Greece Names George Chouliarakis Interim Finance Minister Foreign ministry will be headed by diplomat Petros Molyviatis

By STELIOS BOURAS

Aug. 28, 2015 5:55 a.m. ET

The Wall Street Journal

ATHENS—Greece named economist George Chouliarakis as the country’s interim finance minister Friday, handing him control of the country’s purse strings until next month’s elections.

Mr. Chouliarakis was Greece’s representative in the meetings of eurozone finance ministry officials and has played a leading role in Greece’s negotiations with officials from the International Monetary Fund and European institutions. He is considered to be a constructive interlocutor by European officials.

Greece's Syriza to win election but face setback, poll shows

Fri Aug 28, 2015 10:53am EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE

ATHENS | BY GEORGE GEORGIOPOULOS AND ANGELIKI KOUTANTOU

Reuters

Former Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' leftist Syriza will emerge as the biggest party after next month's election but without the sizeable margin it was hoping for, the first major opinion poll since he resigned last week showed.

The survey also found that almost two thirds of voters felt Tsipras should not have sought a fresh mandate and that his favored coalition ally would not make it into parliament.

That suggested his gamble to call early elections to consolidate his power base could backfire, though over quarter of voters remained undecided, making the final outcome far from clear.

Syriza was supported by 23 percent of those polled, with the conservative New Democracy party second on 19.5 percent, according to the survey, carried out by pollsters ProRata and published in Friday's Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper.

Greece Names Interim Prime Minister to Lead the Country to Snap Election

Announcement likely to be posted Friday outside Greek parliament calling for Sep 20 election

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI

Updated Aug. 27, 2015 11:21 a.m. ET

2 COMMENTS

ATHENS—Greece Thursday officially entered the pre-election period for the second time this year, as the head of the country’s Supreme Court Vassiliki Thanou Christopoulou has been named caretaker Prime Minister, with the task to lead the country to elections.

Greece’s President Prokopis Pavlopoulos “is obliged to give the mandate for the formation of the government with the widest possible acceptance in order to hold elections to the President of the Supreme Court Mrs. Vassiliki Thanou,” the presidency said in a statement.

Euro as New Haven Moves Opposite to Stocks by Most in Decade

 Anooja Debnath

August 27, 2015 — 10:00 AM EEST Updated on August 27, 2015 — 2:03 PM EEST

Bloomberg

The tumble in equity markets in the past week has boosted the euro, confirming its new-found status as a haven asset.

The 19-nation currency is moving in the opposite direction of the Stoxx Europe 600 Index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index by the most in a decade, according to 30-day correlation data compiled by Bloomberg. The euro has appreciated against all of its Group-of-10 peers in the last three months, including traditional refuge currencies like the Japanese yen and Swiss franc.

As panic selling appeared in global stock markets earlier this week, the single currency rose to its strongest against the dollar since mid-January. The inverse relationship, or negative correlation, has intensified, said Stuart Bennett, London-based head of G-10 currency strategy at Banco Santander SA.

Euro ministers give blessing to Greek bailout, wooing IMF on debt

Sat Aug 15, 2015 7:02am EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE

BRUSSELS/ATHENS | BY ALASTAIR MACDONALD AND LEFTERIS PAPADIMAS

Euro zone finance ministers have agreed to lend Greece up to 86 billion euros ($96 billion) after Greek lawmakers accepted their stiff conditions despite a revolt by supporters of leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Assuming approval by the German and other parliaments, 13 billion euros should be in Athens next Thursday to pay pressing bills and a further 10 billion will be set aside at the European Stability Mechanism, earmarked to bolster Greek banks' capital.

Greece and the euro

A third bail-out gets the green light

Aug 15th 2015, 12:51 BY P.W. | LONDON

The Economist

A MONTH ago Greek membership of the euro was in peril, as Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s powerful finance minister, argued that Greece should leave the monetary union for at least five years in what he euphemistically called a “time out”. Any such exit, which would almost certainly have turned out to be permanent, would have undermined a founding principle of the monetary union—that those joining the euro do so irrevocably. Even after euro-zone leaders meeting at a crucial summit managed to agree upon a framework for a bail-out agreement on July 13th the chances of it actually being concluded and avoiding a “Grexit” seemed slim. Mr Schäuble made clear in the following week that he still thought Greece should be temporarily expelled from the euro while Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, said he did not believe in the agreement he had just made at the summit.

Dismal Debt Outlook for Greece Raises Pressure on European Creditors

Forecast comes amid surprise data showing Greek economy grew instead of shrinking in second quarter

The Wall Street Journal

By MARCUS WALKER And  STELIOS BOURAS

Aug. 13, 2015 2:48 p.m. ET

ATHENS—A bleak debt forecast for Greece is raising pressure on Europe to grant the country softer loan terms, exacerbating tensions among its creditors as they try to seal a new Greek rescue deal within days.

The new forecast, prepared by European Union officials in a document seen by The Wall Street Journal, predicts sharply higher Greek debt than Europe had previously hoped and shows just how far Greece is from escaping its marathon crisis.

Greece's Debt Relief Bill Rises To €100 Billion And The IMF Ain't Helping

AUG 5, 2015 @ 7:27 PM 1,536 VIEWS

Tim Worstall

CONTRIBUTOR

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/08/05/greeces-debt-relief-bill-rises-to-e100-billion-and-the-imf-aint-helping/

After we all thought that the Greek debt crisis was over we’re seeing disturbing signs that it isn’t, not at all, quite over as yet. It’s not just the absence of the fat lady in the horned helmet signing as yet that indicates it either. We have two rather different processes going on, both of them leading to the possibility that the solution just isn’t going to be found and that exit from the euro and default will follow. The first is that the IMF is now doing what it always should have done, which was obey its own charter. This means it should not fund any deal which is not sustainable: something it clearly ignored in funding the last deal. The second is that the Greek economy has deteriorated even more than anyone thought it had meaning that the necessary debt relief bill is even higher. Quite possibly to the point where no one’s willing to bear it.

The Euro’s Failed Dream of a Wonderful Life

The euro looks like a solution that will be costlier than the problems it was meant to address

By STEPHEN FIDLER

Aug. 6, 2015 5:29 p.m. ET

What would Europe be like if the euro had never been born? Unlike George Bailey in the 1946 film classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” we don’t get the chance to go back and find out.

In the movie, the kindly but suicidal George is taken by his guardian angel to see what the world would have been like without him. The small town in which he grew up and from which he never manages to escape is unrecognizable. Instead of the idyllic Bedford Falls, he finds the violent and crime-ridden Pottersville.

What Greece Needs to Prosper

Edmund S. Phelps, the 2006 Nobel laureate in economics, is Director of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and author of Mass Flourishing.

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/what-greece-needs-to-prosper-by-edmund-s--phelps-2015-08

NEW YORK – Some economists overlook the modern idea that a country’s prosperity depends on innovation and entrepreneurship. They take the mechanistic view that prosperity is a matter of employment, and that employment is determined by “demand” – government spending, household consumption, and investment demand.

Greece may seek up to 24 billion euros in first new aid tranche: paper

Sat Aug 1, 2015 2:18pm EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE

ATHENS

Reuters

 REUTERS/RONEN ZVULUN

Greece may seek 24 billion euros in a first tranche of bailout aid from international lenders in August to prop up its banks and repay debts falling due at the ECB, a pro-government Greek newspaper said in its early Sunday editions.

Athens is now in talks with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund to secure up to 86 billion euros ($94.48 billion) in bailout aid. It will be its third bailout since 2010.