Rome - The European Central Bank can no longer give emergency liquidity to Greek banks due to the breakdown of talks between Athens and its creditors and doubts over Greece remaining in the euro, former ECB board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said in remarks published on Sunday.
The coming week is likely to be dramatic for Greece's citizens, who will try to get their money out of their banks but will “very probably not be able to do so,” Bini Smaghi said in an article in daily Corriere della Sera.
“Given the uncertainty over Greece remaining in the euro the ECB will no longer be able to supply liquidity to the Greek banks, who in turn will be unable to supply euros to their clients,” he wrote.
Smaghi, an Italian economist, served on the ECB's Frankfurt-based executive board from 2005 to 2011.
The ECB has been steadily raising the ceiling of so-called Emergency Liquidity Assistance to Greece's cash-strapped banks as negotiations continued to try to stave off a sovereign debt default.
It said on Saturday it would hold a governing council meeting “in due course,” following the breakdown of talks and Greece's decision to hold a referendum on the lenders' latest offer of an aid-for-reform package.
Reuters