Thousands Of Greeks Rally In Athens Ahead Of Crucial Referendum

By Michele Kambas and Lefteris Papadimas ATHENS, July 3 (Reuters) - Greeks took to the streets in their tens of thousands on Friday in rival rallies that laid bare the deep divide heading into a referendum that may decide the country's future in Europe's single currency. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, elected in January on a promise to end six years of austerity, extolled a packed Syntagma square in central Athens to spurn the tough terms of an aid deal offered by international creditors to keep the country afloat. His European partners say a 'No' vote will jeopardize Greece's membership of the euro. Tsipras says they are bluffing, fearing the fallout for Europe and the global economy. But a 'Yes' vote may bring him down, ushering in a new period of political instability for a country reeling from five days of shuttered banks and rationed cash withdrawals. Framing Sunday's ballot as a battle for democracy, freedom and European values, the 40-year-old left-wing leader told Greeks to "turn your backs on those who terrorize you daily." "On Sunday, we are not just deciding that we are staying in Europe, but that we are deciding to live with dignity in Europe," he told the crowd of at least 50,000. His opponents accuse Tsipras of gambling Greece's future with a rapid-fire plebiscite that a major European rights watchdog says falls short of international standards of fairness. Three opinion polls published on Friday had the 'Yes' vote marginally ahead; a fourth put the 'No' camp 0.5 percent in front, but all were well within the margin of error. "We know that the lenders will close the door if we say no, but we must fight," said 65-year-old pensioner Irini Stavridou, attending the 'No' rally. "We must fight not only for Greece but all the people in Europe, for those who just have a different opinion." Supporters of the 'Yes' campaign attend a rally and listen to speeches at the Olympic Stadium in preparation for Sunday's referendum on July 3, 2015 in Athens, Greece. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) Supporters of the 'Yes' campaign attend a rally and listen to speeches at the Olympic Stadium in preparation for Sunday's referendum on July 3, 2015 in Athens, Greece. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) ODE TO JOY On Syntagma, patriotic songs blared out over loud speakers. At the 'Yes' camp, thousands rallied in front of the old Olympic Stadium to Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the anthem of the European Union. There appeared to be fewer people than in the 'No' crowd. "I prefer to vote 'Yes', have a few more years austerity and give my child a better future," said jobless economist Marina Peppa, 45. "It's not going to be easy, but if 'No' prevails we'll have Armageddon, total poverty." With tension building, police firing stun grenades briefly scuffled with a few dozen black-clad people carrying red flags, often carried by anti-establishment radicals. The violence appeared to be isolated. In a televised address earlier in the day, Tsipras seized on a report by the International Monetary Fund - which argued that Greece's massive public debt could not be sustained without significant writedowns - as vindication of his rejection of the lenders' terms. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis called the IMF report "music to our ears." Regardless of the outcome of the referendum, Greece will need some 50 billion euros as well as a massive debt writedown, the report said. European policy makers, however, fired fresh warnings of the costs of a 'No' vote in a plebiscite called at just eight days' notice after the breakdown of talks with the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble dismissed Tsipras' version that his government would be able to move smoothly to negotiate more favorable terms if Greeks backed his rejection. "If the Greeks will vote 'No', the Greek position is dramatically weakened," Juncker told a news conference. Greek protesters hold a placard reading 'No' during a demonstration calling for a 'No' vote in the upcoming referendum in Athens on July 3, 2015. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images) Greek protesters shout slogans during a demonstration calling for a 'No' vote in the upcoming referendum in Athens on July 3, 2015. (ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images) BRINKMANSHIP Tsipras is betting Europe will compromise rather than let Greece slip out of the euro zone. But behind the rhetoric, there were more concrete signs of the pressure Europe can exert on Greece. The euro zone's rescue fund, Greece's largest creditor, said it was reserving the right to call in 130.9 billion euros of debt ahead of time after Athens defaulted on an IMF loan. With banks shuttered all week, cash withdrawals rationed and commerce seizing up, Sunday's ballot could decide whether Greece gets another last-ditch financial rescue in exchange for more harsh austerity measures or plunges deeper into economic crisis. Tsipras' opponents have pointed to the fact that the referendum is on a deal that is no longer on the table, accusing him of recklessly endangering the country's future. Greece's top administrative court, however, rejected an appeal against the referendum by two Greek citizens, who argued that the constitution bars plebiscites on fiscal issues and that the question is too complex. The 'No' campaign has directed much of its venom at Germany, the euro zone's dominant power and Greece's biggest creditor. One poster plastered in central Greece shows a picture of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble with the slogan: "For five years he's been sucking your blood. Tell him NO now." (Additional reporting by James Mackenzie in Athens, Julien Ponthus and Ingrid Melander in Paris and David Chance in Washington; Writing by James Mackenzie and Matt Robinson; editing by Anna Willard) Supporters of the 'Yes' campaign attend a rally and listen to speeches at the Olympic Stadium in preparation for Sunday's referendum on July 3, 2015 in Athens, Greece. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images) -- 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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The Greek tragedy of Mario Draghi

Central banking is difficult. It requires bankers not only to plan for how they think the future is going to play out, but plan for how they fear it might play out, too

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Greek banks' emergency plan includes 30% haircut to deposits over €8Κ

Greek banks are preparing contingency plans for a possible “bail-in” of depositors amid fears the country is heading for financial collapse, bankers and businesspeople with knowledge of the measures said on Friday. The plans, which call for a “haircut” of at ...

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IMF report damning for Greek policies

Analysing a country’s debt sustainability sounds dry and nerdy. But the analysis the IMF prepared for Greece in late June spells out the truly tragic consequences of the Greek electorate’s decision in January to vote in a populist government led ...

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Bernie Sanders Will End the IMF's Economic Violence in Greece and Africa

Many people want to know more about Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' foreign policy agenda. Yes, they say, we like what Sanders is saying about reducing extreme inequality, about reducing the political power of the billionaire class. But what about U.S. foreign policy? Yes, they say, Bernie voted no on the Iraq war; yes, they acknowledge, Sanders supports the Iran deal. But we're spending more than half of our federal income tax dollars on the Pentagon's empire, money we should be spending on rebuilding our nation's domestic infrastructure. "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death," Dr. King said. What's Bernie going to do about that? I'm all for pushing Bernie to talk more about downsizing the Pentagon to be an institution focused on actually defending the United States, as opposed to running around the world overthrowing other people's governments -- a Pentagon that "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy," as President John Quincy Adams put it. But we should also take advantage of the new opportunity that now presents itself; it's not only with bombs that U.S. foreign policy kills and injures innocent civilians. We should recognize and publicize the fact that Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate who is talking about what the IMF is doing to Greece, the only presidential candidate who has a track record of opposing the IMF, the only presidential candidate who, if elected, is likely to do anything to end the economic violence of the IMF. In his historic campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988, Jesse Jackson often invoked the theme of "economic violence": Economic violence is the critical issue of our day. When plants close on workers without notice, and leave them without jobs or training for new jobs -- that's economic violence. When three to five million Americans are on the streets and homeless -- that's economic violence. When merger maniacs make windfall profits and top management is given excessive bonuses, golden parachutes to aid a soft landing, while workers are asked to take a wage cut, a benefit cut and a job loss, a crash landing -- that's economic violence. When our children are victimized with poor health care, poor education, poor housing, poor diets and more -- that's economic violence against our children. Jesse Jackson was talking about U.S. domestic policy. But others have used the idea to talk about the IMF: Hundreds of campaigners are marching in Prague as the main policy-making body of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) begins a meeting to discuss debt relief. They want the IMF and its sister organisation, the World Bank, to cancel altogether debts owed to them by the poorest countries. The protesters are staging a "funeral" procession through Czech capital to highlight their view that 7 million children a year die because of the debt crisis. Jubliee 2000, which is organising the march, says it will be totally non-violent and that it is committed to peaceful protest. "We condemn violence, both the violence which ends in broken windows, and the violence that kills 19,000 children a day," the group's UK director Ann Pettifor told the BBC. The IMF is not "over there." The IMF is headquartered in Washington, physically, politically and financially. A progressive economist once reported that he was at a seminar at the IMF, where a senior IMF official was indignant that people were saying that IMF is unaccountable. The IMF official demanded to know: why do people always accuse us of being unaccountable? We never do anything without checking with the U.S. Treasury Department! Until now, unfortunately, Congressional Democrats have been largely content to let Treasury to run the show at the IMF without the input of real Democrats. The IMF is now doing to Greece what the IMF has been doing to Africa since the 1980s and what the IMF did to South America until the progressive governments there kicked the IMF out. The IMF is a member of the "troika" of official creditors that have been making extreme austerity demands on the Greek government and are now openly demanding "regime change" in Greece before there can be any deal that ends the crisis in Greece that the troika has imposed. (Some people complain that we shouldn't blame the IMF for what is being done to Greece; they say that some other institution or actor is more responsible. These people want us to play "accountability whack-a-mole" with the institutions. We need to hold the institutions "jointly and severally liable"; and the IMF is the bad actor in the troika for whom Americans have the most responsibility.) Bernie Sanders is the only presidential candidate who is speaking out about this. In Congress, it's the progressive Democrats - including Sanders - who are speaking out about this. U.S. support for the IMF is more politically fragile than many people realize. Many Congressional Republicans hate the IMF, in significant measure because they see the IMF as a Democrat-supported taxpayer-financed slush fund to bail out big private banks when their international bets go bad (which assessment is quite correct.) Without the support of Congressional Democrats, the IMF is dead meat in Washington. Whenever the IMF wants more money from Washington, there's a campaign to trick low-information Democrats into believing that the IMF is "foreign aid," so that Democrats will support it. When more Democrats own the fact that the IMF agenda is the NAFTA-WTO-TPP agenda with a European internationalist smiley face mask pasted on, the IMF will be on a fast train to the dustbin of history. And this is not necessarily a remote prospect - the fact that this is the fundamental identity of the IMF is well known among labor activists, for example. AFL-CIO chief economist William Spriggs recently wrote: In the U.S. we must take the side of Greece in this fight. It is in our interest, as the immediate problem of the instability this is causing is a rising dollar that will hurt U.S. exports and jobs. And, we can never be sure of the interrelated nature of financial collapses since so much of the banking sector remains in the shadows; with global derivatives trading at values greater than global output. More importantly, we must also revolt against this economic order. It is the same order that saved JP Morgan Chase, but let Detroit and now Puerto Rico fail. It is the same religion that would sacrifice the earnings of American students with rising student debt and de-invest in public higher education. It is the same religion that would sacrifice American jobs and labor standards and back the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We must see these as the same struggle to restore sanity and purpose to role of government and its servant, the economy. This is why supporters of the IMF should be very afraid that Bernie Sanders and progressive Democrats are denouncing what the IMF is doing to Greece. You can add your voice here. -- 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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The Tragedy Of Greece's Referendum

The person who says "I'm voting no" has a point. Not the person who says it out of blind and thoughtless rage. He's just an idiot. But the person who doesn't want his "yes" to be interpreted as an absolution of what happened in the past five years or as an advanced affirmation of the continuation of the same policy without corrections. Or the person that says that they don't want their "yes" to be taken as a vote of doubt towards a government that has only been in power for six months, or much worse, as a vote of confidence towards the old politicians that are ready to return to the arena. The person who says "I'm voting yes" also has a point. But not out of fear. Because, after the plunder of the internal devaluation that removed 25 percent of our national income, I won't risk going through the ultimate misery of another, even worse, external devaluation when the euro gives its place to a parallel "bad" currency at first and a devaluated national currency later. I will not risk my country's position in the European core, nor do I want to see its identity replaced by Panos Kammenos' folk dancing at army bases and his nationalist ethical teachings in schools. I do not want to give a blank check to a government that admits to having failed in the negotiations so far, for them to continue at will. If we have reached the referendum, it is because the previous deal wouldn't pass the party's vote and wouldn't receive a parliamentary majority. How can I believe that another deal will pass, when the nay-sayers will have the nuclear weapon of the referendum on their side? Both sides of this debate have a point that has divided us. Maybe that's why, for the first time, the cliché of the "Greek tragedy" that the international media often uses to describe what's happening is accurate this time. Because what sets the Greek tragedy apart from other dramatic arts is that the heroes that do battle on stage are not good or bad, they are not right or wrong. Each of them is right and wrong at the same time. That's why their fate is tragic. This sounds like what we're going through before the Sunday ballot. Right and wrong, in a way, coexist in all of our consciences, in our families, our friends and the nation. That is a tragedy. And for it to exist, hubris has to be committed. Not against the gods, as in Aeschylus or Sophocles, but against democracy. Because, and this is my opinion, the Sunday referendum is an insult towards the democracy it addresses. Citizens are asked to vote yes or no without knowing what the question is. Like a blind date. Everyone will answer depending on what they think the question is and will discover on Monday that someone will pose the question they answered differently and they cannot change their answers. Except if they answer in a way that cannot be misconstrued. In order to avoid the worst situation: Let's decide that whatever way we answer, our fate is based on how our German partners will interpret it. That whatever has happened (in the name of decency and self-determination, supposedly) during the past few days, the end of negotiations, the closing of the banks, the sudden fall in our economy, place us defenseless in the hands of our creditors. As the fate of the heroes in an ancient tragedy, the Gods will decide on it. This post originally appeared on HuffPost Greece and was translated into English. -- 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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German FinMin Schaeuble: ‘There Will Be No Quick Bailout Deal’

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stated that there will be no “quick bailout deal,” regardless of the Greek referendum result on Sunday, July 5. Greeks are called to vote on whether their government should accept the creditors’ bailout program that includes more austerity measures. In an interview to German tabloid Bild, Schaeuble said that “negotiations after the Greek vote will take a while.” Furthermore, he added that there is a procedure to be followed. Greece needs to submit a request for more financial aid to the Eurozone, which will then decide on whether it will restart the negotiation process that has to be approved by the German Parliament. “Greece will have to make efforts of its own in return for new aid,” he added. “These would be very difficult negotiations – because the situation in Greece has dramatically worsened in the past few weeks,” Schaeuble concluded. Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has promised the Greek people that he will ensure a deal within 48 hours after the referendum results are announced.

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