How the world sees Greece
AMSTERDAM: European Union interior ministers urged Greece yesterday to do more to control the influx of migrants, some threatening to have it excluded from the continent’s prized passport-free travel zone as the crisis increasingly divides bloc members.
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Eldorado Gold is taking a writedown of $1.2 to $1.6 billion in 2015 on its GREEK assets, after being forced to slow production and development at mines ...
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The following student is studying abroad in Greece for the spring 2016 semester as part of the Champlain College study abroad program. To view these students click here: http://champlain.meritpages.com/achievements/Champlain-Abroad-Greece-Spring-2016/51861
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Prominent members of the Greek-American community from the tri-state area organized the first fundraising event for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, according to greeknewsonline.com. The fundraising event cost $2,700 per plate. Naturally, Hillary ...
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The network of Greek islanders who have rescued, sheltered and embraced refugees fleeing terror in their homelands may be up for the Nobel Peace Prize. A group of academics from Oxford, Princeton, Harvard, Cornell and the University of Copenhagen will submit a Nobel nomination for residents of Lesbos, Kos, Chíos, Samos, Rhodes and Leros, The Guardian reported Sunday. Of the 900,000 or so Middle Eastern refugees who arrived in Europe last year, most did so by way of the various Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, where they docked and were helped ashore by local volunteers. The academics behind that submission say they have the support of the Greek minister for migration, Yiannis Mouzalas, and will submit their nomination by the Feb. 1 deadline. An anonymous user has also created a petition on the campaign action site Avaaz calling for a Nobel nomination for the Greek islanders, who are going through an economic crisis of their own. "Since the very beginning of the refugee crisis, fishermen, housewives, pensioners, teachers -- all ordinary residents of the Greek islands and other volunteers have opened their homes and hearts to save refugee children, men and women fleeing war and terror," the petition reads. The petition had amassed more than 300,000 signatures as of Monday. Stories of Greek people helping refugees without a second thought have been one of the most stirring and poignant aspects of the crisis. In September, a Greek vacationer and her family boating near Kos made headlines when they rescued a man they'd spotted drifting in the water. The man, a Syrian refugee, was eventually reunited with his family, who'd taken him for him dead after he jumped off their boat hours earlier to retrieve a lost oar. In April, Antonis Deligiorgis, 34, an Greek army sergeant, was photographed rescuing at least 20 refugees from a capsized boat off the coast of Rhodes. Deligiorgis, who was off-duty at the time, was later awarded the Cross of Excellency by Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos. Greece's open door stands in contrast to other European countries' reluctance or outright refusal to take in refugees, as seen in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. A number of Western European nations have also been criticized for capping the number of refugees they will accept at a low figure. Because the Nobel Peace Prize must go to an individual or organization, The Guardian reports that the academics are expected to formally nominate organized groups of volunteers from the Greek islands, or else individuals within those groups. _ALSO ON THE WORLDPOST: _ -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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AMSTERDAM (AP) — European Union nations took a step Monday toward isolating Greece amid acrimony over Athens' failure to stem the flow of migrants at its Mediterranean island borders. Despite choppy seas and wintry conditions, more than 2,000 people are ...
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GREEK government bonds held steady on Monday after Standard and Poor's raised the country's rating by one notch to B minus, praising its ...
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Eldorado Gold announced earlier in the month that it will suspend the majority of mine construction on Greece, although it does not intent to leave the country. Now, the company said it expects to “write down the value of its assets in Greece by $1.2 billion – $1.6 billion,” according to a Reuters report which
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Hungary’s Viktor Orbán wants to fence Greece off from Europe, but analysts say this will not reduce the flow of people In metaphorical terms, the migration crisis has driven Greece to the wall, with more than 850,000 asylum seekers landing on its shores in 2015. This year, the expression may take on a more literal meaning, depending on whether you believe the bluster of rightwing European leaders. In recent days, Hungary’s hardline prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has called for Greece to be walled off from the rest of Europe – or at least from Macedonia, the next step along the migration trail towards Germany. Orbán wants the EU to expand an existing fence around the Greek border town of Idomeni along the entire length of the Greece-Macedonia border, just as Hungary walled off its own border in September. Continue reading...
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Passport-free area faces being suspended for two years, as senior diplomat says of refugee influx: ‘This cannot continue’ EU governments have placed a large question mark over the future of Europe’s passport-free travel zone, signalling an extension of national border controls within the 26-country Schengen area in response to the immigration crisis. As Europe scrambled to put together a coherent answer to the biggest challenge the union has ever faced, EU interior ministers meeting in Amsterdam on Monday compounded a sense of gloom and confusion in the face of ever rising numbers of people heading into Greece from Turkey. Continue reading...
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European Union interior ministers on Monday urged Greece to do more to control the influx of asylum-seekers, with some threatening to have the country removed from the passport-free travel zone as the crisis continues to cause division among member states ...
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AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The European Union edged closer on Monday to accepting that its Schengen open-borders area may be suspended for up to two years if it fails in the next few weeks to curb the influx of migrants from the Middle East and Africa.
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A group of international academics has signed on to a campaign to honor Greek islanders assisting hundreds of thousands of refugees with a Nobel peace prize, joining more than 300,000 others who have signed an online petition to do the same, the Guardian ...
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[2016-01-25-1453745721-2100939-Alexis_Tsipras_in_Moscow_5.jpg] One year ago today the left-wing populist Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) won the Greek parliamentary elections; the first time since the re-introduction of democracy in 1974 that another party than the two dinosaurs of the post-dictatorship democracy, the center-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the center-right New Democracy (ND), came first. While the success of SYRIZA was expected, its choice of coalition partner took many by surprise, not in the least its many (foreign) supporters. And yet, the choice for the right-wing populist Independent Greeks (ANEL) made perfect sense at that point in time. SYRIZA had won the elections on the basis of its Third Way proposal on the Memorandum, which governed the relationship between the Troika - the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - and Greece after several bailouts. ANEL was the only other parliamentary party to support its utopian "No to the Memorandum, Yes to the Eurozone" position. Hence, SYRIZA leader, and new Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras had no other choice than to form a government with ANEL in an attempt to try and renegotiate the bailout conditions in the way it had promised his voters. Nine months later the still fresh, though worn down, Prime Minister handed in his resignation and brought Greece to the polls for the fourth time in just over three years. No one, not even Tsipras, argued that the first SYRIZA-ANEL government had been a success. Personified in its flamboyant Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis, SYRIZA went for an all-out moral battle with the Troika, assuming that it possessed the absolute truth and that its opponents - in classic populist parlor increasingly demonized as "enemies," "traitors," and even "terrorists" - would see the light once it had been shined upon them. But as Varoufakis lectured economics at Eurogroup meetings, his colleagues became increasingly entrenched in their original positions and lost their little remaining sympathy for the plight of the "radical left" Greek government. To break the deadlock Tsipras pulled out his joker, a snap referendum on an incomprehensible issue, which only made sense in SYRIZA's worldvision of an epic battle between "democratic Greece" and the "technocratic Troika" - as if other Eurozone ministers, like the Dutch Jeroen Dijsselbloem and the German Wolfgang Schäuble, did not have a democratic mandate for their austerity policies within their own countries. SYRIZA won the Greferendum convincingly, 61 percent voted "Oxi" (no), but soon found that nothing had changed outside of Greece. Consequently, Tsipras ignored the referendum results, betrayed his "democratic mandate," and accepted a bailout package that was even more disadvantageous for Greece than the deal he and his supporters had rejected in the referendum. Soon after, Tsipras called for new elections, taking his many opponents within and outside of his own party by surprise. Despite the rollercoaster that Greece had gone through between January and September, the election results showed remarkably little changes at the aggregate level. Most shifts were within the one percent range; only the liberal Potami (The River) lost two percent. Still, Tsipras emerged from the elections strengthened, having cleansed SYRIZA of most of his most ardent opponents and with the main opposition party (ND) leaderless for the moment. Once again he chose ANEL as his coalition partner, but this time the logic was much less convincing. Having accepted, however reluctantly, the new bailout and its harsh conditions, the new government was going to be seriously constrained on socio-economic policies. Logically, it should have shifted its focus to state reform and socio-cultural issues, which were always important to the party and its supporters. On these issues ANEL was among the least likely available partners. However, SYRIZA was left little choice after months of polarizing the political debate. How could it work with parties like the center-left PASOK-DIMAR and the centrist Potami, after accusing them of being part of the "corrupt" and "traitorous" elite? That said, it doesn't seem that Tsipras ever seriously considered an alternative to ANEL. He and ANEL leader Panos Kammenos seemed to have developed a clear and stable working relationship, in which SYRIZA could govern almost unhindered, as long as it stayed away from Kammenos's Ministry of Defence. What Tsipras seem to have miscalculated, however, is that ANEL's passiveness relates primarily to socio-economic issues, which are secondary to that party. When it comes to socio-cultural issues, particularly those central to SYRIZA, ANEL does not only have a different opinion, it has a strong opinion. This is particularly the case with respect to two traditional sensitivities of the Greek left, the powerful position of the Greek Orthodox Church and of the military. The political power of the Greek Orthodox Church is unlike almost any other within the EU and is perfectly illustrated by the fact that Greek governments are sworn in under the watchful eye of Orthodox bishops. The SYRIZA-ANEL governments were no exception. Similarly, the Greek military remains one of the most expensive within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The country spent a whopping 2.4 percent of its GDP on the military in 2015. Despite the fact that the Greek economy has collapsed during the Great Recession, with GDP falling from $355 billion in 2008 to $238 billion in 2014 (a loss of one third!), the Greek military has seen few cuts, and even increased its budget by 0.1 percent of GDP in 2014. After one year in power the Church and the Military remain as powerful as ever. As Vassilis Petsinis has shown, SYRIZA has by and large given up on its pledge to reduce their importance, facing strong opposition from ANEL. This has reduced the party's policy agenda even further, even on socio-cultural issues. Among its few successes was the new legislation passed last month, legalizing civil unions of LGBT couples. While far from insignificant, particularly for the couple involved, it is at best a minor victory and hardly puts Greece at the forefront of gay rights in the EU. The refugee crisis could have given SYRIZA a chance to regain its standing within the EU and the national and international left. With more than 80 percent of refugees entering Europe through Greece, the country has been at the forefront of the EU's struggle to control the unprecedented influx. But where many ordinary Greeks have gone far beyond the expected by providing emergency services for stranded refugees, despite their own economic plight, the Greek government has mainly failed in its, admittedly very demanding, task to orderly shelter and register them. As Tsipras makes (laudable) normative appeals for a more humane EU refugee policy, his government's practical incompetence undermines the chances of them catching on among his crucial partners in the north. In fact, rather than transforming the refugee crisis from a crisis into an opportunity, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so skillfully done, Tsipras has again made Greece the whipping boy of the EU in general, and Germany in particular. It is now even facing a possible Schengen area expulsion. While SYRIZA created neither the economic crisis nor the refugee crisis, its incompetence and opportunism have worsened their impacts on Greece and have undermined the country's position within Europe. Tsipras is still thinking that lofty speeches are enough to change policies and realities, investing little effort and time in building constructive and lasting coalitions within Greece or the EU. By not making a choice between returning SYRIZA to its radical left roots or transforming it into a "responsible" center-left party, and instead muddling through with a mix of these two fundamentally opposed models, he remains politically isolated and therefore easily defeated, both at home, including by his own coalition partner, and abroad. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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… of experts to assess the Greek-Macedonian border. “Member states should indeed … spokesman said that states including Greece had agreed before Christmas “that … to do it themselves – apparently.” Greece responded with furious and accused …
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Islamic State has created an industry from the fake passports seized in Iraq, Syria and Libya, French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday. He urged Europe to create task forces to help identify fake and stolen passports in Greece.
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A formation of six Turkish fighter jets violated GREEK national air space in the northeastern, central and southeastern Aegean on Monday, GREEK ...
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An online petition to acknowledge the work of ordinary GREEK citizens who risked their lives helping refugees cross into Europe may result in an actual ...
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Refugees and migrants arrive aboard a passenger ferryat the port of Piraeus, near Athens, GREECE, on Saturday. Picture: REUTERS/ALKIS ...
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Representatives of Greece’s association of doctors met with the Minister of Labor to express their opposition to the government’s proposed pension reform plan, hoping that they could make a case for its withdrawal. Alas, their voices fell on deaf ears ...
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Greece is under pressure to do more to stem the flow of migrants to northern Europe as the EU mulls extending temporary border controls inside its passport-free travel zone. Some countries have re-introduced security checks as the bloc continues to ...
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"The Commission has taken swift actions and has put forward proposals on how to better manage the refugee and migration issues and crisis. Now it is up to member states to deliver" said Commissioner Avramopoulos in doorstep statement, entering the ...
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A historic agreement has been reached between President of the Hellenic Parliament Nikos Voutsis and the House President of Cyprus Yiannakis Omirou to access material in the ‘Cyprus File’. According to an official announcement, during Omirou’s recent ...
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The victory of the radical left-wing Syriza party in Greece exactly one year ago was a political earthquake for Europe. Spiros Moskovou takes a very critical look at the past twelve months with Alexis Tsipras.
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The Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, met at the Foreign Ministry today with the Alternate Minister for Tourism, Elena Kountoura, with whom he discussed the Foreign Ministry’s actions regarding the matter of issuing entry visas.Mr. Xydakis briefed Ms. Kountoura on the timely planning and implementation, by the Foreign Ministry, of the necessary actions regarding the new and very demanding system for issuing visas with biometric data (VIS).The Foreign Ministry has already taken the necessary steps to have the system ready to serve third-country (non-EU) nationals planning to visit Greece in the coming tourist season, contributing to the...
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_Whither is fled the visionary gleam Where is it now - The glory and the dream_ The European Union is suffering from a malaise. A mood of disquiet pervades the continent's political elites. Its symptoms are flagging confidence and free-floating anxiety. The populace of its member states is disaffected from Brussels institutions, skeptical of their national leaders and feel vulnerable to forces beyond their control -- or even comprehension. These states of mind stem from disarray on several fronts: economic stagnation produced by finance friendly "austerity" policies; the influx of migrants from 'alien" societies; fears of a mounting terrorist threat; and the demotion of democracy in Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia whose analogous tendencies across the continent frighten many and lure some. Clearly, the European project is adrift. For those attached to the idea of an ever-closer union, the outlook is glum. For those who want the Union to get on with doing well its stipulated tasks, the picture is not much brighter. For Euro-skeptics of every stripe, it is a field day. The prospects of Great Britain leaving the EU altogether -- a real possibility - will put paid to the vision of European with political structures institutionalizing a continent whole, free and prosperous. The more compelling issue is regression rather than progression. Schengen Europe that permitted free movement across national borders unhindered by passport and customs controls is a dead letter -- for all practical intents and purposes. With a couple of million footloose refugees wandering the continent, that liberty is no longer tolerable -- especially so in an atmosphere made fraught by the hyping of dread about jihadists bearing weapons and ill intent. Europe's poor economic record since the great financial crisis struck in 2007 underlies everything else. Flagging growth combined with diminished economic prospects sap confidence in the future along with belief in the ability of elites to handle other challenges. Every country's economy has been in the doldrums for better part of a decade -- with the exception of Germany whose export driven economy has benefited from two systemic factors: the demand for capital goods from the burgeoning economies of Asia and the price advantage German exporters enjoy thanks to differential inflation rates which cannot be compensated for through currency revaluations within the Eurozone. Some members have suffered far longer, more serious setbacks than they did in the Great Depression, e.g. Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece. All are victims of the illogical attachment by Europe's financial and political elites to the discredited models of "market fundamentalism" and austerity crisis-management. The only beneficiaries have been the financial interests who have been protected from the consequences of their own abuses and folly while gaining a further measure of control over the continental economy and those institutions intended to manage it. At the end of 2014, the EU economy in aggregate was still smaller than it had been in December 2007. When we subtract Germany, the GDP for the rest of the EU is 2.5% smaller. The decline in per capita income is even greater when we take into account population growth and the shift in the distribution of national wealth toward those in the upper brackets. Greece's Calvary pulled aside the last veil that barely concealed this unsavory reality. Beyond the specific counter-productive policy measures that ensure Greece's continued destitution, the attitude that pervaded the chambers of power in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin was punitive. The Troika seemed to relish the humiliation of Greece's popularly elected government -- imposing terms that overtly extracted assets from the people and gave them to private foreign interests at fire sale prices. Once Greece has been stripped of its fixed assets -- infrastructure and utilities -- it will be no surprise were Athens to receive a bill from London demanding payment for the storage and maintenance of the Elgin marbles. To add insult to injury, the Commission now is condemning Greece for inadequate policing of its borders. Brussels (which to date is unable to devise a coherent, EU-wide refugee plan of its own) insists that they spend more on personnel, facilities, and surveillance. Failure to do so means that the Commission will impose their own border controls answerable to them and not to Athens. All is covered with a thick layer of self-righteousness more appropriate to an inquisitional court than to an assembly of fraternal states drawing closer and closer to each other. If the message to the Greeks (and other countries on whom was placed the dunce hat of debtors), a broader message was being broadcast to all EU citizens. It had multiple parts. First, sovereignty is a limited concept. Nowadays, EU member state are not free to manage their borders as they see fit; they have lost the power to manage their currency and, thereby, their economy; they must submit to Community appointed prefects as has occurred in Italy as well as Greece; and their elected leaders are answerable foremost to technocrats in Brussels and Frankfurt instead of voters. Those technocrats, moreover, are answerable to no one except the constitutionally enfeebled European Parliament. The EU has fashioned an overweening Mandarin technocracy that most closely resembles a Confucian Legalist utopia. Second, democracy itself is a sometimes thing. The method for dealing with the Tsipras government demonstrated that the will of the Greek people as expressed in election and referendum carried no weight whatsoever insofar as the Troika was concerned. Mr. Tsipras himself acknowledged that in acting in direct contradiction of the manifest will of the Greek people. Is there any reason why the populace should not see in these serial developments deviation from the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty -- and outright betrayal of the collective will? Third, subordination of the interests of the large majority of the population to the interests of Europe's dominant financial and business groups makes a mockery of the principle that the European Union's historic mission is to provide for the welfare of citizens. The truth, as made evident since the 2008 crisis broke, is that it exists above all to serve the welfare of economic, technocratic and political elites whose power is ensconced in the Commission, the European Central Bank, ancillary bodies and extra-Union institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Think of the Troika -- which effectively displaced all other institutions and persons in dealing with the unfolding debt crisis: composed of European Bank President Mario Draghi (of Goldman Sachs), IMF Director General Christine Lagarde (Chicago corporate lawyer who has been ordered to stand trial by the Cour de Justice de la République for her alleged negligence as French Finance Minister in handling an arbitration award to maverick financier Bernard Tapie) and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (who turned Luxembourg into a financial bolt hole for tax evaders and other dubious dealers on a scale surpassing the Cayman Islands). Fittingly, it was the Troika that appointed as Prefect/Prime Minister for Italy Mario Monti (of Goldman Sachs), and as Prefect/Prime Minister of Greece Lucas Papdemos (former Vice-Chairman of the European Bank). This is not how the European project was branded nor does it conform to the desires and expectations of most of its citizens. The essence of liberal democracy is the precept that rulers are accountable to the public, and that the overriding purpose of government is to serve all of society. Europe's great civilizational compact of the post-war era embodies those precepts. To compromise them is to open a Pandora's box that endangers both the EU and the stability of its component societies. The combination of the consolidation of ruling power in unaccountable institutions, their ineptitude in managing the European economy, and the development of a continental plutocracy which gains disproportionately from whatever wealth is produced, is weakening attachment to democratic norms. The eclipsing of electoral vehicles for expressing the ensuing grievances could have dire consequences. Today, the political spectrum is dominated by parties of the Center-Right, the Right and the Far Right. The same trend is even farther advanced in the United States. This is true in England, in France, in Germany, and in the Netherlands. Consequently, roughly 25% of the population find themselves functionally disenfranchised. Small wonder that increasing numbers stay home on election day. Economic failure and xenophobia provoked by waves of immigration -- and stirred by fears of terrorism -- make a combustible brew. European elites might well look across the Atlantic at the rise of Trump and other reckless demagogues sniffing at the door of the White House. Cloaked in European garb, they will appear all the more menacing. Elites may also wish to turn their gaze to Ankara for a glimpse of what an autocratic future would look like. Turkey already has been the focal point of an EU debacle when it agreed to pay Erdogan a ransom of $3 billion in exchange for shutting down the surge of refugees that he himself had instigated and facilitated. He now is demanding a "goodwill" bonus on top of that -- while dragging his heels in implementing the agreement. Like all blackmailers, Erdogan will be back for more. This is the same man who has been an accomplice to the development of ISIL and al-Qaeda in Syria who bedevil Europe as the source of Islamic terrorism. Yielding to blackmail was a humiliating concession that evoked images of the declining Roman Empire bribing the barbarians to stay their hand while pretending that the ransom was a subsidy to an auxiliary ally. It conforms to the pre-existing policy of the Europeans observing a vow of omerta on Erdogan's unsavory doings in Syria -- a policy that predictably follows a White House lead. The cost accounting mentality by which everything has its price, and that price should be the primary determinant of value, reached its logical extreme when some European governments (Denmark, Switzerland) began to seize valuables from refugees to pay for their upkeep -- in violation of international norms. That raises two intriguing questions: 1) if some of those valuables wind up in museums and private collections, will the descendants of the fleeced refugees have a legal right to bring suit for their restitution?; and 2) can a bankrupt country like Greece be commanded to seize valuables as part of the austerity program demanded by the Troika that is a condition for the extension of credits? That is apart from the arithmetic truth that such asset stripping pretty much ensures that the refugees will be public wards longer than if they were left with some means to help establish themselves. If European leaders sometimes feel that they trudging along the Via Dolorosa, redemption lies in admitting that they have no one to blame but themselves. What does all of this mean for the United States? At one level, the picture of a feeble, fragmenting Europe is welcome since it ensures that Washington's allies will continue to follow it obediently down whatever wilderness path America chooses to take. Their lack of will and purpose on the world stage, however anomalous, will remain a feature of the world system. Taking a broader perspective, the weakening of fellow liberal democracies -- in terms of economics, dedication to civil liberties, and rejection of autocratic government -- can only discredit the West as whole. For it means a collective loss of credibility and status at a time when those assets are becoming more and more valuable in the emerging context of a competition with China over the shape of international institutions and norms. -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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Vodafone Greece enriched its product portfolio with the addition of the 2016 models of the Samsung Galaxy A5 and Samsung Galaxy A3 smartphones. A5 is offered at a recommended value of EUR 429.90 or at no extra cost with a subscription for the Vodafone Red ...
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European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker today backed a proposal to strengthen security on the Macedonian border to create a 'second line of defence' against migration.
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Aegean wall lizards in the GREEK islands "showed better colour matching against their own chosen rock backgrounds than against other lizards' rock ...
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European Union interior ministers on Monday urged GREECE to do more to control the influx of refugees and migrants, some threatening to exclude it ...
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"I am recommending to the Austrian Interior Ministry to weigh her words when she is addressing the issue of refugees and GREECE'S alleged ...
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European ministers worried about the ongoing migrant crisis threatened Monday to close GREECE'S access to Europe's passport-free zone if the flood ...
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Romania will compete in the second half of the second semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, on May 12, as announced by the competition organisers after the draw on Monday. The countries that will compete in the first Eurovision 2016 semifinal on May 10 are: Armenia, Finland, Greece, Croatia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Russia, San […]
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Davos, January 25, 2015/Independent Balkan News Agency By Spiros Sideris Away from the spotlight, with the utmost secrecy and in a very friendly atmosphere, met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Greek PM Alexis Tsipras and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu. The meeting’s agenda dominated the Cyprus problem and the […]
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Athens, January 25, 2016/ Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos is to meet tomorrow with his Israeli counterpart Moshe Yaalon who is visiting Greece. “Greece is an important ally to Israel in the Mediterranean Sea, and from our perspective, there is great significance in safeguarding and furthering defence ties […]
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Athens, January 25, 2015/Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou A TAIPED executive (HRADF, Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund) Mr Vlachos said that all efforts for a seaplane network in Greece will be centered in the Ionian islands for this summer. At the moment there are 50 licenses for waterways pending in Greece. In the Ionian there […]
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Athens, January 25, 2015/Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou Five men (probably Afghans) robbed and stabbed to death a Pakistani man and wounded two others near Greece’s border with Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). The robbery and murder took place in the Evzonous area where thousands of refugees and migrants are waiting to […]
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Nicosia, January 25, 2015/Independent Balkan News Agency By Kyriacos Kyriacou The newly-elected leader of Greece’s New Democracy Party Kyriakos Mitsotakis began a round of contacts in Cyprus on Monday. It is his first official visit in Cyprus after his election. Mitsotakis, son of the former Greek Prime Minister Constantinos Mitsotakis, was received at the palace […]
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According to the Greek financial newspaper Kefalaio, foreign investors holding large Greek bank shares are due in Athens on February 28th for a series of meetings with high level Greek officials, which include Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. According to the same source, the reason for their visit is related to the current instability in the world economy
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If there were any illusions as to whether the new bailout agreement will sort out for good Greece’s financing needs and put the economy back on track, comments made recently by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Managing Director Klaus Regling to the ...
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In an historic day for the gay and lesbian community in Greece, Athens Mayor Kaminis signed on Monday the country’s first same gender civil partnership. “As the first day that the law is being implemented, today is very important for civil rights in ...
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The smiling face that greets refugees when they get to the Greece-Macedonia border is that of Gabriela Andreevska.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.aljazeera.com |
The interior ministers of the EU member states are convening at an informal meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) council in Amsterdam on Monday and Tuesday. Among the topics of discussion will be migration, border control, fight against terrorism and cyber security. The informal meeting comes amid the recent moves of Germany and Austria to tighten their border checks, with German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere announcing indefinite controls last week. One of the measures to be discussed is whether to extend border controls for two years, with a temporary exclusion of Greece from the Schengen Area also expected to be among the topics of the discussion. EU law limits internal border checks to six months but they can be extended to two years if Greece proves incapable of guarding its external borders. Heading to the informal meeting in the Dutch capital, Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said that a failure to secure the Greek-Turkish border could lead to the Schengen border moving to central Europe, EUobserver informs. A similar proposal for temporary exclusion of Greece from the Schengen Area had been expressed by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico last year. However Luxembourg’s Interior Minister Etienne Schneider expressed disagreement with such a move, insisting that there is a need to preserve Schengen. More than 800 000 refugees arrived in Greece during 2015, with Greek authorities proving incapable to patrol the country's many islands, where thousands of people continue to disembark from Turkey on a daily basis. Despite calls for help by EU states, Greece has had to deal alone with the mass numbers of refugees coming from Turkey. The so-called hotspots, an EU plan to screen, register and identify arrivals on the Greek islands, have failed as EU states have not fulfilled their commitments to send EU personnel and staff. In the first 21 days of this year, the number of refugees who arrived in Greece has increased over 20 times compared to the same period in 2015, IOM estimates suggested. Last year, EU officials were sent to check Greek border control as part of a Schengen evaluation report. According to statements of EU officials in December, the report would soon be submitted and adopted by the Schengen evaluation committee.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.novinite.com |
A Pakistani man was stabbed to death on the Greece-Macedonia border on Monday as the European Commission pledged to increase security at a key point for migrants on their route from Greece to northern Europe. The incident occurred near no-man's-land on the ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.france24.com |
Greece is still debating its politically sensitive pension reform, a precondition for completing the first bailout review and starting talks on debt restructuring but has prompted a wave of strikes. But the ratings agency expected a compromise to be ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.reuters.com |
Last summer, Germany almost forced Greece out of the euro, rather than agree to the EU lending further billions to the GREEK government. Now ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.ft.com |
Speed and completion of bailout review will depend on pension reforms so he'd better have a word with his government. Greek CB gov Stournaras ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT news.forexlive.com |
Pension reform is a key issue to be resolved for GREECE to pass the spring review. The refugee problem is another threat to GREECE. Europe may be ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT seekingalpha.com |
… northern Greece, expects to write down the value of its Greek assets … to the alleged inaction of Greece’s Ministry of Energy and … development. The Council of State, Greece’s supreme court on administrative …
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT world.einnews.com |
Greek Prime Minister Tsipras is celebrating the one-year anniversary of his election. He offered Greek voters an opportunity to replace him last summer, but they stuck with him. Many economic issues remain unresolved. Pension reform promises to be a ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.economywatch.com |