By G. Sakkas
[email protected]
A report by HSBC this week includes an assessment that debt relief measures extended by Greece’s institutional creditors will be finalized with an agreement at a June 21 Eurogroup meeting.
At the same time, the international banking multinational estimates that Greece is headed towards a “clean exit” from the bailout era – as the third and last memorandum ends on Aug. 20, 2018 – but with stepped up supervision by creditors in its aftermath.
The poll-trailing Tsipras coalition government has for months now propped up the “clean exit” prospect as a supreme achievement, whereas the notion of “stepped supervision” after the third bailout ends is downplayed or shunned.
HSBC also rules out any extension of the memorandum.
In terms of specific measures, the report rehashes many of the ideas widely circulated over the past year and a half, such as an early payoff of Greek bonds held by the ECB, extending maturities of loans by 10 to 12 years, as well as a return of profits on Greek bonds held by Eurozone entities back to Athens.
What’s noteworthy about the HSBC report is that it was composed after the contacts that bank executives had with Greek FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos, the Bank of Greece’s leadership, Greek ministry officials and representatives of institutional creditors.
