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Malta disagrees with Greek debt write-off: Maltese FinMin

Xinhua, January 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

Malta's Finance Minister Edward Scicluna said on Monday that any renegotiation of Greece's austerity program should not include writing off debt owed to Malta and other eurozone countries when giving his reaction to the Syriza-led new government in Greece.

The minister said before a scheduled Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers that it was very unlikely that anyone would accept writing off debt owed by Greece, added Greece had already been given two major concessions.

"I believe that far away from the political rhetoric of a political campaign, I am sure the demands of the new Greek government will be watered down. There will probably be concessions, not on the debt burden but the conditions for structural reforms imposed by the EU, ECB and IMF," Scicluna said.

Malta's exposure to Greece comes in two parts: a 50 million euro (56 million U.S. dollar) bilateral loan and 138 million euro as guarantees to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) set up as a temporary rescue mechanism in 2010.

Anti-bailout radical left SYRIZA party leader Alexis Tsipras was sworn in on Monday as Greece's new Prime Minister to head a coalition, the first left-led government in Greece after WWII. Endit