The three-year financial assistance program of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the international financial institution set up by the euro area member states, to Greece has successfully concluded, the ESM said in a statement on Monday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th August, 2018) The three-year financial assistance program of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the international financial institution set up by the euro area member states, to Greece has successfully concluded, the ESM said in a statement on Monday.
"Greece officially concludes its three-year ESM financial assistance programme today with a successful exit," the ESM said in a statement.
Under the program, Athens received 61.9 billion Euros ($70.7 billion), the statement noted. The remaining 24.1 billion euros of the 86-billion-euros program turned out to be not needed, the EMS added.
ESM Managing Director Klaus Regling said in the statement that Greece was the fifth country after Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to exit a program of the ESM or the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). Fifty-five percent of the countrys government debt is currently held by external creditors, according to Regling.
A series of crises hit Greece in the aftermath of the global financial downturn of 2007-08. Between 2010 and 2012, 52.9 billion euros in loans were disbursed to Greece by euro zone members under the so-called Greek Loan Facility to held Athens cope with the recess. In 2012-2015, Greece received 141.8 billion euros in loans from the European Financial Stability Facility.
The Greece support package was agreed by ESM members in August 2015.
Greece also received 32.1 billion euros in loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to tackle the economic crisis.
The Greek authorities were forced to carry out unpopular austerity reforms in exchange for the loans.
