Greece

Greece expects that a June audit of its budgets will show that a new financial-aid package of nearly €60 billion ($86 billion) will be needed to cover its financial needs stretching into 2013, a senior Greek government official said Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. The official, with knowledge of the talks between Greece and the European Union and International Monetary Fund, said the issue of extending current packages, or arranging new loans, will be discussed at a regularly-scheduled meeting of EU finance ministers next Monday and Tuesday.

Worries about Greece’s intractable debt problem deepened on Monday, stoking fears that the country remains on a path to fiscal disaster and that European leaders do not have a convincing plan to prevent a default, the International Herald Tribune reported. European political leaders as well as the European Central Bank have ruled out any kind of restructuring of Greek debt, saying it would undermine confidence in other countries like Portugal and Ireland and potentially create panic in financial markets.

European officials are preparing to revamp Greece’s bail-out package after concluding that Athens would be unable to raise money in the markets early next year, as envisaged under a €110bn ($158bn) rescue plan, the Financial Times reported. Eurozone ministers this weekend publicly acknowledged that Greece would probably need additional cash from the European Union or other international institutions. George Osborne, UK chancellor of the exchequer, said changes to the Greek bail-out programme were “inevitable”.

Greece and Portugal are deeper in debt than previously estimated, according to official figures that show attempts to contain their financial woes have so far failed, The Guardian reported. The statistics agency Eurostat said Greece's deficit hit 10.5% of economic output in 2010, well above the 9.6% the European commission expected last autumn. Portugal, which is negotiating a bailout similar to those for Greece and Ireland, saw its debts reach 9.1%, far ahead of the 7.3% the commission used as a benchmark until only a few months ago.

It’s an anniversary few are celebrating. A year ago Saturday, with its faltering economy days away from bankruptcy, Greece ended months of speculation and requested bailout loans, The Washington Post reported.

Greece's finance ministry asked a prosecutor to launch an investigation into debt restructuring rumours that helped drag Greek stocks down on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Greek bank stocks fell 4.58 percent on Wednesday and the broader Athens bourse index lost 2.62 percent, underperforming pan-European indices on what traders said where rumours, spread by email, that the country would soon restructure its debt. The Greek government has repeatedly said it would not restructure the country's debt, in defiance of market sentiment that such action was increasingly likely.

A year since Greece obtained a 110 billion euro ($158 billion) international bailout, politicians and members of the public, fed up with austerity, are pushing their government to restructure its debt, Reuters reported. The government is still strongly resisting the idea but a deep recession and rising unemployment, coupled with slow visible progress in reforming state finances, are prompting even members of the ruling socialist PASOK party to urge the leadership to reconsider.

Speculation intensified last week that European officials are inching closer to a decision to allow Greece to restructure its US$350bn of government debt, International Financing Review reported. If it does so, Greece will become the first Western European country to restructure debt in 60 years. The longer Greece waits, the more of its obligations will be held by official creditors and the less room for manoeuvre it will have.

The International Monetary Fund on Saturday denied a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that it was privately pressing Greece to restructure its debt. "As we have said consistently, the IMF supports the Greek government's position of no debt restructuring and its determination to fully service its debt obligations. Any reports claiming otherwise are wrong," an IMF spokeswoman told Reuters. Without citing any sources, Der Spiegel reported that the IMF had reversed its previous opposition to the idea of a Greek restructuring and now believed one was necessary soon.

Standard & Poor’s said Tuesday that it had cut its sovereign credit ratings for Portugal and Greece, piling further pressure on the two countries with heavy debt loads, weak economies and moribund banks, the International Herald Tribune reported. S.& P. cut Portugal’s rating to BBB– from BBB, with a negative outlook, the agency’s second downgrade of the country since Friday. BBB- is the agency’s lowest investment grade rating and is just one notch above junk.