Daily Archives: November 22, 2014

Giancarlo Giannini plays the director of the Acropolis Museum.

Two lawyers fight for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to Greece in a film produced by Greek-American brothers Coerte and John Voorhees, due to open at theaters on Thursday, November 27.

The brothers were in the Greek capital last week to promote “Promakhos,” which they have also written and directed, and spoke to the press about the project and what they hope it can achieve. John and Coerte are the sons of a US-based lawyer who has been an active campaigner for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens. Coerte studied history and classics at Georgetown University. “Promakhos” is their first film.

Inspired by the statue of Athena Promachos, protector of the Parthenon in antiquity, they tell the fictional tale of two Athenian attorneys (played by Pantelis Kodogiannis and Kassandra Voyagis) handling a suit against the British Museum for the return of the ancient sculptures removed from the citadel by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s. The film stars Giancarlo Giannini, Paul Freeman and Michael Byrne, as well as Greek actors Georges Corraface, Yorgo Vogiatzis, Pygmalion Dadakaridis, Irene Katsarou and Kelly Eleftheriou, among others.

The film is being shown in Greece under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and has also drawn the support of the Alliance for Athens initiative, the Acropolis Museum, the Greek-British, Greek-German, Greek-Spanish and Greek-Italian chambers of commerce, as well as the groups “Return, Restore, Restart,” “Bring Them Back,” “Marbles Reunited” and “International Association for the Reunification of the Pantheon Sculptures.”

“Promakhos” was first shown at an exclusive screening in London in July attended by important figures in the arts and letters, including award-winning actor and Marbles advocate Stephen Fry.

Here in Greece, the screenings will begin on Thursday, November 27, though there will be a special showing at the Acropolis Museum on Monday, November 24, and an avant-premiere at Village at The Mall in Maroussi on Tuesday, November 25.

source: ekathimerini.com

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras listens to Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis as the latter holds a plastic box with the USB drive containing the 2015 budget, in Parliament on Friday.

 Greece and the troika are not expected to break the deadlock in their negotiations over the next few days, sources told Kathimerini after another day of tension-filled talks between the two sides.

Troika sources suggested that there is still a sizable distance between the two sides, with Greece’s lenders putting next year’s fiscal gap at between 2 and 3 billion euros. The Greek government submitted its 2015 budget to Parliament on Friday despite this disagreement. It is insisting that any deal with the troika must not involve the need to adopt additional austerity measures next year.

International Monetary Fund expect to see some concessions from Greece in the next few days if there is going to be any chance of completing the pending review by December 8, when eurozone finance ministers will meet in Brussels.

Among the key issues are: the Greek government giving greater independence to the General Secretariat for Revenues, adding the number of products and services that are subject to the top rate of value-added tax (23 percent), scrapping VAT breaks for some islands and introducing income or wealth criteria for taxpayers who can benefit from payment plans for their arrears.

The government is ruling out the option of extending the current program if it is not able to come to an agreement with the troika soon, allowing preparations to begin on a precautionary credit line. “There is no such official position,” said Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis when questioned about a possible extension on Friday.

This was supported by government sources, who pointed out that extending the current bailout would be too costly politically but might also not be possible as it would need the approval of eurozone member parliaments.

Hardouvelis insisted that the return of the troika to Athens in order to conclude the review is dependent on a “political decision.”

“If the troika wants, it can be here in a day,” said the finance minister. “We can go on negotiating for six months but we could also have a decision within a day.”

Hardouvelis spoke on Friday with the head of the Euro Working Group, Thomas Wieser, and IMF representatives in a bid to move negotiations along.

source: ekathimerini.com

Greece’s creditors are testing the country’s endurance – again. If they keep pressing, they could split the euro area apart, which would be a disaster for them as much as for Greece. They need to stop insisting on the impossible, and find a way to relieve the country’s debts.

The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have told the government of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to cut the country’s debt burden, the biggest in the euro area, by reducing public spending even further. In return, they propose a last injection of bailout money and an emergency credit line.

The offer is toxic because further efforts to reduce debt through fiscal tightening are almost certain to fail. And that’s assuming they don’t plunge the country into political instability, as they well might. Polls suggest that the radical left-wing SYRIZA party, led by Alexis Tsipras, is in a strong position to replace Samaras’s moderates in elections next year. (A few months back, SYRIZA rode a wave of anti-Europe sentiment to victory in elections to the European Parliament.)

Over the past five years, Greece has turned its primary budget balance (which excludes interest payments) from a deficit of 10.6 percent of gross domestic product to a surplus of 1.5 percent – a difference of more than 20 billion euros a year. This rare feat suggests an impressive, albeit long overdue, dedication to fiscal control. But the fiscal squeeze has hurt the economy. Greece’s output has fallen by roughly a fifth and the unemployment rate stands at more than 25 percent.

Lately the economy has started to grow again, but a further round of tightening puts the expansion at risk, possibly putting the goal of reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio further out of reach. That ratio is currently 180 percent; the target for euro-area countries is 60 percent. By itself, fiscal austerity simply cannot close this gap. Even if growth proceeds apace and borrowing costs stay manageable, the government would have to reach and maintain a primary surplus of 7.5 percent of GDP over the next 15 years. No euro-area country has ever come close to doing that.

If too much austerity puts SYRIZA in charge, expect an end to fiscal discipline. The damage, though, won’t stop there. The entire European project will be endangered. Tsipras might be willing to force losses on creditors unilaterally. Rising opposition parties in Portugal and Spain are similarly inclined, and they are watching closely. If markets begin to fear a wave of defaults, the resulting turmoil could thrust the whole of Europe back into crisis.

The fiscal arithmetic isn’t hard to understand. In the end, one way or another, Greece’s debts will be written down, and this is widely understood. Debt forgiveness achieves this result in an orderly way and with minimum collateral damage. The costs of the alternative – a disorderly default – could be enormous. Official lenders such as Germany and France have become the government’s biggest creditors and must lead the way. The sooner they recognize the need for relief, the better their chances of heading off a far worse calamity.

source: ekathimerini.com