Greek debt problem unresolved

It was hoped that this particular episode of the Greek debt crisis would be resolved over the weekend, paving the way for the release of the Euro 130 billion bailout package but this hasn't happened and more negotiation is on the cards.

The Greek debt level is suffocating the growth they need to see any future blue sky, so EU officials are trying to acheive two things through the Institute of International Finance, on behalf of private creditors:

• They are trying to negotiate the amount of the haircut (read "loss") that owners of Greek Bonds are going to take to reduce the debt level, that could potentially be 50%.
• The bonds that the creditors hold have a coupon that pays interest, the higher the interest the riskier the bond might be and the lower the credit rating of the country that issues them. The IMF is also trying to renegotiate, after the haircuts, lower interest rates on the bonds so that Greece is not crippled by massive interest payments in the future also.

Greece is still widely expected to be the first to default and the first to exit the Eurozone at some stage but this is more likely to be a question of the size of the loss creditors agree on.