Grčka - enormni dug, protesti oko mera štednje

[Budja]

A trece mesto 14.4% neopredeljenih koji su onomad ipak glasali za Sirizu a od kojih ce tesko ND videti cvonjka.

Prilicno nerelevantna anketa.

[vememah]

14,4% neće glasati. Neopredeljenih je 7,1%. 7,6% će ubaciti prazan/poništen listić, a 2,4% ne zna za koga bi glasalo.

[Budja]

Da, istih tih 14.4% koji, kao, nisu glasali prosli put. Svejedno, potpuno nerelevantno.

[vememah]

Relevantan je trend, pre izbora Micotakisa nije bilo nijedne ankete po kojoj je ND jača od Sirize. Evo poslednje od 19.12:

 

http://www.dimoskopiseis.gr/en/2015/12/19/prorata-syriza-20-nd-19-xa-6-5-pasokdimar-4-kke-6-potami-2-5-anel-2-ek-3-lae-2-5/

 

Naravno, to ne znači da je ND u ovom trenutku stvarno jača od Sirize, pošto sve firme koje rade ankete po pravilu imaju rezultate koji nerealno podižu ND, a smanjuju Sirizu.

Edited January 15, 2016 by vememah

[Takeshi]

davos 

 

[vememah]

Cipras očekuje da grčki BDP počne da raste do sredine ove godine, za Blumberg je u Davosu izjavio da je prošla bila neutralna uprkos zatvaranju banaka i kontroli kapitala, tj. da je BDP praktično stagnirao ili čak malo porastao.

 

I pre nedelju dana je dao sličnu izjavu u Grčkoj:

“Anyone claiming that Greece is not moving forward is either doing so on purpose because they do not want the country to progress or they are not aware of the reality,” he said, adding that there is no danger of his government losing its three-seat majority.

“Six months from now the Greek economy will be growing,” said the premier.

 

http://www.ekathimerini.com/205045/article/ekathimerini/news/tsipras-sees-growth-in-six-months-as-gold-mine-row-continues

 

U međuvremenu, vlast namerava da ukine barem dve postojeće nacionalne komercijalne stanice, pošto najavljuje da će izdati najviše 4 dozvole (mogu ih dobiti i novi igrači), dok njih ima 6. Taj potez pravda smanjenjem reklamnog kolača.

 

The number of nationwide TV licenses to be allocated by the government to private broadcasters via a public tender will be less than five, in order to secure their viability, State Minister Nikos Pappas said, during an interview.

 

Speaking to a local television station, the minister said the local advertising market has shrunk so much that TV broadcasters are non-viable.

 

“We were saying that the problem is the triangle of vested interests. What do we want to avoid? We do not want non-viable companies which rely on bank borrowing, which creates the opaque terms and exerts pressure on the political system, which in turn pressures the banks,” he said.

 

At the moment there are at least 6 private TV networks transmitting their respective signal nationwide, via an archaic law extended over and over in the past 25 years. The government has made it clear that it intends to put an end to this eternally temporary status by granting licenses from the beginning.

 

It has also hinted at clearing the network air by fighting against corruption in the television landscape, making analysts believe that this licensing process could be a way for the government to take "punitive" action against TV owners who have been fighting against it politically.

 

http://www.thetoc.gr/eng/news/article/state-minister-less-than-5-private-tv-channel-licenses

Edited January 21, 2016 by vememah

[Budja]

Levica a la Sinisa Mali?

 

 

 

Many Greeks were infuriated that the prime minister’s speech failed to mention the refugee crisis, reinforcing a growing feeling that Mr Tsipras is out of touch. His party has been weakened by corruption scandals. George Stathakis, the economy minister, is being probed by a parliamentary committee for failing to include 38 properties and €1.8m ($1.9m) in his 2011 declaration of assets.

[Prospero]

New Greek bailout, same as the old Greek bailout

 

Bad news for Europe: Greek debt is back on the agenda.

 

 

By  MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG 

2/11/16, 5:30 AM CET

 

 

BERLIN — A quorum of Europe’s leading financial technocrats gathered last week for the painful ritual of assessing the status of Greece’s bailout.

 

The meeting followed a familiar script: Greece’s creditors complained Athens had yet to deliver the required data. The Greeks protested, explaining that they had sent the information — the night before.

 

Greece is back. Just not in the way Europe had hoped.

Six months after receiving a third make-or-break bailout, Greece is again veering off course, sparking concerns among creditors that Athens is reverting to the bait-and-switch tactics that took the country to the brink last summer.

At issue is the evaluation of Greece’s reform progress. In order to receive further installments as part of its latest rescue, which could be as much as €86 billion, Greece needs a passing grade. Creditors say the delays in providing data and other information, common during Greece’s previous reviews, are little more than transparent tactics meant to slow down and complicate the process.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said Monday he expected the review, originally scheduled for the fall, to be completed within weeks.

 

Yet Greece’s creditors, a group that includes other eurozone countries, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank, maintain the review is nowhere near complete and worry Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is preparing for another extended confrontation over the bailout terms as pressure builds on his leftist government to reject the planned spending cuts.

Greece’s next major debt repayment is on July 20, when about €2.3 billion in bonds held by the ECB become due. The review, overseen by technical experts from the European institutions and the IMF, must be concluded well before then in order for the funds to be released on time.

“If the review is due for completion in May or June, we will be in serious trouble,” Tsakalotos told MPs in Athens Monday.

 

Unreasonable demands

One reason for the rush is the IMF. Though party to previous bailouts, the fund has said it would only join the latest rescue if convinced Greece’s debt load is sustainable. It can only make that determination once the review has been completed.

Greece would prefer for the IMF not to participate.

 

Athens blames the Washington-based organization for imposing harsh remedies on the Greek economy that have done more harm than good. But Germany has made its continued participation in rescue contingent on the IMF joining. If the IMF backs out, Chancellor Angela Merkel would have difficulty winning approval for further disbursements from the Bundestag, the German parliament.

Tsipras met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in London last week and will meet French President François Hollande in Paris next week before the European summit to try to resolve the impasse.

 

Tsipras’ trump card may be the refugee crisis. Berlin is desperate to reduce the influx from Turkey and has been pressuring Athens to do more to help manage the crisis by registering the refugees and patrolling its coastal border with Turkey. Some European officials speculate privately that Tsipras could make leniency on Greece’s review a condition for his cooperation in dealing with the refugees.

 

Greek officials reject suggestions that they are responsible for delays in completing the review, insisting that they have acted in good faith. They accuse Germany and its northern European allies of making unrealistic demands in the hope of toppling the government.

The election of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a pro-reform free marketeer, to the leadership of the opposition New Democracy party last month has presented creditors with an attractive alternative to Syriza, Tsipras’ allies argue. The center-right New Democracy, a member of the European People’s Party bloc alongside Merkel’s Christian Democrats, has pulled ahead of Syriza in some recent polls.

Such conspiracy theories have been a common refrain throughout Greece’s long-running debt crisis and have generally proved to be wide of the mark.

 

Pension pushback

What is clear is that Athens has yet to fulfil key markers in the bailout agreement it reached with creditors in July.

Under the agreement, Greece should have established a €50 billion privatization fund to pay down its debt by the end of 2015. The move, widely viewed in Greece as a fire sale of state property, requires a complicated thicket of legislation before it can go forward. The fund is particularly important to Germany and France, which made the privatizations a condition for a deal during the all-night negotiations that led to the bailout in July.

 

Economists warn the increased contributions, tantamount to a futher tax increase, could dent Greece’s fragile economy.

 

Creditors also complain that Athens has made little headway in pushing through the promised reform of the federal administration, a bloated bureaucracy plagued by years of patronage.

 

Athens’ biggest challenge, however, is pension reform. Creditors want Greece to cut existing pensions, arguing that doing so is necessary to put Greek debt on sustainable footing. Greece spends the equivalent of about 15 percent of its GDP on pensions, nearly double the average for other advanced economies. Shortfalls in recent years have put enormous strain on the government’s budget.

Tsipras has so far refused to make cuts, proposing instead to raise pension contributions for future retirees. Pensioners comprise a key Syriza constituency and Tsipras can’t afford to lose their support. He also argues that many Greek families are now surviving on a single pension and that further cuts would only exacerbate the poverty that has hit many in the country in recent years.

But raising contributions is no less controversial.

Economists warn the increased contributions, tantamount to a futher tax increase, could dent Greece’s fragile economy.

Greeks have returned to the streets in force in recent weeks to protest the proposed pension reform. Hardest hit would be the self-employed, including many doctors, lawyers and other professionals, as well as farmers.

Opponents of the reform staged a general strike last week that effectively shut down the country. The upheaval has renewed doubts over Greece’s prospects. In recent days, yields on Greek government debt, a key indicator of investor confidence, have shot up, reflecting the unease. Greece’s stock market, meanwhile, fell to its lowest level since 1989 this week.

 

[Anduril]

Ocekivano. Mada, moze da zavrsi i izbacivanjem Grcke iz Sengena i iz Evrozone u paketu.

To bi imalo daleko vise smisla plus paketi pomoci da se prebrodi sok.

Stezanje kajsa sledi sada i u Nemackoj i tu nekakva ucenjivanja pred seriju vaznih izbora tamo nece proci dobro.

[Prospero]

Fiskalni akcident u najavi...


 

Greece wants IMF explanations over Wikileaks report

By Efi Koutsokosta | With AFP

02/04 12:15 CET


Greece on Saturday demanded “explanations” from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after Wikileaks said the lender sought a crisis “event” to push the indebted nation into concluding talks over its reforms.

IMF officials, in an internal discussion, allegedly voiced exasperation with Greece on its slow pace of reform, complaining Athens only moved decisively when faced with the peril of default, the website said.

A transcript placed on the Wikileaks website on Saturday purports to be that of a teleconference that took place on March 19.

The whistle-blowing organisation has published a conversation purporting to have taken place between Iva Petrova and Delia Velculescu, who have been representing the IMF in the negotiations with Greece, and Poul Thomsen, director of the Fund’s European Department.

The conversation reveals the internal strategy of the fund in order to force the Greek government to accept further measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, and to persuade German Chancellor Angela Merkel to accept debt relief.

Thomsen is alleged to have said that the ongoing review should be delayed so that a threat of a new “fiscal accident” at the time of the Brexit referendum would allow them to push both sides.

“I am not going accept a package of small measures. I am not…” said Thomsen. “What is going to bring it all to a decision point? In the past there has been only one time when the decision has been made and then that was when [the Greeks] were about to run out of money seriously and to default. […] And possibly this is what is going to happen again. In that case, it drags on until July, and clearly the Europeans are not going to have any discussions for a month before the Brexit…”

Wikileaks said the discussion showed that the IMF was planning to tell Chancellor Merkel it would leave the Troika if the IMF and the Commission fail to reach an agreement on Greek debt relief.

And that because Mr Tomsen knows that this would be very difficult for Mrs Merkel to manage under the pressure of the Bundestag and the refugee crisis at the same time.

“Look you, Mrs. Merkel, you face a question: you have to think about what is more costly, to go ahead without the IMF—would the Bundestag say ‘The IMF is not on board?’, or [to] pick the debt relief that we think that Greece needs in order to keep us on board?” said Mr Thomsen, according to the leaked conversation.

Athens is under pressure to address the large number of non-performing loans burdening Greek banks and to push forward with a pension and tax overhaul resisted by farmers and white-collar staff.

The IMF has yet to officially sign onto Greece’s latest bailout and is making its participation conditional on the fact that no ground is yielded on the reforms needed by Athens, especially on pensions.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has accused the IMF of employing “stalling tactics” and “arbitrary” estimates to delay a reforms review crucial to unlock further bailout cash.

Read here the entire WikiLeaks document.​

[Prospero]

Greek parliament approves new austerity measures to unlock bailout cash

Home | Euro & Finance | News

 

By EurActiv.com with AFP

7:20

 

A protester burns a fake €100 banknote during a demonstration against a new package of tax hikes

and reforms. Athens, 22 May. [Reuters]

 

 

Greek lawmakers on Sunday (22 May) adopted another batch of controversial spending cuts and tax hikes, two days before a crunch eurozone meeting expected to unlock the next tranche of much-needed bailout funds for the debt-ridden nation.

 

The 7,000-page bill that raises the sales tax cap and introduces a contingency mechanism to slash spending further in case of budget overruns was passed thanks to the Syriza-led coalition government’s slim majority in the 300-seat parliament, according to an AFP count.

 

All 153 of the coalition’s MPs voted in favour, while outside the parliament building in Athens, more than 10,000 people protested against the unpopular reforms.

One Syriza MP dissented however, with Vassiliki Katrivanou voting for the bill overall but against the articles calling for the contingency mechanism and the creation of a state privatisation fund.

 

The so-called contingency mechanism, labelled “the cutter” by Greek media and designed to cut spending if the country fails to meet fiscal targets in 2018, is of chief interest to Greece’s international creditors.

“European leaders get the message that Greece is sticking to its promises. Now, it’s their turn,” Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said ahead of the vote.

 

 

‘It’s raining taxes’

 

Across the political spectrum, Greeks have criticised the massive bill, the latest in a series of sweeping reforms for the austerity-weary nation.

 

“No one in Greece will remain unaffected by the typhoon of the new measures,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of New Democracy main opposition party said in parliament.

“Employment is punished, property is persecuted”, he added.

 

Greek newspapers on Sunday complained that the new measures – including a top rate sales tax increase from 23 to 24% – didn’t come with a promise of debt relief from the country’s international creditors.

“It’s raining taxes, with the future of debt uncertain,” read a headline in Kathimerini newspaper.

“The measures we are talking about aren’t pleasant. Especially for citizens that have already endured a lot,” Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras admitted on Sunday.

But he said “this is the first time that the sacrifices seem to have a prospect of paying off”.

 

Greece and its European Union creditors are locked in talks on how to reduce the country’s debt burden, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said must happen if it is to contribute any more of its own funds.

 

The IMF said Thursday (19 May) that Greece would need a lengthy period free from debt payments to achieve sustainable finances if the bloc does not agree to cutting the debt up front.

“It is possible to restore debt sustainability without up-front haircuts, although this would involve providing very concessional loan terms including long grace and maturity periods and very low interest rates,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters.

 

 

Debt relief on the table

 

As for the IMF’s participation in the rescue, Rice said the global emergency lender is still assessing the reforms Athens is undertaking to strengthen its finances.

“We don’t want more austerity for Greece and we certainly don’t want more of the burden to fall on the poor and the most vulnerable,” he said.

The Greek government, at loggerheads with its creditors as it seeks to obtain more relief, appears confident.

 

Tsipras on Sunday said “this is the first time the debt issue is discussed with the appropriate attention within the international institutions”.

But EU economic powerhouse Germany has been deeply opposed to alleviating any of Athens’ debt.

It believes Greece should be granted relief only in 2018, once it has fully complied with the EU bailout, according to a finance ministry document seen by AFP Thursday.

 

Eurozone finance ministers are set to discuss easing Greece’s debt burden and disbursing the next round of funds at a closely-watched Eurogroup meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

 

Greece urgently needs the next tranche of bailout money to repay big loans to the European Central Bank (ECB) and IMF in July, and has already fallen behind in paying for everyday government duties and public sector wages.

German financial daily Handelsblatt has said Athens could receive between nine and €11 billion if a deal is struck this week.

 

[Luther]

 

 

Greece agrees deal with creditors on bailout reforms

Greece has wrapped up a deal with creditors on details of reforms that must be enacted before the country can receive the next disbursement from its €86bn bailout programme. The deal, which covers a wide range of fiscal and structural measures, from fresh cuts in pensions to liberalising Sunday trading, was completed during intensive talks over the past week after months of wrangling between Greek finance ministry officials and bailout monitors from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.  Differences over the size of cuts to be applied in 2019 on pensions already reduced by over 40 per cent since 2011 held up an agreement, according to people involved in the negotiations. “There is white smoke… the negotiation is finished with agreement on all the issues,” said Euclid Tsakalotos, the finance minister, after an all-night session of talks. The further pension reduction was agreed at 18 per cent. Greece’s parliament must now approve the reforms, opening the way for the euro area finance ministers to sign off on the agreement at a meeting on May 22. The ruling leftwing Syriza party and its rightwing coalition partner Independent Greeks hold a slim three-seat majority in parliament. But with opinion polls giving the opposition centre-right New Democracy a double-digit lead, coalition lawmakers are expected to back the measures unanimously rather than trigger a snap election by rebelling against more austerity. Greece urgently needs the next bailout payment to meet looming deadlines in July for repaying more than €6bn of debt. The agreement is also a condition for securing the participation of the IMF as a financial partner in the current bailout in line with a requirement by Germany, the leading European contributor to three successive Greek rescue programmes since 2010. The Fund insists that Greece be granted debt relief before it can join the bailout claiming the country’s huge debt burden is unsustainable, while Berlin rules out a “haircut” of Greek debt, setting the stage for a tricky political negotiation. . A Greek official said the agreement did not include precise figures on targets for the primary budget surplus – before making payments of interest and principal on the country’s debt – as these would be finalised during talks on the extent of debt relief to be granted by the creditors. Greece achieved an unprecedented primary surplus of 3.9 per cent of gross domestic product in 2016 against a target of 0.5 per cent. But the Fund doubts that the EU’s target for Greece of a 3.5 per cent primary surplus could be maintained over the medium term.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/4900c703-a24f-34f0-a9b3-00635caf2f41

 

I tako....."to biva kad se previše sniva...."

Ništa od izlaska iz EU, evrozone, zlatnih zora, dolaska ruskih ratnih brodova i sličnih nebuloza. Nego osteriti, šta drugo. Možda ih i nagrade nekim otpisom duga, ko zna.

[Anduril]

https://www.ft.com/content/4900c703-a24f-34f0-a9b3-00635caf2f41

I tako....."to biva kad se previše sniva...."

Ništa od izlaska iz EU, evrozone, zlatnih zora, dolaska ruskih ratnih brodova i sličnih nebuloza. Nego osteriti, šta drugo. Možda ih i nagrade nekim otpisom duga, ko zna.

 

Problem je sto nije moralo tako - mogli su umesto penzija da udare na druge izvore koji su ekonomski mnogo jaci.

Ali, izgleda da ce tamo radije da gledaju kako ljudi skapavaju od gladi nego da smanje korupciju.

Grckoj nema spasa bez uvodjenja sasvim novog evropskog federalnog nivoa vlasti da ih zastiti bar od najgorih zloupotreba kleptokratije.

[Luther]

Problem je sto nije moralo tako - mogli su umesto penzija da udare na druge izvore koji su ekonomski mnogo jaci.

Ali, izgleda da ce tamo radije da gledaju kako ljudi skapavaju od gladi nego da smanje korupciju.

Grckoj nema spasa bez uvodjenja sasvim novog evropskog federalnog nivoa vlasti da ih zastiti bar od najgorih zloupotreba kleptokratije.

 

Pa sad ne znam, cenim da su mogli da bi i udarili tj. da su udarili šta su mogli.. Nisam pratio pažljivo šta je Siriza po tom pitanju uradila od izbora. Mislim da ljudi generalno precenjuju obim korupcije u odnosu na ukupne potrebe za javnom potrošnjom, kao i mogućnost da se na kratak rok korupcija znatno umanji. To je  potpuno različit red veličina. Za neke znatnije pomake u tom pogledu je potrebno nekoliko generacija. U svakom slučaju Siriza, kao nekompromitovana u ranijem periodu, ima veći legitimitet da sprovede bolne a neophodne reforme nego prethodne političke garniture koje jesu ogrezle u kleptokratiji.

[Budja]

https://www.ft.com/content/4900c703-a24f-34f0-a9b3-00635caf2f41

 

I tako....."to biva kad se previše sniva...."

Ništa od izlaska iz EU, evrozone, zlatnih zora, dolaska ruskih ratnih brodova i sličnih nebuloza. Nego osteriti, šta drugo. Možda ih i nagrade nekim otpisom duga, ko zna.

 

Citam, nista od otpisa, vec restruktuiranje, ono manja kamata ali na 1000 godina. Lock.

 

Naravno, ide dalje smanjenje penzija (sad, ne znam koliko su velikodusne bile pre smanjenja) i ono jos gore - smanjenje granice za oporezivanje dohotka.