BLBG:Germany, France Say November Key to Keeping Greece in Euro Area
France and Germany will strive over the next four weeks to stop Greece from unsettling markets as officials work to put the country’s faltering bailout plan back on the rails, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said.
Moscovici made his comments at a joint press conference in Berlin today with his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble, as their deputies entered a second day of negotiations in Brussels to lay the groundwork for a Greece-related conference call tomorrow. The working group “is making good progress step by step in the difficult question of Greece,” Schaeuble said.
“I just want to underline that we continue to seek a comprehensive solution during the month of November, to end the uncertainty,” Moscovici said. “And we will marshal all of our forces for that.” Germany and France are equally determined “that Greece stays in the euro zone, and that Greece makes the necessary efforts to ensure the integrity of the euro zone.”
Euro-area finance chiefs are readying for talks next month as the 17-nation bloc grapples over ways to fill Greece’s financing gap and ease investor concerns that it might have to exit from the euro. They are due to hold a conference call at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow, then a Nov. 12 meeting in Brussels, with a possible special gathering slated for Nov. 8.
Troika Report
European policy makers are preparing their opening gambits on Greece as the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund compiles its latest report on Greece’s finances. The report will address progress made by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s government in meeting internationally agreed targets that are a prerequisite for Greece’s next instalment of a 130 billion-euro ($168 billion) rescue.
“The discussions are continuing, including with the troika,” Moscovici said. He declined to comment on details.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde is due to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin today as officials try to work out a plan that will cut Greek debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020 from about 144 percent now amid the worst recession in a generation. Failure to hit the debt target could see the IMF withdraw aid, sparking another wave of speculation about Greece’s future in the euro.
“It’s yet another standoff between Athens and its creditors,” Nicholas Spiro of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London said in an e-mail.
To contact the reporters on this story: Brian Parkin at bparkin@bloomberg.net; Tony Czuczka at aczuczka@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net
