Greece Shrugs Off EU Loan Delay

Greece is downplaying reports that the Eurozone will not act at a Nov. 12 meeting of finance ministers to disburse a long-delayed $38.8 billion loan (31.5 billion euros) installment despite approval by the Greek Parliament of a contentious $17.45 billion spending cut and tax hike plan that international lenders demanded.
Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said there was no doubt that Greece would receive its loan soon. “We are in discussions with the Eurogroup and there is no reason to worry about the disbursement of the loan because Greece is doing what it needs to and Europe is doing what it needs to,” he told journalists.
Stournaras added that Athens expects “a political statement” from Eurozone finance ministers confirming that Greece will receive the money. Not taking any chances though, the Greek government will issue short-term debt to cover $6.35 billion (5 billion euros) in loan payments that are due. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the government will run out of money on Nov. 16 otherwise.
One reason for the government wanting to receive confirmation that the tranche will be forthcoming is that on Tuesday it will have to issue short-term debt to cover 5 billion euros in T-bills which mature on November 16. In Brussels, a senior European official told journalists there was no way Greece’s lenders would allow Athens to default but that a number of issues needed to be resolved before the loan disbursement could be agreed.
“The decisions that European governments are being asked to make are not straightforward,” he said on condition of anonymity. The official said Eurozone ministers would have to study a report from inspectors of the Troika of the European Union-International Monetary Fund-European Central Bank (EU-IMF-ECB)  and make decisions on the country’s financing gap as well as its debt sustainability. The parliaments of some of the other 16 countries in the Eurozone will also have to approve.
Greece hopes that it will have a positive verdict on its loan tranche before the end of the month. A new Eurogroup meeting in December could give the green light for two further installments, of 6.35 and $8.9 billion (5-7 billion euros) to be released.
The delay prompted the main opposition party of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) to accuse the government of having been “slapped in the face” by its lenders. “They fooled the Greek people, telling them the austerity package had to be urgently voted through or we would not get the installment on Monday (Nov. 12),” said leftist MP Dimitris Papadimoulis. Despite only gaining 153 votes in the Nov. 8 vote on structural and fiscal measures, the government is expected to sail through approval on the 2013 budget in a Nov 11 vote with up to 167 votes.