Mark Gilbert , Columnist

Greece's Euro Membership Looks Vulnerable Again

There's a growing risk of a default in Athens.

February 15, 2017 at 6:25 AM UTC

Mark Gilbert is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering asset management. A former London bureau chief for Bloomberg News, he is author of “Complicit: How Greed and Collusion Made the Credit Crisis Unstoppable.”

He deserves a break.
Photographer: Jasper Juinen/Bloomberg

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Greece is caught in a spat between its major creditors. On one side is the International Monetary Fund, which says "significant debt relief" is needed. On the other are the euro-zone institutions, insisting on a primary budget surplus of 3.5 percent of gross domestic product and no further relief. Something's got to give -- and it could be Greece's euro membership.

Two deadlines -- one hard, one soft -- are looming. The soft deadline is the Feb. 20 meeting of euro region finance minister in Brussels; the hard deadline comes in July, when Greece's monthly debt repayments increase to about 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion).