ECB’s Bini Smaghi: Greece needs no debt restructuring

Greece can cope with its debt load without having to go into insolvency, European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said on Monday.
Bini Smaghi took up the examples of Mexico and Brazil in the past 15 years, saying it is possible for countries to reform their economies after receiving aid and then to pay back their debt.
"Can Greece do the same? The decisions made in the past weeks show that the answer is yes," Bini Smaghi said in a guest column in the daily Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung.
"Greece intends to hold itself to the conditions of the aid agreement."
He also said hypothetical discussions of debt restructuring were counterproductive and that euro-zone institutional framework has to be strengthened to avoid situations similar to Greece surfacing in the future.
The European Union and IMF have agreed on aiding the debt-laden Greece with a 3-year, 110-bln euro rescue package.