Greece's Euro Exit Seems Inevitable - page 17
You are missing trading opportunities:
- Free trading apps
- Over 8,000 signals for copying
- Economic news for exploring financial markets
Registration
Log in
You agree to website policy and terms of use
If you do not have an account, please register
Varoufakis recorded Eurogroup meetings
The former Greek finance minister in an interview in Avgi newspaper
Yanis Varoufakis opens up a bit more to Avgi newspaper saying that he recorded his meetings with the eurogroup. He said he made recordings because no minutes were being kept of the meetings, which he says "was scandalous"
He adds that he never hid the fact that he was making recordings, and that they were used to brief the Greek cabinet
He also claims the decision to hold a referendum was down to Tsipras and that capital controls and the bank holiday were imposed by the Troika
If he's holding on to those files then he's sitting on gold, given some of the suggested arguments and comments we previously got from the meetings
I said I'd eat my hat if Greece gets the negotiations done by 20th August and I'll eat another one if we don't ever get a book from Varoufakis detailing the whole sorry saga
source
Greek PM Tsipras under pressure over covert Syriza drachma plan reports
Some members of Greece's leftist government wanted to raid central bank reserves and hack taxpayer accounts to prepare a return to the drachma, according to reports on Sunday that highlighted the chaos in the ruling Syriza party.
It is not clear how seriously the plans, attributed to former Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, were considered by the government and both ministers were sacked earlier this month. However the reports have been seized on by opposition parties who have demanded an explanation.
The reports came at the end of a week of fevered speculation over what Syriza hardliners had in mind as an alternative to the tough bailout terms that Tsipras reluctantly accepted to keep Greece in the euro.
Around a quarter of the party's 149 lawmakers rebelled over the plan to pass sweeping austerity measures in exchange for up to 86 billion euros in fresh loans and Tsipras has struggled to hold the divided party together
In an interview with Sunday's edition of the RealNews daily, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the hardline former energy minister who lost his job after rebelling over the bailout plans, said he had urged the government to tap the reserves of the Bank of Greece in defiance of the European Central Bank.
Lafazanis, leader of a hardline faction in the ruling Syriza party that has argued for a return to the drachma, said the move would have allowed pensions and public sector wages to be paid if Greece were forced out of the euro.
"The main reason for that was for the Greek economy and Greek people to survive, which is the utmost duty every government has under the constitution," he said.
However he denied a report in the Financial Times that he wanted Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stouranaras to be arrested if he had opposed a move to empty the central bank vaults. In comments to the semi-official Athens News Agency, he called the report a mixture of "lies, fantasy, fear-mongering, speculation and old-fashioned anti-communism".
In a separate report in the conservative Kathimerini daily, Varoufakis was quoted as saying that a small team in Syriza had prepared plans to secretly copy online tax codes. It said the "Plan B" was devised to allow the government to introduce a parallel payment system if the banking system was closed down.
In remarks the newspaper said were made to an investors' conference on July 16, Varoufakis said passwords used by Greeks to access their online tax accounts were to have been copied secretly and used to issue new PIN numbers for every taxpayer to be used in transactions with the state.
"This would have created a parallel banking system, which would have given us some breathing space, while the banks would have been shut due to the ECB's aggressive policy," Varoufakis was quoted as saying.
read more
Europe's New Colonialism: ECB Rejects Greek Request To Reopen Stock Market
It has been one month since Greek capital controls were imposed, and as we explained earlier, Greece is nowhere closer to having its deposit limits lifted. In fact, with several more months of capital controls at least, the Greek banks are likely to suffer ongoing balance sheet impairments which will ultimately result in depositor bail-ins, with Germany already pushing for haircuts on deposits over €100,000.
However, when it comes to banks there is at least still the illusion that Greece has some residual sovereignty. The reality is that it does not, as Greece is no longer an independent nation, and as of July 15, the Greek "In Dependence" day, every Greek decision needs to get pre-approval from both the ECB, Brussels and, naturally, Berlin.
This was made very clear earlier today when Reuters reported that the Greek stock exchange will remain closed on Monday but might reopen on Tuesday after a one-month shutdown which started on June 29. "It's certain that it will not open on Monday, maybe on Tuesday," a spokesperson for the Athens Stock Exchange told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
However, to understand what really happened, one should read the Bloomberg explanation, according to which it was the ECB which rejected proposals by Greek authorities to reopen country’s financial markets with no restrictions in place for both Greek and foreign traders, citing an Athens Exchange spokeswoman.
Ministerial decree is now expected, setting some restrictions in use of money from Greek bank accounts for trading.
And just like that, we wave goodbye to the Hellenic Republic, and greet the Mediterranean Vassal Province of Mario and Merkel. Because as of this moment, no Greek decision can be taken without the direct or indirect express prior approval of either the ECB and/or Berlin.
read more
There will be a war there
Euro Exit Should Be Option in Monetary Union: German Experts
Germany’s Council of Economic Advisors presented on Tuesday a proposal on the future of the European Monetary Union (EMU). The document, prepared for the German government and lawmakers in the Bundestag, and clearly influenced by the Greek crisis, says that the EMU structures should include an option to leave the euro zone.
“A member state’s long-term unwillingness to cooperate can threaten the stability of the monetary union,” the report says, so the country’s withdrawal from the monetary union should be available as a last resort.
Thus, according to the authors, regulation of insolvency for states nearing bankruptcy should become an integral part of the improved architecture of the EMU.
“In order to maintain cooperation in the monetary union we have to recognise that voters in creditor countries are not prepared to provide long term financing to debtor states," Christoph Schmidt, the Chairman of the Council, argued. "An insolvency mechanism is the right tool to counteract future crises."
However, the experts disapproved measures such as a euro zone treasury, arguing that it bears no loss of sovereignty for member states but imposes a collective responsibility.
"All in all, the proposals of Germany’s economic wise men do not present any new ideas. It is the well-known ideas and proposals, building on the German government’s current crisis management. It is a framework for Merkel’s principle of conditional solidarity. It is also a framework, similar to earlier ideas of the Bundesbank," Carsten Brzeski, Chief Economist at ING, wrote in an e-mailed note to clients on Wednesday morning.
"The big question is whether such a framework would have prevented the current crisis and would really make the monetary union fully sustainable. The biggest problem of all proposals, which aim at avoiding fiscal or political union, have, is that they lean on the disciplinary effect of financial markets and the willingness of all Eurozone member states to cooperate. The only solution the proposals offer for the current Greek crisis would be the Grexit – an exit from the monetary union as the ultimate penalty," he argued.
Even so, the German proposals, as well as the ongoing discussion across the euro zone following the recent eruption of the Greek crisis, show that the discussion on how to make the monetary union fully sustainable is currently gaining new momentum.
source
Tsipras says he opted for compromise rather than default
Greek PM back on the wires
I wonder if Cameron if bluffing the same way as Tsipras (almost sure)