Government yields ground on foreclosures

Far from sticking to its guns, the government has yielded significant ground on the new foreclosure protection framework, a draft of which was tabled in Parliament late on Tuesday and will be put to a vote on Thursday.

The new protection system is the fruit of a compromise between Athens and its creditors, as Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis conceded on Wednesday, and considerably narrows the scope of protection for defaulters' primary residences. Even so, negotiations over the new system will continue as the creditors appear unhappy with some of the bill's aspects.

Banks estimate that up to 150,000 debtors could be eligible for protection under the new system. Some have already applied for protection through the expired provisions of the so-called Katseli law.
However, the framework that replaces that law renders the protection criteria much stricter for...