EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Greece has formally placed a request to activate a €40-45 billion EU-IMF aid package, a day after new budget deficit figures revealed the country’s 2009 shortfall to be worse than previously forecast.

The only slight problem he has (Brits can still do understatement as well) is that Germany has refused to put in place enabling legislation that will allow Merkel to put her euros in the pot. As with all participants behind the €30bn (£26bn) of eurozone loans, they will need to pass new laws from scratch before handing over any cash.

This, we are told, stretches the timeline into the second half of May before the “colleagues” can deliver, which is going to make it a close-run thing. The Greeks have bonds worth €11.6 billion maturing at the end of that month. They are going to have to rely on the IMF to bail them out.

Fresh figures released by the EU’s statistics office, Eurostat, on Thursday revealed Greece’s 2009 deficit to be 13.6 percent of GDP, significantly higher than the previous 12.7 percent forecast.

Markets subsequently leapt on the new EU data, sending the yield on 10-year Greek bonds to 8.83 percent, the highest since 1998, and prompting credit rating agency Moody’s to cut the country’s sovereign rating from A2 to A3. On Friday, bond yields retreated marginally following the formal aid request.

From EUobserver and EU Referendum.