Greece

In a related story, The Wall Street Journal reported that Europe is losing hope that Greece will adopt the economic policies needed to unlock bailout funds before it runs out of money. Policy makers across the euro currency zone are bracing themselves for brinkmanship in coming weeks that could lead to a resolution—of one kind or another—but only in the face of further political and financial turmoil in Greece. “Greece is moving ever closer to the abyss,” Slovakia’s Finance Minister Peter Kazimir said this week.

Greece’s negotiations with international creditors are going very slowly and are nowhere near the point where bailout money can be disbursed, a senior European Union official said, The Wall Street Journal reported. The Greek government has complained that it will soon run out of cash if no bailout money is disbursed, a development that would raise the prospect of a default on its debt and even an exit from the euro.

The European Central Bank on Tuesday increased the amount of money Greek banks can borrow under an emergency-lending program, extending a lifeline for the country’s banks as its government continues tense negotiations with its creditors over its bailout program, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ECB raised the amount the Greek central bank can lend its banks to €74 billion ($78.9 billion) from €73.2 billion the previous week, according to a Greek bank official. The ECB declined to comment.

Greece is preparing to take the dramatic step of declaring a debt default unless it can reach a deal with its international creditors by the end of April, according to people briefed on the radical leftist government’s thinking, the Financial Times reported. The government, which is rapidly running out of funds to pay public sector salaries and state pensions, has decided to withhold €2.5bn of payments due to the International Monetary Fund in May and June if no agreement is struck, they said.

In a related story, the International New York Times reported that even if it survives the next three months teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Greece may have blown its best chance of a long-term debt deal by alienating its eurozone partners when it most needed their support. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist-led government has so thoroughly shattered creditors’ trust that solutions that might have been on offer a few weeks ago now seem out of reach.

Greece repaid €450m it owed the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, sending bond yields sliding as investors’ showed relief that it had met its latest debt deadline, the Financial Times reported. Yields on the country’s shortest dated notes declined, with three-year bonds declining 54 basis points to 20.08 per cent and five-year bonds falling 30 bps to 14.98 per cent. The 10-year yield, which moves inversely to its price, slipped 18 basis points to 11.03 per cent. A central bank official confirmed that the payment to the IMF had been made.

Nervous investors drove safe-haven German Bund yields close to record lows on Wednesday, amid concern over Greece’s ability to resolve its debt crisis, a day before it must repay a loan to the International Monetary Fund, the Irish Times reported. Although cash-strapped Greece successfully sold €1.138 billionof six-month Treasury bills on Wednesday, doubts remain over its ability to find enough funds to repay all its debts in the coming weeks. Athens must roll over another €1 billion on April 15th.

A strange thing is happening as Greece struggles to avert bankruptcy: Its troubled banks are loading up on more debt. These short-term bonds, which have been issued by the country’s largest banks and carry the guarantee of the Greek government, are not being sold to foreign investors. They are being issued to the only entity that would dare buy them: themselves. In the last four months, some of Greece’s largest banks, including Piraeus, Alpha and Eurobank — have self-issued more than 13 billion euros’ worth, or $14.3 billion, of these government-guaranteed bonds.

Determined to take Greek-Russian relations out of “the deep freeze”, a defiant Alexis Tsipras flew to Moscow yesterday for talks with president Vladimir Putin, ratcheting up the pressure on the western creditors keeping his debt-stricken country afloat, the Irish Times reported. Amid speculation that Mr Putin might make an offer of financial help that the Greek prime minister will find hard to turn down, officials said the controversial trip should be seen through the prism of Athens’s leftist-led government doing “what is best for Greece”.

Greece has two weeks to produce some red meat, the International New York Times reported in commentary. The prospect of a default is off the table for the time being after Yanis Varoufakis, the country’s finance minister, confirmed that Greece would meet a payment to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday. But, with more payments looming, the fear of bankruptcy will be back by the end of April if Greece doesn’t come up with some serious overhauls by then.