A representative of the German government has ruled out reducing the value of Greece's debts, the Guardian reported. The Merkel government's spokesperson Steffen Seibert said that restructuring Greece's public debt runs contrary to local laws pertaining to budgets and that such an act would make additional aid in the future an impossibility.

 

Europe's Central Bank is also balking on the suggestion that it take losses on its cache of Greek bonds, worth the equivalent of $52 billion. Ewald Nowtony, chief of Austria's Central Bank and an ECB board member dismissed the possibility, saying that such an act would be tantamount to indirectly financing a member country.

 

Greece is poised to miss its deadline to get its spiraling debt in check, according to the Guardian. As a result, top EU officials are urging Greece's creditors, which include Germany and the ECB, to relent and artificially reduce Greece's debt figure.