Irish Finance Minister Slams Bank Role in Greece Talks

Ireland’s Finance Minister Michael Noonan has criticised the involvement of private creditors in talks to end the Greece debt crisis, according to a German newspaper Saturday.
The report came after crunch talks between Greek officials and private sector creditors had been adjourned overnight from late Friday.
The banks and other financial institutions are expected to take at least a 50 percent “haircut” on their Greek debt, which would remove about 100 billion euros from Athens’ debt burden of more than 350 billion euros.
Involving private banks, insurers and investment funds had worsened the eurozone crisis, Noonan was quoted as telling the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

“When you lend out money, the first question is: will I get it back?” he was quoted as saying by the daily.
He said it had been a “fatal” mistake to involve the private creditors, a decision that had “driven the markets crazy”, according to the German translation of his comments.
He said markets would only calm down once it is clear that eurozone members are making serious efforts to solve their debt problems.
Asked if Germany was doing enough to end the crisis, he said: “I don’t believe that one country can take sole responsibility for the problem.”
“Europe is made up of 27 countries. Because of its economic strength, Germany must play a major role. But it would be unfair to shift the burden to the Germans as a whole.”
He said that “for now, Germany has not paid a lot of money. So far we are talking about guarantees. It is also true that Germany has benefited greatly from the euro and has developed into an exemplary economy in recent years.”
SAHINIDIS
There will be no other negotiations to save the country, Alternate Finance Minister Philippos Sahinidis stressed in an interview with the Sunday paper “Real News”, while essentially admitting that additional austerity measures will be necessary.
“It is an illusion for one to believe that negotiations are a card that you can play when you want to,” Sahinidis stressed, noting that the fiscal adjustment in the coming years would be an issue under discussion during talks for drawing up a new loan contract with Greece’s creditors.
The minister claimed that resorting to the Memorandum was inevitable and that a Greek debt haircut now under negotiation would provide an opportunity to kick-start the economy and allow Greece to ensure that it remained in the euro area.
Sahinidis predicted that there would be reductions in supplementary pensions, pointing out that social insurance funds would be unable to survive without generous support from the state budget. Concerning the abolition of the 13th and 14th salaries in the private sector, he said that this was a matter for the social partners but stressed that their talks had to come up with solutions to tackle the current negative situation.