Greek Orthodox & Jewish Marriage

Marriage plays an enormous role in the lives of those who follow the Greek Orthodox and Jewish faiths. Matrimony is a crucial sacrament in the Greek Orthodox Church, which describes the holy union as a “God-given gift.” The Jewish tradition also frames ...

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SNP 'has exaggerated Scotland's oil revenues'

Institute of Fiscal Studies warns that predictions by Alex Salmond's government of North Sea earnings are 'too optimistic'

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has warned that Alex Salmond's government has exaggerated the size of Scotland's latest North Sea oil revenues, leaving a deeper shortfall in tax income.

The IFS said the Scottish government's forecasts of oil revenues were "too optimistic" for the last two financial years, and were also double the size of the oil taxes predicted for the first year of independence by the Office for Budget Responsibility.

In a new analysis on the current state of the UK economy, the IFS said that the OBR had downgraded Scotland's oil revenues in 2016/17 to £3.3bn, leaving an independent Scotland having to borrow the equivalent of 3.6% of its GDP that year.

That prediction was half the size of the oil revenues of £6.8bn-£7.9bn forecast for 2016/17 by the Scottish government's white paper on independence in November – a disparity that highlighted Scotland's vulnerability to fluctuating oil revenues, the IFS said.

The IFS added that other forecasters were more optimistic, and cautioned that neither the Scottish government nor the OBR could be sure how much North Sea oil would raise in 2016.

"What is clear is that fiscal decisions in an independent Scotland would need to be taken in the context of considerable uncertainty over this very important part of the budget – and in the context of long-term pressures both on these revenues and arising from an ageing population," the IFS warned.

With one leading industrialist meanwhile insisting he had no problem with independence, Salmond's economic plans were boosted further when one leading expert on the referendum, Professor Charlie Jeffery, said a currency union between Scotland and the UK was "perfectly feasible".

Prof Jeffery, who is leading a £5m ESRC-funded research programme on the referendum and is director of the academy of government at Edinburgh university, said economic arguments against a currency union used by George Osborne to veto a deal on sterling took second place to the political desire to defeat Salmond at the referendum.

Writing before he gave evidence to a Holyrood committee on Wednesday, Jeffery said that while currency unions required "painful adjustments" and were difficult to run, "Whether or not they are established and last has less to do with economics than with political will.

"Seen from an economic perspective, the eurozone is hugely problematic. Its economies are much more out of synch than Scotland's is with the rest of the UK. Yet it endures because the political will is there for it to endure, both in the governments of the strongest members like Germany and the weakest like Greece," Jeffery wrote.

"Were there such political will in the Scottish/residual UK context, a sterling currency union would likely be far less problematic than the eurozone."

However, Angus Armstrong, a macro-economist from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said that Osborne's veto on a currency pact was a severe test for Salmond's economic strategy.

Armstrong, also writing in advance of the Holyrood committee hearing, said major Scottish banks and financial institutions would be likely to flee Scotland if Salmond pursued the "dollarisation" option, where Scotland would use the pound without a formal deal.

Armstrong said using sterling informally would be risky and require significant taxpayer backing to set up a new central bank rich enough to guarantee deposits or a UK government deal to insure Scottish banks.

Without that deal, "many institutions would change their domicile. Apart from the serious impact on employment, income and tax on Scotland's second largest onshore economic sector, it would mean a dramatic reduction in the export of financial services to the rest of the UK."

Salmond said Osborne's decision to rule out sharing currency with an independent Scotland will prove to be a "monumental error". At a lecture hosted by the New Statesman in London on Tuesday Salmond said: "In the last three weeks people in Scotland have seen an array of approaches from the UK government – what they apparently call their Dambusters strategy. We were love-bombed from a distance by David Cameron, then dive-bombed at close range by George Osborne.

"The UK cabinet came up to Aberdeen, but chose not to meet the members of the public. I believe that George Osborne's speech on sterling three weeks ago – the sermon on the pound – will come to be seen as monumental an error as Margaret Thatcher's sermon on the mound some 25 years ago.

"It encapsulates diktats from on high which are not the strength of the Westminster elite, rather, they're a fundamental weakness. I want to make a contrast – and we shall make a contrast – that we shall seek to engage with the people of England on the case for progressive reform."

Jeffery also rebuffed an outspoken attack by European commission president José Manuel Barroso on Scotland's chances of joining the EU in parallel with its independence talks with the UK. He said Barroso's personal views were largely irrelevant as he is about to step down as commission president, and he had no influence over what would happen after a yes vote in September's referendum.

"Contrary to Barroso, the conclusion of almost all independent expert analysis is that Scottish EU membership would be uninterrupted, though the process of attaining membership as an independent state and the terms of that membership would likely be subject to difficult negotiations," Jeffery said.

Nigel Stein, chief executive of the engineering firm GKN, told industrialists in London that independence would not affect his firm's business, but a threat to leave the European Union after a referendum in 2017 would be damaging. Speaking at the Engineering Employers Federation annual conference, Stein said: "The prospect of the UK talking itself into an exit would be deeply harmful to our industry. Uncertainty over the UK's position in Europe is being used against us by our competitors."

A Scottish government spokesman said: "There is no doubt that Scotland can more than afford to become an independent country, and as Standard and Poor's noted last week, even without North Sea oil and calculating per capita GDP looking only at onshore income, Scotland would qualify for their highest economic assessment."

Scottish National party (SNP)Alex SalmondScottish independenceOilScottish politicsScotlandSeverin Carrelltheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Can a Tiny Greek Island Heal Your Heart?

Can a Tiny Greek Island Heal Your Heart?Huffington PostJennifer Barclay writes in her memoir, Falling in Honey, that she has been "looking for a Greek island. If I were going on my own, maybe I'd just take a backpack and trust serendipity." Her love affair with Greece began at school in England, where she ...

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Greek tax concessions announced for yachts

Greek tax concessions announced for yachtsYachting MonthlyThe Cruising Association which has been working on behalf of boat owners in France, Sweden and the UK, reports that there will now be Greek tax concessions for those with boats more than 12m long and that the Greek government will completely revise the ...

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Greeks Fleeing Ukraine

The evening flight that arrived in Athens from Kiev was filled with Greeks who fled Ukraine after the developments in Crimea. When the Greeks arrived at Eleftherios Venizelos airport they were greeted with hugs kisses and tears of joy from their relatives who were anxiously waiting for them in the arrivals hall. Christina Legnidi who studied and currently works in Kiev referred to the situation: “extremists in the center of Kiev are raising money to buy weapons. We don’t know how they are going to use them. They had been hanging posters on the side of the streets which read ‘Don’t speak this language! (meaning Russian) The Russians are our enemy.’” There is no police. They are attacking Jewish people and Ukrainians of Russian descent. A few days ago they found a street artist and beat him in public because he was selling his paintings. Vangelis Diakomanolis, a Piraeus Bank employee in Kiev said: “I came to Greece with my wife and two children until they stabilize the situation. There is fear among the Ukrainians. Greeks have no problem and neither do our businesses.” “We decided to come to Greece for at least a month because we are afraid and we do not know what may come” stated Marina Malikova. Finally, another passenger on the plane who came to Greece with his Ukrainian wife said they fear the recent developments. However, he stressed the fact that international media tend to exaggerate sometimes.

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Grenade from WWII Found in Yard, North Greece

A woman in Neo Souli in Serres, Greece found a grenade when digging in her yard. Yesterday evening, while the woman was removing some rocks from her yard, she grabbed the grenade thinking it was a rock or a turtle shell. When she realized that it was a grenade, she carefully placed it back where she found it and left the yard in order to go somewhere safer. Greek authorities were alerted this morning and immediately set up an operation to diffuse the grenade. Men of the Greek police in Serres as well as ambulances and EMTs were found on scene, along with army bomb squad experts who removed the grenade from the house yard in Neo Souli and proceeded to diffuse it in an uninhabited area, away from the village. “She was lucky that she did not pull the pin,” said the bomb squad technician, Chrysovalantis Dymenos, referring to the incident, noting that although it was made during World War II, the grenade was still active. According to the deputy president of the region in Neo Souli, Stella Spanoudakis, this is the second grenade that has been found in the same yard. The first was spotted last year by the tenants of the house and was also diffused by bomb experts.

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Presentation of New Greek Political Party ‘To Potami’

  Τhe famous Greek TV journalist Stavros Theodorakis during a press conference that he gave today, officially presented his new pro-Europe political party To Potami (The River). He stated that the party’s program will be shaped by both leftist and neo-liberal ideas. He added that “I can assure no one that everything in our program will be revolutionary, but surely it will be different.”  He continued by mentioning some personalities that support this new political movement, but he did not reveal the names that will be at the party’s list of candidates in the forthcoming elections of the European Parliament. “We have to include in our program both leftist and neo-liberal ideas because Greece needs solutions immediately” said Theodorakis. He underlined, that since he was a young boy he was leftist, but “the question is, what is defined as a leftist today.” What is more, he said that the left parties today refuse any evaluation process in the public sector, while he believes that the evaluation process coincides with leftist policies and ideas. When he was asked to reveal which political group of the European Parliament will be the one that his party will join, he stated that the party’s officials have not decided yet. However, he made it crystal clear that To Potami does not belong to the Eurosceptics by stating that “no matter what the current problems are that Greece is dealing with regarding its partners, Europe is still a valuable ally. In response to the media and social media comments that the movement is not political, Theodorakis rejected the attacks by stating that To Potami will respond to some people’s necessity to seek solutions to their problems outside the parties’ stereotypes of the past.” He criticized the political parties which, according to him, have equal responsibility for the current situation of Greece, stating that it is not possible for them to pretend that they solve the problems they themselves have created in the first place. “What we are trying to do is to enable ordinary citizens to express their position.”

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