Greek Prime Minister Georges Papandreou said he did not rule out asking for more time to pay back the 110 billion euro loan granted Greece in May by the EU and IMF in an interview published Sunday. "The question has already been put on the table," he told the weekly Proto thema.
"The fact that one can talk about re-negotiation today is for one reason only: the fact that we have proved our credibility, we have demonstrated our willingness to change."
"We, the government and the Greek people, have proved our will to change, if not nobody would discuss possible renegotiation with us," he said, referring to the draconian austerity measures implemented by Athens in return for the rescue loan from the International Monetary Fund and countries in the eurozone to avert bankruptcy.
The question of extending the period over which the loan will be repaid "has already been put on the table," he emphasised. "Today, where one can envisage alternative solutions, we are changing some terms of the EU-IMF plan to choose fairer solutions," he added. But he noted that Greece's budgetary problems were not going to sort themselves out automatically.
"With or without the (IMF-EU) plan, the deficit and these problems are our problems, nobody else's," he said, saying that Greece would have to continue to follow the rigour dictated by the IMF and EU since May.
Greece faces tough negotiations this week with representatives of the eurozone, the IMF and the European Central Bank who are due in Athens on Monday to assess the efforts so far by the Socialist government to stabilise public finances as the government prepares to present its budget for 2011 in parliament on Thursday.
At the end of its mission, the EU-ECB-IMF team must decide whether to give the green light to releasing the third instalment - nine billion euros, 6.5 from the eurozone and 2.5 from the IMF - of the loan agreed in May.
The country has already received 30 billion euros in exchange for measures aimed at curbing spending, notably through radical austerity measures and deep reforms of the economy.
The Greek economy shrank by 4.5 percent in the last 12 months, official data showed on Friday. Gross domestic product contracted by 1.1 percent in the third quarter from output in the second quarter, according to data from the ESA statistics agency said. The agency attributed the contraction mainly to a fall in household consumption and investment.
On Monday the European statistics agency Eurostat is to release its estimate of the Greece's 2009 public deficit - but it is expected to come to 15 percent of gross domestic product rather than an initially forecast 13.6 percent.
Papandreou has acknowledged that because of this upward revision, the 2010 deficit target of 8.1 percent agreed with the EU and IMF in exchange for their help could be surpassed.
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