ESM: Measures to alleviate the Greek debt in 2016

Regling says proposals on Greek debt to be presented in the next few weeks

Director of the European Stability Mechanism Klaus Regling told French newspaper ‘Les Echos’ that measures alleviating the Greek debt would take effect in 2016. ‘We are working on that. There are three elements. One is to smoothen the repayment profile, which we are doing. We have the mandate, so we don’t need any other decision. And at the moment, because there was a repayment, the average maturity is only 28 years and we’re allowed to go up to 32 years. So we can work with that and relatively quickly adjust some of the repayments in order to avoid big jumps in repayments in certain years, and smoothen the profile. That’s one. The second is that we have the mandate to look at ways to reduce interest rate risk for Greece. People expect that interest rates will go up in the future, and we’re talking here about a 30-year period, and so we’re working on ways to protect Greece. And the third one is very technical one. There’s a jump in interest rates in the year 2017 on a small part of the Greek debt. And the mandate is to eliminate that. And that will save a few hundred million euros’, he said. Regling stressed the ESM would present the three elements of alleviating the Greek debt within the next few weeks, ‘certainly before the end of the year’, he said.