Greece's economy minister on Wednesday essentially downplayed the prospects of the domestic banking system rejoining the ECB's asset purchasing program - better known as Quantitative Easing (QE) - one of a handful of priorities repeatedly cited by the coalition government in Athens before last week's Eurogroup agreement.
Greece's economy minister on Wednesday essentially downplayed the prospects of the domestic banking system rejoining the ECB's asset purchasing program - better known as Quantitative Easing (QE) - one of a handful of priorities repeatedly cited by the coalition government in Athens before last week's Eurogroup agreement.
Asked to gauge how important the European Central Bank's stimulus program was for would-be investors, Dimitri Papadimitriou said such a development is now more symbolic, instead of actually leading to more credit for the to the bailout-dependent country.
"The access to QE ... is more for a symbolic nature than actual credit extension. We're limited to how much credit we can get through the QE program. It would be nice to have it but it's a decision by an independent institution (ECB), it's not part of the (bailout) program, but I believe that based on the expression of interest that I have seen, that Greece will be able to access the market even without the QE," the long-time US-based academic told Bloomberg television.
He also expressed optimism, as he said, after the election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France.