By Lefteris Papadimas and Jan Strupczewski
ATHENS/BRUSSELS, Feb 6 (Reuters) – Greece’s new leftist-led government, isolated in the euro zone and under pressure from the European Central Bank, said on Friday it wanted no more bailout money with strings attached from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Instead, a government official said, it wanted authority from the euro zone to issue more short-term debt, and to receive profits that the European Central Bank and other central banks have gained from holding Greek bonds.
The official said Greece was in effect asking for a “bridge agreement” to keep state finances running until Athens can present a new debt and reform program, “not a new bailout, with terms, inspection visits, etc.”.
“It is … necessary that Greece is given the possibility to issue T-bills, beyond the (current) 15 billion euro threshold, in order to cover any extra needs,” said the official, asking not be named.
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Time to reach a deal is short. Some analysts say Greece could run out of cash as early as March without further euro zone help.
“Greece’s financing needs over the next five years may amount to 30-35 billion euros,” Italy’s Unicredit bank said in a research note.
“However, if we set the primary surplus at 1-1.5 percent of GDP and assume that privatizations will stop, as requested by the Greek government, overall financing needs would rise to 60 billion euros,” Unicredit said.
Both Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank said their base case was that Greece would remain in the euro zone, but a rise in deposit outflows had raised the risk of a crisis. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Gaunt and Costas Pitas in Athens and Lionel Laurent in London; Writing by Paul Taylor and Jeremy Gaunt; Editing by Giles Elgood and Kevin Liffey)
