The Greek debt trap: an escape plan

Without corrective measures, Greek public debt will exceed 190 percent of GDP, instead of peaking at the anyway too-high target ratio of 167 percent o

Publishing date: 09 November 2012
Authors: Zsolt Darvas

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A small reduction in the interest rate on bilateral loans, the exchange of European Central Bank holdings, buy-back of privately-held debt, and frontloading of some privatisation receipts are unlikely to be sufficient.

A credible resolution should involve the reduction of the official lending rate to zero until 2020, an extension of the maturity of all official lending, and indexing the notional amount of all official loans to Greek GDP. Thereby, the debt ratio would fall below 100 percent of GDP by 2020, and if the economy deteriorates further, there will not be a need for new arrangements. But if growth is better than expected, official creditors will also benefit.

In exchange for such help, the fiscal sovereignty of Greece should be curtailed further. An extended privatisation plan and future budget surpluses may be used to pay back the debt relief.

The Greek fiscal tragedy highlights the need for a formal debt restructuring mechanism.

About the authors

Zsolt Darvas

Zsolt Darvas is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel and a part-time Senior Research Fellow at the Corvinus University of Budapest. He joined Bruegel in 2008 as a Visiting Fellow, and became a Research Fellow in 2009 and a Senior Fellow in 2013.

From 2005 to 2008, he was the Research Advisor of the Argenta Financial Research Group in Budapest. Before that, he worked at the research unit of the Central Bank of Hungary (1994-2005) where he served as Deputy Head.

Zsolt holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Corvinus University of Budapest where he teaches courses in Econometrics but also at other institutions since 1994. His research interests include macroeconomics, international economics, central banking and time series analysis.