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Greece on brink of default as bond deal falters
 Looks like it's gonna be hours not days before Greece defaults. Then it gonna be goodby to the whole sorry saga.Less than half of Greece's international creditors had agreed to a vital 206bn (£172bn) bond swap on Wednesday night, leaving Athens dangerously exposed to default. The Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC joined 30 European banks and institutions in declaring their acceptance of the deal - but the tally was still far short of the 95pc needed to avoid being officially declared in default. The International Institute of Finance (IIF), the body that has negotiated with the Greek government on behalf of bondholders, put out several announcements on Wednesday, counting the proportion of the vote as it inched up. The latest statement said bondholders "amounting in aggregate to 84bn, or 40.8pc of the 206bn total eligible debt" would support the deal. The regular updates coincided with provocative comments from Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, who said he had discussed with Greece's finance minister Evangelos Venizelos whether it would be better for the country to leave the euro. Speaking at the European University Institute in Italy, Mr Schaeuble said he had discussed the issue "very openly" with Mr Venizelos. "Maybe you could say it was the wrong decision for Greece to join the common European currency," Mr Schaeuble said. "Greece has failed for a long time to deliver what is needed to be in a common currency." Only the last couple thousand of years... Posted by: tipper 2012-03-07 |
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