Eurogroup To Hold Press Conference At 23:00 CET
According to a just released update on the website of the European Council, the much anticipated press conference "to end all press conferences" will take place at 23:00 CET, or 5 pm Eastern. What will then likely happen is another delay until midnight, then later, then finally when Europe is sleeping a few finance ministers will say that the Deal is virtually done, the terms of the PSI are agreed upon (except that "some" creditors, those who have a blocking stake, will vote no and force the use of CACs and thus trigger a default before March 20) with the exception of a few minor outstanding items, such as whose debt is cut to bring total Debt/GDP to 120% by 2020, which they hope to get resolved shortly. And so this latest and greatest meeting will come and go, and anyone who shorted the Belgian caterers will be broke when the market opens up tomorrow, when Belgian catering ETFs all go limit up.
Watch it live, or dead, or zombie, or however the mood suits, at the following webcast.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/20/debt-crisis-euro
ReplyDelete9.19pm: From Athens, Helena Smith says that the Troika's debt analysis report (see 7.58pm and onwards) will confirm the worst fears of many Greeks:
This is the first time that Greeks have actually glimpsed snippets of the Troika report following a tense, month-long visit to Athens by inspectors from the EU, ECB and IMF.
Their findings show that the measures meted out by the country's creditors are not working. Instead of reining in Greece's runaway deficit and debt the "austerity through growth" policies are exacerbating the plight of Greece and its people. The argument that failure to implement structural reforms plays a major role in this catastrophic state of affairs would hold water if the figures weren't so bad.