Thursday, October 27, 2011

The euro reached an agreement at the end of the night

----------------------------------------------------------

After the suspense, and after more than ten hours of the summit, the leaders of the euro area have come in the night from Wednesday to Thursday to wrest an agreement on debt restructuring Greek'accroissement the capacity of the fund support for the euro and the recapitalization of banks.
Complex, flawed, full of question marks and no doubt incomplete, this agreement is nevertheless the most ambitious found by the Heads of State and Government of the single currency since the bursting of the debt crisis in Greece in late 2009.
This new program had to be negotiated step by step and sometimes head to head between the bankers and Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel themselves, who have put their full weight behind the decision to force. It plans to reduce Greece's debt of more than 160% of GDP to 120% in 2020, a level deemed tolerable by the European authorities.
Governments and private creditors
To do this, the governments of the euro area will set the table 130 billion euros in loans, while private creditors will remove 100 billion from 210 billion euros of Greek securities they hold. This voluntary contribution, which will be collected by the end of the year will amount to a waiver of 50%, said Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.
The Director General of the Institute of International Finance (IIF) Charles Dallara, who represented the banks in the negotiation, welcomed the agreement, which revises the plan approved on July 21 in which the private sector was engaged only up to 50 billion euros.
The Europeans also agreed to a scaling capabilities of the European Financial Stability (EFSF) to a volume of 1 000 billion, likely to reassure markets on its ability to fly if the rescue of countries such as Italy or Spain.
The Fund had in its creation of 440 billion euros but after being called on to help Portugal and Ireland, and as a result of a complex financing package to grant him a AAA rating, it no longer today ' Today as an effective capacity estimated at 250 billion euros.
A dual mechanism
The leverage will be achieved via a dual mechanism. This will be one hand to satisfy some of the sovereign debt issued by countries in difficulty and, secondly, to create a new "special vehicle" backed by the EFSF and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the participation international investors, such as China and other major émergents.Nicolas Sarkozy said he would meet on Thursday on the phone with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao about a possible participation of Beijing to the creation of this fund . The Director General of EFSF, Klaus Regling, will also in China to meet with investors.
As expected, the leaders of the Twenty-Seven have also endorsed without change the third part of the European response, a plan to recapitalize banks to the tune of 106 billion euros by June 30, 2012, of which 8.8 billion for banks françaises.Ce plan also provides for government guarantees to enable banks to secure funding in the medium and long term, similar to those that were implemented in fall 2008 at the height of the financial crisis.
Vague promises of Berlusconi
The summit also provided an opportunity for Berlusconi to make some vague promises of economic reform, far from firm commitments attendus.Les European leaders, led by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, asked Sunday to Italian Prime Minister to present at the European Council on Wednesday a plan to correct the solid growth and reduce the debt of Italy, which is the order of 1 800 billion.
They reiterated their call Thursday for ambitious reforms in the country, including a labor market reform, pension reform, measures to promote competitiveness and liberalization of public services.

Source: Reuters

No comments:

Post a Comment