The Political Logic of a Greek Restructuring

Greece is fully funded by a 110 billion euro ($160 billion) bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund until about the middle of 2012. However, there is an impetus emerging to restructure some of the privately held Greek debt. This motivation is coming from Berlin, which wants to see investors accept the responsibility of the bailout — potentially as soon as the end of 2011, if not this summer — for political reasons.