WASHINGTON - The international bank lobbying group that has been taking a leading role in negotiations on giving debt-ridden Greece easier terms for its bonds on Sunday rejected calls to impose larger losses on private investors.
Forcing private creditors to write down their Greek bond holdings by more than the 21 per cent tentatively agreed to in a July deal would quickly cause a "domino effect" that would see the crisis spread to other parts of Europe, warned Josef Ackermann, the outgoing chairman of the Institute of International Finance.
Such a move would ultimately cost taxpayers much more than just bailing out Greece and erode confidence in the euro, warned Ackermann, who is also the CEO of Germany's Deutsche Bank, a major lender to Greece.
Germany and other rich eurozone nations have been pushing for a re-negotiation of the July deal, arguing that the economic situation in Greece has significantly deteriorated since then and may require a steeper cut in the country's debt burden.
However, Ackermann quickly rejected that push, saying that the agreement was fair and already placed a heavy burden on banks at a time of major market turmoil.
"If we now start reopening this Pandora's box we will lose a lot of time and I'm not sure people would be willing to participate," Ackermann told a news conference on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund.
Under the July deal, Greece is asking banks and other large private investors to swap their existing Greek bonds for ones with longer repayment deadlines, a lower face value or lower interest rates. The IIF says the deal would save Greece some C54 billion by 2014 and C135 billion by 2020.
However, most analysts say that those savings are far too small to make Greece's massive debts -- which amount to some 160 per cent of economic output -- sustainable again.
Getting private creditors to agree to the deal also comes at a heavy cost for Greece. Apart from temporarily being rated in "selective default" -- a first for a eurozone nation -- the country has to spend some C42 billion on setting up a collateral fund that would secure the remaining value of the bonds.
If at some point Athens decides that a steeper cut in its debt would be necessary, that money would go to the banks.
"If the July deal goes ahead, Greece would be locked into this perpetually," said Sony Kapoor, managing director of Re-Define, a Brussels-based economic think-tank .
