Tsipras on New Greek Bank Recapitalization

The bill on the renewed recapitalization of Greece’s banks may be tabled at the Greek parliament as soon as this week, according to Hellenic Financial Stability Fund (HFSF) officials, after a meeting was held at the Greek Finance Ministry between HFSF chief Anastasia Sakellariou and Troika representatives.
“The banking issues have been resolved, today we made some technical changes to the bill,” said HFSF officials.
Meanwhile, earlier on Tuesday, the leader of Greek major opposition party SYRIZA Alexis Tsipras addressed a parliamentary question to Antonis Samaras, asking the Greek PM at which point and according to which studies it was decided that the HFSF won’t participate in the recapitalization process of Alpha Bank and Piraeus Bank.
“Earlier in the month, the CEOs of Alpha Bank and Piraeus Bank announced that the two banks will increase their current capital by raising it from existing shareholders (and thus the HFSF). There was no formal response either by the Finance Minister or the HFSF, while similar scenarios are also rumored for Eurobank,” said Tsipras during his question, mentioning that this decision will entail substantial losses for the HFSF in Greek banks.
In his question, the SYRIZA leader also asked why the former major shareholder of Eurobank, Spiros Latsis, is still being “scandalously exempted” for his involvement in the bankruptcy of one of Greece’s major bank. Latsis is considered to be the only bank governor not forced by the Bank of Greece to cover any capital needs and funding gaps, as was the case in the French-owned Emporiki Bank and Geniki Bank, as well as in the Spanish-owned Millennium Bank.