As a result of the debt restructuring of 2012, Greece’s public debt was reduced from 350 billion to 285 billion euros, a 19 percent reduction. The really dramatic transformation was not in the quantity of debt but in who it was owed to: 80 percent was now owed to public creditors—the EFSF, the ECB or the IMF. In effect, Greece swapped a reduction of its obligations to private creditors of 161.6 billion euros for an increase in obligations to public creditors of 98.8 billion euros.
