Greece has missed all targets-report

Greece has missed all fiscal targets agreed under its bailout plan, a mission from an international inspection team found, putting further funding for Athens at risk, according to a German magazine.

Actually further comments are not needed, but here is some additional colour.

“The reason is that the Greek government still spends more than agreed in the aid programme. On top of that tax income is still lower than demanded.”

The IMF has already said it cannot release its part of a 12 billion euro (10.4 billion pound) aid tranche to Greece next month if fiscal conditions underpinning the bailout are not met and the European Commission’s top economic official was quoted as saying the EU was setting the same conditions.

“We Europeans have the same conditions as the IMF,” EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn was quoted as saying in the same prerelease for Monday’s Spiegel magazine.

“We will decide on the next tranche after the troika’s report. The situation is very serious,” Rehn added.

Let’s see how long before Greece does the inevitable, exit the Euro. Haircuts for the European banks imminent, and we wonder what the ECB will do with all those Greek bonds? Fasten your seat belts, market could rock on Monday, especially when the US market is closed…..

Full article,

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/05/28/uk-eurozone-greece-troika-idUKTRE74R1JX20110528