How Greece Responded to Global Financial Crisis Essays

Submitted By s348t136
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So how did Greece respond to this crisis? It all starts on May 2, 2010 when the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on a €110 billion bailout loan for Greece, conditional on compliance with three key points. One, Greece needed to implement austerity measures to restore the fiscal balance. This austerity request included government spending cuts, and tax increases. Second, the privatization of government assets worth €50billion by the end of 2015 in order to keep the debt pile sustainable. Last, Greece had to implement outlined structural reforms in order to improve competitiveness and growth prospects. Although they know what they had to do, Greece was working slower than expected in order to accomplish the privatization of government assets and implementing a feasible structural reform.
With Greece not up to par with what was asked of them and a worsening recession within the nation, the Eurozone leaders agreed to offer a second bailout plan worth €130 billion in October 2011. This plan also came with requests. The Eurozone asked for another austerity package and that all private creditors holding Greek government bonds should sign a deal accepting lower interest rates, resulting in a 53.5% face value loss. While looked down upon especially by the credit holders of these bonds, Greece needed this money so they met these requests.
In March 2012, a bailout plan was designed and implemented with the appointment of the Troika to cover all Greek financial needs from 2012-14 through a transfer of some regular disbursements; and aimed for Greece to resume using the private capital markets for debt refinance and as a source to partly cover its future financial needs.
As initial findings indicated the bailout program was widely off