How the world sees Greece
Showing posts with label george osborne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label george osborne. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Greek elections 2012: Greece bailout back on as hopes rise for future of the euro
Greece's pro-bailout political parties today gave the 17-nation eurozone hope that the single currency will be saved - by revealing they will work together.
David Cameron to warn of euro-inspired economic stagnation
 BBC News | David Cameron to warn of euro-inspired economic stagnation BBC News Europe's economies face "perpetual stagnation" unless leaders act to resolve the crisis gripping the euro, David Cameron is expected to warn. The prime minister will increase pressure on Germany to act decisively when he addresses the G20 summit of ... Sigh of relief at G20 summit over Greek election Leaders of the Group of 20 nations gather in Mexico G20 to press Europe for lasting fix for debt crisis |
G20 leaders fear second meltdown
As world leaders descend on the luxury resort of Los Cabos, on Mexico's Pacific coast, the political turmoil enveloping Greece and the eurozone has again left them facing the prospect of another major global financial crisis.
Greek Elections 2012: Greece facing days of chaos as election stalemate leaves rescue deal for the euro in doubt
Early indications suggested the centre-right New Democracy party, which wants to keep Greece in the euro, had a narrow lead over the far-left, anti-austerity Syriza.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Eurozone Holds Its Breath As Greeks Go To The Polls
Greek voters go to the polls today in elections that threaten the future of the eurozone and could push Britain's fragile economy to the brink....
Friday, June 15, 2012
George Osborne's plan B-minus calls for a statesmanlike Labour response
Ed Balls looked less credible by using the chancellor's Mansion House speech as an opportunity to score party political points
So George Osborne hasn't embraced a plan B to prevent the British economy's double-dip recession becoming a second great depression. He's simply "maxed out plan A", so Treasury officials have been saying, in order to boost business lending and keep the ship afloat in the raging storm. This is no time to score party political points. Let's leave that to Ed Balls. It's a moment to welcome the chancellor's relaxation of policy in response to changing circumstances.
You can read his speech – it's here – at the annual City/Whitehall bash in the Mansion House. Not a bad speech, I thought. It did at least address his critics' charges. Yet when heard in tandem with the governor of the Bank of England's speech – here – it scared the black tie trousers off veterans of such occasions such as the Mail's ex-Guardian City editor, Alex Brummer. The Guardian's Larry Elliott calls it "squeaky bum time".
In short the Treasury and Bank have decided to pump credit into the system to free up more loans to businesses and domestic borrowers, but have again rejected fiscal stimulus – for instance the temporary VAT cut urged by the shadow chancellor, Balls – which really would constitute plan B. This is more plan B-minus. The gloomy BBC pundit Robert Peston's banking chums, patriots to a man, promptly told him off the record that it probably wouldn't work because creditworthy firms lack the confidence to borrow and commercial banks won't risk lending to riskier clients despite the latest subsidy.
Will the protracted eurozone crisis finally be resolved or finally become Lehman Brothers II, dragging down us and the wider global economy a second time? That remains the crucial question. "We are hitting the panic button,'' the Lib Dem motormouth Lord Oakeshott helpfully told the morning newspapers. Well, that's better than not hitting it. Even Oakeshott concedes that.
Osborne has twice said this week that it may take a Greek exit from the eurozone to make the zone's leaders hit their panic buttons and do what's necessary to save the project. Germany can't do it all, protests Chancellor Merkel, the voice of German angst. If we all behaved like Germany we'd all soon be bankrupt, including Germany.
I have often wondered what it was like to live through the 1930s, that sense people had of drifting towards a cliff but unable to do much about it. With every day that passes this sense of helplessness in the face of anonymous but overwhelming forces grows stronger. So it is always good to hear a politician echo FDR's famous rallying cry of 1933 that "we are not powerless" in the face of the storm.
The gloom-mongering classes need reminding of that all the time. If plan A doesn't work, maxed out or not, try plans B to Z. Overnight ministers have trimmed the Vickers report on bank reform, a good day to bury controversial news, but at least they have finally got a plan.
Yet there remains a curious air of unreality about it. Many people in Britain – far more in Spain and Greece – are suffering privation in varying degrees. But many others are not, just like the 1930s when swathes of good new housing sprang up on city outskirts (it's still there) and those in thriving new industries enjoyed the new perils of consumerism. British city centres still thrive despite the boarded up shops and "to let" office blocks. Countless TV channels pour out escapist pap. In the 30s it was radio as depression-hit Europe plunged into revived nationalism and eventually war.
Such perils exist again now. Protectionism, the curse of the 30s, is creeping back in different forms (crafty China used a variable VAT rebate which is compatible with WTO rules), despite official denials. Look too at Sunday's Greek elections where parties of the right like Golden Dawn compete with the leftwing romantic escapism of Syriza, whose leader Alexis Tsipras (dark glasses, jeans and a sharp BMW bike, we get the picture Alexis) admires Venezuela's Hugo Chávez. If only Greece had some oil under the ground instead of having just one month's supply in the depots if things get nasty, as they may.
All sorts of separate crises bubble away, a mixture of fate and opportunism. Thirty years after the Falklands war ended (Laurence Topham's Guardian film is here), Argentina's populist government is making another hack-handed attempt to whip up an international storm to regain the islands against the settled will of their inhabitants. Fortunately its economy and military are in an even worse shape than ours, but it is a desperate sign of desperate times, a reminder of how much international authority and cohesion has eroded in some ways – not all – since 1982 when the UN worked well in the crisis.
Egypt, where last year's military coup against Hosni Mubarak (I have yet to spot much of that Arab spring) has been capped with Thursday's court-dissolution coup against the new Islamist parliament, is looking as scary as Greece at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.
How might the politics of either state impact upon the fragile Israel-Palestine-Iran triangle or the brutal sideshow now being waged by the surely doomed Assad regime in Syria and its neo-Stalinist Russian patrons? This is the way that interconnected worlds end, not with a whimper but with a mistimed, opportunist bang.
A crisis here, a false move there, a new regime in Beijing, a looming US presidential election, overstretched systems everywhere. David Cameron, for one, is engrossed in the finer points of his social engagements with Rebekah "country suppers" Brooks for Lord Justice Leveson, unfortunate to say the least as Europe topples.
In such swirling uncertainty I thought Ed Balls called it badly wrong – again – when invited to comment on the Osborne speech on Radio 4's Today programme. As with Syriza's Alexis Tsipras in Athens (who wants to stay in the euro, but postpone economic reform) the differences between Balls and Osborne are not quite so big as the shadow chancellor would have us believe. Pace and timing are important, but also matters of fine judgment.
But Balls persists in blaming Britain's flatlining economy on the coalition's 2010 austerity programme which – says he – derailed Labour's recovery model which saw growth resume in late 2010. "The spirit of Philip Snowden [renegade Labour chancellor] and Montagu Norman [austerity-driving governor of the Bank of England]" hung over the Mansion House last night, he claimed. It's a UK fiscal problem – tax and spend – not the liquidity problem Osborne is addressing, Balls insists.
Well, up to a point, Ed. But not really. Yes, the coalition may have slammed the brakes on spending too hard and fast in May 2010 – I think they did – but our world is very different from the 1930s, even the world of the poor (which may be what IDS is trying to say). In any case, the Today programme's grown-up economics sharp-shooter, Evan Davis, is too smart to put up with Ed for long.
Won't you admit that the rise in the price of global commodities – notably food and oil – have helped cause Britain's slowdown, Davis asked Balls? And (as Osborne says) the eurozone crisis too? So it's not just the austerity package to blame for the double-dip. Balls wriggled and more or less agreed. How much more persuasive would Gordon Brown's clever (too clever by half?) henchman have been to open-minded listeners if he'd conceded the point graciously.
Davis put him more firmly on the spot when he asked Balls for an estimate of how much the UK economy would grow if the government were to boost demand fiscally – as distinct from cheaper money – by cutting VAT for a while? Osborne said at the Mansion House that in the current state of the economy that would probably push up inflation (again) and simply suck in imports to meet revived demand. Balls repeatedly ducked the challenge.
Why do I pick on Balls when important Tory grassroots writers like ConHome's Tim Montgomery are rallying behind maxed-out Plan A? Partly because they're not all rallying – try this from Tory MP Douglas "Kamikaze" Carswell – and others like the Telegraph's Jeremy Warner seem underwhelmed.
All of which makes it important for Labour to sound statesmanlike to be credible in a crisis. Voters are less interested in blame than in solutions. No party has a monopoly of error or success. As more successful witnesses at Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry have reminded us – Blair, Major and even Cameron – the smart thing to do is give credit where it's deserved. Gordon Brown used the occasion to settle some scores and did badly. As his clever apprentice, Balls should have learned that lesson long ago.
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David Cameron to discuss Greek crisis with G20 leaders before summit
European leaders will consider any emergency measures that may need to be taken in the wake of Greek elections on Sunday
David Cameron will hold a video conference call on Friday afternoon with European leaders attending the G20 summit in Mexico next week in a bid to forge a common position on the eurozone crisis.
The leaders will consider any emergency measures that may need to be taken when the markets open on Monday in the wake of the Greek elections on Sunday.
It is likely that the call will focus on what the central banks can do to stabilise financial markets by providing liquidity and preventing a credit squeeze if the Greek election leads to a victory for the anti-austerity parties.
The call will be held between Cameron, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president, François Hollande, the Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, and the two leaders of the European Union.
A Downing Street spokesman tried to play down the significance of the call saying it was a routine discussion of the summit agenda.
Cameron's official spokesman said the call was a long-scheduled opportunity for the leaders to discuss the issues on the G20 agenda.
Asked about the Greek elections – triggered by the failure to form a government in Athens after polls last month – Cameron's spokesman said: "It is a matter for the Greek people and clearly they have to go through their democratic processes.
"But we need to see an end to the uncertainty which is damaging the European economy and damaging our economy."
He added: "We need to see action to deal with the problems in the eurozone sooner rather than later. The prime minister has talked on a number of occasions of the chilling effect the situation in the eurozone is having on our economy and the global economy."
The chancellor, George Osborne, warned in his Mansion House speech on Thursday night of dire consequences if Greece were to leave the eurozone without an ambitious plan to deal with the fallout.
Osborne again suggested that a Greek exit might be the only way to force fundamental reform in the currency area.
But allowing the struggling country to leave before measures were in place to contain contagion would be the "worst case for everybody", he said.
The comments came after interest rates on Spanish bonds hit fresh highs – sparking fears about the country's ability to service its debts.
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Britain unveils stimulus to parry eurozone threat
Britain has stepped up its action against the eurozone crisis by agreeing to offer billions of pounds in cheap loans to British banks, in co-ordinated action that took markets by surprise.
The government and Bank of England (BoE) announced the surprise plan late Thursday in London in a bid to force commercial banks -- which are reluctant to lend amid the threat of a Greek exit from the eurozone -- to lend to businesses struggling amid Britain's recession.
Throwing money at banks won't solve economic crisis, Ed Balls says
Shadow chancellor says banking stimulus package announced by Osborne and King fails to address lack of confidence
Ed Balls has warned that an emergency multi-billion package to inject lending into the British economy still fails to address the lack of economic confidence and demand. The shadow chancellor said the Bank of England's thinking still seemed to be driven by Montagu Norman, the governor who led it through the depression of the 1930s.
He said the measures announced on Thursday night at the Mansion House in London by the chancellor, George Osborne, and the bank's governor, Mervyn King, should have been implemented two years ago and would not work if businesses were not investing.
Osborne warned that the "debt storm" on the continent had left the UK and the rest of Europe facing their most serious economic crisis outside wartime. In a joint proposal between the Bank of England and the Treasury, banks will receive cut-price funds, provided they pass on the benefits to their business customers.
This new "funding for lending" scheme could provide an £80bn boost to loans to the private sector within weeks and alleviate growing fears of a second slump since the start of the financial crisis in 2007.
In a second scheme, within the next few days the bank will begin pumping a minimum of £5bn a month into City institutions to improve their liquidity.
Balls told Sky News: "Simply giving the banks billions of pounds, doesn't translate into loans to business. If business is not investing and creating jobs and if our economy is not growing, that's the fundamental problem, and I've said consistently for two years, that you can't do this simply by throwing money at the banks.
"You've got to accept that the fiscal plans of the chancellor haven't worked, they've backfired, they've taken us back into recession."
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Balls compared the government's fiscal policy to the 1930s depression era: "It failed then and it's failing now".
He said the announcements were a clear sign that the bank was worried. He did not dismiss the injection of cash for lending in principle, but argued that fiscal, as opposed to monetary policy was critical to recovery, pointing out that, apart from Italy, the UK was the only country in the G20 in recession.
The government has described the plans as an attempt to stretch its "plan A" to the limit. There has been concern from some banks that the plan does not change the dynamic as they will be expected to take the risk on the loans.
The treasury minister Mark Hoban told Today that the government's fiscal tightening had had no impact on growth. He said taxpayers' money would not be at risk as a result of the £80bn bank credit scheme.
Conservative MP Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Commons treasury select committee, welcomed the plans: "The measures look as if they will encourage lending to businesses by ensuring liquidity is more easily available to banks."
Balls said: "The Bank of England's new funding for lending scheme is a significant admission that the government's existing policies have failed. Businesses will be desperately hoping it is more successful than George Osborne's Project Merlin and credit-easing schemes which have actually seen net lending to businesses fall."
He said Osborne's speech was dangerously complacent. "He is sticking with policies that have choked off the recovery, pushed up unemployment and are leading to £150bn of extra borrowing."
Balls also attacked Osborne over his remarks about a possible Greek exit from the eurozone.
"I was at the Mansion House last night and there was a frisson around the room when our chancellor started openly talking about whether Greece should leave the eurozone. I do not think that is a very wise or sensible thing to do," he told BBC Breakfast.
"I think Greece has got to sort out its issues – and that is a matter for Greece. What I am really worried about in the eurozone is that countries like Spain or Italy – which are huge, to which we as a country are very exposed – they have not sorted out their problems.
"Unless we get a global growth plan going, including in the eurozone, you can't turn this round. I am afraid that our government seems to be urging the wrong actions in Europe as it takes the wrong actions here in Britain too."
The shadow chancellor pointed out that Osborne had "snuck out another U-turn" in his speech, in particular to the objectives of the new financial policy committee at the bank.
"Labour and business organisations like the CBI have been calling for the new financial policy committee to have supporting economic growth as one of its key objectives. The chancellor voted against our amendment on this but in the face of an imminent defeat in the House of Lords he has now backed down."
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Thursday, June 14, 2012
It's decision time for euro zone
LONDON (Reuters) - The risks to Britain from a disorderly collapse of the euro zone are huge and Greece has to make up its mind over its membership of the zone, finance minister George Osborne said on Thursday. In comments likely to stir up resentment on the continent, where euro zone leaders are fed up with what they see as an obstructive Britain lecturing from the sidelines, Osborne told the bloc to form a banking union and underwrite its banks. ...
Politics live blog: Thursday 14 June
Rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen
You can read all today's Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today's papers, are here.
As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting.
Tony Blair has delivered a stark warning of a popular backlash against austerity policies in the eurozone ahead of this Sunday's re-run election in Greece.
"You look at what the Greeks are being asked to accept: it's beyond tough," Mr Blair said in an interview with the Financial Times in Jerusalem.
The former long-standing UK prime minister, a self-professed pro-European, said the risk of unrest applied to Europe as a whole. "In the end, what people will ask is: 'Is the single currency worth it if that's what we're being asked to accept'."
Mr Blair's said the remedy should be a "grand bargain" between Germany and the rest of Europe to rescue the single currency. This would involve a pooling of European debt and a new push for growth, matched by deficit reduction through pension and welfare reforms.
George Osborne is facing further revolt over his budget from countryside, heritage and building groups who warn that he will inflict serious damage on Britain's "finest and most loved buildings".
Fifteen organisations, including the Federation of Master Builders, Countryside Alliance and Historic Towns Forum, have written to The Times urging a U-turn on the decision to levy VAT on alterations to listed properties.
They are furious about Treasury claims that one aim of the policy is to tackle an "anomaly" through which millionaires can install swimming pools without paying VAT because they own an historic home.
The groups have looked at more than 12,000 applications for alterations and found that just 34 related to swimming pools. They say that half of people who live in listed buildings are in lower socioeconomic groups, C1, C2, D, and E.
Brown should have admitted his round-the-clock interest in the media; it would have reinforced his argument about the recklessness of some newspapers. He had cause to be obsessed. More to the point, he was not alone. One of Murdoch's senior intermediaries described to me his discussions with Blair over whether the Labour government would offer a referendum on the proposed EU constitution as being like a "negotiation". The senior intermediary made clear to Blair that The Sun would not endorse Labour unless the referendum was offered. Blair told me in January 2005 that he knew The Sun would be backing Labour, five months before the election took place. I assume his confidence was based on the "negotiation". Blair once told me that dealing with the media was like sharing a flat with a demented tenant.
Gaining access to communications data is no longer a sophisticated means of gathering evidence. Just as mobile phones, e-mail and social media have become part of our lives, so this kind of work has become part of daily policing.
Already some forms of data are not available to us. This will only get worse if changes are not made. We must preserve our ability to make use of this vital intelligence and evidence.
I fully support public debate about this issue and understand concerns about privacy. That's why I think it is really important to be clear: I do not see this proposed legislation as being more intrusive than the laws we currently have. Police already have access to communications data; the problem is that for some services it is not currently collected and stored by the service provider.
Here's the start of the Press Association story about the opening of David Cameron's evidence to the Leveson inquiry.
David Cameron has long-held views about media regulation in the UK formed when he worked for a major commercial broadcaster in the 1990s, he told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards today.
As he began his evidence under oath at the Royal Courts of Justice, the prime minister said his seven years as corporate affairs director at Carlton "was quite a formative period".
The Tory leader has submitted an 84-page witness statement and three exhibits to the inquiry and will be questioned about them in an all-day session.
Asked about his time in television before quitting for a political career, he said: "Carlton was quite a formative period.
"I formed a lot of views about the media then which I still hold today."
He said he also formed relations with many journalists at that time, though those with Westminster media were forged more in his previous role as a ministerial special adviser.
In that role, he said, he acted as both a "mouthpiece" for his home secretary and chancellor bosses and as a "sponge", meeting people the minister did not have time to see.
Asked if he ever gave his own opinions rather than representing those of the minister, he said: "On occasion, I am sure I would have made clear to people my own views about something."
Pressed on whether he would have made clear that he was not speaking the mind of his political boss, he replied: "I would hope so."
David Cameron is giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry now.
You can follow the proceedings on our Leveson live blog.
Theresa May (pictured), the home secretary, has also been giving interviews this morning. She has been talking about the draft communications bill being published later and she insists this "isn't about snooping". According to PoliticsHome, this is what she told Sky News.
This is about purely having access to the, sort of, who, when and where of these [internet] communications. It's not about listening to or looking at the content of what anybody's saying in these communications. Looking at that content will still require warrants and that still requires warrants to come up to the secretary of state, but this is about merely maintaining an ability that the police and others have at the moment to be able to have access to the same sort of data they've got at the moment, same information they've got they can use in prosecuting cases and stopping terrorists, but making sure that it can cover those new means of communication.
But David Davis, the Tory backbencher, told the Today programme that the plans would not affect experienced criminals.
The only people who will avoid this, avoid being covered by this, are the actually criminals because they are always around this. You use a pre-paid phone, you use an internet cafe to hack into somebody's wi-fi. You use what is called proxy servers, and those are just the easy ways. There are harder ways too and you know actually the 7/7 bombers went round it. Organised criminals go round it. Organised paedophile rings go round it. What this will catch is the innocent and the incompetent.
According to the Daily Mirror's James Lyons on Twitter, Mark Hoban is giving the banking statement in the Commons, not George Osborne. I'll amend the running order I posted earlier.
David Cameron has put out a statement today to mark the 30th anniversary of the liberation of the Falkland Islands. Here's an extract.
Our resolve to support the Falkland Islanders has not wavered in the last thirty years and it will not in the years ahead. For the last 180 years, ten generations have called the Falkland Islands home and have strived hard to secure a prosperous future for their children. And despite the aggressive threats from over the water, they are succeeding. The Falklands economy is growing, the fishing industry is thriving and tourism is flourishing. Next year's referendum will establish the definitive choice of the Falkland Islanders once and for all. And just as we have stood up for the Falkland Islanders in the past, so we will in the future.
Iain Duncan Smith (pictured), the work and pensions secretary, was on the Today programme this morning defending his plan to change the way poverty is defined. I've taken the quote from PoliticsHome.
The key thing is what we don't measure with [relative poverty], and this is why we're launching the consultation today. If you just measure the relative income levels, you know nothing about what actually happened to the families. What we're after understands what actually happened to those families. Let's take, for example, a family which has drug addiction problems. We give them more money and they, according to the relative income levels, go above the poverty level. But in actual fact that family probably lives in some real difficulty because the parents, who are on drugs, don't spend the money on their children.Across the board, health, early intervention, dysfunctional families, whether they're in work or out of work, these are figures that are not looked at or tracked in the poverty figures. So, we're simply saying in the consultation, income matters, we're not departing from the idea of measuring income, but we are saying far better if we also now look at other measurements to let us know whether there's a life change taking place. The key thing is you attack poverty by knowing that what you do changes the lives of those people, so that they move on and out of poverty and sustain that.
My Guardian colleague Tom Clark was listening, and he has used Twitter to challenge Duncan Smith on three points.
IDS lie no1 - most of the poverty action up to 2003 was lifting people just below line. IFS showed where line drawn made no odds
— Tom Clark (@guardian_clark) June 14, 2012
IDS porky no 2 - problem is slump will make poverty better. Maybe, but that's why labour's target contained an absolute income line
— Tom Clark (@guardian_clark) June 14, 2012
IDS 3rd fib - poverty persisted because poor gave up on working. But 1997 to 2010 lone parent emp rate rose from 46% to well over 50%
— Tom Clark (@guardian_clark) June 14, 2012
I'm pretty sure that Winston Churchill never had to put up with the impertinence of being grilled by a public inquiry when he was prime minister, but these days it's almost part of the job and today David Cameron is doing his turn in the Leveson hot seat. The Daily Mail has got some colourful detail about the amount of preparation he's been doing.
Mr Cameron has been using two government lawyers, paid for by the taxpayer, to prepare for his appearance at the Leveson inquiry.
Downing Street sources said the Prime Minister has taken advice from the Treasury Solicitor Paul Jenkins, the head of the Government Legal Service, and from a leading QC.
Mr Cameron has been involved in three hours of intensive mock cross-examination over the last two days, effectively war-gaming his appearance before Lord Justice Leveson.
Tory sources have revealed that Andrew Feldman, the Prime Minister's close friend from university and co-chairman of the Tory Party, has been playing the role of Robert Jay, the chief counsel for the inquiry.
Lawyers have spent dozens of hours compiling a written statement for Mr Cameron and details of his meetings with media executives. But despite reports, senior government sources insisted that the experts have not been involved in personally 'prepping' Mr Cameron.
I'll be keeping an eye on Cameron at Leveson, although for full coverage you should read our Leveson live blog.
Otherwise, it's quite busy. Here's the agenda for the day.
9.30am: The Office for National Statistics releases poverty statistics.
9.30am: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, gives a speech on poverty. As Patrick Wintour reports, he will take the first steps to downgrade the Labour government's commitment to eradicate child poverty in 2020 by announcing that he is to publish a green paper looking at a range of new non-income indicators of poverty.
10am: David Cameron gives evidence to the Leveson inquiry. You can follow the proceedings on our Leveson live blog.
10am: Michael Gove, the education secretary, gives a speech at the National College for School Leadership conference.
10am: Vince Cable gives a speech on infrastructure at a Reform conference.
11.30am: Theresa May, the home secretary, publishes the draft communications bill, which contains plans to extend internet surveillance. As Alan Travis reports, the draft legislation will say that the government will pay internet and phone firms so that they can track everyone's email, Twitter, Facebook and other internet use.
Around 12.30pm: Mark Hoban, a Treasury minister, will make a statement in the Commons on the government's plans for banking reform.
As usual, I'll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm on @AndrewSparrow.
And if you're a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It's an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog.
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Wednesday, June 13, 2012
UK's Osborne says Greece may have to quit euro
 CNBC.com | UK's Osborne says Greece may have to quit euro Reuters LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) - Europe may need to sacrifice Greece's membership of its single currency bloc in order to convince Germany to put in more money to save the euro, Britain's finance minister George Osborne suggested in remarks certain to ... We Will Keep Greece in the Euro Zone: Leftists Greek Syriza Leader Says Europe Cannot Afford To Let Greece Fail Greece 'will exit' eurozone after election |
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