-Claus Vistesen, chief euro zone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics
European Central Bank officials meeting on Wednesday will consider possible further emergency funding for Greece's banks. Thus, Athens has time until the middle of this week to revise its package of reforms required for the release of Euro zone loans that it desperately needs to stay afloat. Greece paid a 450 million euros loan repayment due to the IMF last week. However, it is obliged to pay more in the coming weeks and months, and analysts are worried the country will not be able to meet repayments. It needs to pay out more than 1.5 billion euros of social security payments for April this week, as well as a further 747 million euros payment is due on 12 May. Greece has been on the edge of bankruptcy since 2009 and has asked for rescue loans totalling 240 billion euros from the EU and IMF.
Besides, Mario Draghi, ECB President, may also hint at improving economic landscape thanks to the quantitative easing scheme launched in March. The ECB's measures are creating fertile conditions for economic growth, with the single currency at the lowest level in 12 years supporting exporters and borrowing in many countries cheaper than ever. That has fed speculation that the anti-deflationary policy of purchasing around 60 billion euros of public and private bonds each month could be halted before the planned September 2016 end date.
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