Grčka - enormni dug, protesti oko mera štednje

[vememah]

MMF napustio pregovore, ali Lagard će biti na sastanku Evrogrupe sledećeg četvrtka.

 

IMF Team Leaves Brussels After Making No Progress on Greek Deal

by Andrew Mayeda

June 11, 2015 — 4:30 PM CEST

The IMF said that its team negotiating with Greece has left Brussels after failing to make progress on a debt deal that would help the country to avoid default.

“The ball is very much in Greece’s court,” International Monetary Fund spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters at a media briefing in Washington on Thursday. “There are major differences between us in most key areas. There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently,” he said.

The IMF’s decision to withdraw its team comes amid increasingly sharp criticism from creditors at the Greek government’s continued refusal to bow to their demands, risking a default and ultimately an exit from the euro common currency.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde will attend a meeting of euro-area finance ministers in Luxembourg on June 18, Rice said.

“As our managing director has said many times, the IMF never leaves the table,” he said.
 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-11/imf-says-it-has-major-difference-with-greece-in-most-key-areas?cmpid=twtr1

 

Edited June 11, 2015 by vememah

[Prospero]

Clusterfuck
 

Greek court reverses 'unconstitutional' 2012 pensions cuts


“Greece’s top administrative court on Wednesday ruled that pension cuts adopted in 2012 as part of the country’s tough bailout conditions were unconstitutional, and ordered the cash-strapped government to restore the payments to their previous levels.

The Council of State’s long-awaited ruling on private sector pensions comes as Greece’s anti-austerity government is locked in tense talks with international creditors over reforms in return for urgently-needed rescue funds, with pensions seen as one of the key sticking points.

The court’s decision, which is not retroactive, calls for the government to restore the pensions to the level they were at before a November 2012 law came into effect lowering main and supplementary pensions by five to 10 percent.

The Council of State has in recent years been asked to consider many of the painful austerity measures that caused widespread anger in Greece and helped bring the hard-left anti-austerity Syriza power to party in January.

The court last year found that wage cuts for police, the military and firefighters were also unconstitutional. But the previous government took several months to comply with the ruling and only partially restored the salary levels, citing budgetary constraints.

Wednesday’s pension ruling is expected to cost the state 1.2-1.5 billion euros ($1.3 billion to $1.7 billion) a year, according to Greek economic analysis site Macropolis.

http://news.yahoo.com/greek-court-reverses-unconstitutional-2012-pensions-cuts-214108705.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

[vememah]

U međuvremenu u Grčkoj ukinut NERIT i ponovo otvoren ERT sa svim svojim kanalima:

 

 

 

 

Evo kako to trenutno izgleda:

 

 

 

Strimovi na:

http://webtv.ert.gr/ert1-live/

http://webtv.ert.gr/ert2-live/

 

Vlast u isto vreme najavljuje smanjenje broja licenci za privatne kanale, koji joj uglavnom nisu naklonjeni:

 

Greek TV Station Owners React to Gov’t Plan to Reduce License Number

by Philip Chrysopoulos - Jun 10, 2015

Greek television station owners have reacted to government announcements that the number of licenses to operate will be reduced, while there will be a competition for licensing from scratch.

Owners and major shareholders are considering not to participate in the new licensing process to be implemented by the Greek government. If they don’t, then the government will be forced to shut down the stations, said a TV station official. That would be the equivalent of the closing down of the national broadcaster by the previous government two years ago, when the screen went black on ERT and all employees lost their jobs, the official added.

The new licensing process will be a competition on program content. State Minister Nikos Pappas stated that since the Greek television market has diminished and the advertizing market has also decreased due to the economic crisis, “we will have a smaller number of licenses given.” Also, the government will not implement a point system for the existing TV stations, but the competition process will start anew.

Broadcasters say that the government has no legal grounds to implement such licensing process. They claim that their stations are operating legally and will resort to European Union laws to protect their business interests.

By abstaining from the proposed licensing process, existing broadcasters throw the ball in the government’s court. If they do not participate, the government should stop the operation of television stations, which means that several hundred journalists, technicians, administrative staff will lose their jobs. Owners claim that if that happens, pluralism in information will be lost and Greeks will stay with the national broadcaster as the only news source.

Broadcasters believe that the government raises against them undue financial demands in a particularly difficult period for businesses. Some believe that this effort, systematically and methodically, aims at keeping television stations in a “peculiar hostage status,” as a channel official said.

There is also the issue related to the decision of the Minister of State to retroactively assert the end-use of frequencies between 2011 and 2014, totaling 24,150,633.93 euros from nationwide channels. It is an episode already playing in courtrooms, where private television stations nationwide submitted and won deferral application of these fees until the final adjudication of the matter.
 

http://greece.greekreporter.com/2015/06/10/greek-tv-station-owners-react-to-govt-plan-to-reduce-license-number/

 

Edited June 11, 2015 by vememah

[Budja]

Cudno, BBC je u optimistickom duhu, Junker i Cipras se smeskaju sa fotki.

[MancMellow]

Cudno, BBC je u optimistickom duhu, Junker i Cipras se smeskaju sa fotki.

 

 

Elem, saće se dogovore za 3 dana tops

 

Ok, možda ne baš tri dana, ali biće 

[vememah]

TIOLI režim aktiviran.

 

 

Guardian prenosi FT:

 

    The German government has privately been sending signals in recent days intimating that it was time to cut off talks and adopt a harder-line, “take it or leave it” approach to the talks.

    According to three senior eurozone officials, German leaders have told other eurozone capitals they are no longer willing to negotiate beyond a compromise deal presented to Mr Tsipras last week by Mr Juncker on behalf of Greece’s creditors.

    Officials said Mr Tsipras’ strident rejection of the proposal before the Greek parliament on Friday, coupled by his governments attempt to renegotiate budget surplus targets that creditors thought they had agreed to, has hardened Berlin’s stance.

    “The only answer they’re looking for from the Greeks is to say ‘yes’, said one eurozone official.
 

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jun/11/greek-bailout-talks-tsipras-merkel-live#block-5579b2bde4b0d852ce137666

 

 

 

U Grčkoj već kukaju:

 

The IMF’s withdrawal has come as a rather nasty shock to Greece, where optimism had been building that a compromise might be close.

Media reports are calling the move a “megaton bomb” dropped on Athens by its creditors.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2015/jun/11/greek-bailout-talks-tsipras-merkel-live#block-5579b9e7e4b01c1d4b05ae75

 

[hazard]

Vreme je za #grefault

[vememah]

Najpoznatije merenje javnog mnjenja u Nemačkoj, ZDF-ov Politbarometer između ostalog bavio se Grčkom i dobio potpuno različite rezultate od EMNID-a:

 

Treba li Grčka da ostane u Evrozoni?

 

 

Treba li EU da napravi nove ustupke (levo svi ispitanici, desno pozitivni odgovori po partijskim preferencama)?

Dakle, pristalice obe članice vladajuće koalicije (CDU/CSU i SPD) su prilično usaglašene, Levica, tj. eks-komunisti najtolerantniji prema Grcima, ali i oni manje od 50%, a Zeleni u sredini.

 

Grčki bankrot bi Nemačku pogodio - opcije: (vrlo) mnogo, ne (mnogo), ne znam - levo sadašnje stanje, desno stanje u martu:

Edited June 12, 2015 by vememah

[vememah]

Sad se razmatra i plan B.

 

Exclusive: Euro zone formally discusses Greek default for first time

Fri Jun 12, 2015 8:30am EDT

By Jan Strupczewski

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Senior EU officials have formally discussed for the first time a possible Greek debt default as negotiations between Athens and its creditors have stalled ahead of an end-month repayment deadline, several officials told Reuters.

The government representatives, preparing next week's Eurogroup meeting of euro zone finance ministers, concluded at talks in Bratislava late on Thursday that there were three possible scenarios for what would happen with Greece at the end of June. The least likely, they think, is a successful cash-for-reform deal next week in time to meet end-June legal deadlines.

The second possibility was a further extension of the current bailout program, which expires this month at the same time as Greece must repay 1.6 billion euros to the IMF. The third -- discussed formally for the first time at such a senior level in the EU -- was to accept Greece could default.

The meeting reached no decision or concrete conclusion.

Most officials argued that it was unlikely that creditors would strike a deal on reforms with Athens in time to disburse the 7.2 billion euros that remain available to Greece under a rescue program extended in February for four months.

"It would require progress in a matter of days that has not been possible in weeks. The reaction of the ECB, the IMF and several member states was extremely skeptical," one official familiar with the discussions said on Friday.

The Greek representative at the meeting said Athens would do everything to reach a deal in time, other officials said. That would in effect mean an agreement in time to be endorsed by the Eurogroup when it meets in Luxembourg late on June 18.

Officials said, however, that even then, disbursement of loans to Athens by June 30 would be very difficult because of the time needed to finish all the legal procedures necessary.

Therefore, their second scenario was that the current bailout would be extended to keep the 7.2 billion euros, and 10.9 billion euros set aside for Greek bank recapitalization, available for Athens once a reform deal is reached later.

The money will otherwise disappear and a new bailout agreement would be needed to secure further financing.

Various extension deadlines were discussed, varying from a few weeks to the end of the year or even to the end of March 2016, to align the euro zone's program with the end of the IMF bailout package for Greece.

Such an extension would entail imposing further conditions on Greece and could involve the disbursement of funds in tranches as those conditions were met.

Representatives of some euro zone countries, however, believe that governments should prepare for a third scenario -- that of a Greek default.

"For the first time there was a discussion of a 'Plan B' for Greece," a second official said. Two other officials confirmed that such a debate took place.

So far euro zone officials have refrained from discussing such a possibility, even in closed-door meetings such as the one on Thursday, even though some governments, including Germany, have been preparing for it on their own.

The discussion was very theoretical because the scenario of a euro zone country defaulting within the currency union would be without precedent. The meeting came to no conclusion on it.

But officials said such a scenario would almost certainly involve Greece imposing capital controls to prevent an outflow of euros from the country and could also entail the issuance of IOUs by Athens as an alternative means of payment.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKBN0OS1BD20150612?sp=true

 

Edited June 12, 2015 by vememah

[vememah]

Glavni ekonomista UniCredit banke podrugljivo o Grcima - i za Grexit treba određena organizacija.

 

Greece isn’t likely to leave the euro as the government wouldn’t have the capacity to issue a replacement currency, UniCredit SpA Chief Global Economist Erik Nielsen said.

 

Arranging the production of new banknotes wouldn’t be an “easy task for a government that cannot organize a barbecue, frankly speaking,” Nielsen said in an interview on Bloomberg television on Friday. “I really don’t believe they have either the political or technical capability of starting their own currency. Money needs to be a commodity of trust, and I don’t think they have the trust in the population.”

 

...

 

If talks fail and Greece tries to create a parallel currency to the euro, issuing new physical banknotes would still be difficult because the country does not have its own printing press. Notes ordered abroad would have to be distributed to banks, in secret, which are “halfway closed, nationalized, or under capital controls,” Nielsen said.

 

Greece’s creditors have “never seen anything so completely ridiculous, frankly speaking, from a debtor country in the way they approach it,” he said. “People are just simply fed up with this.”

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-12/greece-can-t-plan-a-barbecue-let-alone-a-currency-nielsen-says

 

Edited June 12, 2015 by vememah

[Budja]

E, ovoga bi trebalo simikama u bulju.

Odvratna arogancija.

[Ryan Franco]

jel ovo realno?

 

issuing new physical banknotes would still be difficult because the country does not have its own printing press

 

mislim, sve i da država od 10 miliona stanovnika nema štampariju hartija od vrednosti, nije u pitanju kosmodrom valjda pa da ne mogu da opreme jednu? ili lupam?

[vememah]

Nije, imaju štampariju u kojoj štampaju i kuju evre, mada su se grčke evronovčanice štampale (a možda i dalje štampaju) i u 2 nemačke i po jednoj austrijskoj i holandskoj štampariji.

 

http://www.bankofgreece.gr/Pages/en/Bank/Organization/buildings/IETA.aspx#action

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_banknotes#Printing_works

Edited June 12, 2015 by vememah

[aram]

pa super onda, eto resenja: nek nastampaju koju milijardu evra i nek vrate dugove

[Prospero]

Kalecki pravo u sredu:


 

Anatole Kaletsky
JUN 11, 2015 28
A Greek Suicide?

LONDON – The good news is that a Greek default, which has become more likely after Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ provocative rejection of what he described as the “absurd” bailout offer by Greece’s creditors, no longer poses a serious threat to the rest of Europe. The bad news is that Tsipras does not seem to understand this.

To judge by Tsipras’s belligerence, he firmly believes that Europe needs Greece as desperately as Greece needs Europe. This is the true “absurdity” in the present negotiations, and Tsipras’ misapprehension of his bargaining power now risks catastrophe for his country, humiliation for his Syriza party, or both.

The most likely outcome is that Tsipras will eat his words and submit to the conditions set by the “troika” (the European Commission, European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) before the end of June. If not, the ECB will stop supporting the Greek banking system, and the government will run out of money to service foreign debts and, more dramatically, to pay Greek citizens their pensions and wages. Cut off from all external finance, Greece will become an economic pariah – the Argentina of Europe – and public pressure will presumably oust Syriza from power.

This outcome is all the more tragic, given that the economic analysis underlying Syriza’s demand for an easing of austerity was broadly right. Instead of seeking a face-saving compromise on softening the troika program, Tsipras wasted six months on symbolic battles over economically irrelevant issues such as labor laws, privatizations, even the name of the troika.

This provocative behavior lost Greece all potential allies in France and Italy. Worse still, the time wasted on political grandstanding destroyed the primary budget surplus, which was Tsipras’s trump card in the early negotiations.

Now Tsipras thinks he holds another trump card: Europe’s fear of a Greek default. But this is a delusion promoted by his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. A professor of game theory, Varoufakis recently boasted to the New York Times that “little Greece, in order to survive, [could] bring down the financial world,” and that his media image “as an irrational fool… is doing my work for me” by frightening other EU finance ministers.

Apparently, Varoufakis believes that his “sophisticated grasp of game theory” gives Greece a crucial advantage in “the complicated dynamics” of the negotiations. In fact, the game being played out in Europe is less like chess than like tic-tac-toe, where a draw is the normal outcome, but a wrong move means certain defeat.

The rules of this game are much simpler than Varoufakis expected because of a momentous event that occurred in the same week as the Greek election. On January 22, the ECB took decisive action to protect the eurozone from a possible Greek default. By announcing a huge program of bond purchases, much bigger relative to the eurozone bond market than the quantitative easing implemented in the United States, Britain, or Japan, ECB President Mario Draghi erected the impenetrable firewall that had long been needed to protect the monetary Union from a Lehman-style financial meltdown.

The ECB’s newfound ability to print money, essentially without limit, to support both banks and governments has reduced Greek contagion to insignificance. That represents a profound change in Europe’s financial environment, which Greek politicians, along with many economic analysts, still fail to understand.

Before the ECB’s decision, contagion from Greece was a genuine threat. If the Greek government defaulted or tried to abandon the euro, Greece’s banks would collapse, and Greeks who failed to get their money out of the country would lose their savings, as occurred in Cyprus in 2013. When savers in other indebted euro countries such as Portugal and Spain observed this, they would fear similar losses and move their money to banks in Germany or Austria, as well as sell their holdings of Portuguese or Spanish government bonds.

As a result, the debtor countries’ bond prices would collapse, interest rates would soar, and banks would be threatened with collapse. If the contagion from Greece intensified, the next-weakest country, probably Portugal, would find itself unable to support its banking system or pay its debts. In extremis, it would abandon the euro, following the Greek example.

Before January, this sequence of events was quite likely, but the ECB’s bond-buying program put a firebreak at each point of the contagion process. If holders of Portuguese bonds are alarmed by a future Greek default, the ECB will simply increase its bond buying; with no limit to its buying power, it will easily overwhelm any selling pressure.

If savers in Portuguese banks start moving their money to Germany, the ECB will recycle these euros back to Portugal through interbank deposits. Again, there is no limit to how much money the ECB can recycle, provided Portuguese banks remain solvent – which they will, so long as the ECB continues to buy Portuguese government bonds.

In short, the ECB bond-buying program has transformed the ECB from a passive observer of the euro crisis, paralyzed by the outdated legalistic constraints of the Maastricht Treaty, into a proper lender of last resort. With powers to monetize government debts similar to those exercised by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of England, the ECB can now guarantee the eurozone against financial contagion.

Unfortunately for Greece, this has been lost on the Tsipras government. Greek politicians who still see the threat of financial contagion as their trump card should note the coincidence of the Greek election and the ECB’s bond-buying program and draw the obvious conclusion. The ECB’s new policy was designed to protect the euro from the consequences of a Greek exit or default.

The latest Greek negotiating strategy is to demand a ransom to desist threatening suicide. Such blackmail might work for a suicide bomber. But Greece is just holding a gun to its own head – and Europe does not need to care very much if it pulls the trigger.
 

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/greek-default-political-suicide-by-anatole-kaletsky-2015-06#iuBuR3bMLAuWmOJA.99