Tough Road for Greece after Bailout Extension

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The hard work for Greece's new anti-austerity government began Wednesday of living up to promises made not only to international creditors but also to voters expecting relief from years of painful cuts.

On Tuesday Athens secured -- but only just -- a four-month extension to its lifeline bailout programme, although the German and Greek parliaments still have to give the green light.

If they say no, which is unlikely, the 240 billion euro ($270 billion) bailout expires on Saturday. This could spark national bankruptcy, a run on banks and even a chaotic exit from the eurozone with untold wider consequences.

To win this breathing space, Greece presented its creditors with reform proposals focusing on tackling tax evasion, corruption and an efficiency drive throughout government including eliminating politicians' perks.

But Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had to temper pre-election promises to hike the minimum wage, reinstate laid-off civil servants and alleviate poverty with promises that this would be done only in consultation with Greece's creditors.

Already on Tuesday the plans received a cool response from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which together with the European Commission hold the lion's share of Greece's 320 billion euros in debts.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the list lacks "clear assurances" on Greece's previous reform promises, while the ECB said the measures "differ from existing programme commitments in a number of areas".

Eurozone finance ministers said too after an hour-long conference call on Tuesday that those three institutions believed Greece's new plan was merely "sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point" for further negotiations.

"We avoided a crisis but there are many challenges ahead," EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said.

Nonetheless the news buoyed financial markets, with Greek stocks soaring almost 10 percent on Tuesday as fears of a "Grexit" -- a eurozone exit by Greece -- receded. Greek stocks added modestly to those gains on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has championed the bitter pill of austerity as the only cure to the eurozone debt crisis, asked her party Tuesday to back the extension in a Bundestag vote on Friday, a lawmakers said.

But she stressed that the "task is by no means done", the MP said.

French President Francois Hollande hailed it as a "good compromise". Spanish Finance Minister Luis de Guindos -- whose government is facing a major challenge from the anti-austerity party Podemos -- called it a "positive solution".

 

- Historic haircut - 

Greece has had to be bailed out twice -- in 2010 and 2012 -- and has also benefitted from a mammoth private-sector debt writedown or "haircut" worth another 100 billion euros.

A number of debt interest repayments are due in the coming months, and Greece needs to firm up its reform promises and show by the end of April they are bearing fruit before it can receive the final bailout disbursement of 7.2 billion euros.

"We must outdo ourselves... We are in unchartered territory," a Greek finance ministry official said on Tuesday.

"Things are not rosy," Labour Minister Panos Skourletis said Wednesday. "We are in a very difficult position, we know that the road ahead will be tough. But qualitatively we are in a new position."

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed Wednesday that Greece would not receive "a single euro" until it meets the pledges of its existing bailout programme.

In the coming four months Tsipras, 40, wants to begin negotiating a new reform programme with Greece's creditors to put the country of 11 million on a more equitable road to recovery after six years of recession and cuts.

This could include another renegotiation of Greece's debt -- if not a "haircut" then at least easier terms -- and yet more aid. German daily the Rheinische Post reported Wednesday this could be worth upwards of 20 billion euros.

"Even assuming that the deal (from Tuesday) holds, it is unclear how the government will meet its financial obligations between now and the end of April," said economist Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics.

"And after that, there is a mountain to climb in agreeing how to make Greece’s long-term debt position sustainable. That particular fight has clearly been put off for another day," McKeown said.

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