Klaus Regling

Next week marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on 2 February 2012.

The ESM is a child of the euro crisis, it was directly connected to the biggest debt crisis that Greece went through after the war and it reminds the Greeks of the most difficult moments of the last decade.

The Economist Events is holding its 16th Cyprus Summit on Tuesday, titled "Europe: Putting Solidarity to the Test - Cyprus: In Need of a New Growth Model?"

Greece's debt is "going up" but is "manageable" coming out of the double debt and health crisis because its annual servicing cost is much lower than in many other countries, the head of the European Stability Mechanism, Klaus Regling, said in an interview published on Tuesday.

Following Friday's agreement by eurozone finance ministers, Greece stands to receive low-interest loans from the emergency credit line of the European Stability Mechanism without any of the heavy conditions it had to meet in the 2010s.

In this commentary for Kathimerini newspaper, the European Stability Mechanism's Managing Director Klaus Regling calls for a concerted European financial response to the coronavirus crisis:

A new mechanism to enable the issuance of joint eurozone debt to counter economic fallout from the coronavirus epidemic - as recommended by nine European leaders - could take up to three years to set up, the head of the bloc's bailout fund said.

Greece has requested European creditors to give some fiscal space to deal with the necessary extra spending on the management of the novel coronavirus epidemic and increased migration pressure, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said on Monday.

MONDAY

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis travels to Berlin to participate in the Greek-German Business Forum and to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He will be accompanied by Development and Investments Minister Adonis Georgiadis and five deputy ministers.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and European Investment Bank (EIB) Vice President Andrew McDowell signed an agreement on Friday for the setting up of a guarantee fund for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on Friday, his office said.

The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) has appointed Paolo Fioretti as mission chief for Greece, replacing Nicola Giammarioli who held the post since 2015, the ESM said in a statement.