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Angry Greeks condemn EU plot to control its finances | |||||||||
2012-01-30 | |||||||||
Greece has reacted furiously to a German proposal that an EU budget commissioner with oversight of its economy be installed in Athens after mounting speculation that international lenders will have to stump up yet more money for the country.
The proposal, in a leaked document, argued for the creation of a commissioner with veto powers over the Greek budget, saying Athens' inability to meet fiscal targets had made the post a precondition of further rescue funds from its "troika" of creditors: the EU, IMF and ECB. "Budget consolidation has to be put under a strict steering and control system," noted the document. "Given the disappointing compliance so far, Greece has to accept shifting budgetary sovereignty to the European level for a certain period of time." Under the plan, European institutions would have direct control over Greece's budget decisions in what would amount to an extraordinary depletion of a member state's independence in conducting its own affairs. With the atmosphere among recession-hit Greeks becoming increasingly explosive three years into the crisis, the proposal was angrily denounced with one politician slamming it as the "product of a sick imagination". "It's absolutely laughable," said a senior government source. "It's a draft paper that appears to have been deliberately leaked but we have no idea who the author is or where it's come from in the German government." The spat erupted amid reports that the €130bn (£108bn) aid package, agreed as part of a second bailout for the country last October, would now not be enough.
The spectre of the rescue programme being expanded appeared to be the biggest obstacle to a debt deal between Greece and its private sector creditors finally being concluded over the weekend. Greek officials said while the contentious issue of interest rates on new bonds had been settled -- with one source describing the coupon as "a figure that has pleased everyone" -- the agreement would not be announced until there was consensus over the second bailout.
With Athens facing repayment of €14.5bn of debt on March 20 -- money it does not have -- time is of the essence in securing a deal. But negotiations with international debt inspectors that have been conducted in tandem with talks between the government and private creditors have been vastly different in nature. In what officials have described as "tense discussions", Greek government ministers have argued fiercely with auditors over the need for further belt-tightening measures to plug a burgeoning budget black hole.
Highlighting the mounting frustration over Greece's failure to enact economic and structural reforms, the IMF's managing director, Christine Lagarde, said over the weekend: "We're not terribly positive about what has been done, but we want to put together a programme for the country. The country itself has to provide adjustment." In a bid to rally support for the austerity Athens will inevitably have to impose, Papademos held urgent talks with the leaders of the three parties backing his coalition telling them that without further belt-tightening Greece will not be given the funds it needs to survive. He emerged saying there had been "a convergence of views". But with general elections scheduled in the spring and no politician willing to be associated with policies that have brought Greeks to their knees it remains to be seen whether the country's political class will put national interests before party politics.
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Posted by:Steve White |
#8 See also DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > THE NEXT GREECE: PORTUGAL BORROWING [public debt] COSTS HIT NEW RECORD [20.27%] | {REUTERS] INVESTORS CUE PORTUGAL AS THE NEXT GREECE. and * SAME > [WSJ.com] JAPAN'S DEBT PILE STARTS TO GRAB INVESTORS' ATTENTION. Nippon may only have a couple of years grace, instead of several, until the country's prohibitive debt burden begins to affect its Govt. + quality-of-life, etc. |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-01-30 20:17 |
#7 Well If the Germans or the Greeks won't the market will. |
Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-01-30 14:42 |
#6 Computers have served to hide the true conditions. Cause no one actually sees the money anymore. What are needed are pictures of people with wheelbarrows full of bank notes going to buy a loaf of bread or some other vivid picture of the problem. This is, currently, just spin and smoke and mirrors to the plebs. |
Posted by: AlanC 2012-01-30 09:02 |
#5 no mo uro, Default, followed by bankruptcy, followed by pain, followed by restructuring, followed by healthier practices by all concerned. Capitalism is a bit*h, but it works. |
Posted by: Mike Ramsey 2012-01-30 08:23 |
#4 "The Greeks aren't serious. They won't admit that their economy is ill. They won't take the medicine. Far better to boot them from the Euro-zone, let them devalue the new drachma, and find a way to fix the German and French banks that are exposed." Steve, many of them do know. It's not an issue of ignorance, it's a matter of not caring. It's a matter of them being the end product of the Gramscian termite, of believing that it is the responsibility of a force (in this case government) outside themselves having the responsibility to take wealth from neighbors and strangers - by force - to make sure that there is no interruption in their own income stream. It's a matter of believing that if there is someone, somewhere, who has two cents more than you do, that cosmically speaking the right thing to do is take one of those cents from that person and give it to you so that everyone ends up the same at the end of the day. Without shame, or guilt, or loss of autonomy. In this regard, they aren't a lot different from huge swaths of the rest of Euroland, or the U.S., either. |
Posted by: no mo uro 2012-01-30 05:57 |
#3 Do not feed the trolls, Raj. |
Posted by: gromky 2012-01-30 05:27 |
#2 Aris, you're cool with this, right? |
Posted by: Raj 2012-01-30 01:11 |
#1 See also WAFF > IMF, EU, + ECB [aka the "Troika] ASK GREECE TO DISBAND MILITARY + LAYOFF 150,000 JOBS | GREECE SHOULD STOP SPENDING ON DEFENSE, HEALTH: TROIKA DRAFT SAYS, in order to meet the anti-Deficit conditions of proposed 2012 Bailout Package. Greece, etal. = at least 10 US States = USA vee Rising China??? Boy o boy, HUGO "THE US HAS [Land/Islands-destroying, sinking] EARTHQUAKE BOMBS" CHAVEZ is on a roll today. |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2012-01-30 00:34 |