If creditors EU, ECB and IMF are up to a Greek default… “Be my guest!” so to say. English- and German speaking media have been publishing charts and info and calculations and estimations about how much a Greek bankruptcy will cost to the eurozone countries and each one of the euro area taxpayers.
Data detailing the world’s financial exposure to Greece give an indication of how a total breakdown between Greece and its creditors might play out. Furthermore, there is a high risk “of possible contagion – a market panic spreading to other countries –” should Greece decide not to pay its tranches to the IMF by June 30th.
UK’s The Guardian speaks of a €320 billion Greek debt in several forms.
“At the end of 2014 the three main creditors held more than 75% of Greece’s total debt, most of which lay in the hands of eurozone governments. These countries are directly exposed to the risk of Greece defaulting, through bilateral loans and the money they have put into the EFSF (the European Financial Stability Facility), which has dispersed loans to Greece.
The exposure from the bilateral loans and the EFSF alone amounts to €195bn, or 61.5% of the outstanding Greek debt.
But eurozone countries are also exposed indirectly due to interventions in the sovereign debt market such as the ECB-operated Securities Markets Programme, for which Greece still owes €28bn.
Those countries are also potentially exposed to Greek banks, which have borrowed more than €80bn under the ECB’s Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) programme to counter capital flight. It is especially unclear how much individual states would lose under ECB-operated programmes if Greece were to default.”(Guardian)
German economic daily Wirtschaftswoche has a calculation of €305 billion Greece owes to eurozone member countries.
Mostly financially exposed to the Greek debt are Germany and France, with Germany being the biggest creditors with €82.5 billion, followed by France €65.1 billion, Italy €56.8 billion and Spain €38.8 billion.
German economic research institute Ifo has calculated exclusively for the Wirtschaftswoche how much the burden will be for each taxpayers in the eurozone.
Each taxpayer in Germany will lose €1,055, in Luxemburg €1,637, in the Netherlands €1,099, in Finland €1,064, in Austria, €1,058, in Belgium €1,026, in France €989, in Italy €934, in Spain €834, in Ireland €521, in Portugal €403, in Estonia €532, in Slovakia €499 and in Latvia €250 only. WiWo’s Atlas of Greek debt per EZ member state & taxpayer doesn’t show Malta though.
Click on country map to see Greek debt to country and taxpayer
Apart from the eurozone members, US banks’ total consolidated claims towards Greece tallied at €10.2bn, while the UK has €9.7bn tied up in the country. Data as of December 2014.
PS Roughly calculated, I personally owe to all EZ taxpayers 13,000 EUR plus some two to three hundred euro to Malta. Taking into consideration that all these EZ citizens have free access to my blog and to the more than 6,000 posts of the last five years, I consider my debt as paid – interest included.
That is much less than I would have expected. However, taxpayers don’t lose money, they just bear more debt. If interest rates went down (which seems likely with bond prices rising), the effect would even be positive as less interest must be paid by the state, thus freeing up money.
By the way – this is what is written today in the Süddeutsche (proving my belief that German quality media is balanced):
Page 1 (50% devoted to Greece): “Under the pillow in wardrobes and drawers – more and more Greeks keep their money at home and wihtdraw from their bank accounts. … Until December Greece must pay back its creditors 26.7 billion €”
Page 2 (100% about Greece): “Until now businesses and tourists are relaxed. This might change though.”
“At the last meeting Varoufakis just repated the known positions. … He wants a debt haircut – or at least a stretching of the due payments.”
“Too small for huge damage. German companies have withdrawn from Greece – and watch the crisis relaxed. …Who travels to Greece no, makes an important contribution to stabilizing the situation. According to a poll by the Greek tourist board there are substantially more bookings than last year.”
“Despite debt crisis and mass protests Greece remains a popular holiday destination of Germans”
Page 4: “Socialist Tsipras thinks he could frighten EU and Nato by flirting with Putin. In Previous times it would have been so. Today it doesn’t matter.”
“International creditors might lose their confidence in the Euro and steer clear of Europe in future.”
Page 5: “Amongts others, I didn’t understand, how those, who understand economics, could (when providfing credit) expect Greece to generate a primary surplus of 4.5% of GDP. You don’t need to be a Nobel laureate to recognize that this demand was urnealistic from the beginning. … If Varoufakis, maybe correctly, points to the impossibility to collect taxes in Greece, he articulates also a worrying indifference of a government with regards to its institutions.”
Page 17: “Greece without Euro. Thus without €. While that is the most important letter of language. A drama.”
Page 23 (full page): “Germany upholds Swabian values, while Americans and Britons preach cheap money and debt? Not at all! A poll shows that German economists are much more American than previously thought … 70% say that state debt can only be reduced in times of a quite good economy”
Page 48: “Infarct in Athens … A third of the population no longer has health insurance. … Often there is not even sewing cotton and anaesthetica in a Greek hospital. … Money? What we need more urgently is solidarity”
But it’s a total nonsense with that Tsipras is threatening with Putin bullshit, they always “oversee” that visits get scheduled earlier and cancelling can destroy much more in ALL directions; even real dicks like Kohl wouldn’t have missed “70 years in Moscow”; beside that the pipeline isn’t approved by Turkey.
Anyway media is a business and it was always like this the last years, in the beginning the block is huge – may be one in ten articles is more on the Greek side – but after a while it changes a bit as it’s getting too boring to read always the same lies the readers can read anywhere else.
Anyway it’s interesting that the “bank-run” at the moment falls on propaganda’s own feet because now many people could wonder “what? they put the money under their beds, but for weeks and months we were told they bring it abroad!”
“But it’s a total nonsense with that Tsipras is threatening with Putin bullshit”
When you negotiate ultimate objective is to make party that you negotiate with “KEEP GUESSING” 🙂
“However, taxpayers don’t lose money, they just bear more debt.”
In Greece, yes. In other countries people actually loose money, because the annual budget is corrected accordingly.
Nice to know that some Greek people think their borrowed money will not be missed. That says a lot.
So not Germans but Luxemburgers are the biggest lenders
no. it’s according to population
“When Mr. Tsipras spoke, he said the problem of Greece was not a Greek problem but a European one. Well, that’s right. If you owe someone a lot, then it is already not your problem but the problem of the one you owe — and I took a note of that”. That’s my recollection of what Putin said yesterday at a panel discussion at the SPIEF. No wonder the Greek government “have not asked for Russian loans” (at least, so far) 🙂
Regarding KTG’s PS: I will go out on a limb and guess that there will be some sort of a partial deal — enough to kick the proverbial can down the road. So we will “keep talking Greece” in the months and years go come. It should be good for advertisement on this site 🙂
yup. you will read once you go through a pay wall
Kicking the can down the road may not happen this time (at least not kicking far). This time may in fact be different.
Greece argued very effectively that corrupt Greek politicians were at fault. One may fault banks for not being prudent extending those loans, but banks thought they were protected, since Greek government guaranteed the loans. Inefficient, bureaucratic government is another obstacle to any new money coming in. Starting growth than can be sustained and produce surplus, so loans can be repaid is what Europe wants to see. Very little evidence that this growth will be achieved under proposed Greek “plan”.
When Tsipras said that “problem of Greece was not a Greek problem but a European one”, he conveniently forgot that Europe cant solve corruption and it can’t make Greek loan guarantees worth something. In other words, Greece has problems Europe can’t solve. Any attempt to help will be perceived as interfering with Greece’ sovereignty. The only thing Europe can do, is to pour more money into Greece. But knowing how money was mismanaged in the past, no ability to control how it’s spent and socialist government trying to better lives of their people (noble goal), chances of required reforms are slim. Will there ever be an end to Greece’ money demands? This time, Europe may just decide that throwing good money after bad needs to stop.
Tin can army fun in Greece can indeed be funnier as it’s hilly, not so flat like in flat Brussels…
Remember?
German companies bribed Greeks with 2 billion Euro but how comes that David Cameron and Lord Hill cover up German corruption in Greece and block all questions of SYRIZA?
http://beforeitsnews.com/eu/2015/06/revealed-how-ec-commissioner-lord-hill-and-his-controller-david-cameron-are-covering-up-german-corruption-in-greece-2583964.html
The easiest route to progress is not to kick any cans down the road, but to start with kicking the wheelchair down the road. I do not know what is wrong with Germans, but they need to get a grip on their political reality — before demanding that of Greeks.