Monthly Archives: April 2015

By Paul Taylor

Even if it survives the next three months teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Greece may have blown its best chance of a long-term debt deal by alienating its eurozone partners when it most needed their support.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ leftist-led government has so thoroughly shattered creditors’ trust that solutions which might have been on offer a few weeks ago now seem out of reach.

With a public debt equivalent to 175 percent of economic output and an economy struggling to pull out of a six-year depression, Athens needs all the goodwill it can summon to ease the burden. It owes 80 percent of that debt to official lenders after private bondholders took a hefty writedown in 2012.

Since outright debt forgiveness is politically impossible, the next best solution would be for Greece to pay off its expensive IMF loans early, redeem bonds held by the European Central Bank and extend the maturity of loans from eurozone governments to secure lower interest rates for years to come.

“This step would save Greece’s budget billions of euros, while reforming the Troika arrangement, eliminating the IMF’s and the ECB’s financial exposure to Greece,» said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who advocates such an arrangement.

It would lower the effective interest rate on Greek debt to less than 2 percent, far less than Athens was paying before the eurozone debt crisis began in 2009, and radically reduce the principal amount to be repaid over the next decade, giving Greece fiscal breathing space to revive its economy.

And unlike ideas floated by Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis to swap euro zone loans for GDP-linked bonds and ECB holdings with perpetual bonds, paying out the IMF and the ECB early would be legal and supported by precedent.

But if the economics make sense for Greece, the politics no longer add up for its partners.

A eurozone official said there had been exploratory talks with the previous conservative-led Greek government about such a plan last year, before then Prime Minister Antonis Samaras chose to bring forward an election he lost rather than complete a bitterly unpopular bailout program.

“Now it’s a political non-starter,» said a euro zone official. «There’s just no appetite in the euro zone for a grand bargain to take over Greece’s debt to the IMF and the ECB.”

Leverage

Tsipras’ denunciations of EU-prescribed austerity, demands for German war reparations and cosying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Varoufakis’ foot-dragging on reform negotiations and initial calls for a “haircut” on Greek debt, have dried up the reservoir of sympathy for Athens.

Creditors like Germany, the Netherlands and Finland are bent on keeping the IMF involved as an enforcer of economic reform and fiscal discipline because they don’t trust the Greeks to keep their word, nor the European Commission to hold them to it.

“They would prefer to provide debt relief on an annual basis so they keep leverage on Greece to stick to the program,” said Miranda Xafa, senior scholar at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a consultant on Greek debt.

True, eurozone peers Ireland and Portugal, which received international bailouts after Greece, won EU agreement to pay off their costlier IMF loans faster, raising hopes in Athens.

But Dublin and Lisbon were able to do so by borrowing more cheaply from private lenders after completing their bailout programs and regaining access to the capital markets.

“Ireland and Portugal are governments in difficulty, but they are not difficult governments,” said Elena Daly, principal at EM Conseil, a Paris-based sovereign debt management adviser.

Since Greece is stalling on its program and lacks market access, the only way it could pay off 24 billion euros owed to the IMF and redeem 27 billion euros of bonds held by the ECB would be for the eurozone’s rescue fund to lend it the money.

That in turn would require eurozone governments to convince their parliaments to risk more taxpayers’ money than the roughly 170 billion euros they have already lent Greece in two bailouts totalling 240 billion euros.

Many economists and euro zone officials believe Athens will anyway need a third bailout of around 30 billion euros this year, even though Tsipras insists Athens does not want that.

Eurozone finance ministers promised in 2012 to “consider further measures and assistance” to ease Greece’s debt provided it stuck to the terms of its program, which it has not done.

Both Xafa and Daly said Tsipras had put himself in a near impossible position by making election promises incompatible with keeping the confidence of Greece’s creditors.

He needs to change the politics fast to have a chance of fixing the economics without resorting to capital controls, paying civil servants with IOUs or defaulting on foreign governments and being forced out of the euro zone, they argue.

A referendum asking Greeks if they want to stay in the euro at the price of painful economic reforms, or a quick coalition change to bring in pro-reform centrists, may be his best options, even if they split his SYRIZA party.

Greece’s official creditors meanwhile are torn between wanting to keep it in the eurozone to avoid the precedent of a country exiting, and fearing that if Tsipras manages to roll back austerity and secure debt relief, he could embolden like-minded political forces in Ireland, Portugal and Spain. “So they want Greece to prosper and stay in the euro while at the same time wanting the new administration to fall on its face and become an object lesson for other electorates who may be toying with the idea of rebellion,” Daly said.

source:ekathimerini.com

Παίρνοντας την σκυτάλη από το τουρκικό υπουργείο Εξωτερικών, ο ο πρωθυπουργός της ΤουρκίαςΑχμέτ Νταβούτογλου, έκανε αήθη επίθεση στον Πάπα Φραγκίσκο, χαρακτηρίζοντας μεροληπτικές και ανάρμοστες τις δηλώσεις του, αναφορικά με τη γενοκτονία των Αρμενίων.

«Η ανάγνωση αυτών των οδυνηρών γεγονότων κατά μεροληπτικό τρόπο είναι ανάρμοστη εκ μέρους του Πάπα και της αρχής που εκπροσωπεί», δήλωσε στην τουρκική τηλεόραση, ο κ. Νταβούτογλου.

Νωρίτερα, όπως ήδη έγραψε το tribune.gr, το υπουργείο Εξωτερικών της Τουρκίας ανακοίνωσε την ανάκληση του Τούρκου πρεσβευτή στο Βατικανό για διαβουλεύσεις στην Άγκυρα, οδηγώντας στα άκρα τις σχέσεις Τουρκίας και Βατικανού.

ΠΗΓΗ : tribune.gr

Ενα πασχαλινό έθιμο, το οποίο τηρεί ο ιερός ναός Αποστόλου Παύλου στην Πάτρα, στάθηκε η αφορμή για μία… επεισοδιακή Ανάσταση.

The head of Greece’s Orthodox Church said on Saturday it was willing to put property it owns up for development to help raise money to repay the country’s debt.

The Orthodox Church is a powerful institution in Greece and owns more land than anyone except the state, including prime real estate in Athens.

“Come, let’s develop (the property) for Greece,” Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens told Greek TV in an interview during the Greek Orthodox Easter holiday. “If needed by the state to cooperate, we’re here.”

Asked if the Church would consider selling off property, he said: “No, I would say let’s work together and (the state can) use the revenues to repay all its debts … but the plots of land will remain Greek, in Greek hands.”

He did not say what kinds of business developments he had in mind.

It is unclear how much property the Church owns as its structure is decentralised and Greece has no central land registry.

Greece has teetered on the verge of bankruptcy since its debt crisis broke out in 2009 and has depended on rescue loans totalling 240 billion euros from the European Union and International Monetary Fund to stay afloat.

It has not received any loans since last August and risks running out of cash within weeks while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s new leftist government seeks to strike a deal with creditors on reforms.

While an integral part of Greek society, critics say the Church owns too many assets, pays too little in taxes and has failed to contribute its fair share as ordinary Greeks’ bills have soared during the economic crisis.

The Church has called such accusations “a myth.

source:ekathimerini.com

They have learned to live with over 2,000 prisoners on their doorstep, some of them notorious extremists and hardened killers.

But for those with homes and businesses situated beneath the high walls of the Korydallos prison, the country’s leading correctional facility, hosting Greece’s biggest trial in over a decade is too much.

On April 20, a special court inside Korydallos will convene for the Golden Dawn trial, the culmination of a mass probe implicating nearly 70 members and alleged supporters of Greece’s neo-Nazi party.

After a 15-month investigation, state prosecutors will try to prove that the aggressive anti-immigrant group operated as a criminal organisation under a military-style leadership that allegedly encouraged the beating — and possibly the killing — of migrants and political opponents.

Under the command of party founder Nikos Michaloliakos, a 58-year-old disgraced former officer cadet, Golden Dawn has already been linked by investigating magistrates to at least two murders.

Local officials are bracing for trouble, noting that anti-fascist groups have already called protests for the start of the trial.

“The trial cannot and must not be held here,” Korydallos’ mayor Stavros Kasimatis told AFP.

“This is Greece’s biggest trial in 40 years. It will last at least 18 months. There will be gatherings by anti-fascist groups, and Golden Dawn supporters will perhaps muster as well.”

Anti-fascist groups, political parties and unions say they will hold a demonstration outside the prison on the opening day.

Kasimatis said that to keep rival groups apart, the police will probably be forced to erect barriers on one of Korydallos’ main streets, just a few metres from the district’s central school complex and nurseries.

“How can the city possibly operate under these conditions?” asked Kasimatis, who has the support of his neighbouring mayors and local lawmakers.

Korydallos prison last hosted a trial of this magnitude over a decade ago, when the authorities dismantled the far-left extremist group November 17.

But whereas few spoke out in defence of suspected extremists at the time, Golden Dawn is a legitimate parliamentary party that can bring in supporters from across the country, the mayor notes.

Wherever Golden Dawn members have appeared in court for other cases in recent months, dozens of supporters have been stationed inside and outside the courtroom in a bid to intimidate witnesses, anti-fascist groups say.

Last month, the trial of Golden Dawn’s spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris, who was accused of striking a female Communist lawmaker, had to be interrupted when party supporters heckled the victim.

“Golden Dawn members usually cram (into) the courtroom from dawn. We do not want this to happen, and will take all necessary measures to prevent it,” anti-fascist activist Takis Giannopoulos told AFP.

Justice Minister Nikos Paraskevopoulos last month admitted in parliament that the choice of venue was “problematic” as the makeshift courtroom inside the Korydallos female inmates’ wing was too small to handle the global interest in the trial.

“Right now there is no alternative option,” Paraskevopoulos said, but he left open the possibility of a break in the proceedings after the first day, until a suitable solution is found.

The trial, to be conducted by a panel of three judges, follows a 15-month investigation sparked by the fatal stabbing of Greek anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas by a Golden Dawn supporter in September 2013.

The group was later also linked to the murder of a Pakistani immigrant and beatings of political opponents.

The defendants at the trial include Michaloliakos and around a dozen Golden Dawn parliamentary lawmakers.

Most face charges of membership in a criminal organisation, a serious offence in Greece. Others are accused of murder, conspiracy to murder, possession of weapons and racist violence.

Some of the defendants, who include police officers, face sentences of up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The openly xenophobic and anti-Semitic Golden Dawn party was for years a semi-clandestine group on the fringes of Greek politics.

But in 2012 the party exploited widespread anger over immigration and austerity reforms prompted by Greece’s financial crisis and won 18 seats in parliament.

Although its members had been known to patrol the streets, carrying out attacks on foreigners, the party rarely faced sanctions until the murder of rapper Fyssas.

Michaloliakos and a number of others were arrested, and a subsequent search of party members’ homes uncovered firearms and other weapons, as well Nazi and fascist memorabilia.

Golden Dawn rejects the accusations as politically motivated and the group held on to its support base in January’s general election when it finished third, winning 17 seats in the 300-member legislature.

source:ekathimerini.com

A Muslim cleric has for the first time in 85 years recited the Koran in the Hagia Sophia, the world famous landmark of Istanbul which is now a museum after serving as a church and a mosque, reports said Saturday.

The Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum accessible to all by the secular founders of modern Turkey in the 1930s and secular Turks are wary of any moves to re-Islamise the building.

A passage from the Koran, the holy scripture of Islam, was recited late Friday at a ceremony in the Hagia Sophia to mark the opening of a new exhibition “Love of the Prophet.”

It was read by Ali Tel, imam at the Ahmet Hamdi Akseki Mosque in Ankara, the official Anatolia news agency said.

The ceremony was attended by top Turkish officials including the head of the country’s religious affairs agency Diyanet, Mehmet Gormez.

Anatolia said it was the first recitation of the holy Koran in the Hagia Sophia for 85 years.

The exhibition inside the Hagia Sophia is a show of calligraphic work in devotion to the Muslim Prophet Mohammed and runs until May 8.

The magnificent edifice was constructed in the sixth century as a church in the Christian Byzantine Empire and was the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the former name of Istanbul.

When Ottoman forces under Mehmet II conquered the city in 1453 he ordered the immediate conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Islamic minarets were built around its Byzantine dome.

It served as a mosque until after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire when in the mid-1930s the authorities of the new Turkish state under secular leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk ordered it to become a museum for all.

But under the rule of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP), co-founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan which came to power in 2002, there have been noises about reconverting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc caused a furore in November 2013 when he indicated that he hoped to change the status of the Hagia Sophia, saying it looked “sad” but hopefully would be “smiling again soon”.

Greece reacted furiously at the time, saying such statements “are offending the religious feeling of millions of Christians.”

source:ekathimerini.com