Mortgage

The bridge program for the protection of borrowers' main residences that the Finance Ministry is preparing will strictly concern a period of nine months and only the mortgage debtors proven to have been hurt by the pandemic's financial crisis.

Finance minister Christos Staikouras welcomed the results of the historic Eurogroup pandemic rescue package which he depicted as a satisfactory but hardly optimal compromise.

Staikouras said that Greece's three main demands were met.

The first is direct liquidity for businesses which will not be laid out through banks.

Leftist opposition SYRIZA on Monday presented a 10-point plan to shield the economy from the effects of the coronavirus epidemic, drawing on funds from the cash buffer left over from Greece's bailout, and European Union and European Central Bank resources.

Greece urged banks on Thursday to do more to support individual and business borrowers who have been regularly servicing their loans to soften the blow of the coronavirus lockdown.

The government is expected to extend a recent measure offering relief from the effects of the coronavirus crackdown by suspending tax and social security payments so as to include those due by the end of April as it becomes increasingly apparent that conditions will not revert to normal next month.

Banks are expected to announce a suspension of installment payments on loans for businesses in specific sectors affected by the coronavirus pandemic, it was reported on Monday.

Kathimerini understands that the payment suspension will refer to the initial capital of the loan and not the interest and will concern businesses in the fields of tourism, transport, catering and retail. 

After the strategic defaulters have been exposed, according to government planning, and the existing framework for the protection of borrowers' main residence has expired on April 30, truly vulnerable households will get a safety net if they cannot service their dues, so that they are not left on the street.

Greece's creditors appear ready to agree to a solution on foreclosures in the form of a housing benefit for people in need that would not be associated with the protection of debtors' main residence.

One in every two borrowers who have come under the protective umbrella of the Katseli law is a strategic defaulter, while there are similar indications about one in every three debtors who entered the existing platform for the protection of their main residence, and for one in every three whose properties are set to be auctioned, as they find the money to pay off their dues, Finance Minister Ch

The political quarrel between Adonis Georgiadis and the center-left Movement for Change alliance (KINAL) following the conservative development and investments minister's remarks regarding measures protecting primary residences against foreclosure has in a peculiar way underscored the need for a reliable centrist party as a tool for monitoring, evaluating and comparing political and economic de