How the world sees Greece
Greece and its creditors must "stop wasting time" and speed up talks on the reforms the country should make to get more rescue loans, the head of the eurozone's 19 finance ministers has warned. Greece is hoping to persuade eurozone creditors at a meeting ...
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An opulent tomb made for ancient royalty has been unearthed in France's Champagne region, along with a trove of eye-popping artifacts that include elaborate pottery, a sheathed knife, and a chariot, Live Science reported. And yes, human remains were found inside. Whose tomb is it? "It is probably [that of] a local Celtic prince," Dominique Garcia, president of France's National Archaeological Research Institute, told journalists during a site visit, according to BBC News. The institute has been conducting excavations at the site since last October. Archaeologists from the institute said in a written statement on Thursday that the discovery may hold clues about how Mediterranean traders came into contact with Celtic communities on the continent. Supporting this notion is one of the artifacts found at the site, a wine cauldron decorated with Greek iconography. "We believe this cauldron is probably Etruscan- or Greek-made," Emilie Millet, one of the archaeologists, told The Telegraph. The 130-foot wide burial site, which was found near Lavau in October, dates back to the early 5th Century B.C. In addition to the remains of the prince and the artifacts, the remains of an unknown woman were also found at the site, The Telegraph reported. "We know this tomb was built before that of the prince, but there could well be family links between these two figures," Bastien Dubuis, another archaeologist at the institute, told The Telegraph. Discovery News reported that the excavation is expected to wind up at the end of the month. Check out photos of the new findings below.
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Greece's debt to GDP has not gone down since the crisis began, so all the more so it won't go down under a government that hates austerity. At some ...
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Michalis Christoforakos is among the 64 people who are summoned to appear before an Appeals Court, accused of being involved in the bribery scandal between Siemens and Greek state-owned telecommunications company OTE that rocked Greece nearly ten years ago. The 64 suspects face criminal charges of active and passive bribery, money laundering, as well as illicit payments for contracts signed between the colossal German company and OTE. They are summoned to appear before a Greek Appeals Court, accused of being involved in a contract, known as the “8002 agreement,” which concerns supplying telecommunications equipment to digitize OTE’s network for €464.5 million. The 64 suspects list to face trial includes Theodoros Tsoukatos, an associate of former Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Other defendants include former executive officers of Siemens in Greece Christos Karavelas, Ilias Georgiou, Prodromos Mavridis, 13 former officers of Siemens in Germany, as well as former executive officers of OTE.
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Despite fears in some quarters that the Greek government could face a cash shortfall as soon as the end of this week, one senior troika official said ...
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He said there was no explicit discussion of Greece's liquidity problems, but ... that is running behind since last month's extension to Greece's bailout.
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In a specially designed room of Greece’s largest prison, Korydallos, is expected to begin the trial of extreme right Golden Dawn party members and supporters on April 20. Among the 70 charged of running and belonging to the neo-Nazi criminal organization are its imprisoned leader Nikos Michaloliakos and also imprisoned MPs Ilias Kasidiaris, Christos Papas, Ioannis Lagos, Giorgos Germenis, Nikos Kouzoulos, Panagiotis Iliopoulos as well as ex member Stathis Mpoukouras and one underaged person that will be tried separately. The above defendants have spent almost one and a half years in detention waiting for their trial. Although, the party leader as well as MPs Pappas and Lagos will be released on March 27, 24 days ahead of their trial, as the maximum 18-month period in pre-trial custody expires. Michaloliakos and Pappas will remain under house arrest as they face additional charges of weapons possession. In his 700-page argument, the prosecutor handling the criminal investigation of Golden Dawn, proposed that a total of 70 party members should appear before the judge. According to his recommendation, every current or ex MP belonged to the criminal organization’s “hard core” that operated under the party’s cloak. The prosecutor recited all the charges being brought against xenophobic Golden Dawn, underlining the murders of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas (a.k.a. Killah P) in September 2013 and Pakistani immigrant Luqman Shahzad in January 2013, as well as several individual assaults on foreign nationals and leftist activists, including the attack against PAME members in Piraeus, just a few days before Fyssas’ murder. It should be noted that all of the 16 MPs Golden Dawn had in the previous Parliament, which was dissolved for the January 25 general elections, will appear before the judge. Thirteen of the MPs were re-elected along with four new members, making Golden Dawn the third largest party currently represented in Greek Parliament. Currently, a total of 26 members -including the MPs- are behind bars.
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Athens is ready to submit three more reform proposals for technical discussion, an unnamed Greek government official has said, while reports indicate that the new measures are ready and aim to improve tax collection and fight evasion. According to the Guardian, citing Eurocrisis expert Giannis Koutsomis, the three measures to be added are the following: Taxpayers will be able to submit additional declarations for previous years without penalties. A bill to probe big corporations’ tax avoidance through intra-European Union schemes. Incentives for taxpayers to collect receipts; lotteries for receipts. The third measure has previously worked in other countries such as Slovakia, where customers can collect VAT receipts and enter them for a prize draw. The reforms will be part of a National Plan for Reconstruction and Growth. Moreover, the Greek government has characterized today’s Eurogroup meeting as a “successful” one. Greece, which insists that the none of the institutions’ representatives (formerly known as the “Troika”) will travel to Athens, considers that today’s meeting between the single currency’s Finance Ministers launches the process by which the decision taken at the February 20 Eurogroup will be enforced. Additionally, the Greek proposals were accepted by the country’s European partners, while an in-depth discussion will start in Brussels on Wednesday to specify the reforms. Finally, according to the same source, the institutions demonstrated their will to meet Greece’s financing needs. It should be noted that earlier today, the Eurogroup sent a clear message to Greece to proceed with the reforms. Athens is expected to launch consultations with the technical levels of the three institutions (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) on March 11, as confirmed both by Greek government and European Union sources.
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Greece is still very far from achieving its goals and the country is wasting time, main opposition New Democracy spokesman Costas Karagounis said on Monday evening, commenting on the results of the Eurogroup meeting that ended earlier. “We are still very far from achieving our goal. The bottom line is that the country is wasting time, uncertainty remains and the bill that citizens have to pay keeps rising,” Karagounis said. “After the nonsense about part-time tax officials on the islands that caused hilarity, SYRIZA started adopting some of the previous government’s proposals, like providing people motives (lottery) to ask for receipts and the measures for triangular transactions,” the New Democracy spokesman noted. (source: ana-mpa)
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Representatives of the “institutions” — the way the new Greek leftist government wants to refer to European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund officials — will carry out inspections in Athens as well, Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem emphasized after the Eurogroup meeting in Brussels on Monday. Moreover, Dijsselbloem warned that there is no more time to be wasted, while he clarified that there is smooth cooperation among officials. The Eurogroup President also underlined that there can be no unilateral moves, but only what has been agreed upon during the last few Eurogroup meetings. As for the disbursement of aid, Dijsselbloem was clear: “There can be no talk about early disbursement if there is no agreement and no implementation.” In other words, the assessment of the existing bailout program, which the new Greek government insisted would never happen, starts on Thursday.
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Sir Martin Sorrell says the election could bring problems for UK business, but No 1 on his list is the eurozone – uncertainty over Greece looks a bigger worrySir Martin Sorrell is probably right that May’s general election brings uncertainty for UK business whatever the outcome. The corporate world has worked itself into a fine flap about a referendum on EU membership that a Tory, or Tory-led, government would bring. Equally, the bosses don’t want business to be “bashed” by Labour, as they see it, especially if the SNP has its hand on the instrument of supposed violence.The UK election was the fifth “grey swan” on Sorrell’s pond of known risks. But No 1 on his list – the eurozone – still looks a far bigger worry, as a glance at the grey men in Brussels going about their business on Monday would confirm.The Tories will not allow [Green] to be called. They are trying to palm this off until after the election Continue reading...
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Just a few footnotes to the very pessimistic comment from Timothy Garton Ash (Europe is being torn apart, 9 March): 1) German wages are rising. 2) German consumption is rising strongly. 3) German overall employment is rising, giving jobs to Spaniards, Greeks and others. 4) Tourism to eurozone countries and especially to Greece, is expected to rise again this year. 5) The German government has announced additional investment in the coming years. 6) German imports and exports to the eurozone countries are in balance at +€400bn in 2013 and 2014. 7) The EU, especially through the structural funds, is already redistributing wealth across the EU. 8) The Greeks have made painful cuts in spending. But they have not yet tried to reform their procedures sufficiently. Take export funding for example: I have recently read that there are massive absurdities in the procedures, leading to reduced exports of Greek products.Garton Ash is certainly right about the political bit. But only in the long run.Hans MommsenTrier, Germany Continue reading...
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Independent Greeks (ANEL) parliamentary spokesman Nikos Nikolopoulos on Monday submitted the party's draft proposal for the setting up of a committee to investigate how Greece entered the memorandum to the secretary general of SYRIZA's parliamentary group Christos Mantas. The aim of ...
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras together with Defense Minister Panos Kammenos will visit Russia on May 9. The Defense minister will also visit Moscow between April 17-21. Alternate defense minister Costas Isichos together with tourism minister Elena Kountoura will also ...
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“If they decide to kick us out, the damage will be greater for them,” said Manolis Glezos, the war-time resister who ripped the Nazi flag from the Acropolis in 1941. Mr Glezos, a Syriza MEP and the party’s venerated elder statesman, told the Daily ...
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Is democracy as practiced today dead or dying? Or does it need some form of tinkering or fixing? I am watching a YouTube video. An enterprising young man is asking people off the street to sign a petition to place Karl Marx on the ballot for the next President of the United States. And he tells them it is to promote the communist ideology. And many people sign it. I am reading the New York Times. The anti-austerity political party wins in Greece. Nice. And what if the EU refuses to give them any more loans? Or extend the loans? Then the country defaults on its loans. What happens next? Greece exits the Eurozone. Nice. What now? What will Greece do and where will it get investments if it is not a reliable partner? How did this political party win anyway? Because it promised no more austerity. And people like that. Sure they do. Democracy is based on the premise that all people are equal and all have the right to vote and whoever gets the most votes wins. But what happens if the politicians, in order to get elected, make promises which are disastrous for the country, but too complicated for the average man or woman to understand? Or what happens if personal interests run counter to national interests -- like austerity programs? Or government employment surges beyond all viable economic boundaries? What is usually needed at that point is for the government to cut its expenses and fire, say, 30 percent of the bureaucrats. But those government employees vote. And they will not vote for anyone who even hints that he will take that step. They will vote for the candidate who promises to keep them employed no matter what. What I am saying here is that a) not all people understand what they are voting for; and b) when they do understand, they tend to vote for what seems to be good for them and not necessarily what is good for the nation in the long run. And if there are a lot of such voters, like a big union such as the government union in Brazil, the country can get into economic or political trouble. Eventually there is often no way out. Why? Because what is needed to get out of that political trap is a government that can act. Government leaders who are able to enact a policy that can bring the nation back to some form of economic viability. But will they be elected by the self-interested or ignorant voters. Does democracy work anymore? It was designed initially in Athens. It has roots in the New England Town Meetings. Today the world is far more complex than it was in Athens, and the system is far too large in comparison to the New England colonial meeting halls. Maybe it is time to re-engineer the system. Otherwise we will be witnessing the continuous deterioration of political leadership until a crisis emerges and calls for major, disruptive corrective action.
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In order to secure a four-month extension to its bailout loan, Greece (GREK) pledged to undertake certain reforms, including fiscal and structural measures.
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On Wednesday, Greece will begin talks in Brussels directly with representatives of the three creditor groups, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
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The rising tensions between Greece and the eurozone came as Panos Kammenos, the Greek defence minister, warned that Europe will be hit with ...
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The leaders of Greece's Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party will go on trial for allegedly running a criminal organization on April 20 — the birthday of ...
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The Greece Central School District has a tentative agreement in place to sell one of its closed elementary school buildings to Derech HaTorah, a local ...
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The number of victims who died while in their bid to enter the EU is estimated at 3,000.
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The ECB last month cut off Greek banks from its funding after Athens abandoned its bailout program, a condition for access to the ECB funds.
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The ... 'Institutions' will return to Greece less than a month and a half after SYRIZA election victory
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According to latest data
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(Bloomberg) -- Greece will resume talks with its creditors this week after euro-area finance ministers demanded urgent action to avert an impending ...
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Greek yogurt is frequently praised for its health benefits, but its acid whey byproduct is a growing concern for the environment. Whey decomposition ...
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Greek authorities indicted 64 people to stand trial over an alleged bribery scandal 17 years ago, involving a telecom contract for Germany's Siemens.
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The government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras would like to extend international aid for another four months - without parliamentary approval. The move has rallied critics from within the ranks.
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Athens has said talks with its eurozone partners have begun positively, and that it expects technical details to be agreed soon. A Greek delegation and teams from the "troika" of lenders is to meet in Brussels.
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by Associated Press Trial of Greek far-right Golden Dawn party set for April 20 Associated Press - 9 March 2015 15:25-04:00 ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The leaders of Greece's Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party will go on trial for allegedly running a criminal organization on April 20 — the birthday of Adolf Hitler. The trial will be held in a special courtroom inside a maximum-security Athens prison. The 70 defendants include all 18 lawmakers Golden Dawn elected in 2012, who face sentences of up to 20 years in prison if convicted. Authorities cracked down on the extreme right-wing party — which has neo-Nazi origins and still plays Nazi Germany's anthem at its public gatherings — after the 2013 murder of a rap singer, allegedly by a party volunteer. The party, Greece's third-largest, has been repeatedly linked with attacks on foreigners. Monday's choice of Hitler's birthday for the opening date was apparently unintentional. News Topics: General news, Government and politics, Trials, Nazism, Legal proceedings, Law and order People, Places and Companies: Greece, Athens, Western Europe, Europe Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Somebody must have a real grotesque sense of humor or just wanted to send a powerful message against racism. After almost 18 month in custody, several members of Greece’s neo-nazi and ultra-right Goldwn Dawn will stand trial on April 20th 2015. “April 2o? That is, a day before the colonels’ […]
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BRUSSELS, March 9 (Reuters) - After euro zone finance ministers told Greece to "stop wasting time" on Monday, its financial experts will begin ...
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On Wednesday, March 4, 2015, I went to a lecture at Pitzer College - located in Claremont, California where I live. The speaker was John Wilkinson, professor for about thirty years at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Wilkinson made a power point presentation in a dark room, his slides of text and maps throwing a glow of facts and illusions at the silent students. Wilkinson spoke or rather read his slides - all about "food systems" and "agribusiness concentration": how large Brazilian and international agricultural companies in Brazil and the tropics replaced the armies of colonial occupation with purchased land and technology. With those assets and the collaboration of local large farmers and supermarkets, they recreated their agricultural business in Africa, Latin America and Asia. In time, they took over national food companies and made the tropics a cornucopia, not for the local population but for Europe and North America. For example, Brazil, Argentina and Thailand have become big players in the export of poultry and pigs. Other tropical countries have been exporting fish. Brazil alone became a food superpower. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Brazil became the world's number one beef exporter and star in the exports of sugar, coffee, orange juice, corn, soy, and cotton. Wilkinson underlined this fact: that agribusiness in Brazil has been the largest and most profitable sector of the economy. He said five companies slaughter most cattle; giant ranchers have been pasturing their cattle on land that used to be part of the Amazon. China entered Brazil and enriched Brazilian and international agribusiness even more: buying "commodities" in large amounts. The recitation of production figures puts the listener to deep thoughts or sleep. Certainly, in the abstract, and in economic terms, Brazil shows what human ingenuity or bad intent and ruthless determination can accomplish. The Earth (forests, rivers, wetlands, wildlife, domesticated animals, and the land) cannot resist machines, knifes and poisons. The combination of all these "inputs" in Brazil made for a spectacular agribusiness "success." I asked Wilkinson to speak about the effects of that success. I said I was in Brazil in 1992, the year of the Earth Summit and global excitement over "sustainable development" and "climate change." I reminded him the Amazon in 1992 was much larger than the Amazon of 2015. What happened? Wilkinson looked at me and the students in the dark and said things did not go so well for the natural world, the poor, and the landless. By this he meant most of the good land (largely from the Amazon) was in the hands of large farmers. This fact all but neutralized the zeal for giving land to the landless. While Wilkinson was speaking about the "conversion" of the Amazon into money, I momentarily relived my 1992 visit to the wounded Northeast of Brazil and the Amazon. Land is the very heart of the agrarian culture of Brazil and the rest of the world. Agrarian reform, giving land to the landless, is by far the most vital ecological and social priority of the Earth's people. No pro-peasant or pro-small farmer strategy has a chance anywhere when land is hoarded by the few in an ocean of landless and hungry human beings. In 1990, Demetrios Christodoulou, a Cypriot Greek economist who spent twenty years with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, wrote The Unpromised Land, a book about agrarian reform. He reports that global agrarian conflict blights the life of billions of peasants. He says: "The root of agrarian conflict lies in the misery, inequality and injustice under which billions of people feel themselves undeservedly condemned to live. Famines are only dramatic manifestations that attract outside attention; endemic grinding poverty and powerlessness are 'normal' features of their lives. In the cause of agrarian reform millions of rural poor have died or suffered torture and imprisonment. Agrarian reform is generally opposed by privileged land-owning interests and their supporters; their hostility and opposition is instinctive and 'natural.' Those close to the land, whose livelihood and welfare depend on it and who are aggrieved by existing agrarian relations, naturally yearn for improvement and change." In 1992, I witnessed some of the agrarian inequalities in the Brazilian Northeast. I spoke to landless peasants; I saw children begging. But one needs to read Death Without Weeping to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. This is a 1992 book by Nancy Scheper-Hughes, professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley. She says the Brazilian Northeast, "land of sugar and hunger, thirst and penance, messianism and madness," made death routine--particularly for "the children of poor families." This violence engulfs the Amazon, too. In 1992, it was a burning forest. It was also the world's largest forest, the "lungs" of the Earth, a huge wild frontier for the extraction of gold, oil, timber, rubber and other "resources," the home of feared Indians and despised Brazilians. And, of course, Amazonia is still untamed nature for countless species of plants, fish and terrestrial animals. But the Amazon rainforest is also a prize for Brazilians and international strategic politics, and nationalism. It's everything to all people, an unknown place for conquest, love, hate--and passion. My own passion led me straight into it. The green nature of the Amazon--the trees reaching for the heavens and light, the fragile sandy soil making all that exuberance of life possible--was burning in my mind. I climbed to the top of an observation point that brought me at the same level with the tallest trees in the reserve near Manaus; the view of that most fertile part of the forest--usually the home of monkeys and other animals--was awesome. A breeze lighted my sweat and fright from that height. Wilkinson admitted Brazilian and global corporations were primarily responsible for destroying a great deal of the Amazon since 1992. Yes, Brazilian agribusiness is financially healthy, but its footprint has been very unhealthy on Brazil and the world.
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ATHENS, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The overwhelming majority of Greek citizens are in favor of an "honest compromise" with international creditors ahead of ...
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Nobody can do the muddle-through better than Europe. February's last-minute deal to extend Greece's bailout, which aims to keep Athens afloat for ...
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Greek far-right lawmaker Nikos Michaloliakos is facing charges of participating in and directing a criminal organization.
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Spare a thought for the Greek government, even if you are not willing to spare a penny for Greece, as they face the Herculean task to get financial ...
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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet with EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Friday, his office said today, hours ahead of key talks on Athens' ...
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5-Dec. 6), the second installment of Court's Greek Cycle. Sandra Marquez stars as Clytemnestra) and Mark Montgomery will portray the title character.
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One million birds have been illegally killed in just two months on one of the British military bases in Cyprus, causing an enormous ecologic destruction, according to British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB). The Society’s international director, Tim Stowe, called the Defense Ministry to do more in order to tackle local poachers, who reportedly took almost 15,000 birds per day during September and October from the British Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area (SBA). “The report highlights that illegal trapping of songbirds on the British military base has escalated and we are urging the Ministry of Defense and the Base Area authorities to resolve it before this autumn’s migration,” Stowe said to the Guardian. Despite the RSPB warnings though, the Defense Ministry has rejected its findings and questioned the survey methodology: “We do not accept the report’s unverified claims about loss of bird life during this period, which was based upon data collected from a very short period,” an unnamed Defense Ministry spokeswoman said. “We are committed to tackling poaching, which is why we arrested nearly 50 poachers and seized 450 nets and 286 pieces of poaching equipment during the last migration period. When we catch poachers, we can fine them 17,000 euros or send them to prison for up to three years. We continue to work with local organizations to discuss how we can collaborate as effectively as possible,” she added. On his behalf, RSPB overseas territories team leader Jonathan Hall said the Defense Ministry has signed off on the 12-year-old survey methodology, highlighting that the numbers were conservative. “It is unfortunate to be questioning something they previously accepted. We are confident that the methodology is as robust as we can make it, does allow valid year on year comparisons, and our real priority is to direct energy toward solving the problem,” he stressed. According to RSPB, the killed birds’ meat is being sold to the black market by organized crime groups. Each autumn, vast numbers of songbirds use Cyprus as a place to rest and feed as they migrate south from Europe to Africa. The majority of the birds captured by poachers are common species, although they also capture rare species including the Cyprus wheatear and Cyprus warbler. Dhekelia (and Akrotiri), officially the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, is a British Overseas Territory on the island of Cyprus. The Areas, which include bases and other land, were retained by the British under the 1960 treaty of independence, agreed and signed by the United Kingdom, Greece, Turkey and representatives from the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. Dhekelia, or the “Eastern Sovereign Base Area” (ESBA), includes a base at Agios Nikolaos plus parts of twelve village districts.
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The global debt of households, companies and countries amounts to the astronomical sum of 200 trillion dollars, the highest in 50 years, according to US-based multinational consulting firm McKinsey. In a report published earlier in February, the firm indicates that seven years after a burst of the global credit bubble resulted in the financial crisis, debt continues to grow. In fact, rather than reducing indebtedness, or deleveraging, all major economies today have higher levels of borrowing relative to GDP than they did in 2007. Global debt in these years has grown by 57 trillion dollars, raising the ratio of debt to GDP by 17%. That poses new risks to financial stability and may undermine global economic growth, McKinsey warned. A new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, entitled “Debt and (not much) deleveraging,” examines the evolution of debt across 47 countries, among which 22 advanced (including Greece) and 25 developing, and assesses the implications of higher leverage in the global economy and in specific sectors and countries. According to the report, the debt-to-GDP ratio has risen in all advanced economies. In many cases the rise exceeded 50%. Government debt is unsustainably high in some countries. Since 2007, government debt has grown by 25 trillion dollars. Similarly, household debt is reaching new peaks, while only in the core crisis countries (Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States) have households deleveraged. At the same time, China’s debt has quadrupled since 2007, fueled by real estate and shadow banking, rising to $28 trillion by mid-2014, from 7 trillion in 2007. “These challenges need to be addressed. Yet if, as it appears, economies need ever-larger amounts of debt to grow, and deleveraging is rare and increasingly difficult. They may also need to learn to live more safely with high debt. That will require new approaches to manage and monitor it, to reduce the risk of crises and efficiently resolve private-sector defaults. Policy makers will need to consider more ways to reduce government debt and it may be time to reevaluate how incentives in the tax system encourage the amassing of debt. When there are signs of credit bubbles, regulators can seek to cool markets with countercyclical measures, such as tighter loan-to-value rules and higher capital requirements for banks. Debt undoubtedly remains an essential tool for financing economic growth. But how it is created, used, monitored, and (when necessary) discharged still needs improvement,” the report concluded. Eurozone debt In terms of debt in the Eurozone, according to Deutsche Bank, total state debt in the euro area is 9.473 trillion euros, or 94% of GDP. Greece has the highest percentage of debt, at 176% of GDP, translating into 300 billion euros, whereas the same figure in 2007 was 107.2%. Italy comes second with 131.8%, followed by Portugal at 127%. Estonia sports the lowest debt to GDP ratio at 10.5%. An Olympus-sized mountain of debt for Greece According to figures tabled by Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency in Parliament during 2014, between 2021 and 2030, the Greek state’s debt will reach 201.05 billion euros, out of a total of 291 billion euros in overall obligations between 2015 and 2030. The interest payments alone will amount to 114.45 billion euros.
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The office of Greek government Vice President Yiannis Dragasakis on Monday refuted a statement by Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan that the government Vice President’s office will lead the talks with the institutions. Referring to the technical talks to be held in the immediate future in the context of the specification of the structural reforms presented by Greece, Noonan said upon his arrival at the Eurogroup that a meeting was scheduled to take place earlier with the Greek authorities and Greece decided that the government Vice President’s office will lead the negotiations with the country’s creditors. Noonan also said that considerable progress has been made and underlined that Greece will secure a part of the 7.2-billion-euro tranche if it meets part of its commitments. He also said that the Eurogroup will focus on the political guidelines that will have to be given and not on processing technical details. (source: ana-mpa)
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Greek judges have announced that 64 people will stand trial over an alleged bribery scandal 17 years ago, involving a telecom contract for German industrial giant Siemens. The scandal first surfaced a decade ago.
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Euro zone finance ministers concluded their discussions on Greece on Monday and have said progress must be made now, an EU official said, adding that the ministers would not publish a joint statement on the issue. "It's over," the official said of the
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Meeting of finance ministers in Brussels lasts just one hour as EU nations vent frustration at speed of Athens response to potential bankruptcyGreece’s eurozone creditors have stepped up the pressure on Athens over reforms that might unleash billions more in bailout loans and save the country from bankruptcy over the next three months.Finance ministers from the single currency area broke off a discussionabout Greece on Monday, after little more than one hour in Brussels. The Greek finance minister, Yannis Varoufakis, was told to come up with what the creditors view as a realistic programme of economic and fiscal reforms. Continue reading...
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According to Greek government sources, Monday's Eurogroup was "positive." For the officials, this means that their reform proposals were "accepted politically," that is, as a basis for discussion. The discussion on the proposals will begin Wednesday among "technical teams," that is, teams ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT en.enikos.gr |
Greece's proposals for new economic reforms will be reviewed starting this week by a technical team before eurozone creditors consider releasing vital funds from the country's bailout, officials said Monday.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT news.yahoo.com |
Panos Kammenos, Greece's defence minister, threatens to open country's borders to refugees - including potential members of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) - unless Athens receives debt crisis support
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT telegraph.feedsportal.com |
... said one EU official after euro zone finance ministers held only a brief discussion on Monday about Greece's financial problems and reform efforts.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com |