Greece Outside In

Monday, September 24, 2012

Give Greece more time, says French PM

France has said Greece should be given more time to meet the terms of its international bailout, in the clearest call yet by a leading eurozone country for an easing of the stringent conditions attached to the €174bn rescue package.

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Athens' deficit is '€20bn' – double official figure

Greece's budget deficit is in reality almost double the amount officially acknowledged by the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and currently stands at about €20bn (£16bn), the German magazine Der Spiegel reported yesterday.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.independent.co.uk

From Nigeria to Athens, Muslim protests rumble on

DUBAI (Reuters) - Muslims protested in Nigeria, Iran, Greece and Turkey on Sunday to show anti-Western anger against a film and cartoons insulting Islam had not dissipated.

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Prophet film protesters clash with Greek police

Greek riot police used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse Muslim protesters who clashed with officers Sunday during a rally against a film produced in the U.S. that denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad. No injuries were reported.

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In Spain, Austerity and Hunger

As Spain tries desperately to meet its budget targets, it has been forced to embark on the same path as Greece introducing one austerity measure after another, cutting jobs, salaries, pensions and benefits, even as the economy continues to shrink.

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.nytimes.com

Portugal prepares U-turn on social security payment increase

Ministers pledge to renegotiate austerity measures with unions and employers amid growing popular backlash

Portugal's government is preparing a U-turn on an announced rise in social security contributions that would have instantly increased workers' payments by nearly two-thirds amid a growing popular revolt against austerity measures.

Hundreds of thousands of people took to town squares across the country a week ago to protest at the announced rise, which raised contributions from 11 to 18% of salaries, sparking a pledge by the government this weekend to reconsider the unpopular move.

The centre-right prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, had solemnly announced the measure to shocked Portuguese workers, who would have lost the equivalent of almost a month's salary, during a televised speech a fortnight ago.

"The financial emergency that the country sank into in 2011 is still not over," he said at the time. "We have begun to attack the problems we face but have not yet dominated them."

But an eight-hour meeting of the presidential state council was besieged by protesters in the small hours of Saturday morning and ended with a government pledge to renegotiate deficit-cutting measures with trade unions and employers.

"The council was informed of the government's readiness to study, within the framework of the social bargaining process, alternatives to changes in the social security rate," a statement said after the council meeting. The council is presided over by the president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, and Passos Coelho is one of its members.

Half a dozen protesters who were arrested outside the presidential palace on Friday night are due to appear in court on Monday. Demonstrators had demanded the government's resignation and chanted: "Thieves, thieves!"

The mounting anger in Portugal about the austerity imposed by the bailout came as France appeared ready to offer concessions to Greece, the first country to need help from eurozone partners. The French prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, told the news website Mediapart: "The answer must not be a Greek exit from the eurozone.

"We can already offer it more time … on the condition that Greece is sincere in its commitment to reform, especially fiscal reform," he said.

Aid to Greece from the IMF and European bodies is reliant on the cash-strapped country meeting tough austerity measures. Last week there were reports – later denied – that the latest inspection by the troika could be delayed until after the US presidential elections in November.

The Portugese rethink marked a turning point in the country's patience with austerity, which was imposed on it after it asked for a €78bn bailout from the troika of the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last year.

Portuguese voters appeared to accept austerity measures as inevitable at the time and in June 2011 they elected a coalition of Passos Coelho's centre-right Social Democratic party and more right-wing People's party to carry them through.

The country is now in its worst recession since the 1970s and the economy is expected to shrink by more than 3% this year. Recession is expected to continue in 2013, further reducing Portugal's chances of shaking off troika control.

Passos Coelho had his knuckles rapped by the state council, which called for "political and social dialogue to seek consensus" rather than the unilateral imposition of measures in its Saturday morning statement.

The council also asked the government, which had accompanied the rise in individual social security payments with a cut in those made by employers, to share the burden of austerity more evenly. "Any solutions should … guarantee an equitable and just distribution of sacrifices as well as protecting those families with the lowest income," it said.

Both the council and the government recognised, nevertheless, that Portugal must meet its obligations to the troika – which means finding another way to raise €6bn a year.

Earlier this month the troika agreed to relax Portugal's deficit targets for the next two years but the government believes fresh measures are still needed to meet the new targets.

Portugal's trade unions will bring their own deficit-cutting proposals to the table. They include a tax on financial transactions, higher business taxes, a harder line on tax fraud and higher taxes on dividend payments to large shareholders. A 0.25% tax on financial transactions would raise €2bn, according to the General Workers Confederation of Portugal.

Passos Coelho's government will propose a new cut in holiday subsidies for workers, the Expresso weekend newspaper reported

Giles Tremlett

READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk

Why are Golden Dawn members the darlings of popular Greek TV shows? | Aris Chatzistefanou

The response of journalists and TV producers to the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is at best muddled, at worst complicit

Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi party of Greece, made a rather strange proposal this week: let's create a new public holiday, they said, to commemorate victims of Communist guerrillas at the end of the second world war. By "victims", they mainly refer to the Nazi collaborators who were slaughtered after ferocious battles in southern Greece. Recalling the period before and during the civil war of 1946 to 1949 doesn't seem like the best suggestion for a debt-ridden country. Unfortunately the same idea seems to thrill the country's mainstream media.

Hardly a day goes by without the appearance of an article in a leading newspaper that presents Golden Dawn as some kind of "golden opportunity" for Greek society. Many well-known journalists seem eager to criticise the racist violence of the neo-Nazis only so they can pour scorn on what they characterise as the excessive "violence of the left".

"Those of us believing in democracy owe a big 'thank you' to Golden Dawn" wrote a columnist in Kathimerini daily, explaining that "it is an opportunity for legality to confront the quasi-legitimate violence of the left".

The following day a columnist in To Vima daily was wondering why the violence of the blackshirts (fascist death squads in Italy) is seen as worst than the violence of hooligans or "pseudo Che Guevaras" who clash with the police.

By leftwing "violence" commentators usually refer to big strikes that can lead to social unrest in the streets or even jeering and "yogurt throwing" against politicians. When hundreds of protesters battled riot police over plans for a gold mine in northern Greece recently, a newspaper compared their action with neo-Nazi squads who have been attacking foreign workers and stabbing immigrants.

This line of argument is reminiscent of the so called "horseshoe theory" according to which the far left and the far right, rather than being at opposite ends of the political spectrum, resemble one another like the ends of a horseshoe. This idea, which was at its peak during the cold war, appears in Greece disguised as the voice of "logic" against the "violence of the extremes". What the media seem to forget is that the country was brought to its knees by the "extremism of the political centre" – a neoliberal project that ruptured the fabric of the society and paved the way for Golden Dawn.

The 40% increase in suicides, the 50% rate of unemployment among young people and the breadlines in the centre of Athens are the result of a "systemic violence" imposed on the population by the political elites – not the "extremes". The fact that the internal devaluation increased the sovereign debt and the economy is forecast to contract by 25% by the end of 2014 is evidence of the total failure of the policy imposed by the IMF and the EU.

Under these circumstances the violence of the neo-Nazis represents a useful distraction from the social genocide of the austerity packages, but also a unique opportunity to attack those who oppose the measures.

A few days ago the president of the Greek journalists' association criticised the media for being "advocates" and "contractors" for the neo-Nazi party. It's a harsh criticism, but not unfounded. For several weeks after the last general elections party members of the Golden Dawn became darlings of popular TV shows. In the meantime horrendous crimes committed by neo-Nazis against immigrants are often hushed up. The Greek media need to answer a simple question: whose side are you on?

Aris Chatzistefanou