Author: GREEK WORLD MEDIA

Source: Ekathimerini

Minutes of International Monetary Fund board meetings held in May 2010 and published by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday have highlighted the concern of many country representatives that the Greek bailout was not sustainable.

One of the key criticisms expressed during meetings held before Athens agreed its first bailout with its eurozone partners and the IMF is that the design of the bailout favored European banks at the expense of Greece.

The absence of debt restructuring at the beginning of the program also met with opposition, according to the extracts from confidential documents made public by the WSJ.

“The risks of the program are immense…As it stands, the programs risks substituting private for official financing. In other and starker words, it may be seen not as a rescue of Greece, which will have to undergo a wrenching adjustment, but as a bailout of Greece’s private debt holders, mainly European financial institutions,” said Brazil’s IMF executive director Nogueira Batista at a board meeting on May 9, 2010.

According to the Wall Street Journal, IMF records show that nearly a third of the board’s members, representing more than 40 non-European countries, raised major objections to the bailout’s design at the meeting.

“The alternative of a voluntary debt restructuring should have been on the table…The European authorities would have been well advised to come up with an orderly debt restructuring process,” said Argentina’s executive director Pablo Andrés Pereira. “The bottom line is that the approved strategy would only have a marginal impact on Greece’s solvency problems…It is very likely that Greece might end up worse off after implementing this program.”

“We have considerable doubts about the feasibility of the program…We have doubts on the growth assumptions, which seem to be overly benign,” said Swiss executive director Rene Weber. “Even a small negative deviation from the baseline growth projections would make the debt level unsustainable over the longer term…Why has debt restructuring and the involvement of the private sector in the rescue package not been considered so far?”

Directors from Brazil, Russia, Canada, Australia – representing 38 additional countries – worried about the “immense risks” of the program, the WSJ reports.

“The scale of the fiscal reduction without any monetary policy offset is unprecedented…(It) is a mammoth burden that the economy could hardly bear,” said India’s representative Arvind Virmani. “Even if, arguably, the program is successfully implemented, it could trigger a deflationary spiral of falling prices, falling employment, and falling fiscal revenues that could eventually undermine the program itself.”

According to the minutes of the May 9 meeting: “Several chairs (Argentina, Brazil, India, Russia, and Switzerland) lamented that the program has a missing element: it should have included debt restructuring and Private Sector Involvement (PSI) to avoid, according to the Brazilian ED, ‘a bailout of Greece’s private sector bondholders, mainly European financial institutions.’ The Argentine ED was very critical at the program, as it seems to replicate the mistakes (i.e., unsustainable fiscal tightening) made in the run up to the Argentina’s crisis of 2001.”

However, approval from US and most European directors mean accounted for more than half of the IMF’s voting shares and paved the way for the first Greek bailout, worth 110 billion euros, to be signed.

Source: Reuters

A Greek investigative journalist who published the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts appeared in court on Tuesday to stand trial again for violating privacy laws.

The unusually speedy arrest, trial and acquittal of Costas Vaxevanis last October for publishing the so-called “Lagarde List” drew international concern and captivated Greeks angry that successive governments failed to pursue those on the list while heaping austerity cuts on everyone else.

The magazine editor, who had called last year’s trial “targeted and vengeful” and an attempt to muzzle the press, was acquitted of the charges.

Although Greece has a double jeopardy law, the prosecutor successfully argued that he be tried again by a higher court, claiming to have new evidence and saying the verdict was legally flawed.

Vaxevanis was presenting his defense behind closed doors. A verdict could come as early as Tuesday and, if found guilty, he could be jailed for up to two years or face a fine.

The “Lagarde List”, with the names of 2,059 Greeks with HSBC bank accounts in Switzerland to be probed for possible tax evasion, was given to Greece by French authorities in 2010.

The saga of how the list was passed from one senior Greek official to the next and misplaced at one point without anyone apparently taking action riveted the country.

The list – named after IMF chief and then-finance minister Christine Lagarde – features dozens of prominent business figures including a handful of shipping tycoons, companies and two politicians. It also includes a painter, an actress and many listed as architects, doctors, lawyers, and housewives.

(Reporting by Karolina Tagaris; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: Presstv

Greece has announced that Germany must pay reparations for damages inflicted on the Greeks during World War II, a report says.

According to a report published by the New York Times on October 5, a group of Greek lawmakers stated in an 80-page report that Berlin owed reparations for those Greeks who died during the world war.

In the report it was mentioned that Germany also owes a large unpaid loan Athens was forced to give the Nazi state.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras says he has handed the report over to Greece’s Legal Council of State, which is to decide on the future of the case.

Athens has not yet released the total amount it believes Berlin owes. However, the figure discussed most often as the amount Germany must pay is USD 220 billion, half of the total debt Greece has.

In April, a panel set up by the Greek Finance Ministry said that Germany had to pay more than 160 billion euros in reparations to Greece.

Following the announcement, the German daily Der Spiegel said that Berlin should pay 108 billion euros for the reconstruction of its damaged infrastructure following the war.

Reports also said that Germany owed Greece 54 billion euros in loans it received during 1942 and 1944.

In July, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaubl said his country had to “examine exactly what happened in Greece.”

Experts believe that if Germany pays Greece what it allegedly owes, it would significantly improve the country’s likelihood of surviving the spiraling crisis and its crippling debt.

Greece has been dependent on bailout funds from international rescue loans approved by the troika of international creditors – the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank – since May 2010.

Greek Finance Ministry unveiled the draft Budget 2014 on Monday. In the ambitious draft, Athens predicts recession at 4% from 4.6% originally foreseen. A much better figure when compared to 6.5% of 2012. Deputy finance Minister, Christos Staikouras who presented the draft budget, said that the primary surplus will be at 380 million euro in 2013 and 2.8 billion euro in 2014.

Staikouras gave also the official rate of unemployment at 27% and said that it will drop to 26% in 2014.

“The 2014 budget will also foresee a primary surplus of 2.8 billion euros (1.5 percent of GDP), compared to about 300 million euros this year.

The draft budget might also give a better idea of the fiscal gap that Greece faces next year. The Finance Ministry believes it will be about 600 million euros, whereas the troika expects it to be as much as 3 billion euros.

The final version of the budget is due to be submitted to Parliament at the end of November and could contain a number of changes compared to the draft due to be issued on Monday.” (ekathimerini)

While the government claims that there would be no additional austerity measures, the big question is where the 2.8 billion euro surplus will come from – especially the moment that the government hardly proceeds to expenditure cuts.

A not-so-secret present is being currently wrapped by the technocrats of the Greek finance ministry. With love to the Greek taxpayer: tax hikes to income from rent, tax hikes for free lancers and small enterprises, abolishing tax breaks and stricter taxes for farmers.

As of 1.1.2014 the new taxation system that will go into effect will abolish also the tax free amount of 5,000 euro for annual income.

Nevertheless the budget 2014 has to be approved by the Troika – business as usual….

PS What? the European Union claims as “poor” those with annual income of 7.500 euro? In Greece, they tax also the very poor… Of course. If they don’t cut expenditure, there is no other way than “Taxes and more Taxes”.

Source: KRITIKA_EPIKAIRA

Στο πλαίσιο του εορτασμού των 100 χρόνων από την Ένωση της Κρήτης με την Ελλάδα, ο Δήμος Αρχανών-Αστερουσίων και το Μουσείο Νίκου Καζαντζάκη συνδιοργανώνουν ημερίδα με θέμα «Η παρουσία της Κρήτης στο έργο του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη».

Η ημερίδα θα διεξαχθεί στην αίθουσα εκδηλώσεων του Μουσείου στη Μυρτιά, την Τετάρτη, 9 Οκτωβρίου 2013, στις 7.00 το απόγευμα, και το πρόγραμμά της διαρθρώνεται σε δύο μέρη.

Στο πρώτο μέρος, τέσσερις ομιλητές θα πραγματευτούν τη σχέση του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη με σημαντικές πτυχές της Ιστορίας της Κρήτης, και συγκεκριμένα:

– Ελπινίκη Νικολουδάκη-Σουρή, «Ο Νίκος Καζαντζάκης στα εκατόχρονα της Ένωσης: προσωπικά βιώματα και ιστορική μνήμη»,

– Ελένη Κωβαίου, «Νίκος Καζαντζάκης και Μινωικός Πολιτισμός»,

– Μάνος Χαλκιαδάκης, «Ο Νίκος Καζαντζάκης και η Κρητική Πολιτεία, 1898-1913» και,

– Ben Petre, «Η πρόσληψη του πρώιμου έργου του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη από το κοινό του Ηρακλείου».

Στο δεύτερο μέρος, ο Γιάννης Κασσωτάκης στο τραγούδι και η Λίλυ Δάκα στο πιάνο, θα ερμηνεύσουν τραγούδια σε κείμενα του Νίκου Καζαντζάκη και μουσική του Μάνου Χατζιδάκι.