Wired-up tax snoopers could be unleashed in Greece

The Guardian

By Ian Traynor in Brussels and Helena Smith in Athens

Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis comes up with novel methods to reform Greek economy before meeting with eurozone ministers

The Greek government has told its eurozone creditors it has a novel way of tackling the country’s chronic tax evasion culture – wiring students, tourists, and housewives for sound and video to spy on tax dodgers while posing as shoppers and customers.

Greece sends EU reform list, more hurdles before early cash

BY RENEE MALTEZOU AND JAN STRUPCZEWSKI

ATHENS/BRUSSELS Fri Mar 6, 2015 3:18pm EST

(Reuters) - Greece sent its euro zone partners an augmented list of proposed reforms on Friday but EU officials said several more steps were required before any release of aid funds to a country that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says has a noose around its neck.

Greece must reform and forget Syriza's 'false promises:' ECB's Coene

BRUSSELS Sat Mar 7, 2015 3:09am EST

(Reuters) - Greece must realize there is no other way than to reform, European Central Bank governing council member Luc Coene said in an interview published on Saturday, telling Greeks they had been sold "false promises" by radical leftists now in power.

The Belgian central bank chief said that life outside the euro zone would be far worse for Greek people and warned that if Athens wanted to be financed by the euro zone, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund, it had to follow the rules.

Opinion: Time for Greece to plan its exodus from the euro

Published: Mar 6, 2015 3:00 a.m. ET

By DARRELL DELAMAIDE POLITICS COLUMNIST

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Greece must now plan on a way to exit the euro EURUSD, -0.68%   if it is to have any chance of staying.

This is not a conundrum; it is the way negotiation works.

The new government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was forced to backtrack last month on its election pledges to get its foreign debt reduced and reverse austerity because it had no plausible alternative to European Union intransigence on extending the bailout.

Greece vs. Germany: Two Competing National Narratives

One reason behind the bitter turn in Greek talks is how the two countries view themselves

The Wall Street Journal

By STEPHEN FIDLER

March 5, 2015 4:34 p.m. ET

The tone of Europe’s political debate about keeping Greece afloat has turned bitter, particularly between Germans and Greeks. One important reason is the stories the two nations are telling themselves about their own recent history.

Germans see themselves as having built economic success from the ashes of World War II through self-sacrifice, personal reliance and hard work. When their economy started to underperform in the 1990s, they enacted a series of tough reforms more than a decade ago that laid the platform for economic strength today.

Greece: No escape from the inevitable

 http://www.voxeu.org/article/greece-no-escape-inevitable

by Lars P Feld, Christoph M Schmidt, Isabel Schnabel, Benjamin Weigert, Volker Wieland 

20 February 2015

Claims that ‘austerity has failed’ are popular, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. This column argues that this narrative is factually wrong and ignores the reasons underlying the Greek crisis. The worst move for Greece would be to return to its old ways. Greece needs to realise that things could actually become much worse than they are now, particularly if membership in the Eurozone cannot be assured. Instead of looking back, Greece needs to continue building a functioning state and a functioning market economy.

Greece Struggles to Make Debt Math Work in Bailout Standoff

by Nikolaos ChrysolorasRebecca ChristieVassilis Karamanis

12:34 AM EET

March 5, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- As talks over the disbursement of bailout funds for Greece drag on into their seventh consecutive month, the deadlock threatens to pull the country back into a recession this quarter, or even a possible default within weeks.

Syriza’s worst capitulation so far?

It has now been confirmed that the Greek parliament will not get a formal vote on the extension of the financial assistance agreement with the Eurozone. Open Europe’s Raoul Ruparel asks whether this is another sign of Syriza moving from its election commitments – in this case democracy and transparency.

2 March 2015

In announcing that the parliament will not get a vote Greek government spokesman Gavriil Sakellaridis said:

"There reason that the government chooses at this time not to bring the agreement to Parliament for approval has to do with the fact that it is just the extension of an already existing loan agreement.

This is a pretty extraordinary decision for a number of reasons."

Greece Likely to Raid Pensions and EU Subsidies to Meet IMF Payments

BY LUKE HURST 3/3/15 AT 6:10 PM

Greece may be forced to tap into state pension and social security funds and even EU farming subsidies to meet their scheduled repayments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) this month. It is expected to repay €1.5 billion in March, with €310 million due this Friday.

While short-term solutions for the March payments may be available to the new Greek government led by the left-wing Syriza coalition, experts say meeting further repayments scheduled this year to the European Central Bank (ECB) will require agreeing to a third bailout package.

Greece Can Teach The World A Needed Lesson

This story appears in the March 23, 2015 issue of Forbes.

Steve Forbes

3/03/2015 @ 10:00AM

DEAR PRIME MINISTER Tsipras and Finance Minister Varoufakis:

You may have won a four-month reprieve of sorts from your creditors, but your situation is desperate, and everyone knows it, most particularly Europe’s paymasters, the Germans. As you just painfully learned, your ability to blackmail your creditors is a fraction of what it once was. Businesses, banks and others have had plenty of time to prepare for the worst-case scenario: Greece’s exit from the euro zone. Your own citizens have no faith in you, as evidenced by the massive cash withdrawals from Greek banks and the exodus of capital from Greece to supposedly safer havens.

Greece Faces Cash Crunch as IMF Payments Come Due

New Greek government stands little chance of receiving help from eurozone soon

The Wall Street Journal

By MATTHEW DALTON and  VIKTORIA DENDRINOU

March 2, 2015 4:37 p.m. ET

BRUSSELS—Greece faces a cash crunch in the coming weeks with little hope of financial help soon from the rest of the eurozone, threatening a serious blow to the country’s fragile economy.

Though the Greek government secured an extension of its bailout program last week, that doesn’t give Athens access to cash pledged to it from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. To unlock that money, it will need to agree on a revised program of austerity measures and economic overhauls with its creditors, and pass them into law.

What Greece Won

FEB. 27, 2015

By Paul Krugman

The New York Times

Last week, after much drama, the new Greek government reached a deal with its creditors. Earlier this week, the Greeks filled in some details on how they intend to meet the terms. So how did it go?

Well, if you were to believe many of the news reports and opinion pieces of the past few days, you’d think that it was a disaster — that it was a “surrender” on the part of Syriza, the new ruling coalition in Athens. Some factions within Syriza apparently think so, too. But it wasn’t. On the contrary, Greece came out of the negotiations pretty well, although the big fights are still to come. And by doing O.K., Greece has done the rest of Europe a favor.

Greece Stirs Doubt on Debt Owed IMF

Cash-Strapped Athens Suggests It Might Be Short on Some March Payments

By IAN TALLEY And  ALKMAN GRANITSAS

Feb. 27, 2015 7:33 p.m. ET

32 COMMENTS

Greece’s cash-strapped government suggested in the past week that it might default on some of the debt it owes the International Monetary Fund in March, which would make it the first advanced economy in the institution’s seven-decade history to fall into protracted arrears with the fund.

Humiliated Greece eyes Byzantine pivot as crisis deepens

Neither side holds the upper hand in the strategic game of chicken which could still see Greece forced out of the euro

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in Athens2:24PM GMT 28 Feb 2015

Greece's new currency designs are ready. The green 50 drachma note features Cornelius Castoriadis, the Marxisant philosopher and sworn enemy of privatisation.

The Nobel poet Odysseus Elytis - voice of Eastward-looking Hellenism - honours the 200 note. The bills rise to 10,000 drachma, a wise precaution lest there is a hyperinflationary shock as Greece breaks out of its debt-deflation trap at high velocity.

Greece seeks negotiations on ECB bond repayment

ATHENS Sat Feb 28, 2015 3:53pm IST

(Reuters) - Greece called into question on Saturday a major debt repayment it must make to the European Central Bank this summer, after acknowledging it faces problems in meeting its obligations to international creditors.

Greece runs out of funding options despite euro zone reprieve

Fri Feb 27, 2015 9:22am EST

* Greece faces 1.5 bln euro debt payment to IMF in March

* Lenders rule out three short-term funding options

* Pressure on Athens to quickly complete bailout review for aid

By Jan Strupczewski and Deepa Babington

What Greece Has to Do Now: Fix Its Economy

Michael G. Jacobides

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

After weeks of media frenzy around the Greek election and the new government’s once-ambitious plans to renegotiate with the Eurozone over its debt crisis, the searchlights of publicity are shifting. For all of its bravado, Greece was pushed into a corner in an eleventh-hour deal that will extend a bailout agreement for four more months. And although it has been given a temporary lifeline, little has been resolved.

Greece and geopolitics

A semi-guided missile

The Economist

America, much more than Europe, sees strategic stakes in the Aegean

Feb 28th 2015 | From the print edition

NEVER imagine that the euro zone is the only club in which Greece is a maverick player. The Hellenic relationship with NATO, and bilateral defence ties with the United States, have long been important (although many would say diminishing) and contested.

In Greece, Bailout May Hinge on Pursuing Tycoons

By LIZ ALDERMANFEB. 26, 2015

The New York Times

ATHENS — As he sifted recently through a sheaf of Greek bank accounts held by executives, politicians and other members of the Greek elite, Panagiotis Nikoloudis, the nation’s new anti-corruption czar, was struck by some troubling numbers.

A man who was claiming unemployment benefits and declared zero income on his taxes had more than 300,000 euros, or $336,000, stashed away at his bank. Another, who told the tax authorities that his annual income was just €15,000, turned out to have €1.5 million in various bank accounts.

Tsipras Reversal Draws Greek Sympathy as Party Rumblings Rise

by Maria Petrakis

"...While the main sentiment in Greece is hope, in Brussels the word being bandied about is “trust”..."