Greece will be able to repay the loans it has received although it is still important for the country to continue its reform efforts, ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling said on Monday, during an address in Munich.
During the same event, Regling listed three reasons, as he said, that stunted and delayed progress in Greece, compared with other Eurozone member-states that were extended a bailout.
“First, the problems in Greece during the crisis were deeper that in other countries that entered a (fiscal readjustment) program. Secondly, the country’s administration was weaker than in other Eurozone countries; and thirdly, unfortunately, the country reversed the course of several significant reforms in the first half of 2015”.
The ESM chief directly referred to an effort to suspend a reforms program that had been agreed to up until that point, essentially pointing to the first six months in power of the Tsipras coalition government and the shambolic negotiations with creditors that took place.
“The result was that Greece returned to a recession; the Greek central bank calculates that this (backsliding) cost Greece roughly 86 billion euros.”
