Debt crisis

A decade ago, Greece was in the throes of a devastating debt crisis marked by years of austerity, hardship and unrest. Now, officials and investors say 2024 could be the year its rebound is finally complete.

The Greek economy is forecast to grow nearly 3% this year, approaching its pre-crisis size of 2009 and far outpacing the euro zone average of 0.8%.

Ships remained docked at Greek ports and train services were halted on Wednesday as transport workers joined a 24-hour strike by private workers to demand higher pay to cope with rising living costs.

Bus and taxi drivers also walked off the job for a few hours as part of the labor action called by Greece's largest private sector union GSEE.

Greece will this year complete the sale of its outstanding stakes in five banks bailed out during last decade's debt crisis and raise record revenues from state asset sales, its finance minister told Reuters.

The yield of the Greek 10-year bond, the benchmark of the Greek debt market, has now dropped below 3%, at the lowest levels since April 2022, when the main interest rate of the European Central Bank was still at negative levels.

One of the key figures of the 2009-2018 Greek debt crisis, Germany's former finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, died on Tuesday. It is a development that appears almost symbolic in this country, as the deep wounds inflicted on its economy during that period, leading to a loss of a quarter of its output, have gradually started to heal.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, who helped negotiate German reunification in 1990 and as finance minister was a central figure in the austerity-heavy effort to drag Europe out of its debt crisis more than two decades later, has died. He was 81.

Schaeuble died at home on Tuesday evening, his family told German news agency dpa on Wednesday.

A significant reduction in the debt ratio, the strengthening of economic resilience, and improvement in Greece's governance indicators are the three essential steps required for the country to fully normalize and regain an A credit rating, as it had before the debt crisis, thus aligning with the average credit rating of eurozone economies. This analysis comes from the Bank of Greece.

We were very late in succeeding, but, even now it is recognized that the sacrifices and reforms made in the last 10 years in Greece following the country's debt crisis have had a positive effect. That is why two international rating agencies have recently removed Greek bonds from the "junk" category and upgraded them to investment status.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde on Wednesday praised the return of Greece's economy to health and the resilience of the Greeks following its debt crisis more than ten years ago.

In the early 2010s, Greece, burdened by debt and facing bankruptcy, had to agree to an intensive schedule of privatizing critical infrastructure, especially its ports.