International audit group will check Greek debts, chairman tells RFI

Greece on Thursday made a 495 million euro loan payment to the IMF after days of uncertainty. The left-wing Syriza government is engaged in difficult negotiations to renegotiate the terms of its EU-IMF bailout, and as a result has received no money left in the multi-billion loan package. Meanwhile, an international audit group will verify whether or not some of Greece’s massive debts are ‘odious’ – or illegitimate. 

Greek foreign minister Yanis Varoufakis (L) and prime minister Alesis Tsipras Reuters

International institutions and creditors have closely monitored Greece's finances since the arrival of a new, left wing government in January.

Later this month, Athens has to make interest payments of nearly 400 million euros and roll over 2.4 billion euros in six- and three-month treasury bills due to mature on 14 April and 17.

Athens on Wednesday raised 1.14 billion euros from six-month treasury bills. On Thursday it announced the sale of another 625 million euros in three-month treasury bills next week.

Leonidas Vatiokitis, an Athens-based economist says the IMF payment should reassure creditors.

”In a few weeks, the summit of finance ministers of Eurozone, known as the Eurogroup, will discuss whether or not to accept a proposed Greek reform package.”

“They didn’t accept Greek demands for bigger emergency liquidity assistance, and they didn’t allow Greek banks to buy treasury bills.”

But the 459 million euro loan payment stands in stark contrast to Greece’s overall debt of a staggering 360 billion euro.

Greece now tries to look into the way these astronomical debt has been structured over de decades.

The president of the Greek parliament last Sunday created an audit group that has to look into the legality of Greece’s debts.

Eric Toussaint, a spokesperson for the CATDM (Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt) is the chairman of the group, and he says that the biggest challenge will be to get access to the institutions that provided loans to Greece.

“We will question Goldman Sachs about the falsification of the Greek debt at the beginning of the year 2000. Indeed, we will analyze several scandals from the year 2000. Dealings with gold, involvement with multinational companies that are involved in the arms trade.”

Toussaint thinks the investigation will take up a large part of the year. The group says it will not present any recommendations.

“We will present conclusion on the legitimacy, sustainability, and odious character, or not, of the debt, and the Greek authorities will make their own decision.”

“June will be a very crucial moment, because the bail-out program has been prolongued to end of that month, so there may be a re-negotiation of the Greek debt in June and after that”.

But even if this report finds that the debts are clean, Vatiokitis, the economist, thinks that it is not at all likely that the government will pay them in full, even if it manages to find the funds:

“we are under no obligation to pay our debts if the creditors violate systematically their obligations to pay Greece.”

“We know very well that the biggest majority of money from creditors are going again to creditors.”

According to Vatiokitis, 92 percent of the 255 billion euro loans that Athens received between 2010 and 2014 will go back into the vaults of the banks and the creditors, only the remaining 20 billion euro is going to the Greek budget to cover the country's financial needs.