Greece defaults... but world does not end (even for the Greeks)

[lucidity]

hello Siblings,

http://rt.com/business/270754-greece...t-imf-payment/

Title of the article is: Greece becomes first developed nation to default on international obligations

Errm... I thought Iceland already had that honour.

Some interesting questions:
=> How will Portugal, Spain and Ireland benefit from this ?
=> Will Yanis Varoufakis die in mysterious circumstances ?
=> Which of the European banks will 'pop' out of existence first ?
=> Will this event kill the NWO plans for Europe (or at least delay them) ?

Interestingly, the last time the Greeks saved Europe was nearly 25
centuries ago, at Thermopylae. ......but they were all slaughtered.

be happy :-)

lucidity

[mgray]

Posted by lucidity (here)
hello Siblings,

http://rt.com/business/270754-greece...t-imf-payment/

Title of the article is: Greece becomes first developed nation to default on international obligations

Errm... I thought Iceland already had that honour.

Some interesting questions:
=> How will Portugal, Spain and Ireland benefit from this ?
=> Will Yanis Varoufakis die in mysterious circumstances ?
=> Which of the European banks will 'pop' out of existence first ?
=> Will this event kill the NWO plans for Europe (or at least delay them) ?

Interestingly, the last time the Greeks saved Europe was nearly 25
centuries ago, at Thermopylae. ......but they were all slaughtered.

be happy :-)

lucidity

It will not be considered a default for obvious reasons. Will not trigger 100s of billions in derivatives. If I was Greek leadership I would not fly anywhere anytime soon.

More here

[Baby Steps]

Hi, as I mentioned in Paul's thread, I think default is planned, because it will force the Germans to do what the NWO wants-drop its constitution and take over the Eurozone fully.
TTIP is really the corporate anschluss of Europe into Corporate USA.
Europe needs to dismantle whatever democracy it has left in order to smooth this process.
So, sadly, I see it as all going according to plan!

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...l=1#post974024

Greek losses are not big enough to wipe out banks hopefully, but they will scare banks, and other institutions, who will then put the pressure onto Germany for the only viable defence that they have- which is Fiscal Union and EU sovereign debt substitution for national debt!

The real fight , then, against the on-going totalitarian tip-toe will be amongst the Politicians and Bankers in Germany. Will they do what they are told, or will they let the Euro crumble?

Why would a crumbling Euro be catastrophic?

Because if you say were Italy, and you had a huge national debt denominated in Euros and much of it traded in the Markets, and you dump out of the Euro, your Nominal Gross Domestic Product shrinks, because you new Lire will be marked down in value to reflect your economic weakness. The market will then see the opportunity to speculate against all those Euro Guilts that STILL EXIST. You then have an ever increasing chance of being unable to roll over your debts, as the interest yield that would attract buyers is increasingly high. If you become insolvent and default, all those guilts become useless paper. But guess what? European banks who hold these contracts DO NOT allocate any capital or protective buffer against these . So then we will see the banks going down like dominoes.

This is the global melt down that was averted in 2008.

It would be a larger version of a 'bank panic'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907

These are done to consolidate power into certain (surviving) bank's hands.
So you see, either way the NWO wins

[poetbil]

there is no default
IMF has 1 month to 1 year ,under it's Memorandum ,legal postponing of payments
The question is
WHAT IS REALLY IMF ?
Greece is a founding member of IMF,and pays annually approx 1billion as a subscription (for what?)
to be able to get F***ed when in need ?

[sigma6]

I agree, the whole thing is getting too much PR, it's orchestrated, I don't see Greeks getting out of the Euro... it's too strategically important economically to give it away to the Russians. Everyone is on to the game... So this has to be dog and pony... and at the end of the day... all this debt is just the manipulation of paper, Banks only lend back an existing credit that borrower already has... shhhh don't tell anyone that, it's a secret... ;-)

Also Greece represents less the 2% of the Eurozone? Someone is just collecting more data, for some other future event... ever planning, ever moving toward their NWO agenda (which is really on the rocks these days... thanks to Russia and China, now if we could only get the US's dick out of Japan's butt.)

[Baby Steps]

Posted by poetbil (here)
there is no default
IMF has 1 month to 1 year ,under it's Memorandum ,legal postponing of payments
The question is
WHAT IS REALLY IMF ?
Greece is a founding member of IMF,and pays annually approx 1billion as a subscription (for what?)
to be able to get F***ed when in need ?

Given the severity of the scenarios that may occur, I think the Greeks have a strong bargaining position.
It’s the old story- if you owe the bank £100 , it’s your problem, but if you owe the bank £1billion, it’s their problem.
The Greeks are playing a brinkmanship game, to get the best deal possible. I think most Greeks view staying within the Euro as a matter of pride-they are an advanced, developed country.
If I was a Greek voter I would be tempted to vote no, as it would empower the leaders to take a strong negotiation stance with creditors. If all that this was about was like a failed businessman trying to thrash out a deal with his bank manager in order to stave off bankruptcy than all should go well.
But there is a force for chaos in this world, and the agenda is global fascism, and the IMF is part of it.
That’s why I fear that TPTB want default.

The Following from John C Hulsman:

“MONACO – Being away from the din of daily life has its advantages. Presently, I’m at the wonderful Fund Forum International Conference in Monaco, having designed several war games to play with the attendees, which illuminate how
geopolitics can impact investment decisions. Beyond enjoying new and insightful company, a startling clarity – achieved only by watching it from afar – about the Greek crisis seems to have come over me. Just as conventional wisdom entirely underestimated the chances of a Grexit car crash all along, now it seems to have fatuously assumed that Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras will effortlessly win the referendum he has called (and has refused to call off), which detonated the Greek time bomb.

Without informing his European negotiating partners in advance, Tsipras theatrically stalked off, demanding a plebiscite on the creditors’ terms, hoping a ringing No vote would bolster his position, and pressure and shame Europe into offering him the debt relief he so desperately needs. There is one big flaw with this strategy: suppose the Greek people do not go along? I think that Tsipras,Syriza, and the vast majority of commentators have badly miscalculated; the Greek people are going to vote Yes in the plebiscite.

The reasons for this are simple. If you are going to live in increasing desperation anyway, would you rather do so in the context of
relative stability or chaos? As a thought experiment, those who have banked on a No vote should try going without a banking system for a week or so. It’s not love for Europe that will propel the Yes vote (in Greece, Chancellor Merkel and the rest of the creditors are increasingly personally despised), but simply a yearning for stability, and a fervent desire to remain to be seen as a
member of the developed world, that will carry the day.

Never underestimate the ability of the overrated Greek Prime Minister (and his even more feted-for-no-reason henchman Yanis Varoufakis) to get things wrong. By all accounts, it was the Greek finance minister who convinced Tsipras to head down the
road of the plebiscite gambit in the first place. Varoufakis may be in the business of game theory, but no one has said he is any good at it. For a key factor in understanding how war games work is that, before acting, one must be absolutely certain that the facts underpinning policy strategies have been checked and double-checked. And this the Syriza government has singularly failed to do. A number of local polls taken as the crisis has come to a climax state that around 57 per cent of Greeks will vote Yes. The blithe given underlying all of Tsipras’s and Varoufakis’s actions is that they can drive Greek opinion by advocating a No vote; what if this is simply wrong?
For at last reality is closing in on the Greek government. The Greek people can have Syriza or the euro, but not both. Unwittingly, this is the first diplomatic break that has gone the gormless European creditors’ way in a long time. Seeming to have at least partially woken from their long intellectual slumber, the creditors have indicated a new deal (and implicitly the longed-for debt relief) will be on the table for Greece following a Yes vote. Ironically, through their comical machinations, Syriza will have managed to secure Greece the better terms that have so dominated these past months.

But by then, while both Tsipras and Varoufakis will presumably say that this outcome is what they had in mind all along, they will be long gone. For the price of such a deal is Syriza’s head on a platter. And here the inflexible creditors have a point. They simply cannot trust a negotiating partner that has so openly flouted any form of conditionality to then live up to the terms of any new
bailout. By not understanding how the world works, Syriza’s days in power are likely to be numbered. But beyond the immediate drama, the perception of the irreversibility of euro membership has been fatally damaged, with the whole project now being viewed as merely some sort of exchange rate mechanism. Europe has been tarnished, another step on the road to the continent’s absolute decline. Greece’s bluffing, overly-confident government may have met its Waterloo, but it is not the only political entity which has
passed its zenith.”

Dr John C Hulsman is senior columnist
at City A.M. He is a life member of the
Council on Foreign Relations, and author
of Ethical Realism, The Godfather
Doctrine, and Lawrence of Arabia, To
Begin the World Over Again. He is president
and co-founder of John C Hulsman
Enterprises (www.john-hulsman.com), a
global political risk consultancy, and
available for corporate speaking and private
briefings at
www.chartwellspeakers.com.

[Flash]

power is going east, with the creation of the BRICS bank and the input of Chinese money in it.

This is planned, and Greece could go east as well, making a dent in the Western hegemony. Killing our supremacy. Greece will be the pion that is played for the global powers to shift the hold on the world finances and wealth.

This is planned at the highest échelons. Hopefully, it will backfire to those higher échelons.

Posted by sigma6 (here)
I agree, the whole thing is getting too much PR, it's orchestrated, I don't see Greeks getting out of the Euro... it's too strategically important economically to give it away to the Russians. Everyone is on to the game... So this has to be dog and pony... and at the end of the day... all this debt is just the manipulation of paper, Banks only lend back an existing credit that borrower already has... shhhh don't tell anyone that, it's a secret... ;-)

Also Greece represents less the 2% of the Eurozone? Someone is just collecting more data, for some other future event... ever planning, ever moving toward their NWO agenda (which is really on the rocks these days... thanks to Russia and China, now if we could only get the US's dick out of Japan's butt.)

[Hervé]

Greek "debt crisis": humans must suffer for bankers to profit

Joe Quinn
Sott.net, Fri, 10 Jul 2015 20:57 UTC

To understand the 'Greek debt crisis', the 'financial crisis' of 2008, the first thing to understand is the unreal or immaterial nature of money and what is called the 'global economy'.

In 2014, a Bank of England report titled: "Money Creation in the Modern Economy" finally admitted what has been known by many for a long time: that 97% of the money supply is now created by banks when they make loans. Most of that money is, and remains throughout its life cycle, digital rather than 'physical' paper money.

The second thing you have to first understand is that nation states are more like corporations and their populations are treated as employees of that corporation. The directors of the corporation are banks and bankers.

As the 'directors' of the corporation/nation, bankers take employees'/citizens' expendable income and gamble with (invest) it on the international market, promising, but not always delivering, a profit to the employees/citizens, but ensuring to always make a profit for themselves. Note, private banks sometimes do this with the explicit consent of the employees/citizens, but mostly they do it without their consent to generate profits for themselves.

Starting around 2001 at the beginning of the Euro era, banks in many EU states began to aggressively push loans on people who could not really afford them. In our rampantly consumerist society, poorer people are more likely to accept offers of money to buy things they don't really need, and bankers know it. Of course, in the case of mortgages or 'remortgages' and car loans, the house and the car are often used to secure the loan.

Bankers did this because banks can only "create money" by loaning money to citizens. Of course, this is a patently ridiculous idea that hides the actual truth: that what is "created" is debt, and that debt is secured by the possessions and "sweat equity" of the citizens. That's why when banks "go broke", the "bail out" they receive from public funds always translates to ordinary people having to work harder for less and/or losing their possessions. Many citizens end up committing suicide as a result, which I suppose could be seen as the most extreme example of equity transference.

Among other indices, the level of success enjoyed by bankers' investing (gambling with) citizens' salaries and the likelihood that the citizens will be able to pay back their loans, determine whether or not a nation state/corporation is a good or bad investment for other international financial investment institutions and individuals. These buy 'stock' in the nation state in the form of government bonds with the government promising to repay with interest at a later date. Whether or not the investor will ultimately be repaid is based on the 'economic health' of the nation state/corporation at any given time.

But bankers were not content with merely gambling with citizens' actual disposable income. They also came up with the wonderful idea of trading the debts that citizens held with the banks. But many of those debts were for mortgages and other loans that had been pushed on people who were very unlikely to be able to pay them back. So who would in their right mind would buy such dodgy assets? The solution lay in the ingenious idea of simply lying about the rating of the loans. With a few strokes of a pen or keyboard, bundles of mortgages that were effectively toxic debt became 'high grade' debt. In a perfect example of the fundamentals of fractional reserve banking, a pile of worthless paper became gold!

As was completely foreseeable, when the music stopped on this farcical money-go-round, a lot of banks were left 'holding the baby'. They held loans worth nothing for which they had paid good money. Whose money? Your money! Greek people's money! Irish people's money, etc. After all, that's what's mostly in banks. But where did the money go? For sure, certain banks and high level investors made out like bandits, because that's what they are, but most of the money appears to have just 'disappeared'. It was taken out of the global market and replaced with a decrease in the living standards of millions of people.

But it gets worse. Even though it was now acknowledged that the mortgages and other loans given to hundreds of millions of citizens would never be repaid and would have to be written off, as far as the bankers were concerned, the debt was still owed by the citizens who held it, so citizens' possessions, like the cars and houses that secured those loans, were repossessed by the banks.

But it doesn't end there. The fact that many banks were now technically insolvent, having gambled with and lost the people's money, decreased the overall financial health of the country in question, and all those investors that had bought government bonds in that country/corporation were concerned about getting their bond money back. But there was no money because the bankers had "lost" it! The only solution was to 'recapitalize' the banks by ploughing billions into them. Where did that money come from?

In the case of Europe, primarily from the institutions like the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with the ECB and other EU financial bodies contributing the lion's share. But where did the ECB et al. get the money? From European taxpayers!

But the ECB and IMF weren't about to give Europeans their own money back without extracting their pound of flesh. To "save the banks" they demanded that the national government of the country "in crisis" pass laws that would effectively make the people pay (again) by effectively funding the bank bailout through reducing pensions, public worker salaries, social welfare payments, spending on healthcare and general spending on things that improve people's lives and allow them to live with some dignity. In many cases, nations were also ordered to sell off public services to private corporations, increasing the cost of basic services like water, electricity, public transport, etc.

Getting back to Greece specifically; by 2008 and the "global financial crisis", Greek banks, like most others, had been engaging in this reckless gambling with other people's money for years. Due to the size of the Greek economy, its natural resources and the fact that it isn't a major financial 'partner' in the EU, Greek banks lost more of their shirts than most others. Ireland was in a similar sinking boat along with Spain and Portugal. So Greek banks needed "recapitalization" (bailouts) and they got them from the IMF and ECB.

In the last 5 years "Greece" got €240 billion in bailouts, most of the money coming from European taxes. But about 90% of that €240 billion went right back to large international "banking houses" and other financial institutions who had both recklessly loaned to, and invested in, the Greek state. The other 10% went to the Greek government to keep the country running, i.e. paying the salaries of doctors, teachers, etc.**

So over the past few months the Greek people have been told that the bailouts that they didn't actually receive must be repaid by them in the form of raising taxes, cutting pensions, salaries, social welfare payments, privatization, etc.

If you're now wondering how any of this "Greek debt crisis" has anything to do with any actual debt owed by the Greek people, then you're on the right track. In essence (and I know this is a complicated topic), after defrauding the Greek people of their money for years and causing a crisis in the Greek economy for the past 6 years, during which time many Greeks lost their jobs and the Greek economy was ruined, international bankers are now demanding that the Greek people suffer more by paying back money they already lost to the bankers and which has already largely been paid back (allowing for the fact that it's all "funny money" to begin with and the real 'currency' here is the energy and lives of ordinary people everywhere).

As of this writing, the Greek government appears to have capitulated to the demands from 'creditors' that, while the Greek people may still hold to quaint notions like 'democracy', the reality is that they, like 99% of the population of the planet, are little more than assets to be exploited, 'consumed' and eventually discarded when no more 'capital' can be squeezed from them.

On the positive side, at least the Greek government tried to represent the best interests of the Greek people, and made the effort to allow them to voice their disgust at such treatment. The Brits, on the other hand, had precisely the same kind of "austerity measures" foisted upon them in the recent national budget, and were told it was wonderful.


Joe Quinn Born, bred and fled from the last outpost of the British empire, Joe is a researcher, editor and writer for Sott.net

**: The "Economic Hitman" template: All Hands On Deck For Global, Economic, Corporate Dictatorship

[Hervé]

The logic, see, is that there is something they want (= the "solution") for which they need consent (= the "reaction") which can only be achieved with the invention of the right conditions (= the "problem"), whether those conditions are physically implemented (Lybia) or completely virtual as in mass media bogus outcries (see WMDs, Russian shot MH17, Russia's military occupying Ukraine, etc....)... outcome: SANCTIONS, SANCTIONS, SANCTIONS!!!

To wit:

Yanis Varoufakis full transcript: our battle to save Greece

The full transcript of the former Greek Finance Minister's first interview since resigning.

by Harry Lambert Published 13 July, 2015 - 17:37

Yanis Varoufakis feels "on top of the world" now his part in the crisis talks is over. Photo: Getty

Read the report from Greece of our interview with Varoufakis here.

This conversation took place before the deal.

Harry Lambert: So how are you feeling?
Yanis Varoufakis: I’m feeling on top of the world – I no longer have to live through this hectic timetable, which was absolutely inhuman, just unbelievable. I was on 2 hours sleep every day for five months. … I’m also relieved I don’t have to sustain any longer this incredible pressure to negotiate for a position I find difficult to defend, even if I managed to force the other side to acquiesce, if you know what I mean.

HL:What was it like? Did you like any aspect of it?
YV: Oh well a lot of it. But the inside information one gets… to have your worst fears confirmed … To have “the powers that be” speak to you directly, and it be as you feared – the situation was worse than you imagined! So that was fun, to have the front row seat.

HL:What are you referring to?
YV: The complete lack of any democratic scruples, on behalf of the supposed defenders of Europe’s democracy. The quite clear understanding on the other side that we are on the same page analytically – of course it will never come out at present. [And yet] To have very powerful figures look at you in the eye and say “You’re right in what you’re saying, but we’re going to crunch you anyway.”

HL: You’ve said creditors objected to you because “I try and talk economics in the Eurogroup, which nobody does.” What happened when you did?
YV: It’s not that it didn’t go down well – it’s that there was point blank refusal to engage in economic arguments. Point blank. … You put forward an argument that you’ve really worked on – to make sure it’s logically coherent – and you’re just faced with blank stares. It is as if you haven’t spoken. What you say is independent of what they say. You might as well have sung the Swedish national anthem – you’d have got the same reply. And that’s startling, for somebody who’s used to academic debate. … The other side always engages. Well there was no engagement at all. It was not even annoyance, it was as if one had not spoken.

HL: When you first arrived, in early February, this can’t have been a unified position?
YV: Well there were people who were sympathetic at a personal level – so, you know, behind closed doors, on an informal basis, especially from the IMF. [HL: “From the highest levels?” YV: “From the highest levels, from the highest levels.”] But then inside the Eurogroup, a few kind words and that’s it, back behind the parapet of the official version.

[But] Schäuble was consistent throughout. His view was “I’m not discussing the programme – this was accepted by the previous government and we can’t possibly allow an election to change anything. Because we have elections all the time, there are 19 of us, if every time there was an election and something changed, the contracts between us wouldn’t mean anything.”

So at that point I had to get up and say “Well perhaps we should simply not hold elections anymore for indebted countries”, and there was no answer. The only interpretation I can give [of their view] is “Yes, that would be a good idea, but it would be difficult to do. So you either sign on the dotted line or you are out.”

HL: And Merkel?
YV: You have to understand I never had anything to do with Merkel, finance ministers talk to finance ministers, prime ministers talk to Chancellors. From my understanding, she was very different. She tried to placate the Prime Minister [Tsipras] – she said “We’ll find a solution, don’t worry about it, I won’t let anything awful happen, just do your homework and work with the institutions, work with the Troika; there can be no dead end here.”

This is not what I heard from my counterpart – both from the head of the Eurogroup and Dr Schäuble, they were very clear. At some point it was put to me very unequivocally: “This is a horse and either you get on it or it is dead.”

HL: Right so when was that?
YV: From the beginning, from the very beginning. [They first met in early February.]

HL: So why hang around until the summer?
YV: Well one doesn’t have an alternative. Our government was elected with a mandate to negotiate. So our first mandate was to create the space and time to have a negotiation and reach another agreement. That was our mandate – our mandate was to negotiate, it was not to come to blows with our creditors. …

The negotiations took ages, because the other side was refusing to negotiate. They insisted on a “comprehensive agreement”, which meant they wanted to talk about everything. My interpretation is that when you want to talk about everything, you don’t want to talk about anything. But we went along with that.

And look there were absolutely no positions put forward on anything by them. So they would… let me give you an example. They would say we need all your data on the fiscal path on which Greek finds itself, we need all the data on state-owned enterprises. So we spent a lot of time trying to provide them with all the data and answering questionnaires and having countless meetings providing the data.

So that would be the first phase. The second phase was where they’d ask us what we intended to do on VAT. They would then reject our proposal but wouldn’t come up with a proposal of their own. And then, before we would get a chance to agree on VAT with them, they would shift to another issue, like privatisation. They would ask what we want to do about privatisation, we put something forward, they would reject it. Then they’d move onto another topic, like pensions, from there to product markets, from there to labour relations, from labour relations to all sorts of things right? So it was like a cat chasing its own tail.

We felt, the government felt, that we couldn’t discontinue the process. Look, my suggestion from the beginning was this: This is a country that has run aground, that ran aground a long time ago. … Surely we need to reform this country – we are in agreement on this. Because time is of the essence, and because during negotiations the central bank was squeezing liquidity [on Greek banks] in order pressurise us, in order to succumb, my constant proposal to the Troika was very simple: let us agree on three or four important reforms that we agree upon, like the tax system, like VAT, and let’s implement them immediately. And you relax the restrictions on liqiuidity from the ECB. You want a comprehensive agreement – let’s carry on negotiating – and in the meantime let us introduce these reforms in parliament by agreement between us and you.

And they said “No, no, no, this has to be a comprehensive review. Nothing will be implemented if you dare introduce any legislation. It will be considered unilateral action inimical to the process of reaching an agreement.” And then of course a few months later they would leak to the media that we had not reformed the country and that we were wasting time! And so… [chuckles] we were set up, in a sense, in an important sense.

So by the time the liquidity almost ran out completely, and we were in default, or quasi-default, to the IMF, they introduced their proposals, which were absolutely impossible… totally non-viable and toxic. So they delayed and then came up with the kind of proposal you present to another side when you don’t want an agreement.

HL: Did you try working together with the governments of other indebted countries?
YV: The answer is no, and the reason is very simple: from the very beginning those particular countries made it abundantly clear that they were the most energetic enemies of our government, from the very beginning. And the reason of course was their greatest nightmare was our success: were we to succeed in negotiating a better deal for Greece, that would of course obliterate them politically, they would have to answer to their own people why they didn’t negotiate like we were doing.

HL: And partnering with sympathetic parties, like Podemos?
YV: Not really. I mean we always had a good relationship with them, but there was nothing they could do – their voice could never penetrate the Eurogroup. And indeed the more they spoke out in our favour, which they did, the more inimical the Finance Minister representing that country became towards us.

HL: And George Osborne? What were your dealings like with him?
YV: Oh very good, very pleasant, excellent. But he is out of the loop, he is not part of the Eurogroup. When I spoke to him on a number of occasions you could see that was very sympathetic. And indeed if you look at the Telegraph, the greatest supporters of our cause have been the Tories! Because of their Eurosceptism, eh… it’s not just Euroscepticsm; it’s a Burkean view of the sovereignty of parliament – in our case it was very clear that our parliament was being treated like rubbish.

HL: What is the greatest problem with the general way the Eurogroup functions?
YV: [To exemplify…] There was a moment when the President of the Eurogroup decided to move against us and effectively shut us out, and made it known that Greece was essentially on its way out of the Eurozone. … There is a convention that communiqués must be unanimous, and the President can’t just convene a meeting of the Eurozone and exclude a member state. And he said, “Oh I’m sure I can do that.” So I asked for a legal opinion. It created a bit of a kerfuffle. For about 5-10 minutes the meeting stopped, clerks, officials were talking to one another, on their phone, and eventually some official, some legal expert addressed me, and said the following words, that “Well, the Eurogroup does not exist in law, there is no treaty which has convened this group.”

So what we have is a non-existent group that has the greatest power to determine the lives of Europeans. It’s not answerable to anyone, given it doesn’t exist in law; no minutes are kept; and it’s confidential. So no citizen ever knows what is said within. … These are decisions of almost life and death, and no member has to answer to anybody.

HL: And is that group controlled by German attitudes?
YV: Oh completely and utterly. Not attitudes – by the finance minister of Germany. It is all like a very well-tuned orchestra and he is the director. Everything happens in tune. There will be times when the orchestra is out of tune, but he convenes and puts it back in line.

HL: Is there no alternative power within the group, can the French counter that power?
YV: Only the French finance minister has made noises that were different from the German line, and those noises were very subtle. You could sense he had to use very judicious language, to be seen not to oppose. And in the final analysis, when Doc Schäuble responded and effectively determined the official line, the French FM in the end would always fold and accept.

HL: Let’s talk about your theoretical background, and your piece on Marx in 2013, when you said:

“A Greek or a Portuguese or an Italian exit from the Eurozone would soon lead to a fragmentation of European capitalism, yielding a seriously recessionary surplus region east of the Rhine and north of the Alps, while the rest of Europe is would be in the grip of vicious stagflation. Who do you think would benefit from this development? A progressive left, that will rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of Europe’s public institutions? Or the Golden Dawn Nazis, the assorted neofascists, the xenophobes and the spivs? I have absolutely no doubt as to which of the two will do best from a disintegration of the eurozone.”

…so would a Grexit inevitably help Golden Dawn, do you still think that?
YV: Well, look, I don’t believe in deterministic versions of history. Syriza now is a very dominant force. If we manage to get out of this mess united, and handle properly a Grexit … it would be possible to have an alternative. But I’m not sure we would manage it, because managing the collapse of a monetary union takes a great deal of expertise, and I’m not sure we have it here in Greece without the help of outsiders.

HL: You must have been thinking about a Grexit from day one...
YV: Yes, absolutely.

HL: ...have preparations been made?
YV: The answer is yes and no. We had a small group, a ‘war cabinet’ within the ministry, of about five people that were doing this: so we worked out in theory, on paper, everything that had to be done [to prepare for/in the event of a Grexit]. But it’s one thing to do that at the level of 4-5 people, it’s quite another to prepare the country for it. To prepare the country an executive decision had to be taken, and that decision was never taken.

HL: And in the past week, was that a decision you felt you were leaning towards [preparing for Grexit]?
YV: My view was, we should be very careful not to activate it. I didn’t want this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t want this to be like Nietzsche’s famous dictum that if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss will stare back at you. But I also believed that at the moment the Eurogroup shut out banks down, we should energise this process.

HL: Right. So there were two options as far as I can see – an immediate Grexit, or printing IOUs and taking bank control of the Bank of Greece [potentially but not necessarily precipitating a Grexit]?
YV: Sure, sure. I never believed we should go straight to a new currency. My view was – and I put this to the government – that if they dared shut our banks down, which I considered to be an aggressive move of incredible potency, we should respond aggressively but without crossing the point of no return.

We should issue our own IOUs, or even at least announce that we’re going to issue our own euro-denominated liquidity; we should haircut the Greek 2012 bonds that the ECB held, or announce we were going to do it; and we should take control of the Bank of Greece. This was the triptych, the three things, which I thought we should respond with if the ECB shut down our banks.

… I was warning the Cabinet this was going to happen [the ECB shut our banks] for a month, in order to drag us into a humiliating agreement. When it happened – and many of my colleagues couldn’t believe it happened – my recommendation for responding “energetically”, let’s say, was voted down.

HL: And how close was it to happening?
YV: Well let me say that out of six people we were in a minority of two. … Once it didn’t happen I got my orders to close down the banks consensually with the ECB and the Bank of Greece, which I was against, but I did because I’m a team player, I believe in collective responsibility.

And then the referendum happened, and the referendum gave us an amazing boost, one that would have justified this type of energetic response [his plan] against the ECB, but then that very night the government decided that the will of the people, this resounding ‘No’, should not be what energised the energetic approach [his plan].

Instead it should lead to major concessions to the other side: the meeting of the council of political leaders, with our Prime Minister accepting the premise that whatever happens, whatever the other side does, we will never respond in any way that challenges them. And essentially that means folding. … You cease to negotiate.

HL: So you can’t hold out much hope now, that this deal will be much better than last week’s – if anything it will be worse?
YV: If anything it will be worse. I trust and hope that our government will insist on debt restructuring, but I can’t see how the German finance minister is ever going to sign up to this in the forthcoming Eurogroup meeting. If he does, it will be a miracle.

HL: Exactly – because, as you’ve explained, your leverage is gone at this point?
YV: I think so, I think so. Unless he [Schäuble] gets his marching orders from the Chancellor. That remains to be seen, whether she will step in to do that.

HL: To come back out again, could you possibly explain, in layman’s terms for our readers, your objections to Piketty’s "Capital"?
YV: Well let me say firstly, I feel embarrassed because Piketty has been extremely supportive of me and the government, and I have been horrible to him in my review of his book! I really appreciate his position over the last few months, and I’m going to say this to him when I meet him in September.

But my criticism of his book stands. His sentiment is correct. His abhorrence of inequality… [inaudible]. His analysis, however, undermines the argument, as far as I am concerned. Because in his book the neoclassical model of capitalism gives very little room for building the case he wants to build up, except by building upon the model a very specific set of parameters, which undermines his own case. In other words, if I was an opponent of his thesis that inequality is built into capitalism, I would be able to take apart his case by attacking his analysis.

HL: I don’t want to get too detailed, because this isn’t going to make the final cut...
YV: Yes…

HL: ...but it’s about his metric of wealth?
YV: Yes, he uses a definition of capital which makes capital impossible to understand – so it’s a contradiction of terms. [Click here—link to add: http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/10/08/6006/—for Varoufakis’ critical review of Piketty’s Capital.]

HL: Let’s come back to the crisis. I really understand very little of your relationship with Tsipras…
YV: I’ve known him since late 2010, because I was a prominent critic of the government at the time, even though I was close to it once upon a time. I was close to the Papandreou family – I still am in a way – but I became prominent … back then it was big news that a former adviser was saying “We’re pretending bankruptcy didn’t happen, we’re trying to cover it up with new unsustainable loans,” that kind of thing.

I made some waves back then, and Tsipras was a very young leader trying to understand what was going on, what the crisis was about, and how he should position himself.

HL: Was there a first meeting you remember?
YV: Oh yes. It was late 2010, we went to a cafeteria, there were three of us, and my recollection is that he wasn’t clear back then what his views were, on the drachma versus the euro, on the causes of the crises, and I had very, well shall I say, “set views” on what was going on. And a dialogue begun which unfolded over the years and one that… I believe that I helped shape his view of what should be done.

HL: So how does it feel now, after four-and-a-half years, to no longer be working by his side?
YV: Well I don’t feel that way, I feel that we’re very close. Our parting was extremely amicable. We’ve never had a bad problem between us, never, not to this day. And I’m extremely close to Euclid Tsakalotos [the new finance minister].

HL: And presumably you’re still speaking with them both this week?
YV: I haven’t spoken to the Prime Minister this week, in the past couple of days, but I speak to Euclid, yes, and I consider Euclid to be very close to be, and vice-versa, and I don’t envy him at all. [Chuckling.]

HL: Would you be shocked if Tsipras resigned?
YV: Nothing shocks me these days – our Eurozone is a very inhospitable place for decent people. It wouldn’t shock me either to stay on and accepts a very bad deal. Because I can understand he feels he has an obligation to the people that support him, support us, not to let this country become a failed state.

But I’m not going to betray my own view, that I honed back in 2010, that this country must stop extending and pretending, we must stop taking on new loans pretending that we’ve solved the problem, when we haven’t; when we have made our debt even less sustainable on condition of further austerity that even further shrinks the economy; and shifts the burden further onto the have nots, creating a humanitarian crisis. It’s something I’m not going to accept. I’m not going to be party to.

HL: Final question – will you stay close with anyone who you had to negotiate with?
YV: Um, I’m not sure. I’m not going to mention any names now just in case I destroy their careers! [Laughing.]

• Now read the report of our interview with Varoufakis here

[Calz]

IMF stuns Europe with call for massive Greek debt relief

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Daily Telegraph
Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:01 UTC


'There would have to be a very dramatic extension with grace periods of 30 years on the entire stock of European debt,' the fund says

The International Monetary Fund has set off a political earthquake in Europe, warning that Greece may need a total moratorium on debt payments for 30 years and perhaps even long-term subsidies to claw its way out of depression.

"The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date," said the IMF in a confidential report.

Greek public debt will spiral to 200pc of GDP over the next two years, compared to 177pc in an earlier report on debt sustainability issued just two weeks ago.

The findings are explosive. The document amounts to a warning that the IMF will not take part in any EMU-led rescue package for Greece unless Germany and the EMU creditor powers finally agree to sweeping debt relief.

This vastly complicates the rescue deal agreed by eurozone leaders in marathon talks over the weekend since Germany insists that the bail-out cannot go ahead unless the IMF is involved.

The creditors were aware of the IMF's report as early as Sunday, yet choose to sweep it under rug. Extracts were leaked to Reuters on Tuesday, forcing the matter into the open.

The EMU summit statement vaguely mentions "possible longer grace and payment periods", but only at later date, and only if Greece is deemed to have complied with all the demands. Germany has ruled out a debt "haircut" altogether, claiming that it would violate Article 125 of the Lisbon Treaty.

The IMF said there is no conceivable chance that Greece will be able to tap private capital markets in the foreseeable future, leaving the country entirely dependent on rescue funding.

It claimed that capital controls and the shutdown of the Greek banking system had entirely changed the picture for debt dynamics, an implicit criticism of both the Greek government and the eurozone authorities for letting the political dispute get out of hand.

The decision by the European Central Bank to force the closure of the Greek banks two weeks ago by freezing emergency liquidity assistance (ELA), appears to have cost European taxpayers very large sums of money

The IMF said the Europeans will either have to offer a "deep upfront haircut" or slash the debt burden by stretching maturities and presumably lowering interest costs.

"There would have to be a very dramatic extension with grace periods of, say, 30 years on the entire stock of European debt," it said.

Debt forgiveness alone would not be enough. There would also have to be "new assistance", and perhaps "explicit annual transfers to the Greek budget".

This is the worst nightmare of the northern creditor states. The term "Transfer Union" has been dirty in the German political debate ever since the debt crisis erupted in 2010.

Unless there is a change of course, Greece's debt ratio will still be 170pc of GDP by the time the current framework expires in 2022. Even this assumes that there is no global downturn and everything goes to plan. The figure is up from 142pc two weeks ago.

The IMF's report raises as many questions as it answers. Almost no economist would accept that two weeks of capital controls could alone raise the debt ratio by 28 percentage points of GDP a full seven years later.

The backdrop to this sudden shift in position is almost certainly political. It follows an intense push for debt relief over recent days by the US Treasury, the dominant voice on the IMF Board in Washington.

The IMF's earlier report issued in early July was savaged by one bail-out veteran. Ashoka Mody, the former chief of Ireland's IMF rescue, said the original findings were "fictitious" and failed to recognize the full gravity of the debt-deflation crisis in Greece.

It appears that powerful voices in global capitals and on the IMF board have since demanded that the fund go back to the drawing board.

Its conclusions validate what Greece's Syriza government has been saying all along. The debt cannot be repaid. Any formula that fails to recognize this merely stores up an even bigger crisis down the road.

Comment: More precisely, the debt is not owned by the Greek people, it never was. Bankers and international "money market" gamblers lost it all and had to be "bailed out". Now, the Greek people are expected to repay, having already been robbed blind over the past 5 years.

As we all know, this show is far from over. But the idea that the IMF could be coming to the "rescue" is the last thing anyone might have imagined. So, is it possible? Or is something else going on here? The IMF is Washington dominated, so what's THEIR game? The US government is hardly the type of regime to actually care about the welfare of Greek citizens... unless there's something in it for them.

Perhaps what we are looking at here is the fact that Greece is an important NATO member and if they drift out of the Eurozone, and later the EU, and drift towards Russia and China, that would put their NATO membership at risk. Although, no one is ever allowed to leave NATO, so one way or another that is unlikely to happen.

We also suspect the U.S. would like to take Germany down a peg or two. Perhaps they don't want Germany to get too strong?

See Joe Quinn and Pierre Lescaudron's articles for the background and unvarnished truth of the 'Greek debt crisis'.

(above comment from SOTT staff)

http://www.sott.net/article/299032-I...ek-debt-relief

[Cidersomerset]

Most debt is interest , created from money from fresh air .......Its all a 'Bankster
Scam'...........A passionate interview with Karen , who says the 'Elites' will be
exposed !!


Karen Hudes: "A Coup Has Taken Place In Athens, The Greeks Have Been Scammed!"

The Richie Allen Show
Subscribe10,869

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Wx_OKPl27s0

Published on 14 Jul 2015


Please Support The Show – http://richieallenshow.com/donate/

[Hervé]

The Euro-Summit ‘Agreement’ on Greece – annotated by Yanis Varoufakis

Posted on July 15, 2015 by yanisv

The Euro Summit statement (or Terms of Greece’s Surrender – as it will go down in history) follows, annotated by yours truly. The original text is untouched with my notes confined to square brackets (and in red). Read and weep…
[For a pdf copy click here.]


Euro Summit Statement Brussels, 12 July 2015

The Euro Summit stresses the crucial need to rebuild trust with the Greek authorities [i.e. the Greek government must introduce new stringent austerity directed at the weakest Greeks that have already suffered grossly] as a pre- requisite for a possible future agreement on a new ESM programme [i.e. for a new extend-and-pretend loan].

In this context, the ownership by the Greek authorities is key [i.e. the Syriza government must sign a declaration of having defected to the troika’s ‘logic’], and successful implementation should follow policy commitments.

A euro area Member State requesting financial assistance from the ESM is expected to address, wherever possible, a similar request to the IMF This is a precondition for the Eurogroup to agree on a new ESM programme. Therefore Greece will request continued IMF support (monitoring and financing) from March 2016 [i.e. Berlin continues to believe that the Commission cannot be trusted to ‘police’ Europe’s own ‘bailout’ programs].

Given the need to rebuild trust with Greece, the Euro Summit welcomes the commitments of the Greek authorities to legislate without delay a first set of measures [i.e. Greece must subject itself to fiscal waterboarding, even before any financing is offered]. These measures, taken in full prior agreement with the Institutions, will include:

By 15 July

• the streamlining of the VAT system [i.e. making it more regressive, through rate rises that encourage more VAT evasion]and the broadening of the tax base to increase revenue [i.e. dealing a major blow at the only Greek growth industry – tourism].

• upfront measures to improve long-term sustainability of the pension system as part of a comprehensive pension reform programme [i.e. reducing the lowest of the low of pensions, while ignoring that the depletion of pension funds’ capital due to the 2012 troika-designed PSI and the ill effects of low employment & undeclared paid labour].

• the safeguarding of the full legal independence of ELSTAT [i.e. the troika demands complete control of the way Greece’s budget balance is computed, with a view to controlling fully the magnitude of austerity it imposes on the government.]

• full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in particular by making the Fiscal Council operational before finalizing the MoU and introducing quasi-automatic spending cuts in case of deviations from ambitious primary surplus targets after seeking advice from the Fiscal Council and subject to prior approval of the Institutions [i.e. the Greek government, which knows that the imposed fiscal targets will never be achieved under the imposed austerity, must commit to further, automated austerity as a result of the troika’s newest failures.]

By 22 July

• the adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure, which is a major overhaul of procedures and arrangements for the civil justice system and can significantly accelerate the judicial process and reduce costs [i.e. foreclosures, evictions and liquidation of thousands of homes and businesses who are not in a position to keep up with their mortgages/loans.]

• the transposition of the BRRD with support from the European Commission.

Immediately, and only subsequent to legal implementation of the first four above-mentioned measures as well as endorsement of all the commitments included in this document by the Greek Parliament, verified by the Institutions and the Eurogroup, may a decision to mandate the Institutions to negotiate a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) be taken
[i.e. The Syriza government must be humiliated to the extent that it is asked to impose harsh austerity upon itself as a first step towards requesting another toxic bailout loan, of the sort that Syriza became internationally famous for opposing.]

This decision would be taken subject to national procedures having been completed and if the preconditions of Article 13 of the ESM Treaty are met on the basis of the assessment referred to in Article 13.1. In order to form the basis for a successful conclusion of the MoU, the Greek offer of reform measures needs to be seriously strengthened to take into account the strongly deteriorated economic and fiscal position of the country during the last year
[i.e. the Syriza government must accept the lie that it, and not the asphyxiation tactics of the creditors, caused the sharp economic deterioration of the past six months – the victim is being asked to take the blame by the on behalf of the villain.]

The Greek government needs to formally commit to strengthening their proposals [i.e. to make them more regressive and more inhuman] in a number of areas identified by the Institutions, with a satisfactory clear timetable for legislation and implementation, including structural benchmarks, milestones and quantitative benchmarks, to have clarity on the direction of policies over the medium-run. They notably need, in agreement with the Institutions, to:

• carry out ambitious pension reforms [i.e. cuts] and specify policies to fully compensate for the fiscal impact of the Constitutional Court ruling on the 2012 pension reform [i.e. cancel the Court’s decision in favour of pensioners] and to implement the zero deficit clause [i.e. cut by 85% the secondary pensions that the Syriza government fought tooth and nail to preserve over the past five months] or mutually agreeable alternative measures [i.e. find ‘equivalent’ victims] by October 2015;

• adopt more ambitious product market reforms with a clear timetable for implementation of all OECD toolkit I recommendations [i.e. the recommendations that the OECD has now renounced after having re-designed these reforms in collaboration with the Syriza government], including Sunday trade, sales periods, pharmacy ownership, milk and bakeries, except over-the-counter pharmaceutical products, which will be implemented in a next step, as well as for the opening of macro-critical closed professions (e.g. ferry transportation). On the follow-up of the OECD toolkit-II, manufacturing needs to be included in the prior action;

• on energy markets, proceed with the privatisation of the electricity transmission network operator (ADMIE), unless replacement measures can be found that have equivalent effect on competition, as agreed by the Institutions [i.e. ADMIE will be sold off to specific foreign vested interests at the behest of the Institutions.]

• on labour markets, undertake rigorous reviews and modernisation of collective bargaining [i.e. to make sure that no collective bargaining is allowed], industrial action [i.e. that must be banned] and, in line with the relevant EU directive and best practice, collective dismissals [i.e. that should be allowed at the employers’ whim], along the timetable and the approach agreed with the Institutions [i.e. the Troika decides.]

On the basis of these reviews, labour market policies should be aligned with international and European best practices, and should not involve a return to past policy settings which are not compatible with the goals of promoting sustainable and inclusive growth
[i.e. there should be no mechanisms that waged labour can use to extract better conditions from employers.]

• adopt the necessary steps to strengthen the financial sector, including decisive action on non-performing loans [i.e. a tsunami of foreclosures is ante portas] and measures to strengthen governance of the HFSF and the banks [i.e. the Greek people who maintain the HFSF and the banks will have precisely zero control over the HFSF and the banks.], in particular by eliminating any possibility for political interference especially in appointment processes. [i.e. except the political interference of the Troika.] On top of that, the Greek authorities shall take the following actions:

• to develop a significantly scaled up privatisation programme with improved governance; valuable Greek assets will be transferred to an independent fund that will monetize the assets through privatisations and other means [i.e. an East German-like Treuhand is envisaged to sell off all public property but without the equivalent large investments that W. Germany put into E. Germany in compensation for the Treuhand disaster.] The monetization of the assets will be one source to make the scheduled repayment of the new loan of ESM and generate over the life of the new loan a targeted total of EUR 50bn of which EUR 25bn will be used for the repayment of recapitalization of banks and other assets and 50 % of every remaining euro (i.e. 50% of EUR 25bn) will be used for decreasing the debt to GDP ratio and the remaining 50 % will be used for investments [i.e. public property will be sold off and the pitiful sums will go toward servicing an un-serviceable debt – with precisely nothing left over for public or private investments.] This fund would be established in Greece and be managed by the Greek authorities under the supervision of the relevant European Institutions [i.e. it will be nominally in Greece but, just like the HFSF or the Bank of Greece, it will be controlled fully by the creditors.] In agreement with Institutions and building on best international practices, a legislative framework should be adopted to ensure transparent procedures and adequate asset sale pricing, according to OECD principles and standards on the management of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) [i.e. the Troika will do what it likes.]

• in line with the Greek government ambitions, to modernise and significantly strengthen the Greek administration, and to put in place a programme, under the auspices of the European Commission, for capacity-building and de-politicizing the Greek administration [i.e. Turning Greece into a democracy-free zone modelled on Brussels, a form of supposedly technocratic government, which is politically toxic and macro-economically inept] A first proposal should be provided by 20 July after discussions with the Institutions. The Greek government commits to reduce further the costs of the Greek administration [i.e. to reduce the lowest wages while increasing a little the wages some of the Troika-friendly apparatchiks], in line with a schedule agreed with the Institutions.

• to fully normalize working methods with the Institutions, including the necessary work on the ground in Athens, to improve programme implementation and monitoring [i.e. The Troika strikes back and demands that the Greek government invite it to return to Athens as Conqueror – the Carthaginian Peace in all its glory.] The government needs to consult and agree with the Institutions on all draft legislation in relevant areas with adequate time before submitting it for public consultation or to Parliament [i.e. Greek Parliament must, again, after five months of short-lived independence, become an appendage of the Troika – passing translated legislation mechanistically.] The Euro Summit stresses again that implementation is key, and in that context welcomes the intention of the Greek authorities to request by 20 July support from the Institutions and Member States for technical assistance, and asks the European Commission to coordinate this support from Europe;

• With the exception of the humanitarian crisis bill, the Greek government will reexamine with a view to amending legislations that were introduced counter to the February 20 agreement by backtracking on previous programme commitments or identify clear compensatory equivalents for the vested rights that were subsequently created [i.e. In addition to promising that it will no longer legislative autonomously, the Greek government will retrospectively annul all Bills it passed over the past five months.]

The above-listed commitments are minimum requirements to start the negotiations with the Greek authorities. However, the Euro Summit made it clear that the start of negotiations does not preclude any final possible agreement on a new ESM programme, which will have to be based on a decision on the whole package (including financing needs, debt sustainability and possible bridge financing)
[i.e. self-flagellate, impose further austerity upon an economy crushed by austerity, and then we shall see whether the Eurogroup will grave you with another toxic, unsustainable loans.]

The Euro Summit takes note of the possible programme financing needs of between EUR 82 and 86bn, as assessed by the Institutions [i.e. the Eurogroup conjured up a huge number, well above what is necessary, in order to signal the debt restructuring is out and that debt bondage ad infinitum is the name of the game.] It invites the Institutions to explore possibilities to reduce the financing envelope, through an alternative fiscal path or higher privatisation proceeds [i.e. And, yes, it may possible that pigs will fly.] Restoring market access, which is an objective of any financial assistance programme, lowers the need to draw on the total financing envelope
[i.e. which is something the creditors will do their utmost to avoid, e.g. by ensuring that Greece will only enter the ECB’s quantitative easing program in 2018, once quantitative easing is… over.]

The Euro Summit takes note of the urgent financing needs of Greece which underline the need for very swift progress in reaching a decision on a new MoU: these are estimated to amount to EUR 7bn by 20 July and an additional EUR 5bn by mid August [i.e. Extend and Pretend gets another spin.] The Euro Summit acknowledges the importance of ensuring that the Greek sovereign can clear its arrears to the IMF and to the Bank of Greece and honour its debt obligations in the coming weeks to create conditions which allow for an orderly conclusion of the negotiations. The risks of not concluding swiftly the negotiations remain fully with Greece [i.e. Once more, demanding that the victim takes all the blame in behalf of the villain.] The Euro Summit invites the Eurogroup to discuss these issues as a matter of urgency.

Given the acute challenges of the Greek financial sector, the total envelope of a possible new ESM programme would have to include the establishment of a buffer of EUR 10 to 25bn for the banking sector in order to address potential bank recapitalisation needs and resolution costs, of which EUR 10bn would be made available immediately in a segregated account at the ESM [i.e. the Troika admits that the 2013-14 recapitalisation of the banks, which would only need a top up of at most 10 billion, was insufficient – but, of course, blames it on… the Syriza government.]
The Euro Summit is aware that a rapid decision on a new programme is a condition to allow banks to reopen, thus avoiding an increase in the total financing envelope [i.e. The Troika closed Greece’s banks to force the Syriza government to capitulate and now cries out for their re-opening.] The ECB/SSM will conduct a comprehensive assessment after the summer. The overall buffer will cater for possible capital shortfalls following the comprehensive assessment after the legal framework is applied.

There are serious concerns regarding the sustainability of Greek debt [N.b. Really? Gosh!] This is due to the easing of policies during the last twelve months, which resulted in the recent deterioration in the domestic macroeconomic and financial environment
[i.e. It is not the Extend and Pretend ‘bailout’ loans of 2010 and 2012 that, in conjunction with GDP-sapping austerity, caused the debt to scale immense heights – it was the prospect, and reality, of a government that criticized the the Extend and Pretend ‘bailout’ loans that… caused Debt’s Unustainability!]

The Euro Summit recalls that the euro area Member States have, throughout the last few years, adopted a remarkable set of measures supporting Greece’s debt sustainability, which have smoothed Greece’s debt servicing path and reduced costs significantly [i.e. The 1st & 2nd ‘bailout’ programs failed, the debt skyrocketing as it was always going to since the real purpose of the ‘bailout’ programs was to transfer banking losses to Europe’s taxpayers.] Against this background, in the context of a possible future ESM programme, and in line with the spirit of the Eurogroup statement of November 2012 [i.e. a promise of debt restructure to the previous Greek government was never kept by the creditors], the Eurogroup stands ready to consider, if necessary, possible additional measures (possible longer grace and payment periods) aiming at ensuring that gross financing needs remain at a sustainable level. These measures will be conditional upon full implementation of the measures to be agreed in a possible new programme and will be considered after the first positive completion of a review
[i.e. Yet again, the Troika shall let the Greek government labour under un-payable debt and when, as a result, the program fails, poverty rises further and incomes collapse much more, then we may haircut some of the debt – as the Troika did in 2012.]

The Euro Summit stresses that nominal haircuts on the debt cannot be undertaken [N.b. The Syriza government has been suggesting, since January, a moderate debt restructure, with no haircuts, maximizing the expected net present value of Greece’s repayments to creditors’ – which was rejected by the Troika because their aim was, simply, to humiliate Syriza.] Greek authorities reiterate their unequivocal commitment to honour their financial obligations to all their creditors fully and in a timely manner [N.b. Which can only happen after a substantial debt restructure.] Provided that all the necessary conditions contained in this document are fulfilled, the Eurogroup and ESM Board of Governors may, in accordance with Article 13.2 of the ESM Treaty, mandate the Institutions to negotiate a new ESM programme, if the preconditions of Article 13 of the ESM Treaty are met on the basis of the assessment referred to in Article 13.1. To help support growth and job creation in Greece (in the next 3-5 years) [N.b. Having already destroyed growth and jobs for the past five years…] the Commission will work closely with the Greek authorities to mobilise up to EUR 35bn (under various EU programmes) to fund investment and economic activity, including in SMEs [i.e. Will use the same order of magnitude of structural funds, plus some fantasy money, as were available in 2010-2014.] As an exceptional measure and given the unique situation of Greece the Commission will propose to increase the level of pre-financing by EUR 1bn to give an immediate boost to investment to be dealt with by the EU co-legislators [i.e. Of the headline 35 billion, consider 1 billion as real money.] The Investment Plan for Europe will also provide funding opportunities for Greece [i.e. the same plan that most Eurozone ministers of finance refer to as a phantom program].


Related:
Greek People "crucified" by EU 'elite' for wanting social justice

Greek debt and German hypocrisy