more difficult

[02] Greek banks ready to support real economy

[01] Venizelos: Political uncertainty makes negotiation more difficult

Moreover, he noted that the main opposition has an unparalleled contradiction, as it claims it wants to exit the memorandum and the troika but it does not want this to be done by the government.

He termed the negotiation very difficult and said it was excessively extended and that this extension was unfair to the country. He added that the lenders should realize that five years have gone by and the country has three significant achievements, which are: the positive growth rate, the primary surplus and the good fiscal performance and the solid banking system that successfully passed the stress tests.

The negotiation, Venizelos said, is double sided; it relates to the conclusion of the current programme and at the same time to the new framework which, as he said, will be different, decent and equal. It is also taking place on a third level, he said, which relates to the debt.

He claimed it was wrong for someone to try to persuade markets and the IMF that the Greek debt was not sustainable. What is more, saying something like that poses many risks, he added.

He also referred to another side of the negotiation, which is more related to the European Union and its relation to the IMF, which wants to stay in the Eurozone and Europe in general. This, Venizelos said, mainly concerns other countries with high debt, which in two cases (France and Italy) exceeds 5 trillion euros.

[02] Greek banks ready to support real economy

Addressing a conference organized by the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce, Megalou noted that the domestic banking system was leaving behind a long period of managing the consequences of a fiscal crisis and it was now focusing on funding the real economy. Megalou stressed that Eurobank would double credit to businesses and individuals in 2015 to 2.0 billion euros, of which 1.6 billion will be distributed to enterprises. The Greek banker said that funding costs could fall further in 2015 depending on the cost of savings and the country's borrowing costs.

Spyros Papaspyrou, deputy chief executive in Piraeus Bank, addressing the conference said that the banking system will have to approve new credit of up to 7.0 billion euros in 2015 in order to reverse negative credit growth rates currently prevailing in the market, while he added Greek enterprises were expected to change their borrowing model. Papaspyrou said that the banking system, combined with a new legislation, could help enterprises facing financial problems caused by the crisis, to become viable and to re-enter the productive process again.

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