Greek bailout deal gets complicated after several nations demand collateral

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• published: 30 Jul 2015
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SHOTLIST 1. Wide of Pieter Cleppe, head of the Brussels office of Open Europe, an influential eurosceptic think-tank and interest group, at his desk 2. Cutaway of Open Europe brochure 3. Cleppe working on his computer 4. Cutaway of Cleppe''s hand using computer mouse 5. SOUNDBITE (English) Pieter Cleppe, Head of Open Europe Brussels office: "It''s going to have mainly a political impact. Finland''s contribution is pretty much cancelled out as a result of this deal and what you have is that a message is being sent to countries that if you have a eurosceptic vote, you are actually being rewarded for it. So you can understand that politicians in countries as the Netherlands or Austria are becoming nervous and indeed they seem to have asked for the same deal that Finland has gotten and so have Slovenia and Slovakia." 6. Various of Open Europe brochures 7. Cleppe working on his computer STORYLINE A little-noticed deal requiring Greece to put up collateral in order to receive a bailout loan from Finland triggered similar requests from several other eurozone countries on Thursday, complicating a broader 109 (b) billion euro (157 (b) billion US dollars) Europe-wide Greek bailout . The Netherlands, Slovenia, Austria and Slovakia said that they were also demanding collateral from Greece. Such deals could undermine the Europe-wide bailout by forcing Greece to spend part of that money on the collateral instead of servicing its debts, paying workers'' salaries and meeting other financial obligations. On Tuesday Greece agreed to deposit several hundred (m) millions of euros in a Finnish state account, a sum that will eventually generate enough interest to fully secure Finland''s contribution to the second Greek bailout. Finland insisted on the collateral in order to get its parliament to sign off on its share of the second European bailout of Greece, which was left unable to pay its bills after investors worried about its massive national debt began demanding extremely high interest rates on Greek bonds. A provision for such added security was included in the 21 agreement by eurozone leaders on providing a second rescue package for Greece. Pieter Cleppe, head of the Brussels office of Open Europe, an influential eurosceptic think-tank and interest group, said the deal would have a mainly political impact. "Finland''s contribution is pretty much cancelled out as a result of this deal," he said, "and what you have is that a message is being sent to countries that if you have a eurosceptic vote, you are actually being rewarded for it. So you can understand that politicians in countries as the Netherlands or Austria are becoming nervous." A European Union official warned that the Finnish deal created "asymmetries in the support provided to Greece" and opened the door for special requests from other countries. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions on the rescue package were still ongoing. A spokesman for the Austrian finance ministry, said it was politically not viable to give a collateral deal to one country but not others while Slovenia''s finance ministry said in a written statement to the AP that Slovenia was currently negotiating "possible guarantees." A Slovak government spokesman said Slovakia had also demanded collateral and a Dutch Finance Ministry spokesman said his country had always indicated in discussions in Brussels that if Finland got a collateral agreement that "we also want a collateral agreement." You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/cb0a310109d3bd213dae95cb4a5b49c6 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork