A new week and a new deadline looms for Greece who are due to make their biggest repayment of the year to the IMF, around another €770mtomorrow. They have managed to find enough loose change at the back of the sofa to pay state wages and pensions as well as repay the last instalment of €200m to the IMF.Going forward without agreement on reforms however, it is going to be very difficult not to default at some point this summer; unless there are other items of furniture from under which funds can be scraped together.
Eurogroup finance ministers meet again today but a deal is highly unlikely to be struck as it becomes increasingly clear that Greece isn’t going to change its position and therefore meeting the big repayments due in June and July without the agreed €7b bailout funds from earlier in the year looks highly unlikely and makes the position of the Syriza government increasingly untenable. For now however the euro continues to hold ground with EURUSD trading at 1.1180.
Today sees the Bank of England announce its first interest rate decision under the new regime of the Conservative government as the decision was made last week but the announcement postponed to due to the election. This however is unlikely to move sterling since the main BOE event this week is the Inflation Report on Wednesday.