Greece gets short-term debt relief from eurozone

By Pan Pylas | AP December 5 at 4:14 PM

The Washington Post

BRUSSELS — Greece won some short-term debt relief from European creditors on Monday even though it failed to clear the latest hurdle in its bailout program that has prevented the country going bankrupt and crashing out of the euro.


At a meeting of the 19 eurozone finance ministers in Brussels that was largely overshadowed by the Italian referendum result that forced Premier Matteo Renzi to offer his resignation, Greece’s creditors offered some immediate help to the cash-strapped Greek government.

Eurozone Finance Ministers Agree to Some Debt Relief for Greece’s Bailout

Maturities extended and interest rates locked on some Greek debt but no agreement yet on IMF participation

The Wall Street Journal

By VIKTORIA DENDRINOU and  NEKTARIA STAMOULI
Updated Dec. 5, 2016 4:10 p.m. ET

BRUSSELS—Eurozone finance ministers, seeking to get the International Monetary Fund to participate in Greece’s bailout, agreed on a package of short-term measures that could ease the country’s debt load by around a fifth in 2060.

The ministers, gathering in Brussels for their monthly meeting on Monday, had hoped to move closer to agreeing on a set of overhauls Greece must enact under its bailout—which could reach €86 billion ($92.3 billion)—as well as a series of debt-relief measures from its European creditors. Both steps are required to get the IMF to participate in the bailout.

Eurogroup should be 'realistic' on Greece fiscal targets: Dijsselbloem

Tue Nov 29, 2016 | 4:45am EST

Reuters

The chair of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers said on Tuesday that European lenders should be "realistic" in the fiscal targets they set for Greece after 2018, when a program of financial aid will end.

"We need to be realistic," Jeroen Dijsselbloem told the economic affairs committee of the European Parliament, saying that the International Monetary Fund has a point when it says "running a primary surplus of 3.5 percent for a very long time is a huge thing to ask".

EU Sees ‘Smooth Sailing’ If Greece Implements Needed Reforms

 Richard Bravo

 Matthew Miller

November 18, 2016 — 11:15 AM EET Updated on November 18, 2016 — 11:35 AM EET

Greece and the institutions managing its bailout, currently negotiating policy reforms in Athens, could clear the way for discussions next month to ease the terms of the nation’s debt burden, which could presage a successful resolution of its rescue program, according to the head of the euro area’s Economic and Financial Committee of finance deputies.
“You need to do the reforms and that will bring back growth and that will then unlock those measures which in reality we’ve already agreed on,” Thomas Wieser, head of the Euro Working Group, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I’m very positive by the end of this year we’ll be there then it should be comparatively smooth sailing for the rest of the program.”

Obama Urges Europe to Address Its Debt Crisis

Leaders should favor growth over austerity in response to rising populism, president says

The Washington Post

By CAROL E. LEE and  NEKTARIA STAMOULI
Updated Nov. 15, 2016 12:14 p.m. ET
123 COMMENTS
ATHENS—President Barack Obama urged Europe to resolve lingering issues from its debt crisis, saying on Tuesday that leaders should favor growth over austerity, as part of their response to the rising populism in Western countries exemplified by the election of Donald Trump.
Mr. Obama made the appeal after meeting with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who said it is time for Greece to receive significant debt relief from Europe.

Obama Keeps Hope Alive for Crisis-Ridden Greece

Bloomberg

 Marcus Bensasson

 Eleni Chrepa

16-11-2017

When a U.S. president last visited Greece, the economy was booming, Athens had been awarded the Olympics and the country was preparing to join the euro.
That was in 1999, and as Barack Obama gives his keynote speech on Wednesday defending democracy in its birthplace, the spotlight will inevitably fall on Greece’s deterioration. Its journey to the brink of bankruptcy, dragging down financial markets worldwide, was among the defining international events of Obama’s eight years in office and few places better show the ensuing forces of populism that ultimately brought in Donald Trump to replace him.

Greece Might Just Get a Boost From an Unlikely Source

The cash-strapped nation stands to gain a lift to demand from the aid effort for refugees

Bloomberg

Nikos Chrysoloras

October 20, 2016 — 7:01 AM EEST

As European Union leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday with the refugee crisis on the agenda, some of them may repeat the claim that their economies can't bear the cost of aiding people fleeing war and persecution. Greece ought not to be one of them.
After all it has been through in the past six years, the arrival of tens of thousands of refugees from across the Aegean may in fact be giving the country a mild, short-term stimulus.
Hundreds of millions of euros have been spent so far to provide shelter, provisions, and support to migrants and asylum seekers, in a period when government-funded spending has taken successive cuts.

Greece’s 2017 Budget Plan Sticks With Robust Growth Forecast

But analysts say austerity and tight credit conditions are likely to weigh on economy

The Wall Street Journal

By STELIOS BOURAS
Oct. 3, 2016 11:21 a.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
ATHENS—Greece’s budget plan for 2017 sees the economy rebounding strongly after a seven-year slump, but analysts say continued austerity and tight credit conditions are likely to weigh on its recovery prospects amid uncertainty over the country’s public debt.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos submitted a draft copy of the budget to parliament on Monday that is expected to be finalized in coming weeks after the country resumes talks with lenders on its reform program.

The 53-page budget sticks with Greece’s previous forecasts that the economy is expected to contract by 0.3% this year before growing by 2.7% in 2017. Many see these targets as too optimistic, saying the economy is now entering a period of stagnation, rather than growth, having shrunk by more than 25% since the debt crisis erupted in 2010.

Greece's bailout funds released; EU's Juncker hails Greek efforts

Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:16am EDT Related: WORLD, GREECE

Reuters

Greece got more than 7 billion euros in bailout funds on Tuesday after a review of the country's progress in implementing economic reforms, the head of the euro zone's bailout fund told reporters in Athens.

Greece needs the money to pay off growing state arrears, maturing ECB bonds and International Monetary Fund loans. Talks with its foreign creditors over Greece's efforts to implement a reform program have dragged on for six months.

Greece Gains Fresh Loans From Eurozone Fund

Approval of $8.4 billion in loans should ensure Greece doesn’t default to creditors this summer

The Wall Street Journal

By VIKTORIA DENDRINOU
June 17, 2016 3:48 a.m. ET


LUXEMBOURG—Senior officials from eurozone finance ministries agreed Friday on a disbursement of fresh loans to Greece worth some €7.5 billion ($8.4 billion), bringing to a conclusion a protracted review of the country’s bailout and ensuring the country doesn’t default to its creditors later this summer.

Greek Merchants Cry Foul as Netflix, Airbnb Escape New Taxes

 Nikos Chrysoloras

June 7, 2016 — 4:03 AM EEST

Bloomberg

For Panos Papadopoulos, what’s worse than the Greek government’s new taxes is that they don’t apply to his overseas rivals.

The chief executive officer of Forthnet SA, Greece’s biggest pay-television company, says the new levies make his battle against the likes of Netflix Inc. even harder. The story is similar for hotel-industry executives who say they face higher taxes that Internet-based services like Airbnb Inc. escape.
For its latest bailout tranche from creditors, Greece has reached deeper into its economy and is raising taxes on everything from beer, Internet use, phone services to pay-TV. It has increased the general sales levy and income taxes, prompting businesses to say growth will be damped in an economy that has shrunk by more than a quarter since 2008. Executives like Papadopoulos say what’s more galling is that the new levies give companies operating outside Prime Minister’s Alexis Tsipras’s jurisdiction an edge.

In Greece’s Economic War of Attrition, Tsipras Counts on Peace

 Marcus Bensasson

 Nikos Chrysoloras

June 6, 2016 — 5:00 AM EEST

Bloomberg

From street protests and collapsing governments to eleventh-hour deals and financial lifelines, Greece has gotten used to lurching from crisis to crisis during its endless economic meltdown.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is relying on it being different this time after finance ministers in the euro region agreed to disburse more funds and the European Central Bank on Thursday said it would be willing to let banks increase their access to its cheaper credit. Even Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the face of Europe’s standoff with Tsipras last year, said “an important corner” had been turned.

French Prime Minister Expresses Support for Greece

France is interested in investing in Greece in areas of energy, transportation and tourism

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI
June 3, 2016 11:52 a.m. ET
0 COMMENTS
ATHENS—French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Friday expressed his country’s interest in investing in Greece and promised the crisis-battered country more support with reforms needed to overcome the financial crisis, as well as help in dealing with the refugee crisis.

“A eurozone without Greece, a Schengen Treaty without Greece, represents another view of Europe that we do not share,” Mr. Valls said during a press conference with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras.
He said he was confident the next bailout funds for Greece would be disbursed soon and added that he hoped a solution for Greece’s debt problems would be found.

Why Greece’s Syriza Party Is Embracing Austerity Now

COMMENTARY by  Sotirios Zartaloudis  JUNE 3, 2016, 1:00 AM EDT

Fortune

Question is, how long will it last?
For more than five years, Greece has been dominating the global news, with fears of default and an exit from the Eurozone or even the European Union (EU). While experts predict political and financial disaster, I would say Greece appears to be returning to some level of normalcy, although it still has a long way to go before it returns to economic and political stability.

The crazy reason we might be facing a huge crisis in Greece again

By Matt O'Brien
April 20 at 6:30 AM

The Washington Post

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether history is repeating itself as tragedy or as farce.

Greece, after all, has had plenty of both over the past eight years. Its economy has shrunk as much as the United States' did during the Great Depression, its government has collapsed over and over and over again as a result, and its bailout is in its third iteration — without which it would have been forced out of the euro zone. How bad are things?  Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras just touted the fact that his country's unemployment rate has fallen from 26.5 percent to 24.9 percent, and that there was a month last year in which Greece's industrial production grew faster than anyone else's in Europe.

When life doesn't even give you lemons, you have to pick cherries instead.

Greek Pensions Reform Sparks Clashes in Test for Tsipras

 Marcus Bensasson

 Eleni Chrepa

Bloomberg

February 4, 2016 — 3:02 AM EET Updated on February 4, 2016 — 7:07 PM EET

The 38-year-old Greek banking and commercial lawyer is part of a month-old bar-association boycott of the country’s courts, in protest against the government’s pension-reform plans. He says they cripple small businesses and the self-employed, raising the tax and social insurance for a young lawyer with annual income of 20,000 euros ($21,900) by 27 percent to 13,800 euros.

“A reform is supposed to be a new scheme that helps you improve an existing situation,” said Vrysopoulos, who started his own law firm in 2011. “This is not a reform at all. It’s a way to get more money to repay your loans as a country.”

Don't Let Greek Pensions Threaten the Euro

4 FEB 2, 2016 2:00 AM EST

By Editorial Board

Bloomberg

Greece is a small country, but for much of 2015 its problems were big enough to threaten the survival of the euro system. A year after Alexis Tsipras took charge as prime minister, the government seems committed to meeting the obligations demanded by its creditors in return for further aid. Neither side should allow the remaining sticking point -- pension reform -- to jeopardize the euro again.

The Greek economy is still in intensive care, and the unemployment rate is stubbornly high, but the situation is improving. The economy is expected to shrink by only 0.7 percent this year, and 2017 could see growth of 1.9 percent. The nation’s credit rating has been upgraded.

Anti-austerity protests are paralyzing Greece

 Reuters

Renee Maltezou and Lefteris Papadimas, Reuters

Feb. 4, 2016, 10:07 AM          3,123  3

ATHENS — Scuffles broke out and the police used teargas during a mass rally in Athens on Thursday as Greeks railed against government pension reforms needed to meet demands of international creditors.

Demanding an end to austerity, about 50,000 Greeks marched on Parliament in central Athens. Breaking away from the main block of demonstrators, black-clad youths hurled stones and petrol bombs at police officers, who responded with rounds of teargas and stun grenades, Reuters witnesses said.

Greece vs austerity

Greece’s far-left Syriza government is tottering

The Economist

A year after Alexis Tsipras’s sweeping victory, economic woes and scandals threaten to bring him down

Jan 29th 2016 | Europe

ON JANUARY 24th Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s prime minister, gave a rousing speech to his supporters in a stadium in Athens, marking the first year in power of his far-left, anti-austerity Syriza party. He vowed to come down hard on his party’s enemies, and blamed the Greek people’s continuing misery on the opposition. Meanwhile Greece’s public broadcaster, ERT, aired a six-minute retrospective on Syriza’s first year, featuring gauzy shots of Mr Tsipras and a voice-over proclaiming that his government had battled elites, delivered social justice, fixed the economy and made Greece an international symbol of dignity. Even leftists rolled their eyes at the heavy-handed propaganda. But if Mr Tsipras’s speech and video were intended to boost morale, they backfired.

Greece Needs €74 Billion in Fresh Funding

Assessment comes from three institutions overseeing the eurozone bailout program

The Wall Street Journal

By GABRIELE STEINHAUSER and  VIKTORIA DENDRINOU

July 11, 2015 4:42 a.m. ET

BRUSSELS—Greece will need €74 billion ($82.55 billion) in fresh funding, the three institutions overseeing the eurozone bailout program said in their assessment of the country’s request for a new aid package, according to three European officials.