How the world sees Greece
Piraeus & Athens, Greece USA TODAY You can't quite see the Acropolis as you cruise into Piraeus, Athens' seaside gateway and one of the leading ports in the Mediterranean, but with at least eight hours on land you can get up close to this marble architectural wonder and a whole lot more ... |
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Raw Story | Jobless Greek youth find innovative ways to make a living Raw Story Angelos Koulis doesn't like the term “lost generation” but he accepts that, in theory, he is part of it. Like many young Greeks, the 19-year-old is the first to say his future looked unbearably bleak, bereft of a job or any prospect of work, until he ... |
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A clearer(?) Greek bond raid FT Alphaville FT Alphaville had expected to report the triumphant acquisition of almost 10 per cent of the Greek bond market by a single, little-known investor on Monday. As per the original July 1 deadline on Japonica Partners' unusual offer to bondholders. A ... |
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Greece on the pipeline map Kathimerini The Shah Deniz II consortium has selected the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to export Azeri gas output to Europe, instead of Nabucco West. The decision essentially puts Greece on the energy map of both Europe and the broader region. This will have ... |
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Bailout austerity policies appeared to claim another victim today when the Portuguese finance minister, Vitor Gaspar, quit the bailed-out country's government .
The resignation was annouced by Portuguese president Anibal Cavaco Silva's office through the presidence website amid mounting pressure for the Lisbon government to ease its austerity policies.
Gaspar, an ECB economist with no previous involvement in the national political stage, will be replaced by secretary of state for the Treasury Maria Luis Albuquerque it was announced.
Neither the president's nor the prime minster's statements gave specific reasons for Vitor Gaspar's resignation.
Portugal received a €78bn bailout two years ago. The government is under fierce pressure from opposition parties, labour unions and business leaders to move away from the austerity policies adopted by Gaspar as Portugal is going through what is expected to be a third straight year of recession and its unemployment rate has soared to 17.6 percent and is forecast to exceed 18 percent next year.
Gaspar's insistence on tax hikes and public sector pay cuts had angered the junior partner in the center-right coalition government, the Popular Party, but Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho's Social Democratic Party, the senior alliance partner, had stood by him.
Despite the cuts Portugal has been unable to meet its twice-eased austerity targets, set largely by the so-called troika made up by the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
As a result, tensions have been heightened and as in the case of Greece and other bailed out countries, the terms of the bailout are part of the on-going political discussion..
Analysts though say that Gaspar's exit is unlikely to herald big policy changes as the austerity program is a requirement of the Troika.
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Croatia's accession is marked by public anxiety that it will be the latest fall guy of the EU political elite's neoliberal ideology
Croatia has become the 28th EU member state. The European leaders want us to believe that, in spite of the Union's current crisis, this clearly testifies to the EU's lasting transformative power, its undisputable international role, and the desirability of its political and economic model. The Croatian political elite wants its citizens to believe that the old dream of joining Europe, which framed the narrative that once legitimised the reasons for abandoning socialism and later Yugoslavia, is finally achieved.
But almost no one in Croatia believes that the morning after will bring a better life. After all, Croatia is the new European record-holder in low Euro-enthusiasm, with only 43.5% turnout at the EU referendum in 2012 and 21% turnout for the first elections for the European parliament earlier this year. The EU's self-congratulatory statements cannot hide a profound malaise about the EU's future either. In stark contrast to the 2004 enlargement and, to a lesser extent, the 2007 one, Croatian accession is marked by a general gloom and anxiety within the new member state as well as across the EU.
Since 1990, Croatia has gone through a series of transformations, including a brutal war, a nationalist autocracy and the Euro-compatible behaviour of the post-Tudjman elites. The £2bn external debt, part of which was inherited from Yugoslavia, now stands at about £40bn, which is close to 100% of the country's GDP. Once the most prosperous and developed of the Yugoslav republics, it now has almost no industry. Tourism – often cited as Croatia's biggest asset within the EU – cannot replace it. A tourist slogan once portrayed it as "a small country for a great holiday", but tourism amounts to less than 20% of the country's GDP.
The dubious privatisation agenda of the 1990s, facilitated by the aftermath of war and followed by the continuous neoliberal reforms of the 2000s, created enormous social gaps which include today an unemployment rate of almost 20%. It is no surprise that Croatia ranks third (with 51.8%) in Europe when it comes to unemployment among young people – just behind Greece and Spain. Croatian governments, of both nationalist right and social-democratic left, have followed obediently the EU's austerity advice, even before the accession. Indeed, the Croatian story resembles those we hear about other EU member states from southern Europe – which brings us to a unavoidable conclusion: on 1 July Croatia has not actually joined only the EU; in reality, it has become a fully-fledged member of the EU periphery.
It is hard to miss the historical irony here. At the end of the 1980s Yugoslavia was experiencing a sharp conflict between the developed north and underdeveloped south, a foreign debt crisis, IMF-imposed austerity measures resulting in high unemployment, strikes, institutional paralysis, a lack of solidarity and the rise of nationalism. Croatia seceded from the crumbling federation in 1991 only to join, two decades later, another multinational union where it meets strikingly similar problems.
Instead of facing – or at least admitting – these problems, the Croatian government organised a party on 30 June at Zagreb's central square. More than £800,000 was spent on the celebration ceremony, which included live coverage on national television of a grand reception with European leaders in attendance, although Angela Merkel disappointed the host by cancelling her participation. Just a few days before, a leading shopping-chain from western Europe provided free lunch at the same square. The offer attracted about 15,000 Croatians.
During the celebration show the Croatian chief negotiator with the EU, Vladimir Drobnjak, was talking to a reporter about the benefits of the EU membership. He mentioned the well-worn phrase about "sitting at the same table and participating in decision-making". He mentioned that all these decisions are made by consensus – exactly as was the practice in Yugoslavia – and that it is priceless. Then, to the surprise of the reporter, he added, "and for everything else, there's MasterCard". In this he revealed the truth about Croatia's accession to the EU: there is no such thing as a free lunch. Croatian citizens have already paid dearly for EU membership. True, they are becoming European citizens, but the enormous debt will greatly weaken the country's negotiating position.
Croatian membership in the EU will have significant consequences for the rest of the Balkans as well. The new EU border, now pushed towards Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, will influence regional economic, social and political dynamics. Instead of recovering lost ties and creating an atmosphere of stability and mutual co-operation among post-Yugoslav states, which the EU and Croatian government state as being among their goals, the EU's longest external land border (1,300km) will, by the mere functioning of its police apparatus, necessarily cut Croatia off from its immediate and natural surrounding and bring further isolation from its neighbours. Croatia has thus a moral and political imperative to fight against the thickening of a border that cuts deep through what was once a common borderless space.
The leader of the Greek opposition, Alexis Tsipras, during his talk at the Subversive film festival in Zagreb in May, called upon Croatia to join the struggle for an EU that will be different from the one dominated in its current policies by neoliberal ideology and austerity measures, and based instead on the principles of democratic participation, social justice and international solidarity. A Croatia that could make a difference for itself and for others is indeed one that would have to understand that to make its voice heard within the EU it would have to replace the one-way street communication with Brussels with large solidarity networks both within the EU and the rest of the Balkans. Only then might it become something more than just the EU's "small country for a big holiday".
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Sentiment On Greece Reverses: NBG Shares Plunge 86% In Six Weeks. Seeking Alpha On June 7, the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) said that Greece's GDP fell 5.6% in the 2013 first quarter, worse than the 5.3% drop reported in its flash estimate on May 15. This marks the nineteenth consecutive quarterly decline in GDP ... |
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The dispute in Falkirk with Unite shows the potential for disillusioned Labour supporters running for office under a different banner
It's late 2016 and after 18 months of political turmoil, John McDonnell and Nigel Farage have finally agreed to form a grand coalition, following pressure from Angela Merkel and president-elect Hilary Clinton, increasingly concerned about the threat to stability in Europe. Unite and Ukip have agreed that Britain will not leave the EU, but will be granted greater national powers, including its own economic regeneration programme, with some tougher immigration controls tied to the level of unemployment. Little Britain (now Scotland has seceded) will keep a nuclear capability, but there will be no full-scale Trident replacement. Greengrocers will be able to sell their produce by the pound.
Pretty unlikely you would think. Isn't our party political system immune to insurgent parties from the extremes? But 20 years ago few would have given any credence to Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley sitting down in the same room, much less forming what by all accounts was a pretty successful power-sharing government in Northern Ireland. Could the same political process that led to the two extremes of Sinn Féin and the DUP taking over the mainstream in the province be happening on the mainland?
As the traditional parties of left and right creep ever closer to each other to contest a narrow consensus of policy split-hairs, we have already seen a significant body of support on the right split away to Ukip. Second places in the Eastleigh and South Shields byelections, backed up by widespread gains in the council elections, seem to indicate more than protest votes going to the party.
If it is consolidating a 12-15% chunk of the electorate around issues such as immigration, the EU, traditional marriage and grammar schools, next year's European elections held under PR could give it a major breakthrough. Success breeds success in politics: more elected representatives, more activists, a more organised party structure. The party still has its chaotic moments – overt racists sneaking under the wire, Farage trying to sell the home counties to the Scots. But it starts to look more solid. Farage is not (just) the lounge bar buffoon the left would like to paint him as. He can be articulate and affable, which strikes a chord with many voters. When the near winner of Eastleigh appeared on Question Time recently, there were leftists tweeting in astonishment how they agreed with almost everything she said.
So far the left has stayed solid. Neither the Greens, Respect, Bob Crow's Socialist party nor the National Health party have made any inroads into Labour's electoral support. But the dissension on the left has grown ever louder as Labour has waved the white flag on the economy, welfare and education in recent weeks, leaving more and more people to ask what on earth the party is for if it agrees with the coalition on all the fundamentals.
The saving grace for Labour – and indeed what underpins its belief in cleaving to the centre, however far to the right it moves – is that the disillusioned on the left, mainly poorer people, tend not to engage in politics or vote – or even register to vote – unlike the disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells on the right. However, George Galloway's election in Bradford shows that at least parts of this constituency can be mobilised, if they think their interests and views will actually be represented.
Which is perhaps the key to what happened in Northern Ireland. Pressure from an establishment inside and outside the province forced the traditional parties of the two communities – the mainly Catholic SDLP and the Protestant UUP – to publicly support the "respectable" views of these elites, rather than their own members and supporters, until other parties which would give them a voice stole their support and replaced them.
Right now key components of Labour's constituency – public sector workers, the low-paid, those on benefits, young people without secure jobs or homes, trade union activists – are all feeling increasingly cast adrift by the party it thinks should be representing them. It might only take one flashpoint – such as the dispute in Falkirk between the Labour party and the Unite union over candidate selection – to spark a viable new voice on the left that could peel off many disillusioned supporters and start winning council or even parliamentary seats.
Democracy can only work if the parties represent all sections of the electorate and give them a voice in the political process. If that doesn't happen, and large groups are excluded for long periods, the unpredictable can happen (check out Greece and Italy). Is it likely that we will see a London version of the Chuckle Brothers marching behind the mace? Probably not. But don't bet the house on who has the last laugh after the next general election.
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Jewish Telegraphic Agency | Greek government majority rises after independent lawmakers join Reuters ATHENS | Mon Jul 1, 2013 12:00pm EDT. ATHENS (Reuters) - Two independent lawmakers have joined Greece's ruling New Democracy party, the prime minister's office said on Monday, bolstering the coalition government's majority to five seats. Creditors to Determine Whether to Release Greek Aid Greek government, creditors to resume talks Politician with anti-Semitic past appointed as Greek health minister |
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