Greece was left without financial assistance: the IMF stopped payments until the appointment of the head of government, France-Presse reports. This decision could provoke a crisis of confidence in other problem areas of the European Union, experts say.

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The International Monetary Fund has suspended financial assistance to Greece until a new government is formed in the country. This was reported by France-Presse, citing sources at the IMF. The fund's decision came after the Greek parliament failed to appoint Stavros Dimas as president of the country at the third attempt. This is a very alarming signal. It indicates that a new aggravation in the euro area is possible, up to Greece’s exit from the monetary union, says Alexander Razuvaev, director of the analytical department of Alpari.

“Of course, Greek history is quite small and very old, but, on the other hand, a crisis of confidence in Greece may provoke a crisis of confidence in other problematic countries, which we have forgotten a little about. Of course, if Greece leaves the eurozone, nothing bad will happen. But trust to banks, trust in the debts of Spain, Portugal and so on - so this is an alarming call. There is nothing truly catastrophic yet, but these risks, of course, must be weighed in the new year,” Razuvaev told Kommersant FM.

If the crisis around Greece begins to worsen, investors may change their attitude towards the eurozone. This opinion is shared by independent analyst Bogdan Zvarich.

“The current situation in Greece is certainly unpleasant. The fact is that this could entail serious reputational losses on the part of Europe, which tried to save Greece, to get it out of the debt hole in which it found itself. The saddest thing, of course, will be here “If a situation really arises that Greece tries to leave the eurozone, then this will be quite a serious blow to the eurozone, because, given the current crisis, investors may reconsider their attitude towards the eurozone and the European Union,” Zvarich is sure.

Everything suggests that defaults on some Greek bond issues are possible. However, they will not have catastrophic consequences, says Andrey Mordavchenkov, general director of the Partner company.

“I honestly don’t think that this will all lead to such a big second negative Greek wave, but, of course, technical things can happen, and, of course, in the worst case scenario, there could be some defaults on payments of individual Greek bond issues. But this, it seems to me, will be of a technical nature and will not lead to any global consequences,” Mordavchenkov believes.

To eliminate the debt crisis in Greece that arose in 2010, the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank provided Athens with loans totaling $240 billion.

Andrey Zagorsky

"The Greek crisis could seriously damage the reputation of the European Union"