Rescue Package: Greek PM eyes new 110b euro bailout

BRUSSELS: Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said late Friday that he was negotiating a new bailout worth some 110 billion euros ($155 billion), as Europe entered a crucial TEN-day period in the euro crisis. Greece is at the centre of a storm threatening financial markets, the unity of Europe’s 17-nation currency area, the EU itself – and Washington has warned it could even drag down the world economic recovery. “We are talking about a huge, huge amount,” said Papandreou, after formally requesting the second rescue at a two-day European Union summit in Brussels. While he said it was “too early to give a precise amount,” the final sum would be “similar to the first aid package” in May 2010, although that was not enough to prevent the government in Athens slipping ever deeper into the red. To avoid defaulting, Athens needs to receive by mid-July a 12-billion-euro tranche of eurozone and IMF loans from last year’s bailout.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 26^th, 2011.