If anyone was hoping Tuesday’s Austria-Greek kerfuffle was a slip of the tongue by finance minister Josef Pröll — it seems not. On Wednesday there are multiple reports that payment of Austria’s next tranche of Greek aid will be delayed until January.
Austria’s share of the Greek commitments is about 2.86 per cent of the total sum, or up to €2.29bn (and 0.8 per cent of Austria’s own GDP). That’s a lot less than the €22bn that will be stumped up by Germany — but still significantly more than say, Slovakia — which was the last country to ‘opt out’ of the Greek bailout.
Update: Seems Pröll was not talking just about Austria. This flash via Reuters:
RTRS-AUSTRIA FINMIN MEANT WHOLE OF EU AID TRANCHE FOR GREECE DELAYED TO JAN — HIS SPOKESMAN
Another update: From the Greek Finance Ministry on Wednesday:
Following the publication concerning the time of disbursement of the third installment of the loan from the Eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, the Greek Ministry of Finance clarifies that:
• Regarding the third tranche of the loan from the Eurozone countries, the decision to release the payment will be taken by the Ecofin Council in December, on the basis of the evaluation of the progress of the program, which is underway and will be completed next week. Given the structure of concurrent payments from all countries of the Eurozone, the process requires at least ten working days after the decision is taken and that is why the disbursement will be completed in early January. This has been agreed with the European Commission from the beginning and poses no cash problem.
• Regarding the third tranche of the loan from the International Monetary Fund, the decision will be made by the Board of Directors in December and the release will also be in December.
Therefore, there is absolutely no concern as to the time of disbursement of the 9 billion euro portion of the 110 billion euro loan entered into by Greece with the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund.