Our debt burden is too onerous

Nearly three weeks after the election of the Syriza government in Greece, we are still no closer to understanding how the Greek situation is going to unfold, writes Jim Power.

Last week, the ECB threw a spanner in the works when it declared that it would no longer be prepared to lend money to the Greek banks in return for the security of bonds backed by the Greek government.

Strictly speaking, the ECB should not be allowed accept bonds that are below a certain credit rating as collateral for lending. Given that Greek bonds have junk bond status, this should certainly rule them out. However, the ECB has been prepared to accept Greek bonds because the government signed up to the terms of the bailout, just as we did back in 2011.