Greece fails in bid for early cash release, reforms awaited

BY JAN STRUPCZEWSKI AND GEORGE GEORGIOPOULOS

BRUSSELS/ATHENS Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:09pm EDT

(Reuters) - Greece failed in a bid on Wednesday to secure a quick cash payment from the euro zone rescue fund to help stave off potential bankruptcy next month, raising pressure on Athens to deliver a convincing reform program within days.

Athens had appealed for the European Financial Stability Facility to return 1.2 billion euros ($1.32 billion) it said it had overpaid when it transferred bonds intended for bank recapitalization back to the Luxembourg-based fund this month.

Greece Says It’ll Present E.U. With Planned Overhauls by Monday

By ALISON SMALE and NIKI KITSANTONISMARCH 24, 2015

The New York Times

BERLIN — Greece will present a detailed list of proposed overhauls to its eurozone partners by Monday, a government spokesman said, as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met supporters and leading government ministers on his first official visit to Europe’s economic powerhouse, Germany.

Greece promises list of reforms by Monday to unlock cash

BY GEORGE GEORGIOPOULOS AND ANGELIKI KOUTANTOU

ATHENS Tue Mar 24, 2015 9:01am EDT

(Reuters) - Greece said it will present a package of reforms to its euro zone partners by next Monday in hope of unlocking aid to help it deal with a cash crunch and avoid default.

"It will be done at the latest by Monday," government spokesman Gabriel Sakellaridis told Mega TV.

Greece's left-wing government and its euro zone creditors agreed last week that Athens would come up with a list of its own reforms, which must achieve a similar budget impact to measures agreed by the previous conservative-led administration.

Soros Says Greece Now Lose-Lose Game After Being Mishandled

by Tom Beardsworth, Francine Lacqua

8:00 AM EET

March 24, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- The chances of Greece leaving the euro area are now 50-50 and the country could go “down the drain,” billionaire investor George Soros said.

“It’s now a lose-lose game and the best that can happen is actually muddling through,” Soros, 84, said in a Bloomberg Television interview due to air Tuesday. “Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all parties.”

Merkel Points Tsipras Toward Deal With Greece’s Creditors

 Patrick DonahueJonathan StearnsAnthony Czuczka

7:57 PM EET

March 23, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel encouraged Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to follow the path set out by Greece’s creditors, saying his country belongs in Europe and she wants its economy to succeed.

Deadlines Near as Greece and Germany Seek a Consensus on Debt

By ALISON SMALEMARCH 23, 2015

The New York Times

BERLIN — With time running ever shorter for an accord to ease Greece’s debt crisis and cash crunch, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany met on Monday and sought at least to take the sting out of venomous exchanges between Athens and Berlin in recent weeks.

Keeping Greece in the euro: Mission impossible?

CNN Money

By Mark Thompson

The make-or-break moment in the long running saga over Greece's debt is looming.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras met German Chancellor Angela Merkel Monday in a bid to bridge a growing gulf between Athens and its European creditors.

Tsipras arrived in Germany -- the biggest single contributor to Greece's 240-billion euro ($262 billion) international bailout -- warning that Athens will find it "impossible" to avoid defaulting on its debt repayments without more cash from Europe.

Austerity Is Not Greece’s Problem

MAR 3, 2015 32

Project Syndicate

By Ricardo Hausmann

CAMBRIDGE – When looking out a window, it is easy to be fooled by your own reflection and see more of yourself than the outside world. This seems to be the case when US observers, influenced by their own country's fiscal debate, look at Greece.

For example, Joseph Stiglitz regards austerity in Greece as a matter of ideological choice or bad economics, just like in the US. According to this view, those who favor austerity must be obsessed with the theory, given the availability of a kinder, gentler alternative. Why would you ever vote for austerity when parties like Greece's Syriza or Spain's Podemos offer a pain-free path?

Greece worries leave Europe subdued, Asia makes gains

BY MARC JONES

LONDON Mon Mar 23, 2015 6:19am EDT

(Reuters) - Caution about Greece ahead of a meeting between its prime minister and Germany's Angela Merkel prompted a nervy start to the week for European markets on Monday.

Shares and currencies in Asia, in contrast, had rallied on easy monetary policy hopes and another tick down in oil prices.

Greece Faces Decisive Week as Tsipras Is Set to Meet Merkel

by Nikos Chrysoloras, Anthony Czuczka

12:00 AM EET

March 23, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is set to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the second time in five days on Monday, at the start of a week that may prove decisive for Greece’s future in the euro area.

'Moment of truth' for Greece and the euro as Tsipras arrives in Berlin

The Guardian

Helena Smith in Athens

Sunday 22 March 2015 20.06 GMT

Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel are to meet in Berlin for high-stakes talks that could prove to be decisive in the battle over austerity measures

When the red carpet is rolled out for Alexis Tsipras in Berlin on Monday, the euro debt drama will come to a potentially decisive turning point.

In Greece, Syriza Struggles to Deliver Promises as Money Runs Out

By JIM YARDLEYMARCH 22, 2015

The New York Times

ATHENS — Glowering with disdain, Evangelos Venizelos stepped into the well of the Greek Parliament and ridiculed members of the country’s new leftist government. They had vowed to roll back unpopular austerity measures that Mr. Venizelos and the prior government had pushed through. They had promised that Greece would stop kneeling to European creditors.

Mr. Venizelos, once a powerful minister given the task of defending austerity, offered a disgusted opinion: Who are you kidding?

The Greece Issue Breeds Brinkmanship in the Eurozone

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMARCH 20, 2015

The New York Times

Nobody expected that the discussions between Greece and the rest of the eurozone about a new loan agreement would go smoothly. But things seem to be going even worse than expected, with both sides sniping at each other and refusing to engage in meaningful negotiations.

German media: Greece to remain liquid until April 8

A prominent German newspaper has reported that Greece has enough liquidity to last roughly two more weeks. If Athens fails to submit viable reforms by then, Brussels will reclassify the country's finances as "critical."

Deutche Welle

22-03-2015

According to the Sunday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS), EU Commission experts in Athens have confirmed that the country's coffers would be able to finance salaries and wages until the second week of April.

In Germany vs. Greece, who owes who?

By Anthony Faiola March 22 at 3:30 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-germany-vs-greece-who-owes-who/2015/03/21/e5872e18-cd7a-11e4-8730-4f473416e759_story.html

BERLIN — In the Greek resort town of Nafplio, German tourists Ludwig Zaccaro and Nina Lange shocked the local mayor last week by walking into City Hall with a reparations check. The couple had seen a figure in the news claiming Germany owned Greece more than $74 billion for Nazi crimes during World War II — a figure they boiled down to $936 per German citizen.

“We thought, Germany should start by paying its own debts before demanding the Greeks pay theirs,” said Lange, a 55-year-old social worker.

Greece Continues That Slide Towards Grexident

Forbes

By Tim Worstall

It’s somewhat difficult to work out what is the negotiating strategy of the Greek side over this debt bailout deal. For it’s increasingly looking like that wonderful portmanteau invention of Schaeuble, the German finance minister, could be about to come true, Grexident. That is, Greece leaving the euro and the eurozone by accident, not by design. Everyone involved in the negotiations keeps insisting that this isn’t what they want to happen. But everything being done by the Greeks appears to be making this more likely. At which point one really does have to start wondering, well, is this actually being done by mistake or not? For it’s long been known that various of the Syriza people, the finance minister Varoufakis among them, privately think that they simply will not be able to reform the Greek economy as they wish to while inside the euro system. It’s just that the Greek electorate doesn’t think that way.

The bailout crisis: Germany’s view of how Greece fell from grace

Alan Posener

The Guardian

By Alan Posener

Sunday 22 March 2015 00.04 GMT

Athens’ defiance of austerity demands and recalling of wartime atrocities have angered Germans already worried about rising nationalism and economic decline.

Did he or didn’t he? Last week, the biggest media story in Germany was whether or not Yanis Varoufakis had flipped us the finger. After a video of the Greek finance minister “showing the stinkfinger” (as Germans put it) was screened on a talk show, a satirist claimed he had doctored the video and that the finger-flip was a fake. A day later he recanted.

Greece’s Tsipras Gets ‘Reality Check’ at EU Summit

 leader told Athens won’t get more money until much of its bailout program passes into law

By MATTHEW DALTON

Updated March 20, 2015 1:37 p.m. ET

41 COMMENTS

BRUSSELS—Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, came to Brussels on Thursday hoping to secure offers of desperately needed financial support from the currency bloc during a meeting with eurozone leaders.

Bond Markets Bet on Grexit

4 MAR 20, 2015 12:52 PM EDT

By Mark Gilbert

Two taboos about Greece's future as a member of the euro club were broken this week when  the German finance minister all but invited Greece to return to the drachma and the Dutch finance minister floated a temporary ban on Greeks' taking their money out of the country.

EU Asks Greece for More Reforms to Speed Aid Negotiations

by Rebecca Christie, Jonathan Stearns

4:05 AM EET

March 20, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Greece must submit a more concrete reform plan to euro-area authorities so that bailout talks can speed up, European Union leaders said after nearly four hours of talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Brussels.

With EU chiefs warning that time is running out for Greece to overcome a standoff over aid, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande said that the Greek government needed to submit new measures rapidly.