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Edition: U.S. Article Comments (0) Full Focus Photos of the week Our top photos from the past week. Full Article Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Worst heatwave in years grips Midwest, moving east 2:13pm EDT Rebekah Brooks, Murdoch's fiery favorite 12:19pm EDT Latest House debt plan may lead to compromise 8:28am EDT "Harry Potter" rings up record $476 million globally 2:45pm EDT Snapshot - Developments in U.S. debt talks 2:31pm EDT Discussed 121 Obama, lawmakers meet for 75 minutes on debt impasse 102 Obama and lawmakers regroup to seek debt deal 100 Obama asks lawmakers to gauge support for debt deal Watched Flying sphere goes where man fears to tread Thu, Jul 14 2011 Last spacewalk of NASA's space shuttle program Tue, Jul 12 2011 Clinton arrives in Athens, Greece Sat, Jul 16 2011 Pressure rises for Greek debt buy-back, swap Tweet Share this Email Print Related News Euro zone makes fresh bid to tackle Greek crisis Thu, Jul 14 2011 Europe at impasse on Greece, IMF backs investor role Wed, Jul 13 2011 Europe considers Greek default, leaders to meet Tue, Jul 12 2011 Highlights: Euro zone finance ministers and officials Mon, Jul 11 2011 Eurozone pledges new steps to help Greece Mon, Jul 11 2011 Analysis & Opinion Debt ceiling & dumber: No safe haven for your money? Investors warm up to emerging market bonds Related Topics World » By Annika Breidthardt and George Georgiopoulos ATHENS/BERLIN | Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:52pm EDT ATHENS/BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Sunday for private investors to make a major contribution to bailing out Greece, as pressure rose for radical action to cut the country's debt burden. Officials proposed a range of schemes for Europe's bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, to finance a buy-back or a swap in which private owners of Greek government bonds -- banks, insurers and other investors -- would accept cuts in the face value of their holdings. European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi suggested the EFSF be allowed to provide funds for a buy-back of bonds from the market, where prices have in some cases fallen 50 percent from levels at which the debt was issued. "This would allow the private sector to sell bonds at market prices, which are currently below nominal value. At the same time, the public sector could benefit monetarily," Bini Smaghi told Sunday's To Vima newspaper in an interview. Wolfgang Franz, head of Germany's "wise men" economic advisers to the government, said the huge size of Greece's 340 billion euro ($480 billion) debt pile meant it was "inevitable and justified" for the private sector to accept losses. "One possibility would be that the current EFSF euro rescue mechanism swaps -- at a significant discount -- Greek bonds into bonds it issues and guarantees," Franz was quoted as telling Focus magazine at the weekend. Alarmed by the spread of market jitters over Greece to Italy and Spain, where bond yields have surged in the past 10 days, European governments are struggling to put together a second bailout of Greece that would supplement a 110 billion euro rescue launched in May last year. Germany is insisting private investors be involved in the second bailout, and Merkel indicated on Sunday that if they did not voluntarily agree to a major contribution now, they might eventually be forced into a more costly solution to the crisis. "The more we can involve private creditors now on a voluntary basis, the less likely it is that we will have to take next steps," Merkel told public broadcaster ARD without elaborating on what those steps might be. Three weeks of talks between European officials and the private sector have failed to reach a deal on the second bailout of Greece, but the lobby group representing commercial banks said on Sunday that some progress had been made. "Progress has been made and the discussions are continuing," the Institute of International Finance said in a brief statement. It said the talks were focusing on "several options related to Greece's financing needs and longer-term debt sustainability. Last week, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy announced that euro zone leaders would hold a summit in Brussels on Thursday this week to discuss the rescue of Greece. But Merkel, while describing the summit as "urgently necessary," said she would only attend if lower-ranking officials had already prepared a clear rescue plan. "I will only go there if there is a result," she said. BUY-BACK Other options on the table include an extension of the maturities of Greek bonds. But German weekly magazine Der Spiegel, citing finance ministry sources, reported at the weekend that a debt buy-back had become the option most likely to attract a consensus. Greece could cut its public debt by 20 billion euros if it bought back its sovereign bonds at market prices as part of a rescue deal, the magazine said. Legal and technical obstacles may lie in the way of any step to involve the private sector in helping Greece. Bini Smaghi acknowledged, for example, that current EFSF rules did not provide for it to buy bonds from the secondary market; changing the rules might require approval by national parliaments. Another potential obstacle is the ECB, since the central bank's president Jean-Claude Trichet has opposed any measure that would cause credit rating agencies to declare Greece in default, even on a limited basis. But in an interview to be published on Monday, Trichet held out the possibility that a default could be managed smoothly. He said the ECB would stop accepting defaulted bonds as collateral in its money market operations -- a blow to Greek banks which depend on the operations for funding -- but suggested governments might provide other collateral. "The governments would then have to step in themselves to put things right...The governments would have to take care the Eurosystem is presented with collateral that it could accept," Trichet told the Financial Times Deutschland without elaborating. A deal on a private sector contribution to Greece would probably not by itself come close to solving the problem; officials and private economists estimate the country's debt would have to be cut by about half, to 80 percent of gross domestic product, to make it manageable in the long-term. As part of the second bailout, officials are also looking at other measures to help Greece including up to 60 billion euros of additional emergency loans from European governments and the International Monetary Fund; steps to recapitalise Greek and European banks; and ways to stimulate economic growth in Greece. As a key shareholder in the IMF, the United States is important to continued IMF support of Greece. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Athens on Sunday, voiced strong support for Greece's effort to overcome its crisis, saying it was taking the hard steps needed for future growth. (Writing by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Jon Boyle) World Tweet this Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/ Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. 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Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.

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