Greece’s debt saga grinds on

This latest chapter in Greek debt saga should buy Greece time until 2018, but it’s a fudge that won’t resolve the matter.

Great news on Greece, according to the eurogroup of finance ministers. "All the big issues" of a reform package under discussion with the Greek government have been settled. The tax and pension reforms, which Athens must now pass into law, are designed to improve Greece's primary budget surplus (the overshoot without taking debt service costs into account) of 2% of GDP. The deal unlocks the latest payment from the latest bailout programme (the third since 2010, just in case you've lost count), which will avoid a default on payment worth more than €7bn in July.

If you think this rings a vague bell, you're right. There have been plenty of news flashes like this since the start of the Greek debt crisis, and none of them heralded a definitive end to the affair. This latest chapter in the saga won't end the "cycle of match, mend and pretend" either, as David Shipley says on Bloomberg.It should buy Greece time until 2018, but it's a fudge that won't resolve the matter.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.