A central bank official, according to The FT [9], said that Greece has repaid the €450m it owed the International Monetary Fund today. Bond yields have fallen across the Greek curve with 10Y GGBs now at 11.1% (down 70bps from Tuesday's highs). Greek stocks are not as impressed and are giving back their gains. Tsipras, on return from Moscow, explained Greece "was not a beggar...asking other countries to solve its problem," but as a senior Greek official earlier this week said that while it would be able to make Thursday’s IMF repayment, it will still exhaust its cash reserves very soon and "next month is a different matter." HSBC points out that the real crisis point looms on the 12th May.
Greece repaid €450m it owed the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, sending bond yields sliding as investors’ showed relief it had met its deadline.
A central bank official said that the payment to the IMF had been made.
The payment only brings minimal relief to Greece, as the country remains cash-strapped and faces more looming debt repayment deadlines.
Bonds are rallying but stocks are rapidly giving back their gains...
[10]
As Reuters reports, [11]the Greco-Russian meetings progressed well...but no cash yet...
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras moral support and long-term cooperation but no financial aid on Wednesday, leaving Athens to fend for itself in resolving urgent debt problems with Western creditors.
The leftist-led Greek government, at loggerheads with its euro zone and International Monetary Fund creditors, risks running out of money within weeks unless it can reach a new cash-for-reform deal.
"The Greek side has not addressed us with any requests for aid," Putin told a joint news conference after Kremlin talks. "We discussed cooperation in various sectors of the economy, including the possibility of developing major energy projects."
Tsipras added: "Greece is not a beggar going around to countries asking them to solve its economic problem, an economic crisis that doesn't only concern Greece but is a European crisis."
* * *
But HSBC notes that while this repayment is good news, the real crisis point looms in May...
[12]
Threats and promises continue...
Responding indirectly to a warning from European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Tsipras said: "Greece is a sovereign country with an unquestionable right to implement a multi-dimensional foreign policy and exploit its geopolitical role."
Putin said he understood that Greece, which has historical and cultural ties to Russia, had been forced to go along with the policy and disavowed any attempt to use Athens' debt woes to drive a wedge among EU nations.
"I want to assure you that we do not aim to use any internal European Union situations to improve ties with the European bloc as a whole. We want to work with the whole of united Europe," the Russian leader said.
And Greek FinMin Varoufakis had the last word this morning, jabbing back at The Troika Institutions...
- *VAROUFAKIS: `MORALIZING' FINGER POINTING WON'T FIX GREEK CRISIS
- *VAROUFAKIS: NEW EURO INSTITIONS OFFER UNSATISFACTORY SOLUTIONS
- *VAROUFAKIS SAYS MUCH WORK TO BE DONE ON EUROPEAN INSTITUIONS
“The institutions created this asymmetric union will then have to come to terms with it, have to deal with it,”
“The big question is:
under the current institutional framework, and given the institutional changes, can we pat ourselves on the back and say that we’ve learned the lessons of economic history to deal with legacy problems and avert future problems?
I shall submit to you my very simple answer: no we haven’t.
We have much work to do," Varoufakis says
