Following the European Central Bank‘s Governing Council meeting on Wednesday, Mario Draghi called for a “strong agreement” between Athens and its bailout lenders, saying the central bank wanted Greece to stay in the euro. “A strong agreement is one that produces growth, that has social fairness but that is also fiscally sustainable and addresses the remaining sources or factors of financial instability in the financial sector,” said Draghi. “Negotiations are proceeding at this point of time,” Draghi told reporters, declining to set out details of any compromises. The ECB chief, however, underlined debt talks had not yet reached the point where the central bank could loosen the strings on Greece to allow it to extend issuance of short-term government debt, known as Treasury Bills (T-bills), as collateral for ECB liquidity. When asked about extending collateral, Draghi said: “There should be a credible perspective for a successful conclusion of the current review. And that would imply by the member countries a disbursement. That would be the condition for the Governing Council to consider, because in any event there is no automaticity for consider a lifting of the T-bills’ threshold. And we are not there.” (source: DW)
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