Greece approves plan to transfer state utilities to new asset fund

State assets, including water and electricity utilities, are to be transferred to a new asset fund created by international creditors. The plans have sparked demonstrations and public sector strikes across the country.

Deutsche Welle
28-9-2016

Greece's parliament passed new reforms on Tuesday night to cut pension expenditure and transfer control of public utilities to a new asset fund.
 The reforms seek to unlock 2.8 billion euros ($3.14 billion) in financial loans as part of the country's latest bailout program.
The reforms were passed by a narrow 152-141 majority vote in Greece's 300-seat parliament, after 152 parliamentary members of the ruling Syriza-Independent Greeks coalition approved the reform bill. Only one member of the coalition voted against the bill, along with all opposition members.
The reforms will see public assets transferred to a new asset fund created by Greece's creditors. Assets include airports and motorways, as well as water and electricity utilities. The holding company groups together these state entities with the country's privatization agency, the bank stability fund and state real estate. It will be led by an official chosen by Greece's creditors, although Greece's Finance Ministry will retain overall control.

Economic imbalances risk 'destabilising' euro zone: ECB's Draghi

Mon Sep 26, 2016 | 5:11pm EDT

Reuters

Economic imbalances within the euro zone risk destabilising the currency bloc, top European Central Bank officials said on Monday, stressing the responsibility of governments to help boost growth while respecting EU rules.

ECB President Mario Draghi and board member Benoit Coeure also acknowledged the limitations of the ECB's ultra-expansionary policy of low interest rates and money printing.

"In our Economic and Monetary Union, in particular, the economic governance framework is essential to avoid imbalances that would eventually risk destabilising the euro area," Draghi told a European parliamentary committee in Brussels.

Greece, lenders agree supervisors for new privatisation fund

Mon Sep 26, 2016 | 8:28am EDT

Reuters

Greece and its lenders have agreed on a five-member supervisory board for a new privatisation fund following wrangling over its composition, government sources said on Monday, meeting a key condition under the country's 86 billion euro bailout.

Athens had to agree on nominations with its EU/IMF lenders by the end of September to conclude a first progress assessment and qualify for a further 2.8 billion euros in bailout loans.

Greece govt populism made adjustment worse: EU's Dombrovskis

Mon Sep 26, 2016 | 9:28am EDT

Reuters

Greece has had to go through tougher austerity than it would have otherwise been necessary, because of the populist stance of the left-wing government of Alexis Tsipras in 2015, European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday.

Tsipras, who took power in January 2015, rejected belt-tightening in public finances requested by lenders in exchange for emergency loans and reversed some of the reforms introduced by the previous Greek governments.

As new loans were frozen, Greece defaulted on the International Monetary Fund in July 2015 and had to introduce capital controls to prevent its banking system from collapse.

The Deutsche Bank crisis could take Angela Merkel down – and the Euro

MATTHEW LYNN
Matthew Lynn 26 SEPTEMBER 2016 • 4:43PM

The Telegraph

here are some words that make such an unlikely pairing that we find it hard to put them together.  Italy and efficiency, for example. Or Bake Off and Channel 4. And ‘Germany’ and ‘banking crisis’ is another one. Our image of German banks, and the German economy, as completely rock solid is so strong that it takes a lot to persuade us they might be in trouble.

And yet it has become increasingly hard to ignore the slow-motion car crash that is Deutsche Bank, or to avoid the conclusion that something very nasty is developing at what was once seen as Europe’s strongest financial institution. Its shares have been in free-fall for a year, touching a new low of 10.7 euros on Monday, down from 27 euros a year ago. Over the weekend, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel waded into the mess, briefing that there could be no government bail-out of the bank.

Greece Rejects Asylum Requests by Three Turkish Officers

Trio were part of group of eight soldiers who fled after failed coup attempt in Turkey

The Wall Street Journal

By STELIOS BOURAS and  NEKTARIA STAMOULI

Sept. 21, 2016 1:08 p.m. ET

ATHENS—Three of the eight Turkish army officers who fled to Greece after July’s failed coup attempt in Turkey have had their asylum requests rejected, a Greek government official said Wednesday.

The requests of two of the officers were rejected owing to a lack of cooperation with authorities, a second Greek government official said. All three have the right to appeal.

Amnesty: Refugees in Greece Live in 'Appalling Conditions'

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEPT. 22, 2016, 9:55 A.M. E.D.T.

The New  York Times

ATHENS, Greece — Most of the roughly 60,000 refugees and other migrants stranded in Greece are living in "appalling conditions" and face "immense and avoidable suffering," rights group Amnesty International said in a report Thursday slamming Europe's response to the refugee crisis.

The group criticized Europe for failing to fulfill commitments to relocate refugees from the countries they entered, saying only 6 percent — about 4,000 people — of the 66,400 relocations promised over two years have taken place.

COSCO sees Greece's Piraeus among world's top 30 ports by 2018

Thu Sep 22, 2016 | 2:10pm EDT

Reuters

By Angeliki Koutantou | ATHENS
China's biggest shipping company, COSCO Shipping, plans to ramp up container volume at Greece's biggest port in Piraeus by 35 percent by 2018, the port's new managing director, Fu Cheng Qiu, told Reuters on Thursday.

COSCO Shipping, which owns the world's fourth-largest container shipping fleet, bought 51 percent of the port's operating company last month for 280.5 million euros ($315.5 million), one of Greece's biggest and most strategic privatizations since a debt crisis began in 2009.

Potemkin Euro-armies

Grand talk of a “defence union” risks exposing Europe’s weakness
Sep 24th 2016 | From the print edition

The Economist

THE idea of a European army is as old as the hope for European unity. After creating the European Coal and Steel Community, the embryo of today’s European Union, the six founding members agreed in 1952 to form a supranational European force. But the plan was voted down by the French parliament; thereafter countries focused on gradual economic integration.

Banks Said to Plan for Loss of Euro Clearing After Brexit

Bloomberg
September 22, 2016 — 2:01 AM EEST Updated on September 22, 2016 — 2:33 PM EEST


Executives at global investment banks in London expect France and Germany will prevail in a tussle over the clearing of $570 billion of euro derivatives and are making plans to deal with the fallout, according to people at four of the biggest firms.
They assume the City of London will eventually be stripped of the ability to clear euro denominated swaps after Britain formally exits the European Union, said the people involved in their firms’ contingency planning, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. While that might take years to happen, employees and operations central to the clearing function will be among the first moved to the continent once Brexit is triggered, one person said.
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Greece’s Alexis Tsipras Seeks to Revive his Political Fortunes on Economic Promises

Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago

The Wall Street Journal

By NEKTARIA STAMOULI and  MARCUS WALKER
Sept. 11, 2016 2:15 p.m. ET


THESSALONIKI, Greece—Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, languishing in polls, sought to reboot his premiership over the weekend. But his economically depressed country has largely given up hope on the imminent change he is promising.

Europe’s most electorally successful populist has become nearly as unpopular as the Greek political establishment he ousted almost two years ago. A recent survey showed only 19% of Greeks view him favorably and 85% are dissatisfied with his government.

Syriza Strains Greece’s Credibility

The country’s hard-left government continues to put politics before reform.

The Wall Street Journal

By YANNIS PALAIOLOGOS
Sept. 7, 2016 3:23 p.m. ET

Independent institutions remain anathema to the government in Greece. Two cases that have dominated the headlines in recent weeks demonstrate how the country’s populist government, led by the hard-left Syriza party, continues to put politics before reform and refuses to learn the right lessons from the country’s recent past.
The criminal case against economist Andreas Georgiou returned to the spotlight last month when it was reopened by the country’s Supreme Court. A longtime official with the International Monetary Fund, Mr. Georgiou had been appointed six years ago to head the independent Hellenistic Statistical Authority, or Elstat. The prime minister at the time, George Papandreou, created Elstat as a response to the discovery that the government under his predecessor, Costas Karamanlis, had underreported the country’s fiscal deficit.

'Times are changing, pay your taxes', euro zone chief tells corporations

Sat Sep 10, 2016 11:50am EDT


Reuters

By Francesco Guarascio and Jason Hovet | BRATISLAVA
Multinational companies should refrain from tax-avoidance practices and pay their fair share, the head of euro zone finance ministers said on Saturday in a new endorsement of the European Union's fight against tax-dodging.

In the wake of the 'Panama Papers' revelations of widespread tax-avoidance practices, Brussels has toughened up its drive for fairness by tightening controls and adopting stricter rules.

The recent shock multi-billion euro tax demand on Apple (AAPL.O) was part of that trend as the EU also drafts plans for a common corporate tax base and a single European blacklist for tax havens.

Did Hillary Clinton just make her own ‘47 percent’ gaffe?

The Washington Post

By Aaron Blake September 10 at 2:11 PM

Update: Clinton has expressed "regret" for using the word "half." See her statement at the bottom of this post.

Hillary Clinton said Friday night in New York that half of Donald Trump's supporters are racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic and/or Islamophobic.

At an "LGBT for Hillary" fundraiser, where Barbra Streisand performed, Clinton expanded on previous comments about many Trump supporters falling into a "basket of deplorables" that includes the groups listed above.

U.S., Russia not yet eye-to-eye on possible resumption of Syrian cease-fire

The Washington Post
By William Wan, Karen DeYoung and Liz Sly September 4 at 2:05 PM

HANGZHOU, China— Efforts by the United States and Russia to forge a deal for a cease-fire in Syria and to coordinate their counterterrorism operations there faltered again Sunday, even as a major new Syrian-Russian offensive in the besieged city of Aleppo appeared to undermine key components of the proposed agreement.

After an anticipated news conference did not take place, Secretary of State John F. Kerry told reporters that his negotiations here with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov snagged on “a couple of tough issues” — nearly identical to the language he used when the two failed to reach agreement in their last meeting, just over a week ago in Geneva. Officials said they would meet again Monday.

EU will not release more bailout money for Greece this month: paper

Sun Sep 4, 2016 3:09pm EDT
Reuters

The euro zone will not release additional bailout money for Greece at a meeting in Bratislava this month, Germany's Handelsblatt Global reported on Sunday, citing European Union diplomats.

The online edition of the German business daily quoted the diplomats as saying that Athens had only implemented two of 15 political reforms that are conditions for the bailout money. Above all, they said, Greece had been slow to privatize state assets.

Under a deal signed last year with euro zone countries, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the ESM will provide financial assistance of up to 86 billion euros to Greece by 2018 in return for the agreed reforms.

China Will Try to Deflect G-20 Complaints at Hangzhou Summit

Amid backlash against globalization, Beijing casts itself as victim—not cause—of ‘trade protectionism’
The Wall Street Journal
By CHUIN-WEI YAP
Updated Sept. 1, 2016 12:31 a.m. ET
14 COMMENTS
BEIJING—A summit of major economies meant to be a moment of glory for China coincides with a world-wide backlash against globalization—and much of it is blamed on China.

Beijing sees gatherings of world leaders as its chance to emphasize China’s ascending role on the world stage, and spares no effort to ensure outsize pomp—or blue skies—for the occasion. But as President Xi Jinping prepares to welcome leaders of the Group of 20 economies to the ancient city of Hangzhou, keeping China from being singled out as a hindrance to global growth is increasingly emerging as a goal.

Britain’s post-Brexit warning for Americans seduced by Trump

The Washington Post
By Sebastian Mallaby September 1 at 11:58 AM

Donald Trump’s ungainly back-and-forth on immigration has a parallel in Britain, which is struggling to make sense of its own impetuous resolution to take control of its borders. Indeed, if Britain after the Brexit referendum is anything to go by, a Trump presidency would be dominated by zigzagging: sometimes to dilute past promises, sometimes to double down. In the terrifying event that Trump actually became president, you’d hear supporters grumbling bitterly about treachery — even as critics wondered furiously why impractical campaign pronouncements were so seductive for so long.

2 Months After ‘Brexit’ Vote, Britain’s Push to Leave E.U. Is a Muddle

By STEPHEN CASTLEAUG. 31, 2016

The New York Times

LONDON — Since Britain’s vote in June to quit the European Union, its government has promised repeatedly to make a success of withdrawal, known as Brexit.

More than two months later, however, it still cannot say how.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May called cabinet ministers to a brainstorming session about the withdrawal, pledging to examine “the next steps” for Britain and to identify “opportunities that are now open to us as we forge a new role” in the world.

Syria war: Turkey hits out at US over Kurds comments

31 August 2016
BBC
Turkey has hit out at the United States over criticism of its ongoing role in the conflict in Syria.
Turkish forces have targeted so-called Islamic State (IS) inside Syria, but have also gone after Kurdish fighters in the same region.
The pursuit of Kurdish forces, whom Ankara considers terrorists, has led to criticism by the United States.