Grčka - enormni dug, protesti oko mera štednje

[hazard]

Da, ali Ontario, pretpostavljam moze da bankrotira i obveznice na dug Ontarija nisu garantovane od centralne banke Kanade.

 

Drugim recima, ako hoces niske kamatne stope grantovane od ECB-a onda state budgets ne mogu da budu formirani po slobodnoj volji.

 

Dakle:

- ili kontrola state budgeta

- ili nema vise zajednickih garancija za dugove pojedinih drzava (kojih ni sada ekspliticno nema, Rodja je citirao neki ustav na tu temu, ali implicitno su tu sto se videlo po kamatnim stopama do krize)

Sve si u pravu, samo ne vidim s kim polemišeš tačno. Varufakis je upoređivao Šojbleov plan s klasičnim federalizmom (koji podrazumeva sve što si nabrojao). Ne vidim gde je u tekstu tražio ,,federalizam bez obaveza" ili kako si već nazvao na prethodnoj strani.

[Budja]

Sve si u pravu, samo ne vidim s kim polemišeš tačno. Varufakis je upoređivao Šojbleov plan s klasičnim federalizmom (koji podrazumeva sve što si nabrojao). Ne vidim gde je u tekstu tražio ,,federalizam bez obaveza" ili kako si već nazvao na prethodnoj strani.

 

Zato sto nije govorio o zajednickim garancijama valute. To se u takvoj vrsti intervjua ne moze precutati.

[Anduril]

Tehnokrate vs. demokratija:

 

 

Buttonwood
Bypassing the voters
Technocratic solutions may come back to haunt politicians
Jul 25th 2015 | From the print edition

“THE people have spoken. The bastards.” Dick Tuck’s reaction to defeat in a Californian state Senate race in 1966 is not that far from the attitudes of the authorities since the 2008 financial crisis. They have tended to act first, and hope that voters approve of their actions afterwards. Often this has involved the introduction of improvised measures that the people might not have favoured, and the use of bodies that were free from democratic constraint.

The unpopularity of the Bush administration’s bank bail-out in 2008 created a strong sense of caution among elected leaders. Congress initially voted the rescue down in response to a backlash among constituents that eventually created the Tea Party. Although the bail-out was pushed though in the end, many of those who voted in favour lived to regret it.
In this section

Given the public’s views, letting the central bank take the main role in generating economic recovery made a lot of sense. Getting Congress to sign up to further fiscal stimulus became impossible after the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 2010. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates at historic lows and unveiled further quantitative easing (QE) to drive down bond yields. Some Republican Congressmen still grumble about the Fed’s actions to this day but they have been powerless to do much about it.

This shift of power is clear in the financial markets. For traders, what really matters are the decisions of Janet Yellen, the chairman of the Federal Reserve (and, before her, Ben Bernanke). The Fed has been hugely effective in shoring up asset prices; the fear is that when it starts pushing up interest rates, maybe later this year, markets will suffer. It is hard to think of a decision by Barack Obama or Congress that would be anything like as influential.

In the euro zone, politicians fumbled and prevaricated but Mario Draghi, the president of the ECB, was the one who stopped the rot in 2012 with his “whatever it takes” speech about saving the currency. For European governments, institutional and democratic constraints ruled out what might have been the simplest solution: a write-off of debt and a direct transfer of funds from governments in Germany, the Netherlands and others to struggling countries like Greece and Ireland. Instead, European leaders created the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and its successor, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). They also summoned the help of the IMF, a body with much experience in sovereign rescues.

These collective funds may have been approved by national parliaments but they resemble the kind of off-balance-sheet vehicles that were popular before 2007 in the American mortgage market. In the case of the EFSF, countries agreed to guarantee the debts of the vehicle, rather than put up hard cash (even if Eurostat does treat the guarantees as debt). For the ESM, euro-zone countries had to stump up €80 billion ($87 billion) in real money as initial capital but another €620 billion could theoretically be needed if the fund suffers losses. The amount of taxpayers’ money at risk was rather less clear to voters than it might have been.

But that risk was very clear when EU negotiators were haggling with Greece about its latest bail-out deal, and helps explain why they were reluctant to accept debt restructuring. It was all very well for economists in America and Britain to urge a debt write-off but their countries’ voters weren’t being asked to take the hit. There were fine words from the IMF and the ECB on the need for debt restructuring—but no sign that they were willing for their own balance-sheets to be shredded.

Democracy is a double-edged sword for economists to wield. There was much talk about the refusal of the EU to respect the wishes of Greek voters when negotiating the latest deal; rather less discussion of what voters in the creditor countries might have said had they been allowed to express an opinion on the negotiations. There is no easy democratic way of reconciling the wishes of voters in one country with those of another.

Voters may also want inconsistent things: lower taxes, higher spending and a balanced budget at the same time. Politicians ought to make those tough choices. To the extent that they pass the buck to technocrats, or to international bodies making backroom deals, politicians lose control of their own destiny. Indeed, the feeling that their elected leaders are not in control may be one reason why voters in some countries are so angry, and are turning to parties outside the mainstream.

 

[Budja]

Da, dobar clanak, ko ona konstanta o konsultantima koji se iznajmljuju za lose vesti.

A politicari onda, na taj nacin, konstantno "preuzimaju odgovornost" nakon izbora a ne pre njih. I to ponajvise na levici (Siriza, Holland) ili oportunistima raznih fela (tipa Vucic).

Time, zapravo, politicke elite nastavljaju da sire konfuziju medju birackim telom (Kosovo i EU) i izbegavaju drugacija moguca resenja, koje bi razvejavanje te konfuzije trazilo.

 

U ovom Economist-u u Free Exchange ima i dobar clanak o kratkorocnom i dugorcnom odnosu minimalne nadnice i zaposlenosti.

[Ryan Franco]

Varufakisa bi lajavost mogla skupo koštati.

 

Katimerini u nedelju objavio naslovnu priču o tome da je Varufakis uz Ciprasovo odobrenje planirao paralelni bankarski sistem, što je obuhvatilo i hakovanje poreskog sistema. O tome je govorio u poverljivom konferencijskom pozivu šefovima hedž-fondova nedelju dana nakon odlaska sa funkcije.

 

 

 

 

 

 

U međuvremenu se pojavio i zvučni zapis svega toga:

http://www.omfif.org/media/1067578/omfif-telephone-briefing-greece-and-europe-after-the-brussels-debt-agreement-yanis-varoufakis-16-july.mp4

 

Varufakis se odmah javio kod Pričarda u Telegrafu sa priznanjem autentičnosti citata ali i tvrdnjom da atinski mediji spinuju priču kako bi ga optužili za izdaju.

 

 

 

 

 

Naravno, sad opozicija traži objašnjenja od Ciprasa:

 

 

 

 

 

Jbt koje ludilo. Čekajte, po svim trenutnim paramtrima, ovo jeste kao neka izdaja? Uzurpacijica? Pučić?

 

Ili mu Siriza daje leđa?

[harper lee]

pa da, prvi napravili civilizaciju na mediteranu (a i u evropi) od svih sadašnjih evropskih naroda, odoleli navalama raznih divljih plemena, opstali 3000+ godina, i sada ih nemci i ostali severnjaci proglašavaju luzerima jbt. :D

 

Eh, sad, pa jedino cemu bas nisu odolevali kroz istoriju su divlja plemena, od Mikenjana i Doraca pa do Makedonaca i Rimljana. Najbolje su se pokazali protiv Persijanaca koji bas i nisu bili divlje pleme.

[hazard]

Interesantno stivo: Richard Koo

 

https://varoufakis.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/koo-150715e.pdf

 

 

 

Greece faced two problems

 

Strictly speaking, Greece confronted two problems simultaneously. One was that GDP had been artificially boosted by a profligate fiscal policy carried out under the cover of understated deficit data. The other was a balance sheet recession triggered by the collapse of the massive housing bubble that resulted from the ECB’s ultra-low-interestrate policy that lasted from 2000 to 2005.

 

The artificial increase in GDP (Mr. Blanchard correctly noted that Greek output was “above potential to start” in 2008) was something that other periphery countries like Spain and Ireland did not have to confront. A certain decline in GDP from such a level was inevitable as profligate fiscal policy was replaced by the necessary fiscal consolidation.

 

But what complicated matters in Greece is that in addition to the standard decline in GDP that results when profligate government spending eventually sparks a fiscal crisis, Greece was also in the midst of a balance sheet recession. The nation’s housing bubble and subsequent collapse were actually larger than those of Spain in terms of housing price appreciation and decline.

 

If all of Greece’s current problems were simply the price to be paid for past fiscal indulgence, the decline in output would have been much smaller than the actual 30 percent. But because the economy also faced a serious balance sheet recession, the fiscal consolidation measures implemented to address excess government spending caused GDP to fall by nearly 30%.

 

Admittedly, it would have been extremely difficult for anybody to balance the need to end the profligate fiscal policy while maintaining sufficient fiscal stimulus to keep the country in balance sheet recession from falling off the fiscal cliff. But now that it is where it is, the policymakers must find ways to get the economy to grow again.

 

 

 

 

 

Is Greece’s pain due to delays in structural reforms?

 

But a careful reading of this document reveals many problems as well. In particular, the IMF argues that “if the program had been implemented as assumed, no further debt relief would have been needed under the agreed November 2012 framework.”

 

This is essentially the EU argument that delays in implementing structural reforms were one of the causes of the difficulties Greece faces today. However, this argument is based on the highly unrealistic assumption that structural reforms can give a quick boost to GDP growth.

 

Structural reforms are by nature microeconomic—not macroeconomic—undertakings. The aim of measures such as deregulation is to prompt people to change their behavior and engage in new enterprises, eventually leading to a more vibrant economy. This process naturally requires a great deal of time.

 

Impact of Reaganomics was not felt until Clinton era

 

It was “Reaganomics” that first signaled the importance of structural reforms for the world. Although this policy was implemented in the first half of the 1980s, it did not lift GDP until Bill Clinton became president 12 years later. 

 

This experience demonstrated just how long it can take for structural reforms to have a significant macroeconomic impact. What I find inexplicable is that the IMF made the same mistake in Japan in 1997, suffered deep embarrassment as a result, and then went on to repeat this error yet again in Greece. 

 

IMF has forgotten lesson of Japan’s failed fiscal consolidation 

 

The lesson of Japan’s experience is that microeconomic structural reforms simply do not work when an economy faces the macroeconomic problem of a balance sheet recession. I find it extremely unfortunate that the IMF, which should have learned that lesson many years ago in Japan, went on to make the same mistake in Greece. 

 

Fiscal multiplier becomes much larger during balance sheet recessions

 

IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard admitted in a recent blog post that the negative multiplier effect of the fiscal retrenchment demanded by the IMF in Greece had been “larger than initially assumed,” but went on to insist this was not the only reason Greek GDP fell as far as it did (“Greece: Past Critiques and the Path Forward”).

 

But most of the other factors he cites—insufficient reforms, Grexit fears, low business confidence, weak banks, and inconsistent policies—are the result and not the cause of the economy’s meltdown, something that would have been obvious to anyone familiar with Japan’s experience in 1997. 

 

The fact that the IMF underestimated the fiscal multiplier effect also shows that as of 2010 its economists were completely unaware of the economic malaise called a balance sheet recession. Over the years I have repeatedly made the point that during a balance sheet recession, when the private sector refuses to borrow despite zero interest rates, the multiplier effect of fiscal stimulus by the sole remaining borrower—government— becomes much larger than it normally is. 

 

Greece faced two problems 

 

Strictly speaking, Greece confronted two problems simultaneously. One was that GDP had been artificially boosted by a profligate fiscal policy carried out under the cover of understated deficit data. The other was a balance sheet recession triggered by the collapse of the massive housing bubble that resulted from the ECB’s ultra-low-interestrate policy that lasted from 2000 to 2005.

 

The artificial increase in GDP (Mr. Blanchard correctly noted that Greek output was “above potential to start” in 2008) was something that other periphery countries like Spain and Ireland did not have to confront. A certain decline in GDP from such a level was inevitable as profligate fiscal policy was replaced by the necessary fiscal consolidation. 

 

But what complicated matters in Greece is that in addition to the standard decline in GDP that results when profligate government spending eventually sparks a fiscal crisis, Greece was also in the midst of a balance sheet recession. The nation’s housing bubble and subsequent collapse were actually larger than those of Spain in terms of housing price appreciation and decline.

 

If all of Greece’s current problems were simply the price to be paid for past fiscal indulgence, the decline in output would have been much smaller than the actual 30 percent. But because the economy also faced a serious balance sheet recession, the fiscal consolidation measures implemented to address excess government spending caused GDP to fall by nearly 30%.

 

Admittedly, it would have been extremely difficult for anybody to balance the need to end the profligate fiscal policy while maintaining sufficient fiscal stimulus to keep the country in balance sheet recession from falling off the fiscal cliff. But now that it is where it is, the policymakers must find ways to get the economy to grow again.

 

IMF and EU viewed revenues and expenditures as % of GDP...

 

There is also the possibility that the way data was presented by the EU and IMF further widened the perceptual gap between European lenders and the Greek public. Nearly all of the Greek analysis produced by the IMF and the EU has discussed matters relative to GDP, whereas Greek standards of living are linked directly to the absolute level of GDP.

 

When Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch finance minister and eurozone group president, was in Japan earlier this year, he indicated that conditions in the European periphery, including Greece, had improved substantially, and that even if the Greek people elected a new government it would have no choice but to leave existing policies in place.

 

Materials published by the EU and the IMF show clear improvements in Greece’s fiscal deficits, with revenues growing steadily (see broken line in Figure 1) while expenditures remain under control. Having seen only these figures, one would be forgiven for concluding that current policies should be continued. 

 

Thereby completely underestimating borrowers’ sense of crisis

 

But in fact Greek tax revenues have been steadily declining in absolute terms over the last five years (see bars in Figure 1) despite the numerous tax hikes and reinforcements to the tax-collection system implemented during that time.

 

The reason is that Greece’s GDP has plunged because fiscal consolidation was carried out during a balance sheet recession, resulting in a destructive deflationary spiral that has devastated the lives of ordinary Greeks.

 

While the nation may appear to be making progress when we view the data as a percentage of GDP, the raw data show an economy in collapse. This difference in perspectives widened the gap separating European creditors who thought everything is going well, and the Greek public who has been suffering serious declines in their standard of living. And this rift in perceptions was perhaps nowhere as evident as in the results of the national referendum on 5 July. 

 

Varoufakis an eloquent speaker

 

Another reason for the tortuous progress in the negotiations lies in the very different personalities and beliefs of the officials representing the two sides.

 

Former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis is an excellent speaker of English. According to a British journalist who has covered the euro for more than 20 years, his command of the language is better than that of the other 18 eurozone finance ministers put together.

 

Moreover, he has an extremely quick mind, and it is not hard to envision him countering if not offending EU officials who believed in the basic soundness of existing policies by citing the sorts of issues noted above. 

 

Market fundamentalist vs. bankruptcy lawyer 

 

Mr. Dijsselbloem is an affable gentleman but is also a market fundamentalist who believes strongly in the virtues of abstinence, hard work, and self-responsibility. The British journalist noted above has gone so far as to label him a Calvinist. 

 

He organized a bail-in when Dutch bank SNS Reaal collapsed, and as head of the Eurogroup he did the same when faced with the banking problems in Cyprus. 

 

When I was at the New York Fed we were taught that bail-ins should be avoided if there was even a 5% probability of triggering financial instability. In contrast, Mr. Dijsselbloem pushed through bail-ins of SNS Reaal and the Cypriot banking sector—based on the principles of market fundamentalism and self-responsibility—in spite of a much higher probability that those measures would create turmoil among large depositors. This shows just how lucky the Dutch finance minister has been. 

 

After all, former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson succeeded with a bail-in of California savings and loan IndyMac, which failed in July 2008 , but just two months later sent the global economy into freefall with his decision to let Lehman Brothers fail. 

 

Having had the opportunity to speak with both men, my impression is that any talks between the Dutch finance minister, who holds high the principle of self-responsibility and does not acknowledge the existence of an ailment called balance sheet recession, and the self-styled Greek “bankruptcy lawyer” who wants to get the economy moving again, were bound to degenerate into an unproductive ideological skirmish. 

 

Dijsselbloem rejected Greek proposals out of hand 

 

The Financial Times reported that in the last-minute negotiations before the referendum, Mr. Varoufakis asked IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde whether the IMF would be willing to add to the EU’s proposal a formal statement that Greece’s debt would be sustainable under the rescue package.

 

This was a natural request given that the Greek government, by accepting the EU’s proposal, would cede all control of both monetary and fiscal policy to the EU, effectively preventing it from taking responsibility over the performance of its own economy.

 

But when Ms. Lagarde tried to respond to this very straightforward request, Mr. Dijsselbloem cut her off and brought the discussion to an end, saying Greece had only two choices left: take it or leave it.

 

The Dutch finance minister appeared to take the attitude that there was no need to listen to an impertinent debtor like Greece and refused to discuss the nation’s concerns about who would take responsibility if the measures proposed by the EU caused a further weakening of the Greek economy.

 

Inasmuch as Mr. Dijsselbloem entered the talks certain that Greece would accept the creditors’ demands because it had no alternative, I suspect he never had much intention of compromising. In the end, Greece’s rejection of the EU proposal and its decision to put the question to a national referendum probably came as a shock to the confident Dutch finance minister. 

 

 

 

[palikaris]

Eh, sad, pa jedino cemu bas nisu odolevali kroz istoriju su divlja plemena, od Mikenjana i Doraca pa do Makedonaca i Rimljana. Najbolje su se pokazali protiv Persijanaca koji bas i nisu bili divlje pleme.

 

pa jest, ali su i ostali tu gde jesu, nisu ih plemena potisnula na sever kao na primer kelte, i uspeli da manje-vise kontinuirano odrze kulturu kroz sve te vekove. 

[vememah]

German 'wisemen' say euro zone states should be able to go bankrupt

 

The German government's panel of independent economic advisers favors the creation of a sovereign insolvency mechanism for euro zone states to prevent future crises and says countries should be able to leave the currency bloc as a last resort.

 

In a special report published on Tuesday, the council of five experts known as the "wisemen", said the Greek debt crisis had underscored the urgent need for further reforms to make the euro zone more stable.

 

Alongside measures such as deepening the European banking union, the council said the euro area's crisis toolkit should be complemented by a mechanism for orderly sovereign insolvencies, which would make the currency area's no bail-out clause credible.

 

"To ensure the cohesion of monetary union, we have to recognize that voters in creditor countries are not prepared to finance debtor countries permanently," said Christoph M. Schmidt, Chairman of the German Council of Economic council.

 

The Greek crisis has called into question the future of the currency bloc with popular misgivings in Germany over a third bailout for the heavily indebted country running deep.

 

Such an insolvency mechanism would force creditors to bear losses if states went bankrupt, in turn prompting investors to assess sovereign risk in more detail, the council said.

 

The council recommended that an exit of a country from the euro area should remain possible, albeit as an "utterly last resort."

 

"A permanently uncooperative member state should not be able to threaten the existence of the euro," the council wrote.

 

They also warned against "quick-win" policies, such as the creation of a euro zone treasury, a European unemployment insurance scheme or an economic government for the bloc.

 

"Making the euro area collectively responsible for potential costs without member states giving up any national sovereignty over fiscal and economic policies would - sooner or later - make the currency union more unstable," they wrote.

 

Their warning came after a report in German magazine Der Spiegel that Germany was willing to discuss the creation of a euro zone finance minister who would have his own budget and the power to raise extra taxes.

 

http://www.ekathimerini.com/200003/article/ekathimerini/business/german-wisemen-say-euro-zone-states-should-be-able-to-go-bankrupt

Edited July 29, 2015 by vememah

[Anduril]

 

It was “Reaganomics” that first signaled the importance of structural reforms for the world. Although this policy was implemented in the first half of the 1980s, it did not lift GDP until Bill Clinton became president 12 years later. 

This experience demonstrated just how long it can take for structural reforms to have a significant macroeconomic impact. What I find inexplicable is that the IMF made the same mistake in Japan in 1997, suffered deep embarrassment as a result, and then went on to repeat this error yet again in Greece. 

IMF has forgotten lesson of Japan’s failed fiscal consolidation 

The lesson of Japan’s experience is that microeconomic structural reforms simply do not work when an economy faces the macroeconomic problem of a balance sheet recession. I find it extremely unfortunate that the IMF, which should have learned that lesson many years ago in Japan, went on to make the same mistake in Greece.

 

Ovaj Richard Koo je malo pojednostavio i zaboravio - ili mozda u US ili UK krajem semdesetih i tokom osamdesetih nije bilo strukturnih reformi dok je ekonomija bila u krizi.

 

 

Prior to the Reagan administration, the United States economy experienced a decade of rising unemployment and inflation (known as stagflation). Political pressure favored stimulus resulting in an expansion of the money supply.

...

In stating his intention was to lower taxes, Reagan's approach was a departure from his immediate predecessors. Reagan enacted lower marginal tax rates as well as simplified income tax codes and continued deregulation.

...

During the Reagan administration, the American economy went from a GDP growth of -0.3% in 1980 to 4.1% in 1988 (in constant 2005 dollars), averaging 7.91% annual growth in current dollars.^[28] This reduced the unemployment rate by 1.6%, from 7.1% in 1980 to 5.5% in 1988.^[29][30] A net job increase of about 21 million also occurred through mid-1990.

...

An accounting indicated nominal tax receipts increased from $599 billion in 1981 to $1.032 trillion in 1990, an increase of 72% in current dollars.

[MancMellow]

To je veliko, i zanimljivo, pitanje. Overall bolje je, čini mi se, radilo u US nego u UK. No, ovo

 

 

 

Reagan enacted lower marginal tax rates as well as simplified income tax codes

 

je svakako jedna od kljucnih mera bila. Uglavnom, to što su radili Thatcher i Reagan nije baš bilo isto što sada žele Merkel i Schaeuble. A u slučaju UK, ekspanzija produkcije nafte i gasa sredinom 80-tih se ne može zanemariti kao faktor. Ali svejedno, to je tema o kojoj vredi pričati. Ali, što se mene tiče, možda sutra-prekosutra. 

[Budja]

Iz BBCija, naravno, uzeti sa rezervom komentare, no jeste indikator razocaranja.

 

 

 

Spanish parties play power games over Greek bailout

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy celebrated the financial rescue deal struck between eurozone leaders and Greece earlier this month as "good news".

Describing the €82bn-€86bn (£59bn-£62bn) in-principle bailout agreement in return for stringent austerity reforms as "reasonable", the conservative Spanish leader said that "Europe has shown great solidarity with Greece".

But does Mr Rajoy have other reasons to celebrate, notably a political victory over the Greek anti-austerity Syriza government that may help his Popular Party (PP) secure a second term in Spanish elections at the end of this year?

Mr Rajoy's term in office has seen the powerful rise of leftist anti-austerity party Podemos, which has galvanised a popular challenge to the government's insistence that tough economic medicine and tight spending controls are the only way for Spain to emerge from its own financial and economic meltdown.

Unemployment reached 27% at the start of 2013 before falling back to the current rate of 22%.

Spain, which received a eurozone bailout for its crippled banking sector in 2012, has been on the receiving end of its own dose of austerity medicine from Europe since the PSOE socialist government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was required to cut pensions and state workers' salaries back in 2010.

Bubble burst

When Syriza won January's Greek elections, Podemos too seemed to be on the crest of an unstoppable wave against austerity politics in Spain only a year after being formed.

When Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias travelled to Athens to join Syriza's Alexis Tsipras for his final campaign rally, the Spanish radical party was leading the polls with 28% support.

Mr Iglesias said then that Mr Tsipras' victory signalled "the failure of austerity politics" and that Greece would now have "a real Greek prime minister and not a delegate of Angela Merkel".

But the way the Syriza government caved in to pressure from eurozone leaders led by Germany's Chancellor, Mrs Merkel, may have burst Podemos's bubble.

Podemos, challenged by the rise of another new anti-corruption party, the centrist Citizens, has slipped to third place on just 18%, according to a poll published by the newspaper El Pais last weekend. The poll put the PSOE in the lead on 23.5% with the PP on 23%.

'Killed hopes'

Marleen Rueda, 48, a consultant on international labour issues, from Madrid, says her enthusiasm for Podemos as a potential force for change has been jolted.

"What the Greek deal has done is to pour cold water over any hopes that there could be a change of European policy," she says. "This has killed people's hopes.

"The emerging parties like Podemos have no sway in the formulation of European policy.

"I don't feel as a citizen that I can have any influence.

"Parties like Podemos led us to believe that they could change things in Europe, but this is not the reality."

Ms Rueda, who sees the new bailout deal as a "punishment for the Greeks", adds: "Europe does not want any voices which question the sole European policy of austerity to emerge.

"It is an imposition by Europe which snubs a democratically elected government."

More battles to come

Podemos, which has pledged to review Spain's ballooning public debt, decries what it considers a bad deal for Greece and a blow to democracy.

But Pablo Bustinduy, Podemos's international relations spokesman, believes Spaniards realise the fight against austerity is only just beginning and Spain is in a far stronger position than Greece to win it.

"The circumstances of the two countries are tremendously different," he says.

"Spain has not been formally bailed out and represents 11% of the eurozone economy compared to Greece's 2%.

"There will be a reaction; this is just the first stage, and there will be more battles."

As Podemos sees its grip on the Spanish electorate weaken, Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the Madrid office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, believes the party has decided to cut itself free from its emotional connection with the Syriza government.

"In light of Tsipras's disastrous management of relations with the eurozone and the punishing deal finally reached, Podemos has subtly begun to distance itself from Greece," he says.

Mr Torreblanca, who has written a book on Podemos entitled Asaltar Los Cielos (Storm The Heavens), notes the party that greeted Syriza's electoral triumphs with euphoria is now choosing to ignore Mr Tsipras's pragmatic shift to the centre.

"They have cooled the rhetoric on Greece as Rajoy tries to turn the spotlight on the chaos outside Greek banks and how something similarly catastrophic could happen in Spain if Podemos comes to power."

[vememah]

MMF pozdravio Evrozonu i Grčku:

 

IMF cannot join Greek rescue, board told

Peter Spiegel in Brussels

The International Monetary Fund’s board has been told Athens’ high debt levels and poor record of implementing reforms disqualify Greece from a third IMF bailout of the country, raising new questions over whether the institution will join the EU’s latest financial rescue.

The determination, presented by IMF staff at a two-hour board meeting on Wednesday, means that while IMF staff will participate in bailout negotiations currently under way in Athens, the Fund will not decide whether to agree a new programme for months — potentially into next year.

That delay could have significant repercussions, particularly in Germany, where officials have long said it would be impossible to win Bundestag approval for the new €86bn bailout without the IMF on board.

According to a four-page “strictly confidential” summary of Wednesday’s board meeting obtained by the Financial Times, IMF negotiators will “participate in policy discussions” to ensure the eurozone’s new bailout “is consistent with what the Fund has in mind”.

But they “cannot reach staff level agreement at this stage”. The Fund will only decide whether to participate during a “stage two” after Greece has “agreed on a comprehensive set of reforms” and, crucially, after eurozone bailout lenders have “agreed on debt relief”.

That condition could prove a sticking point since Berlin and other creditor governments have so far strongly resisted any suggestion of forgiving Greece’s debts.

According to the summary, Germany’s representative to the IMF board said Berlin “would have preferred the Fund . . . move in parallel” with the eurozone bailout talks. Instead, it now faces the prospect of trying to move an €86bn bailout through a sceptical Bundestag in a matter of weeks without the IMF’s imprimatur.

The IMF’s assessment adds another source of complexity just as Athens and its bailout monitors begin discussions in earnest in an attempt to conclude a deal before a tight August 20 deadline. While the creditors’ harbour misgivings, Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, is also facing a mutiny from leftwing members of his Syriza party unhappy with the conditions attached to the bailout.

The IMF decided last week that its existing bailout programme, which was originally to run until March, needed to be scrapped because it could no longer achieve its stated goal of helping Greece recover to the point where it could return to private debt markets. The IMF then forced Athens to request a new IMF programme, which requires board approval, necessitating Wednesday’s meeting.

Some Greek officials suspect the IMF and Wolfgang Schäuble, the hardline German finance minister, are determined to scupper a Greek rescue despite this month’s agreement to move forward with a third bailout.

In a once-private teleconference made public this week, Yanis Varoufakis, the former finance minister, said he feared the Greek government would pass new rounds of economic reforms only for the IMF to pull the plug on the programme later this year.

“According to its own rules, the IMF cannot participate in any new bailout. I mean, they’ve already violated their rules twice to do so, but I don’t think they will do it a third time,” Mr Varoufakis said. “Dr Schäuble and the IMF have a common interest: they don’t want this deal to go ahead.”

Senior EU officials have insisted Christine Lagarde, the IMF managing director, signalled her willingness to participate in a new bailout at the high-stakes summit that agreed the new rescue earlier this month.

But Greece has become a growing source of rancour within the Fund and among its shareholders. People who have spoken with senior IMF officials said Ms Lagarde is facing a unified staff view that the Fund’s reputation is on the line and that it cannot agree to a new programme without significant changes.

According to the board minutes, several non-European board members – including from Asia, Brazil and Canada – warned about the need to “protect the reputation of the Fund”, and the document says Ms Lagarde acknowledged their concerns.

“[Ms Lagarde] stressed that in their engagement they have to be mindful about the reputation of the Fund,” the summary says.

According to the summary, IMF staff concluded Greece no longer clears two of the four requirements in the IMF’s “exceptional access criteria” — the Fund framework that allows it to grant bailouts of larger-than-normal size.

Under the criteria, a bailout recipient must be able to prove it has the “institutional and political capacity” to implement economic reforms, and that “there is a high probability that the member’s public debt is sustainable in the medium term”.

IMF staff determined that neither criterion has been met — and they would not know whether Athens would meet those benchmarks until the autumn.

“Greece wants to decide on some important reforms only in the fall and the Europeans only want to deal with the debt issue after the first review because they first want to rebuild trust,” the summary states. “The differences between the IMF’s thinking about the debt issue and what the Europeans are currently discussing are very large.”

At the early stages of the Greek crisis, the IMF waved the debt criteria because of rules allowing it to grant a bailout if there was “a high risk of international systemic spillover”. But IMF staff told the board this risk no longer existed because a Greek default would no longer hurt private bondholders, who now own a very small share of Greek debt.

“In 2010, the systemic waiver was applied as a restructuring of the debt in hands of the private creditors was needed to restore debt sustainability, which could have caused major contagion,” the minutes state. “Currently, a restructuring of official debt is required and staff could think only of a few instances in which public debt restructuring could create contagion.”

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4c7b7f2c-36b5-11e5-bdbb-35e55cbae175.html

Edited July 30, 2015 by vememah

[Budja]

Pa, dobro, nije ih otkacio. Pre ce biti da je pozvao na otpis duga.

[vememah]

Inače, nova predstavnica MMF-a u trojci, tj. po novom kvadrigi (ubačen i ESM pored dosadašnjih EK, ECB i MMF) za Grčku je Rumunka Delija Velkulesku, koju su Kiprani, gde je pre bila šef misije, prozvali gospođom Drakulesku, naravno zbog beskompromisnog stava.

 

Edited July 30, 2015 by vememah