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Greece awaits EU move on debt crisis
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Greece awaits EU move on debt crisis
AFP - Friday, December 11
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Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou arrives at an EU summit at the European Council headquarters in Brussels in November 2009. Greece has revealed a public debt colossus of 300 billion euros ($442 billion) as the government called a crisis meeting on its financial woes and the European Union met amid disagreement on how to help a eurozone member.
ATHENS (AFP) - – The finance crisis in Greece loomed large over an EU summit ending Friday after the government disclosed it was carrying a record debt of 300 billion euros, a burden that threatened to shake the foundations of the eurozone.
European Union leaders, who had planned to devote their meeting in Brussels to combating climate change, were forced to confront the prospect that the mess in Greece could erode the credibility of the 16-member euro bloc.
Swedish European Affairs Minister Cecilia Malmstroem said the agenda had effectively been overtaken by the "very serious" events in Greece.
"We are in a family, we try to support each other," she argued
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, arriving for the summit, vowed to "revamp the Greek economy, to modernise the public sector, to fight chronic problems such as corruption... to make sure we have a sound, viable economy."
Earlier in the day, after the government announced that the national debt had risen to the equivalent of 442 billion dollars, Papandreou declared that "a national rally is required to solve these problems."
The newly elected Socialist premier said the meeting, set for next week, was aimed at "sending a powerful message abroad showing that we're determined to move forward, to clean up our economy and ... give hope to every Greek citizen."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel asserted that the EU shouldered "a shared responsibility" for Greece as "everyone's concern" was to maintain a stable euro currency.
"We are agreed within the Eurogroup that we need to respect the criteria of European stability on budgetary matters," she said in Brussels.
"What happens in a member country influences all the others, particularly when you have a common currency."
But taking a sharply harder line, European Central Bank governing council member and Austrian central bank chief Ewald Nowotny insisted that a "no bailout" principle was anchored in EU treaties and warned it was "not possible to defuse the problem here through direct financing."
The strains that have emerged in the eurozone in the wake of the Greek debt crisis will come into focus next year when the ECB is expected to raise interest rates, analysts said.
"Once the ECB starts hiking rates -- in 4Q10 (fourth quarter 2010), in our view -- the new divergence within the Eurozone is likely to take centre stage," said a note from ING Research.
"The ECB will try to fight any policy complacency from Eurozone countries."
The Greek government's credibility has been damaged by a revelation that the country's public deficit was expected to surge to 12.7 percent of output this year and that debt amounts to 113 percent of gross domestic product.
Papandreou is now seeking to reassure financial markets and investors who lend money to Greece that new budget proposals to cut spending will be produced within six to seven weeks.
But Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen stressed that leaders would need reassurances that no "surprises" lurk behind Greece's latest promises, saying "the most important issue is that we have real information."
The Fitch downgrade, which followed a warning from Standard and Poor's that it could take similar action in the next two months, will make it more costly for Greece to borrow money through the bond market to cover its overspending.
The 10-year yield on Greek bonds rose to 5.471 percent on Thursday, or 2.307 percentage points higher than the German Bund, meaning that Greece has to pay twice more than Germany to attract lenders.
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