ECB officials reject Greek debt restructuring

Two senior members of the European Central Bank (ECB) said on Sunday in the Greek press that Greece can avoid restructuring its debt if the country sticks to the 110-billion-euro EU-IMF bailout plan to the letter.
"If all the points in the program are implemented, the sustainability of the debt is guaranteed," Juergen Stark, an Executive Board member of the ECB, told Kathimerini newspaper in an interview. "With any type of restructuring, Greece is in danger of failing to tap the markets in a reasonable time, and if it succeeds, it will pay in the future a higher risk margin," he said.
ECB governing council member of Austria Ewald Nowotny ruled out the possibility of Greece restructuring its massive debt.
"The ECB has a clear position: this program (110 billion euro rescue package) is the route you must follow. I don't see an alternative plan," Nowotny said in an interview with To Vima newspaper. The comments by the ECB officials come just one day before Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou chairs a cabinet meeting to discuss a new mid-term fiscal plan aimed at implementing the program agreed with the country's creditors.