http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/business/global/greek-crisis-aggravated-by-flight-from-banks.html?_r=1
Greek Crisis Aggravated by Flight From Banks
ATHENS — As Greek political leaders announced a caretaker government Wednesday that would usher in new elections next month, bankers across Athens were glued to their computer screens to monitor a worrisome development: the continued flight of billions of euros from the country amid renewed concern over Greece’s fate within the euro currency union.
Money has been fleeing Greece ever since the country’s debt crisis
began more than two and a half years ago. But the outflow has picked up
velocity since last week’s election, when the elevation of anti-austerity
leftist parties in Parliament raised the specter in international financial
markets of a Greek default and possible exit from the monetary union. At a time
when Greek’s banking system needs all the help it can get from the rest of
Europe, its own depositors are making the banks weaker by the day.
An average of €4 billion, or $5.1 billion, has flowed
out of Greece every month since 2009, when the European debt
crisis first broke open.
President Karolos Papoulias seemed to stoke fears
further on Tuesday when he revealed that €700 million had been taken out of
Greek banks since the election. While several senior Greek banking executives
said Wednesday that the money flow should not be characterized as a full-blown
run on Greek banks, analysts said that the steady drawdown on deposits by
consumers and companies could be expected to continue at least until new
elections are held June 17, and possibly beyond.
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank said it would
temporarily stop lending to some Greek banks to limit its risk, Bloomberg News
reported, after the president of the E.C.B., Mario Draghi, signaled the bank
won’t compromise to keep Greece in the euro area.
The E.C.B. said it would push the responsibility for
lending to some Greek financial institutions onto the Greek central bank until
the banks have sufficiently boosted their capital.
Much of Greece’s political future will depend on
whether Syriza, the party that opposes the harsh terms of Greece’s current
bailout, gains considerably more ground in the new round of voting. Polls
indicate Syriza would place first if the election was held now.
The public and the financial world would be anxious to
see if the group’s charismatic leader, Alexis Tsipras, would clash with
international creditors or instead manage to persuade them to give Greece more
breathing room to pay off its high debts and deficits.
On Wednesday, Greek political leaders were maneuvering
ahead of new elections. The center-right New Democracy party was attempting to
form new alliances to fend off Syriza, its biggest threat.
The various parties appeared to split into two camps.
On one side are those like New Democracy and the Socialists that want to stay
in the euro and renegotiate its loan agreement with the European Union, European Central Bank and
the International Monetary Fund. In the other camp are those like Syriza that
want to stay in the euro while scrapping the loan deal entirely, a position
that critics of Syriza maintain is impossible.
When that bailout deal was announced in March, Greece
seemed to have finally found a respite from the sense of crisis that has
enveloped it since the European debt saga began. But the developments since
then are the most recent example of the way political upheaval continues to
throw this country and its struggling economy off track.
For those pulling their money from Greek banks, part of
the current fear is that a new government might, as part of a default and exit
from the euro union, freeze their assets and convert them to a new currency,
the drachma, that would not have nearly the euro’s value.
But the anxiety predates fears of a forced currency
conversion. Since late 2009, large volumes of money has been spirited out of
Greece, most of it by wealthy families and companies, especially when new
political uncertainty has flared. Billions of euros left Greek bank coffers,
for instance, last autumn when the previous government held a nerve-racking
referendum on whether to accept the terms of its bailout.
“In Switzerland, they don’t even know what to do with
all the Greek money that has flowed their way,” said Tasos Ioannidia, an owner
of the luxury Belvedere Hotel on the resort island of Mykonos.
Before the turmoil generated by the May 6 election,
money had actually started to flow back into Greece, according to the Greek
central bank.
Greek companies and individuals saw more stability
returning to the nation after Greece secured a fresh €130 billion bailout from
its international lenders that involved pressing losses on a swath of
international banks.
This article has been revised to reflect the following
correction:Correction: May 16, 2012
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