Greece

Greece’s creditors insist the country should retain access to bailout funds next year even as the government seeks an almost-balanced budget for the first time in decades, two officials with knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s budget deficit will shrink to 338 million euros ($424 million) next year, or 0.2 percent of gross domestic product, from 1.41 billion euros, or 0.8 percent of GDP, this year, according to the 2015 draft budget, which was submitted to parliament today.

Antonis Samaras’s ambition to drive Greece out of its rescue program is running into a roadblock, Bloomberg News reported. The country’s prime minister might be thwarted by conditions for the European Central Bank’s asset-purchase program, as detailed by President Mario Draghi. Policy makers meeting in Naples yesterday were resolute that Greece should stay under economic surveillance to be eligible, according to a euro-zone central-bank official involved in the negotiations. The official asked not to be named, as talks are private.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras announced tax reductions on Saturday in a bid to appeal to Greeks weary of four years of austerity that have cut living standards and to gain political capital as the opposition pushes for early general elections, the International New York Times reported. Speaking in the northern port of Thessaloniki at an annual trade fair where Greek prime ministers traditionally set out their economic policy for the coming year, Mr. Samaras announced a 30 percent cut to a tax on heating oil.

In the decade before Greece's debt crisis, businessman Aristides Belles rode a wave of acquisitions to turn his company, Nireus Aquaculture SA, into one of the largest fish farmers in the world—a staple of supermarket shelves across Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported. Today, Nireus—named after an ancient Greek sea god—is awash in an ocean of debt and has become a parable for the bad loans crippling Greece's corporate sector. Most of the company's big investors have fled, profits and dividends have disappeared and Nireus shares have fallen more than 70% in the past five years.

Greece’s government will draft a new legal framework by early September for restructuring non-performing loans, Development Minister Nikolaos Dendias said. The issue is a “top priority” for the ministry and the government, Dendias told reporters in Athens today, ekathimerini.com reported. He said the draft law will move forward if it receives no objection from the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Strategic defaulters shouldn’t assume they’ll be allowed to avoid paying back their loans, Dendias said.

Greece wants the European Central Bank's health checks on its four biggest banks later this year to take account of their new restructuring plans rather than being based on last year's balance sheet data alone, a Greek finance ministry official said on Monday, Euractiv reported. Greek finance minister Gikas Hardouvelis raised the concerns at a 8 July meeting of EU finance ministers, the official told Reuters, as Athens wants to avoid the ECB calling for new capital to be raised following the tests when restructuring plans are already in hand but not yet implemented.

Greece’s return to bond markets after a four-year exile hasn’t convinced economists it can avoid a third bailout. Six out of 10 economists in a Bloomberg News survey said Greece will need to top up the 240 billion euros ($325 billion) of loans received from Europe and the International Monetary Fund since 2010, when it lost access to bond markets. The IMF forecasts Greece will have a 12.6 billion-euro financing gap next year.

Greece has beaten its target for its primary budget surplus for the first six months of the year, data from the Finance Ministry showed Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported. In a statement, the ministry said the primary budget surplus, which doesn't take into account interest payments, reached €712 million ($969.9 million), compared with a €1.5 billion deficit during the first half of 2014. The figure surpassed the government's target of a €635 million deficit. "The fiscal targets are being reached for a third consecutive year," said Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras.

Greece's jobless rate in April was still just over 27%, unchanged from an upwardly revised figure a month earlier, showing that a recovery in the country's jobs market continues to languish despite signs the economy is inching its way out of recession, The Wall Street Journal reported. Figures from the Greek statistics agency, Elstat, showed Thursday that unemployment in April was 27.3%, the same as in March, after taking into account seasonally adjusted revisions. Previously, the non-adjusted figures for March showed an unemployment rate of 26.8%.

Greece fought off calls to consider a third bailout as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi warned that the pace of economic fixes is slowing, officials said after euro-area finance ministers met yesterday, Bloomberg News reported. Greece has ruled out further aid -- which would come with another raft of conditions -- after its current rescue ends, a Greek official told reporters in Brussels. According to the so-called troika of International Monetary Fund, ECB and euro-area authorities, Greece may need one anyway, an EU official said.