On Friday, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras won a vote of confidence from the Greek government. Addressing the Greek Parliament, the Prime Minister said that, “Greece doesn’t need another bailout programme or another forced loan”. With the Eurozone portion of the second Greek bailout set to expire at year’s end, the government in Athens has stated its intention to return to the markets next year and forego the remaining tranche of IMF loans which were scheduled to run until 2016.
Nevertheless, many lenders have doubts that Greece is able to return to private market funding, even though the country experienced an economic upturn which allowed it to raise some debt in private markets earlier this year. Speculation that European lenders were preparing a “third bailout” that would run alongside the 15B EUR that remain under the IMF program, the Greek government is now in the process of speaking to lenders before holding elections next year.
Despite comments from Eurogroup President, Jeroen Dijsselbloem made in Washington on Friday, who stated that Greek debt was sustainable, the EU and the IMF are cautious of approving an early bailout with the Eurozone economy still recovering from recession. Eurozone finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg decided to delay the discussion on the Greek bail out exit.