Greece has enough money to pay all bondholders as well as pensions and salaries until mid-November, said Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos in a press conference.
Greece had previously said it would start running out of money in mid-October if it didn’t get the next 8 billion ($A11.12 billion) instalment of its 110 billion ($A152.87 billion) bailout package.
Venizelos added that Greece will issue 880 million euros in bonds to Finland as collateral for the country’s bailout loans to Athens under a second, 109 billion euro bailout deal agreed on in July. Finland had demanded guarantees in exchange for participating in the second package.
Venizelos said the tough measures his government has announced had changed the climate in debt talks, and European partners were more concerned with seeing structural reforms to the Greek economy than with fiscal measures.
Venizelos also categorically denied the possibility that the government may adopt fresh austerity measures. ”The measures,” he said, ”are already quite a lot. However, it is not enough to simply adopt them, we must also apply them”, and admitted that there had been delays concerning the bringing into force of structural reforms.
Commenting on the decision to postpone Eurogroup meeting, initially scheduled on October 13, Venizelos stated that besides the ongoing review of the Greek economy, the passing of the new EFSF role by all 17 member-states is still pending, while a European Union meeting is scheduled on October 17-18.
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