How the SYRIZA-led government privatized Greek banks
Cigionline.org, 03/01/2016
After lengthy negotiations that lasted through the summer, Greece’s radical left SYRIZA government and its creditors reached an agreement last August to secure €86 billion in bailout funds. Within this total, €50 billion were set aside to recapitalize the Greek banks, which had suffered massive deposit withdrawals prior to the imposition of capital controls in late June, funding pressures, and a sharp rise in non-performing loans (NPLs) as the payment culture deteriorated in response to Grexit fears. Greece and the troika of program monitors —the European Commission, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) — went out of their way to speed up the bank recapitalization part of the agreement in order to avoid triggering new "burden sharing" rules on Greek depositors that went into effect on January 1, 2016.