Greece’s Debt Crisis

Greece Causes Problems for Eurozone

In a recent article, it was reported that Didier Reynders, Belgian’s Finance Minister, feels that Greece’s debt crisis is so bad that it could actually spread “as far as France.” He said that should Greece be the “first country to default,” people will start looking towards places like “Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, maybe Belgium but also France, given its deficit and debt levels.” As it is, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have already had to bail out Ireland, Portugal and Greece. It now looks like Belgium, Italy and Spain may be next on the list.

Crisis Conversations

At the time Reynders was talking, crisis talks were taking place by Eurozone ministers in an attempt “to avoid an imminent Greek default, is the first EU official to include France in the danger group.” Reynders also claimed Europeans should partly take the blame for the situation since they permitted Greece to enter the Eurozone in 2001 with the knowledge that “Athens had cheated on its public accounts.” As well, the Greece crisis impacted oil prices which dropped to almost a four-month low last Friday in New York while investors were concerned about the impact of Greece’s debt crisis on the world economy. As reported in an article in The Pakistan Times, this week the NY benchmark contract shed over $6 in “seesaw trade that saw a loss of over $4 Wednesday and a tiny gain on Thursday.”