Greece and the economic crisis 2016

NEWS ARCHIVE - Sept 24 - Sept 30

September 30, 2016

"Erdogan suggested in an address on Thursday that the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which Turkish nationalists negotiated with the Allies, cannot be considered a "victory" because Turkey had lost to Greece several islands near its coast that were part of the Ottoman Empire.

His words angered Turkey's main opposition party, whose late leader negotiated the treaty."

More Coverage:

Greece says Erdogan remarks on islands 'dangerous' for bilateral ties - Reuters

"SYRIZA and ANEL voted in favour while all the other parties voted against with 141 votes. One SYRIZA MP, Kostas Seltsas, was absent. New Democracy, the Democratic Coalition and the Communist Party asked for a roll-call vote on the principle of the bill and on the articles 1 and 2."

"The Treaty of Lausanne established not only Turkey’s borders with Greece but also with its eastern neighbors – Syria and Iraq. Those borders divided the territory in which the three countries’ Kurds live.

At a time when the Kurdish issue is at the forefront because of the war against the so-called Islamic State, Syria’s disintegration and the renewed fighting with Kurdish separatists in Turkey, a responsible government would not dare to broach the issue of border changes."

"...The first possibility under consideration concerns splitting the loan and forgiving a part of it: The first part would be calculated based on the market value of the property and the debtor’s capacity for repayment.

...The second option for a partial write-off is just before the sale of the loan to funds."

September 29, 2016

"...On Sept. 15, corruption prosecutors in Athens raided the advertising business of Lina Nikolopoulou-Stournara, whose husband, Yannis Stournaras, is the governor of Greece’s central bank. The raid was ostensibly part of an investigation into funds allegedly misused by KEELPNO, Greece’s centre for disease control.

But this raid had been ordered by the corruption prosecutor, Eleni Raikou, and not the magistrate responsible for the case, which is highly irregular. It occurred merely a few hours after Mr. Stournaras had notified the government that he was vetoing its picks for key positions...

...The seeds of the latest showdown were sown in October when Yannis Dragasakis, the moderate deputy prime minister, revealed in Parliament the government’s new lending strategy and nonsystemic Attica Bank’s role in that plan: “What is needed is the creation of a parallel banking system that will not be under the supervision of the European Central Bank,” he said."

[Education Minister Nikos Filis] denies seeking confrontation with Church, during Parliament debate - AMNA

"...He pointed out that the new religious studies programme for schools was designed by an Educational Policy Institute committee that included theologians, and had been tested on a pilot basis for three years.

The minister also presented a three-year educational reform plan that included 10 years mandatory schooling and shifts away from exam-centred models, the abolition of nationwide university entrance exams by the present Parliament and the creation of a uniform research and education "area"."

"This form of insecurity soars to 57 percent among young workers (aged between 18 and 24 years), while the fear of job losses is also above the average for those with a lower education level, at 42 percent.

Having hovered around 25 percent for years, Greece has by far the highest unemployment rate in the European Union."

"[Greek European Affairs Minister Nikos Xydakis ] blamed other EU countries for not pulling their weight under the crisis, blaming long waits and tensions for the fires and unrest in the camps.

He said: "Most EU countries take on far too few refugees, some countries do not even respond to our requests."

Despite the deal migrants are still arriving on the Greek islands."

September 28, 2016

"The Greek authorities have committed to agreeing with (lending) institutions. I can assure you that if you were going to sign a contract like that with me you would become my slave," he told CNBC on Tuesday.

..."If you read the third MOU (the Memorandum of Understanding, the bailout contract) between Greece and its creditors, which was passed in parliament in the August of 2015, it's very clear: 'The Greek authorities commit to agreeing with institutions' (it says). I can assure you that if you were going to sign a contract like that with me you would become my slave," Varoufakis said.

"That's what it means. I'm committed to agree with you but you're not committed to agree with me. So there's the Greek government. The Greek government in Athens (now) has fewer degrees of freedom than a small suburban town council does."

"The Athens Geodynamic Institute says an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5 has struck off the southern coast of the Peloponnese in southern Greece. No damage or injuries were reported immediately."

"....Government officials say the transfer - grouping privatisation agency TAIPED, bank stability fund HFSF, state real estate and some state entities under a holding company - did not constitute plans for a sell-off, but more effective management.

"Transferring (the assets) to the fund does not mean the state forfeits its property. Secondly it does not mean privatisation, and thirdly, these assets are not collateral for the loans of the country," Energy Minister Panos Skourletis told a parliamentary debate earlier."

September 27, 2016

"Greece has had to go through tougher austerity than it would have otherwise been necessary, because of the populist stance of the left-wing government of Alexis Tsipras in 2015, European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday.

..."We could see that in the ... classic example of Greece. A new government came with a populist stance, that we don’t need any austerity regimes, we will spend as much as we want," he said.

"And, in fact, Greece now implements tougher austerity measures than it would have been necessary if [reforms] of the previous government were continued at the time," he said."

"...The visit aims to take action on the restoration of some antiquities belonging to Egypt in Greece under the supervision of the Egyptian Embassy there, said Hany Berzy, head of the Egyptian group at the Egypt-Greece Business Council during the conference."

"The fund called the Hellenic Company of Assets and Participations will take control of public utilities and other assets for 99 years if parliament approves draft legislation late Tuesday. The Greek Finance Ministry will appoint the majority of members on the fund's executive board, but lenders will appoint its chairman.

...A funding dispute involving the government and a private operator has left Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city, without local bus services for 10 days."

"Let's say in the next few years all this catastrophe around Greece's economic conditions is addressed and things start to get better, it is still a question about how inclusive a society Greece can be. The refugee issue is one dramatic way in which the test of its inclusiveness, the whole continent's inclusiveness, is being dramatically played out," Professor Kompridis told Neos Kosmos.

And he says there's no better place to start than rethinking the story told about Greek national identity.

"If you go back to a city like Thessaloniki, up until the Second World War you have a multi-ethnic, multi-national, religiously diverse city. But the story Greeks tell about the formation of the Greek state excludes its Muslim, Jewish, Albanian, multi-ethnic past and all the presence of many different peoples on that land over centuries," he explains.

September 25, 2016

"In voting intention, New Democracy leads with 31% against Syriza who polls with 18.5%, followed by Golden Dawn with 6.5%, then the Communist Party with 5.5%.

"All of this means one thing. Tsipras’s successors will find the road well paved – both on an ideological and political level – so they won’t balk when confronted with the obvious.

The people have no more illusions about whether we can be a semi-Soviet state and a wealthy country at the same time. This happened, it lasted – inexplicably – too long, and now it’s over."

September 24, 2016

"With 153 lawmakers in the 300-seat parliament, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' leftist-led government is expected to pass the vote, which will also signal the conclusion of the country's first bailout review."

"Bulgaria should work to complete the interconnectors linking its gas transportation networks with Greece and Romania, the EU Commission spokesperson for Specific Energy Union Projects has said.

...Adamowicz has thus dashed Sofia's hopes that its Balkan Gas Hub project would get support from Brussels in the short term, saying Bulgaria has to go through the list of Projects of Common Interest (PCI) of the EU."

NEWS ARCHIVE - Sept 2016

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