Luxemburger Wort — Luxembourg could potentially pay back €40.2 million to Greece, part of its share of profits from interest gained from lending to Greece.
ECB President Mario Draghi said on October 10 that €7.8 billion euros had been earned on Greek securities bought by national eurozone central banks (NCB) from 2012 to 2016.
“The income earned by each NCB from this programme is pooled within the Eurosystem, together with all the monetary income earned,” Draghi said. “The pooled monetary income is then distributed among the NCBs in line with their share in the ECB’s capital.”
Luxembourg’s share of the ECB capital is 0.28% which would imply €22.6 million euros in interest income, according to Wort calculations. Additionally, the country lent Greece €140.1 million in a bilateral deal. Interest paid by the Mediterranean nation on that was €10.7 million.
Eurozone finance ministers decided in 2012 that profits from the purchase of Greek bonds would be ‘given back’ to the country, William Lelieveldt, the ECB’s principal press officer said in response to emailed questions.
That programme was cancelled after the Syriza government came to power in 2015 and now it is up to individual finance ministers to decide whether or not to return income generated from Greek loans, he said.
