Grexit? Greece again on the brink as debt crisis threatens break with EU
Country faces critical few weeks as it struggles to meet bailout conditions and pressures rise in Germany and US
Bailout negotiations between Athens and its creditors have stalled. The possibility of Grexit, or euro exit, has re-emerged and bond yields have soared. The yield on two-year Greek government bonds has risen from 6% to 10% in less than two weeks as spooked investors have dumped their holdings. And the shrill rhetoric last seen at the height of the crisis in 2015 has returned.
Analysts sensing dangerous deadlock are sounding the alarm – an alarm that the embattled prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, was expected to raise in talks with the German chancellor and other European leaders in Malta on Friday.
Athens was told this week that further rescue funds would not be forthcoming until it concluded a compliance review of terms attached to the €86bn (£74bn) aid package. In July Greece faces debt repayments of €7.4bn, raising the spectre of default because state coffers by then will have run dry. The impasse has turned into a standoff as creditors demand additional austerity once the current bailout expires
Complicating matters further is the direction the IMF will take now that President Trump is in power. In his former role as a billionaire businessman, Trump
tweeted that the Greeks were “wasting time” in the eurozone.
One in three now live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers around 23%. The latest impasse has not only seen emigration levels rise and non-repayment of household and business loans soar but also nostalgia for the drachma grow.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/03/grexit-greece-debt-crisis-eu-germany-us