The ESM is Greece's largest creditor, with €133 billion in 30-year loans already disbursed at an interest rate of 1.5 per cent. "The interest on these loans was deferred for the next 10 years. All this equals a debt restructuring, from an economic point of view", Regling said.
There is also very little room for change with other creditors. The International Monetary Fund - contributing €27.2 billion to Greece's bailout - is not allowed to lower its interest rate. "There may be some little room for manoeuvre in the bilateral loans from the first bailout package. But that is up to eurozone Member States to decide, they are the creditors there", Regling said.
Greek foreign minister Evangelos Venizelos, who also served as finance minister when the bailout terms were negotiated, has warned that his coalition government may be toppled and replaced by anti-bailout parties if Greece does not get a debt deal this year. "It is not about another debt restructuring. It's about making the debt burden sustainable (...) for instance by prolonging the repayment deadlines and reducing the interest rates", Venizelos told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on Sunday.
He warned that if Greece would be forced out of the eurozone, this would become a "threat to the German taxpayer" and therefore it was "in the common European interest for Greece to successfully exit the bailout programme".
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