Greek Banks May Not Open on Monday
The European Central Bank (ECB) stated at a meeting of finance ministers of EU member states that Greek banks might have to remain closed on Monday. In recent days, alarmed Greek savers have been withdrawing their deposits in large numbers, yesterday we also reported how the UK is ready for the Grexit.
EU finance ministers and officials of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the ECB were present at the closed-door meeting, which was held on Thursday.
Reliable sources informed Reuters that Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, had spoken only about heavy deposit outflow at Greek banks.
When Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chairman of Eurogroup, asked Benoit Coeure, the member of the ECB Executive Board, about the possibility of banks in Greece opening tomorrow, Coeure replied: “Tomorrow, yes. Monday, I don’t know.”
Reliable sources also told Reuters that the governing council of the ECB has plans to conduct a telephonic conference today to discuss the extending of emergency liquidity to banks in Greece. During the last three days, residents of Greece have withdrawn as much as €2 billion. When talks between the Greek government and the country’s creditors ended nowhere, deposit outflow accelerated at an alarming pace.
The €2 billion withdrawn from Monday to Wednesday makes up 1.5% of the entire corporate and domestic deposits worth €133.6 billion in Greek banks. Even before this week, residents had been withdrawing as much as €200 to €300 per day.
Speaking about Greek deposit outflow at a press conference held after the meeting, Dijsselbloem said:
I cannot confirm those figures, but it is certainly worrying. If people are taking their money out of the banks, they are very worried about what the future might bring.
An emergency summit of Eurozone leaders has been scheduled for Monday to prevent Greece from defaulting after accelerating deposit outflow, declining government revenue, and the failure of the country to reach an agreement with international creditors.
Twelve days before Greece is required to repay a chunk of its debt to the IMF, on Thursday, finance ministers of EU member states met, but failed to arrive at any consensus. On the same day, Yani Varoufakis, the finance minister of Greece, stated that the state of mind of the euro zone was close to one “that accepts an accident.”
He said that his “radical proposal” for the establishment an independent financial council to monitor the execution of budge, along with an automatic deficit break, was a “gesture of goodwill” on the part of Greece to its international partners.
