|
 It also said Greece risked a renewed bout of recession and
predicted that the current economic slowdown would accelerate in the
second quarter of this year. The Greek economy had started growing
again last year after being pounded by years of austerity, but fell
back into negative growth in the first quarter of 2015, contracting
by 0.2 percent year-on-year.
The ongoing crisis has prompted an outflow of deposits of about 30
billion euros ($33.84 billion) from Greek lenders between October
and April, the central bank said.
Time is fast running out for Athens and its creditors to reach a
deal before a 1.6 billion euro repayment by Greece to the
International Monetary Fund falls due at the end of the month. But
neither side appears willing to give ground, with Greek Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras accusing the creditors of trying to
"humiliate" his country by demanding more cuts.
 Despite the heated rhetoric, the central bank said that the two
sides appeared to have reached a compromise on the main conditions
attached to an aid agreement, and that little ground remained to be
covered for a deal to stick.
"Failure to reach an agreement would ... mark the beginning of a
painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and
ultimately to the country's exit from the euro area and, most
likely, from the European Union," the Bank of Greece said in a
monetary policy report.
"Striking an agreement with our partners is a historical imperative
that we cannot afford to ignore."
[to top of second column] |
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, who has taken a relatively
lenient line with Greece, was in Athens on Wednesday in a last-ditch
bid to end the standoff.
The Greek central bank urged the European Union to spell out
promises of debt relief to Greece - a key demand from Athens - in
greater detail.
"An agreement would allow Greece to benefit from the favorable
global environment and the ECB's quantitative easing program," the
report said.
"Our top priority right now should be to create, as soon as
possible, those conditions that would enable the Greek economy to
benefit from the favorable global economic environment and the
highly accommodative monetary policy at the euro area level and
speed up a sustainable return to global capital markets."
($1 = 0.8866 euros)
(Editing by Peter Graff)
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