Greece will accelerate the repayment of another five billion euros of debt borrowed under the first bail-out agreement in 2015, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Monday.
The early repayment is to the country’s creditors for loans initially acquired at the beginning of the debt crisis in May 2010. It will happen in 2025. Originally, these payments were scheduled for 2026-2028. By advancing this repayment, Greece aims to further reduce Greece’s public debt.
Mitsotakis said that these loans are scheduled to mature between 2033 and 2042. His comments came during a Bloomberg event entitled “The New Era of Greek Banking” held at the hotel “Grand Bretagne” in downtown Athens.
Greece’s Mitsotakis accelerates debt reduction
“The new early repayment, following the early repayment of loans amounting to 8 billion euros from the first memorandum that is expected to be concluded in December, sends a clear message to the markets about Greece’s commitment to fiscal stability and the reduction of public debt,” the Prime Minister stressed.
“We have been ruthlessly focused on fiscal discipline,” he said and added: “It is an indication of the confidence we have in our public finances.”
Greece aims to accelerate its debt reduction strategy, slashing roughly 20 percentage points off its debt-to-GDP ratio over the next four years.
Greece’s finance ministry estimated that this would push down the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio—Europe’s highest—from 162 percent this year to 149 percent in 2025 and 133.4 percent by 2028.
Mitsotakis: Next elections in Greece in 2027
At the Bloomberg event, Mitsotakis sought to assure investors that Greece has a stable government and a parliamentary majority which has not been affected by the recent expulsion of former PM Antonis Samaras from the New Democracy Party.
He said that, in Greece, the governing majority is stable and that it is his personal commitment to hold parliamentary elections in 2027.
“We have two and a half years to implement our policies,” the Prime Minister continued, adding that this way “we don’t need to get into discussions about complicated political alliances.”
When asked about the expulsion of Samaras, he replied “What happened, happened. The decision was clearly explained, my job is to look to the future. We have a comfortable parliamentary majority. The last thing we want is to play with government stability. It is a sad and ‘one off’ decision. We leave that behind.”
Mitsotakis on Trump and Rubio
Mitsotakis referred to the phone call with President-elect Donald Trump, which he described as friendly:
“Trump recognized the great progress of the Greek economy with the reduction of taxes and the creation of a friendly environment for businesses. We talked about the strategic cooperation between Greece and the USA. Bilateral relations are extremely strong. We have a defense cooperation with the US that will be expanded, and by looking at American funds investing in Greece, we also have a strong economic cooperation.”
On Marco Rubio who is being nominated by Trump as Secretary of State, Mitsotakis said, “It’s good that he understands the complexity of the situation in our region.”
Officials in Turkey have been alarmed by the nomination of Rubio. The Republican Senator has long championed stronger US ties with Greece and Cyprus, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean.
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