adminFrancois Fillon said last Friday the day after the rescue deal was agreed.
“French involvement can be estimated at US$21,6 billion) by 2014,” as an “indirect result” of the agreement, Fillon said after a meeting of top politicians at his office to discuss the Brussels summit’s outcome.
French public debt at the end of the second quarter of 2011 was 1 646 billion euros, up 55 billion euros on the previous quarter and representing about 84,5 percent of gross domestic product.
Eurozone leaders and private creditors agreed on Thursday to give Greece a new 159-billion-euro bailout, risking a potential default to prevent the debt crisis from spreading worldwide.
“These decisions have no direct cost for our public finances,” Fillon said. “They have an indirect cost because we’re going to take part through guarantees on loans that will be given by the European stability fund to Greece,” he said.
Fillon said France “must achieve” its target of bringing it deficit below three percent by 2013.
“The undertakings we’ve made must be respected,” he said. It’s now a concern that we share with all our eurozone partners. It doesn’t require any extra effort . . . it requires respecting to the letter the undertakings made.”
The Greek deal was cheered in Asian and European stock markets in early trade and gave the euro a boost after weeks of turbulence that sucked Italy and Spain into the debt spiral. The leaders even accepted the risk of Greece becoming the first nation in the euro’s 12-year history to default, a price to pay to convince banks to take losses in a new rescue, one year after a 110-billion-euro bailout failed to put Athens back on its feet.
Credit rating Fitch said on Friday that it would issue a selective default notation for Greece.
They also vowed to keep supporting the two other eurozone nations that have received bailouts, Portugal and Ireland, until they are stable enough to borrow on the private markets again. – AFP.
Online Reporter