Greece eligible for ESM credit

Following Friday's agreement by eurozone finance ministers, Greece stands to receive low-interest loans from the emergency credit line of the European Stability Mechanism without any of the heavy conditions it had to meet in the 2010s.

The Eurogroup video conference agreed on the activation of the Pandemic Crisis Support, the new tool of the ESM, and that all eurozone members are eligible to benefit from it, as the European Commission had previously proposed. The loans, with an average maturity period of 10 years, will have an interest rate "marginally above zero," ESM chief Klaus Regling told a press conference. Loans could reach up to of 2 percent of each borrower state's gross domestic product according to 2019 data.

Both Regling and Eurogroup head Mario Centeno, as well as European Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, stressed on Friday that the only condition...