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Greece "Scrambles"To Make Full Monthly Pension Payments: "Still Missing Several Hundred Million Euros"
To be sure, Greece has been “running out of money” for quite some time. Given the incessant media coverage surrounding the country’s cash shortage and the fact that Athens somehow seems to scrape together the funds to make payments both to lenders and to public sector employees against impossible odds, it’s tempting to think that as dire as the situation most certainly is, the country might still be able to ride out the storm without suffering a major “accident.” Having said that, some rather alarming events have unfolded over the past week or so, including a government decree mandating the transfer of excess cash reserves from municipalities to the central bank. As it turns out, that didn’t go over well with local officials and as we reported on Tuesday, the government finally hit the brick wall, coming up some €400 million short on payments to pensioners. Here's what we said then:
According to Bloomberg, the Greek government is €400 million short of the amount needed for payment of pensions and salaries this month, citing a Kathimerini report.
Surprisingly, this takes place even as Greece’s IKA, OGA pension funds have been informed by the government that amount needed for payment of pensions will be deposited today, while the Greece’s OAEE pension fund has said payment of pensions won’t be a problem.
In other words, someone is not telling the truth: either there is enough money or there isn't. And if the latter case is valid, then either the government or the pensions are now openly lying to the population.
Fast forward to Thursday and we learn that sure enough, the government ran out of money earlier this week. Here’s FT:
The Greek government was struggling on Thursday to complete payments to more than 2m pensioners after claiming that a “technical hitch” delayed an earlier disbursement.
Elderly Athenians waited at branches of the National Bank of Greece, the state-controlled lender handling the bulk of pension payments, which are staggered over several days.
On Tuesday, the main state social security fund, IKA, delayed pension payments by almost eight hours. The heavily lossmaking fund relies on a monthly subsidy from the budget to be able to cover its obligations.
“I went to the ATM in the morning before going to the supermarket but the money wasn’t there . . . I went back at eight in the evening feeling quite anxious but it had arrived,” said Socrates Kambitoglou, a retired civil engineer.
Dimitris Stratoulis, deputy minister for social security, said a technical problem with the interbank payment system caused the delay. Payments were made normally on Wednesday, a senior Greek banker said.
But an official with knowledge of the government’s cash position denied that a technical hitch had occurred. He said the payments were held up because the state pension funds “were still missing several hundred million euros on Tuesday morning”.
Another official said inflows of €500m on Wednesday had eased the situation and €300m was due to be paid on Thursday. “We’re probably going to make it this month,” he said.
Yes, “probably,” considering Thursday is the last day of the month, but what about next month, when some €1 billion in total comes due to the IMF? No one really knows. What we do know is that the banking sector has lost €27 billion in deposits since December, local governments are being shaken down for every last euro, depositors holding cash abroad are being begged to bring their cash back to Greece, and now, pensioners are walking away from ATMs empty handed while Athens furiously scrambles to find cash to pay them.
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There never was any money!
Show me the money!
Thank Christ. When does Golden Dawn get elected?
not before .Mil take over.
They had to search under the state owned couch cushions
50% of the Greek cops are GD members.
Also there were reports of a skeleton in a hooded cloak carrying a scythe standing outside the headquarters of the Greek central bank.
This would actually be a freaking awesome meme. Where is WilianBanazi or whatever he is called?
for a hamburger today
I will gladly pay you tomorrow.
Vere O fakis my money?
Greece needs to remember they got a Euro printing plant, just print it. Have the Russian and the Chinese provide anti-air cover.
Did they check under the couch cushions?
Blah blah blah....the drama has to go on ....until the very last minute.
Actually Greek deposits are coming back from the Swiss banks...who were stashing a few trillion dollars of untaxed money of the entire world until now!
Swiss banks will lose billions and Greece will receive billions....tax amnesty has been announced (to be passed in next few days)...pay 15 to 20% as penalty and no criminal actions and no questions on source of funds shall be asked. Courtesy : Yanis - the great debt slayer!
3 countries have done tax amnesties on untaxed moneys so far. Pakistan did the same in 2012. Russia did in Dec 2014 and now it is the turn of Greece in 2015.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Tax amnesty for undeclared funds
Never forget, the Russia and China support is yet to come!
There-the-Fakis is my money!
That was my first thought. Probably just found boogers though.
dup
Looks like they are getting more desperate but continue to play kick-the-can. If there was a can kicking contest in the Olympics the Greeks would win it everytime. I expect we'll be reading about Greece can kicking still in another year if not longer. So not sure why ZH continues to post these articles about Greece like something is about to happen like they've done for the past 4 years. Yeah, I know they've already defauted about 3 times just they continue to change the terms of a default but don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Golden Dawn. As much as I hate to admit it, that might be better.
Take Machiavelli. He is demonized today because he is perceived as a ruthless, immoral fiend. But when he wrote The Prince, Italy was a patchwork of constantly waring states, and vulnerable to more powerful countries. (Ottoman Turks, and France).
Only a strong, ruthless ruler could unite Italy and save it from invasion.
Only a strong, ruthless ruler could unite
Who's gonna be the next Adolf Hitler?
I'm practically giddy with anticipation!
The current Adolf Hitler is in the White House.
US should offer to trade him for a couple jugs of olive oil and a lamb kebab.
HA! Nobody is that stupid!
She may be Eva, primping for Adolph and the Anti-Christ rolled into one and coming soon?
"50% of the Greek cops are GD members."
The other 50% are GS members. Either as Shepherds or as Sheep. Mostly sheep.
this is such a slow burn. it's tortuous. 6 of the next 8 weeks require multi-billion euro payments to troika. to use your country's last penny to pay these creeps is inexcusable.
Agreed but the deposits at the Greek banks are 50% Troika money which can be withdrawn in a heartbeat and then there's no money to disburse to anyone. That's why the slowburn...
ask Mario to show it to you :-)
Power Outages, Money Outages, Food Outages.
<this> is coming to a city near YOU.
WWJBD - What would Jason Bourne Do?
Where's the money Lebowski?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9twTtXkQNA
The Dude abides.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE_oIIIwWl0
You make it sound like there is Hard Money out there somewhere. You've been on ZH HOW long, and still don't get it? What century do you live in?
"Money" is nothing but a (digital) LEDGER that keeps track of Debts/Liabilities/Obligations by the Sheep to their Flock masters: The Chosen Banksters.
In exchange for Bankster chits, the flocking Sheeple are tethered and shepherded from pasture to pasture, being kept for daily milking, regular shearing and once-in-a-lifetime fleecing.
Re-read until it truly sinks in. You'll know this, when you realize that (a) all Loan & Mortgage Payments operate on the same principle (Chits out of thin air), (b) that failing to complete the full Payment Plan simply means that maximum value was not extracted from you, and (c) you must therefore be punished with a bad (FICO) rating; (d) other sheep will take note, that they must be Chit-worthy, by achieving a high FICO.
Greek Social Security now pretty much defunct. American Social Security next, in short order. Where are the NWO hiding their money from deposit taxes? Why, in the banks they control outside the reach of confiscation. Only the little people pay taxes and wait for their Social Security deposits.
The money only ever flows one way, back to ceasar, or should I say to "Your Highness"?
The public pretenders in those seats only serve as cover for the money scams, they are only paid actors...
Where is the public outrage? Oh that's right, the people "think" their leaders are going to fight for them.
We know Greece is broke, Europe knows Greece is Broke, the Greeks know Greece is broke, God and his Dog knows Greece is broke and have no hope of ever paying back their debt. What the fuck is the hold up with the default? Who's waiting in the wings to take over? Which corporation is going to be the first private company to step in and take open control of a sovereign state?
Because they don't want to pay off on all those CDS contracts.
Bingo. I can only assume the liabilities for Greek debt stemming from CDS is in the trillions.
---2013---
Deutsche Bank Idiot 1: "Hey, whats the going rate for a Greek 10 year held by the EFSF?"
Deutsche Bank Idiot 2: "Um I think 4% of coupon."
Deutsche Bank Idiot 1: "Yes dear hedge fund customer, the premium for this CDS contract is 57€ per 1000€."
HF Kunde: "Ok, well, simple math tells me I should insure the EFSF's entire Greek based asset class, so about 180 billion EUR -- that would make my bill how much now?"
Deutsche Bank Idiot 1: "Um, you'd need to send us 10.26 Billion Eur to take out that position."
HF Customer: "Ok, I'll talk with upstairs and see what I can get put together."
Deutsche Bank Idiot 1: "Hey Idiot 2, these morons are giving me money to insure Greek debt held by the EFSF. What morons! We know the Greeks will never go bankrupt. How stupid."
Deutsche Bank Idiot 2: "What morons."
---
And this, and many conversations like it is how the world will end. Not at some Ground Zero for a hydrogen bomb, but the first shots were fired a long time ago by a couple twenty something doube-bags who have no idea what they are doing with other peoples money.
God help us all.
You are 100% spot on!
IIRC payoffs on those CDS contracts were avoided during the first go-round with Greece by simply not declaring a "credit event" or something like that which was needed to trigger CDS settlement (no expert here, and no info other than trying to recall old ZH articles from memory).
Same thing will happen this time.
If that were the case, they would have allowed Greece to go BK earlier this year. Instead they keep funding Greece so Greece can make payments to IMF. If they stopped funding Greece, IMF would have put Greece officially in the default category.
Nobody wants the "credit event" but one day very soon, there may simply not be a choice.
It's coming.
The bankers didn't let Greece default because that stops the gravy train. That's all this is about. The Ponzi MUST continue to fund the gravy train. CDS are only valid if the Rule of Law is followed, and history (TARP, Greece, Cyprus, etc) has shown the Rule of Law is dead for bankers. If the dreaded "credit event" is the only option, rest assured that the bankers will have another option... see Ukraine as a recent example.
This is not true. Up to this very moment Greece has repaid all installments of the loans to IMF, ECB, and EC absolutely on time. Greece failing to pay in the future, it is an assumption, not a fact. Let it first happen, and then we can talk about it. Moreover, the present Greek government is absolutely not responsible for Greece's bad economic condition. The fact is that the neo-liberal austerity policies imposed by Mrs. Angela Merkel, IMF, and ECB and implemented by the previous Greek governments have destroyed Greece altogether. OECD official data for Greece for the period 25/04/2009 to 24/12/2015 makes it crystal clear: http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/country-statistical-profile-greec...
The Sino-Soviet Corporation, that's who.
Everybody knows that!! Debt is control, a mechanism to get Greece to hand over real assets in exchange for fiat imaginary money. They will smack Greece with the ' sanction stick' then hold out the 'debt carrot' and do this over and over and over and over --- and over until Greece is 'trained' to comply.
Greece is too divided, too corrupted, and too compromised to resist - they will fall, and live in this quasi-bullshit state.
Since it looks like they inked a deal with Russia to allow them a gas pipeline route a 'color revolution' easy-bake recipe is probably already being prepared now and there will be induced riots until the sitting government is removed and an autocratic shoot-first ask-questiouns later government - under the direct control of the CIA and the US state department is implemented.
The US is teamed with Israel to bring the Leviathan Gas Field play to Europe and will overthrow *any* country that assists Russia with a gas pipeline to Europe.
But on a strategic level this has already failed because Russia and China (and now Pakistan) have formed a super-block with productive capabilities unmatched anywhere in the world.
the "asset-stripping" of a country by the professional political-banking class is painful to watch.
So they're scrambling to make the pension payments so they can confiscate the money?
and it's gone....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVk25ZvTkU
Get used to seeing pick ups .... backed up to .... grocery stores, gun stores, ATMs, hardware stores, animal feed stores, drug stores !
DETROIT (WXYZ) - Detroit police are investigating the attempted smash and grab of an ATM on the city's west side.
http://www.wxyz.com/news/thieves-attempt-to-steal-atm-on-detroits-west-side
Well we can only get down on our knees & offer thanks that nobody from Goldman Sachs was hurt in this incident.
Blacks loot on foot .... red necks loot by pick up .... CBs loot with armored cars and military convoys !
They call it Blackwater.
Comment deleted due to high Russian Troll traffic !
It's called reality and at some point everyone has to face it, like it or not.
Greece, just default already and tell Banksters Inc. that all you have left is a shit sandwich and they are welcome to it!
If they can string us along .... with this Greek "Tragedy" Comedy .... for so long .... the Ponzi isn't played out yet !
But the ending is well known.
Anybody seen Corzine?
He hangs out .... in Palermo .... or Newark !
Yes, “probably,” considering Thursday is the last day of the month, but what about next month, when some €1 billion in total comes due to the IMF? No one really knows. What we do know is that the banking sector has lost €27 billion in deposits since December, local governments are being shaken down for every last euro, depositors holding cash abroad are being begged to bring their cash back to Greece, and now, pensioners are walking away from ATMs empty handed while Athens furiously scrambles to find cash to pay them.
Welcome to Euro Land
Comming to a place near you soon.
Never thought they would let things get this bad.
I know I know Greece has been lack luster in reforms.........but so has Europe for letting it get into this mess.
They should have let Greece go 2010/11
they would be in good shape by now .........look at Iceland................but no
This will turn Many pro Euro to skeptic
According to the chart they have an IMF payment due May 1, so maybe we'll find out toot sweet.
Fuck the Workers and the Pensioners, the Banks have to be paid.
Why does everyone always blame those responsible for counting the coffers of the Oligarchy? They are only paid accountants and we all know where the money goes to eventually, or do I need to spell it out in black and white for you?
Ya no shit. How about: You dumb ass retarded Banker why in the fuck would you lend those guys any money at all. Guess what? Today is not your day. Today you are eating all this fucking money you never should have loaned in the first place.
And then I woke up.
Ya no shit. How about: You dumb ass retarded Banker why in the fuck would you lend those guys any money at all. Guess what? Today is not your day. Today you are eating all this fucking money you never should have loaned in the first place.
And then I woke up.
T'was not me that did the double double............
It's time to introduce a novel concept to the leaders of Greece: you can't get blood from a stone. The vast majority of Greeks are flat broke. The vast majority of Greeks do not have Swiss bank accounts that they can transfer back to Greece for a "tax discount". Just go full Iceland already. The first domino that falls is the one that does not get crushed by the weight of all the other dominoes that fall upon it.
thank you captain obvious... oh wait...
I read that Santander bank has pretty loose lending standards. And they will likely be bailed out by the American taxpayer so it looks like a winner.
With 10,000 Baby-boomers retiring/day and US bent on overseas outsourcing any existing manufacturing/technology job inn the country we should be a constant increase in the deficit.
Greece is a few years ahead iof the U.S.
It’s very important that we get a Euthanasia program in place.
Their parents are not our responsibility.
That Greece would never ever be able to pay their debts was known at least 5 years ago. The country buried itself, when it opted to go ahead with the Olympics, even as the U.S. demanded extra security measures which the Greek sponsors had never bargained for.
That its leaders accepted even more debt, imposing draconian austerity measures in order to finance that debt, was and is irrational. Simple math and basic macroeconomics would have shown them that they were doomed if they didn't default on all its sovereign debt right away..
What cowards! Greece's leaders, even now after Syriza's victory, are still trying to kick the can down the road. Default is imminent. And billions of euros in debt have been added under terms that allow foreign entities to take possession of its land and other natural resources.
This is what you get when PIGS are voted in.
They spend all thier time at the trough!
Vote for a pig and they will eat all the food (money)
From your post, you seem surprised. Why is that?
Get the lispy guy to explain it.
I bet there is no problem in finding the cash to pay the politician's salaries.
Well, yeah.
Funny how that works. Has anyone seen Tsipras or Varofakis brownbagging balogna sandwiches for lunch?
I couldn't have stated this in a better way.
"Technically...we don't have the money to pay...so as you can see...there is a glitch with our payment system."
Once the US dollar loses it's reserve currency status the US will be feeling a bit Greek.
The Federal Reserve is determined to kill the US dollar.
It's a race to the bottom by seeing who can print faster.
"The Federal Reserve is determined to kill the US dollar."
Maybe. And if so the objective could be to create the ultimate NWO foundation stone: A global currency.
it's easy to speculate about the Next King. meanwhile the Old King Dollar still rules. but who would really support that Next King? the way the current one is supported?
I could as well argue that IF the USD suffers a catastrophic failure, the same reasoning that supports the current USD would support a New Dollar
interestingly, the "NWO global currency" theme is brought forward by the (roughly) same people that block IMF reform in the US Congress. did AIIB change this stance?
and that theme includes the wishes of China, Russia, Brasil, India and South Africa, doesn't it? never mind us Europeans, my question is: a global currency that is fine for the BRICS or one they will protest against?
Do not believe anything you hear from either side in the US Congress. Follow the money Ghordius, follow the money.
I guess they could sell off some of those nice shiney military toys they were buying when the money fountains were flowing like crazy.
Guns or butter.
This may sound stupid, but all money is these days is a an electronic journal entry. Why is it OK for the ECB to make that money out of thin air and not OK for Greece to do it on its own?
Let's not fool ourselves. Greece is a hopeless case that is caught in a demographic glut of oldies and early retirees, no cash, no industry, massive inefficiencies caused by bureaucracy, political swamp, plenty of enemies to the east etc.
But something will start to happen as soon as they hit the wall.
When was the last time you were in Greece and told the people there that they are a hopeless case and not worth the protoplasm that constitutes human life?
Since when is cash an industry a requirement for human life? Maybe you should go over there and explain it to them. I mean you do know that you are right, correct?
All you want to do is get rid of some of the surplus population right? Personally, I would start with ignorant bigots.
Truth is often ugly.
Since you feel so strongly about it that you will make up things that other people did not say, why don't you go over there and pay for them?
PP your description of Greece sounds like the USSA...
BoPeople This may sound stupid, but all money is these days is a an electronic journal entry. Why is it OK for the ECB to make that money out of thin air and not OK for Greece to do it on its own?
----
Greece can't print Euros just like you can't print US dollars.
True, but Greece used that electronic money to buy physical goodies, whose providers must now be paid. Meanwhile the 'creators' of said money get to take a nice rake-off for essentially just pressing a button their computers.
As soon as the Greeks go back to the drachma, that's exactly what will happen.
1 - screw the average Greek and make the bankers whole by giving them the only thing left Greek land itself
2- screw the bankers and their sycophants and reset the economy to the benefit of most Greeks
Wonder which way this will go
"Wonder which way this will go?"
Answer: Downhill
Iceland took option 2 and they are doing well
If this is a study of oligarchy, bankers win. If it is democracy, bankers lose.
"Voting changes nothing."
Silly bastards. They (i.e. the Greek govt) should have used their last few billion to put in simultaneous orders for silver wherver they could. Either the system would go haywire or they would make a damn good profit.
A country of approximately 11 million people has 2 million people on pensions? WTF is wrong with this picture?
www.traderzoo.mobi
Don't forget that in many public 'service' jobs in Greece you can retire at 35 or something like that.
Well according to the SSA, 64,496,000 collect SS, which is just like a pension.
Source: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
Total US population 318.9 million
Source: https://www.google.com/search?q=total+us+population&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
So while Greece has approximately 18% on pensions, the US has 20%, and I didn't even include the few left over private pensions out there.
Not disagreeing with you. But just showing some comparison. We are all fucked.
Cut the charade and just print some money, that is what the assholes did whom you are in debt to.
Yea, and while you are at it, print me some Benjamins. Oh yea, that is counterfeiting.
Mind the door doesn't hit you on the way out.
This is a work in progress for the economic hitmen of the ECB/IMF... it's essentially the 'Finlandization' of Greece. They've had their eye on Greece's oil and gas reserves as well as its state owned assets for some time now.
Note the timeframes mentioned in both articles...
Finland learned the hard way not to piss off the Russian bear. "Finlandization" got Finland through the cold war.
This is what you might call instead "Romanianization," as pioneered by Nicolae and Elena Ceau?escu in the eighties. Greeks will have every red cent torn out of their hides, at any price in human misery.
Yes, the Finns were sneered at for being the USSR's lapdogs. But as you say they did just fine by getting along with both sides. Those sneering never seemed to get the irony that they were - and are - America's lapdogs.
The reason the Finns were able to play both sides is that they made the Russians pay a heavy price. One that Russia was not willing to pay again if they didn't have to.
As for the irony of the sneerers... indeed. Most people can't see their own glass house.
Best plan ever, give old people money for being old...sure that will work out great.
It's only fair to do so, provided they paid into the system during their working lives.
Not sure about the fairness of a system that pays out far more than was paid in.
Very sure it's unsustainable.
Exactly, we aren't talking about a fucking safe deposit box here. This entire pension/social security/new deal scheme was a fraud and a ponzi scheme. The plan was all about stealing wealth from future generations for policital gain in the short term. This is a complete fucking fraud and everyone who bought into this bullshit should be ashamed of themselves for being so stupid, just as ashamed as someone who lost a billion to madoff.
The ability for greed to corrupt even good people's psyches is astonishing to me. All the "greatest generation" and after the 'baby boomers' had to do was think about how this system would fund itself in 20/30/40 years. Who would be on the hook for paying them half a million dollars to sit around for 20 years on medicare social security and pension funds? We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in actual payouts and administration for EACH AND EVERY PERSON when that person paid in a fraction of that in wages over their liftetime.
The greed clouded their judgement, and even overshadowed their love for their own children. They weren't bad people, just morally flawed.
I can't stand this "but the government promised!" meme that I here from these people. If a gangster asks for your approval to club your brother over the head with the promise that he'll give you 80% of whatever is in his pocket you are not entitled to that money, you are complicit in a conspiracy of a crime.
Yes but THEY voted for it so WE owe it to THEM.
There was never anything fair about it, stealing from unborn future generations to pay for you ponzi scheme is immoral and completely fucked.
I'm gonna need some more popcorn.
Don't waste your money on popcorn.
Buy gold.
Money is never wasted on popcorn.
Bets the army got every euro cent on time in cash?
News Flash - "Apple makes offer to "buy Greece". Claims has the cash. Wants to rename country IGreek.
Death throes.
"That could never happen here".
LOL.
Rest assured, if id did happen in the US then maybe people will realize just how slave-like they really are when people like Hillary come prancing by with gold falling out her asshole. Time to break the mold. Exactly how or why i'm not sure, but this system of relying on a higher power for everything will fuck you everytime.
And speaking of 'that could never happen here'...........that's probably why they keep extending this shell game. They don't want people to see what happens in the end and are running around trying to position themselves. Get our guns, etc etc etc etc. It's the same story, everytime.
"then maybe people will realize just how slave-like they really are"
Wonder about that very thing each time EBT food benefits are addressed.
People have abrogated their very survival to another.
What about tomorrow's 200m for the IMF? They have those, don't they?
For all we know, the Greek leadership and banks are part of the international cabal. So Greece will default when they are told to default and if they are told to default. Until then they will magically find enough money in the cushions, All this drama just keeps the Hoi polloi distracted and confused.
At some point it is going to get so bad that eventually some of you centrist and or leftist might realize that life doesn't guarantee anything.
You aren't guaranteed a retirement, no matter how much you saved, if you paid into the system, or whatever. Life is what it is, life. You never know.
You can fight for what you are owed, but in a breakdown of the system and when there is chaos and corruption everywhere, there is no guarantee you will get it.
This is no longer a world of justified laws that are enforced. You are on your own.
@SESSINPO
Yes peeps in for a BIG surprise!
The Greek .gov merely need to go shopping from amongst depositor bank accounts.
C'mon guys, treat yourselves!
Just say these words if you get nervous: "JP Morgan WILL do the same thing to Murricans".
They should send the police 1/2 their pension check with a photograph of Lloyd Blankfein letting them know that he took their other half.
I see Zippy Bartos ressurected in the white coat in that photo.
Greece, on many levels, is a mere microcosm of western decline. This cradle of western civilization is dying a slow death in a sea of red ink that covers the globe.
A Greek departure, while likely inevitable, is only a prelude to the next chapter in western civilization's fall. There will be much more turmoil to come. After all, Greece, and it's socioeconomic problems aren't going to go away. The idea that a new life under a restored drachma is going to lead to some kind of recovery, let alone Renaissance, is way off the mark. Greece makes very little to export, and has almost nothing of value to sell for a sustainable, let alone growing, GDP.
On top of everything else, it will have to overcome its difficulties at a time of global decline, not plenty.
It won't make it.
The rest of Europe, and then us, will likely follow the same path, and for the same reasons: debt without sufficient income.
We're really down to just the formalities at this point.
m
How did the whole comment section here managed to get by without blaming Jews?
They get Thursdays off in order to attend instructional meeting at their kreisleiter's office.
And besides, they're having a sale on jackboots down at Kohl's.
Greek authorities need to persuade their partners through action, not promises
By Joschka Fischer, Special to Gulf News (30th April 2015)One can only feel sorry for Greece. For more than five years, the “troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) has made it the object of a failed experiment with austerity that has exacerbated the country’s economic crisis. And now Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s government seems hell-bent on plunging Greece into the abyss.
It never had to be this way. By the time Tsipras’s leftist Syriza party came to power in January, a new, more growth-oriented compromise had become possible. Even hard-core German proponents of austerity — and certainly Chancellor Angela Merkel — had begun to reconsider their position, owing to their policy prescriptions’ undeniable adverse consequences for the euro and the stability of the European Union (EU).
The Tsipras government, with some justification, could have presented itself as Europe’s best partner for implementing a far-reaching programme of reform and modernisation in Greece. Measures to compensate the poorest met with considerable sympathy in EU capitals, and favourable sentiment would have strengthened had Greece started to cut its bloated defence budget (as a leftist government might have been expected to do).
But Tsipras squandered Greece’s opportunity, because he and other Syriza leaders were unable to see beyond the horizon of their party’s origins in radical opposition activism. They did not understand — and did not want to understand — the difference between campaigning and governing. Realpolitik, in their view, was a sellout.
Of course, it is precisely the acceptance of necessity that marks the difference between government and opposition. An opposition party may voice aspirations, make promises, and even dream a little; but a government party cannot remain in some imaginary world or theoretical system. And the dreamier an opposition party’s promises are, the bigger the challenge of narrowing the gap with reality if, like Syriza, it actually wins an election and comes to power.
Indeed, Tsipras seems to have forgotten the Marxist tradition’s emphasis on the dialectical unity of theory and practice. If you want to negotiate a change of tack with your creditors, you are unlikely to succeed if you destroy your own credibility and rant and rave about those whose money you need to avoid default. That, at least, is the lesson most of us have learned from theory and practice (also known as life).
But Syriza’s inability to escape its radical bubble does not explain why it formed a coalition with the far-right Independent Greeks, when it could have governed with one of the centrist pro-European parties. I hope that they do not share policy priorities, particularly a change of strategic alliances, which would be equally bad for Greece and for Europe. But two steps by Tsipras soon after he took office have heightened my scepticism: His flirtation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his attempt to isolate Germany within the eurozone, which never could have worked.
Within Europe’s monetary union, a consensus has been established that everything possible must be done to keep Greece inside. But Greece’s government needs to understand that other Eurozone members will not be willing to accommodate its demands if it means delegitimising their own painful reforms. More important, with the clock ticking on default (which could come as early as July), the Greek authorities need to persuade their partners through action, not promises.
A disorderly Greek exit from the euro — currently the greatest danger — can be averted only if both sides operate on the assumption that the upcoming negotiations are not about who wins and who loses. This will be not be easy: All sides face significant domestic pressure, and any compromise will leave everyone with some explaining to do back home. But even if there were no troika and no monetary union, Greece would urgently need far-reaching reforms to get back on its feet. What it also needs is time and money, which the EU should provide if, and when, the Greek authorities face up to reality.
But others in Europe need to abandon their illusions as well. The Greek crisis cannot be used either to weaken European conservatives and change the balance of power within the EU, or to remove the Greek left from office.
The current crisis and the negotiations to resolve it are about only one thing: Greece’s future within Europe and the future of the joint European project. To help Greece get back on its feet and keep it in the eurozone is in Europe’s interest, both politically and economically. But any agreement on how that is to be achieved now requires Greece to prove that it shares the same goal.
— Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2015
Joschka Fischer, Germany’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, was a leader of the German Green Party for almost 20 years. http://m.gulfnews.com/opinion/tsipras-is-in-dreamland-1.1502210
WR;)
Since Greece joined the EU is a country that ptoduces absolutly NOTHING.
Exept some olive oil and trourists visiting Athens.
All the little companies were either bought and closed, outsourced, recolated.
EVERYTHIN, FROM BMWs to NUTS AND BOLTS is imported
Now explain me how you can maitain a "developed" country with europeean standards living on olive oil and turists...
Just pay the pensions out as normal. Place a three day hold on the funds. Then confiscate all of it right back. Then pretend they were all tax cheats. Come out and proclaim that back taxes will be witheld from pensioners until all taxes are paid in full.
Just dont tell them that they will never pay off the penalties. So long as the government paychecks are good they can do as they please. Its not like right and wrong matter. After all might makes right? Right.