Main opposition New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece’s foray into the markets for its borrowing needs – after the current bailout ends in August 2018 – first necessitated a re-inclusion of Greek bonds in the ECB’s Quantitative Easing (QE) stimulus program.
The prospect of rejoining the QE program had been one of the “prizes” that the Tsipras government wanted from Thursday’s Eurogroup in Luxembourg, although the agreement reached at the venue failed to accelerate the ECB’s decision on the matter.
Mitsotakis also charged that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has “failed”, speaking hours after the latter’s made a nationally televised address referring to a successful Eurogroup conclusion a day earlier.
The former minister said possible debt relief was bumped to a period after the conclusion of the current bailout and that the QE prospect appears fleeting.
“… and despite the fact that Mr. Tsipras took an additional five billion euros in (austerity) measures for the period after the end of the program (the current bailout),” he said.
