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Tsipras Sells Out Referendum 'No' Vote Ahead Of Weekend Deadline
"We got a mandate to bring a better deal than the ultimatum that the Eurogroup gave us, but certainly not given a mandate to take Greece out of the eurozone,” Greek PM Alexis Tsipras reportedly told Syriza lawmakers on Friday, underscoring the fact that his government’s mandate is, for all intents and purposes, impossible to achieve.
As detailed Thursday evening, the proposal (or, the “thorough piece of text” as Jeroen Dijsselbloem called it) submitted by Tsipras looks quite a bit like the proposal the Greek people rejected at Tsipras’ urging last Sunday. Here are the basics:
The broad strokes: a 3 year, €53.5 billion bailout program, including €35 billion of growth measures, lasting through June 30, 2018 requesting funds from the ESM, seeking to finally put the IMF off to the side. The program is heavy on revenue promises and lite on actual spending cuts. Greece hopes to achieve a 1% primary budget surplus in 2015, rising to 2%, 3%, and 3.5% by 2018, all of which are now impossible due to the total collapse of the economy in the past week. Among the tax reform will be a modest increase in corporate tax from 26% to 28%. The changes to the VAT system are as noted previously, keeping the VAT on hotels at 13% but raising it to 23% for restaurants; Greece also promises to eliminate discounts on islands, starting with the islands with higher incomes and which are the most popular tourist destinations. Create strong disincentives to early retirement, incur penalties for early withdrawals, make all supplementary pension funds financed by own contributions; and so on. Greece will seek to "gradually phase out the solidarity grant (EKAS) for all pensioners by end-December 2019" - who will be impacted and when: "the top 20% of beneficiaries in March 2016." In other words another 9 months of non real action. Greece will also "freeze monthly guaranteed contributory pension limits in nominal terms until 2021."
Reactions from Europe and from Syriza itself have been largely predictable. As mentioned above, Dijsselbloem is lukewarm, French President Francois Hollande called the proposal “serious and credible”, Italian PM Matteo Renzi is “more optimistic than [he] was in the past,” while Germany is, to use Bloomberg’s words “reserving judgement.”
On person who is not “reserving judgement” however is Greek Energy Minister and far-left leader Panagiotis Lafazanis. “The proposals are not compatible with the Syriza programme," he told Reuters on Friday. On Thursday, in the course of detailing Greece’s €2 billion energy partnership with Russia, Lafazanis said the referendum “no vote “must not become a humiliating ‘yes’.”
While the Eurogroup will convene on Saturday to consider whether to go ahead with the deal, the first hurdle is the Greek parliament where Tsipras is set to use what Deutsche Bank calls an “unusual political move” to give the proposal a better chance of passing next week. Here’s Deutsche Bank with more:
In the meantime, the Greek PM has initiated the domestic approval process as well. In an unusual political move, he has submitted a one-page legislative proposal requesting emergency parliamentary authorization to negotiate the final terms of the agreement. He has published the government's proposal at the same time, but is not calling for parliament to vote upon the actual measures. In principle such authority is not required. In practice, the strategy aims at consolidating the SYRIZA party's parliamentary base ahead of a likely vote to approve the measures next week. On the positive side, pre-emptive parliamentary support will make it more difficult for SYRIZA MPs to reject an agreement after it comes to parliament. On the negative side, the PM will also have an authority to reject an agreement if he so decides.
The opposition's stance to this strategy remains to be seen, but it will be the support of the government's parliamentary majority that will be the most important today. The PM will meet with SYRIZA parliamentarians at 6am London time. A full parliamentary vote will take place later in the evening. Approval will provide negotiating space to the PM, increasing credibility with the Europeans and the odds of passage in a subsequent parliamentary vote next week.
In other words, it appears as though Tsipras is looking to back the Syriza hardliners into a corner. The argument appears to go something like this: voting on the actual proposals would be largely pointless as Europe hasn’t approved them, so let’s vote on whether I have the authority to negotiate the measures, but if you say “yes” to that, and I agree to a deal this weekend, then I can then come back to you and say “well, you gave me the authority to negotiate and I decided to accept so now you pretty much have to approve this.” This strategy has the added benefit of allowing Tsipras to tell Europe that the Greek parliament voted “yes” even though in reality they did not vote on the actual deal. You have to love politics.
As for “debt sustainability” (i.e. that small issue which the IMF brought up three days before the referendum and effectively won the vote for Tsipras and the “no” crowd), that will be considered later apparently. From Bloomberg:
Debt sustainability is a central part of discussions in the Euro Working Group and the Eurogroup of euro-area finance ministers, EU official says.
Assessment of Greece’s financing requirements will also form part of analysis, official tells reporters in Brussels
First, prior actions will be discussed, then financing, then debt sustainability -- but they are all linked, official says.
They may be “all linked” but Germany still isn’t biting — or at least not on the idea of a “classic haircut.” Here’s the Irish Times:
The Greek government received a boost on Thursday, after European Council President Donald Tusk said that a “realistic proposal from Athens” should be matched by “realistic proposal from creditors on debt sustainability”.
His unexpected comments - the first from a senior EU figure - followed a phone conversation with Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Senior officials representing the 19 euro zone member states will consider Greece’s new reform plan on Friday, ahead of a scheduled eurogroup meeting of finance ministers in Brussels on Saturday.
Mr Tusk’s intervention follows renewed calls from IMF managing director Christine Lagarde on Wednesday that Greece’s debt burden should be addressed.
US treasury secretary Jack Lew also intervened to call for debt relief for Greece.
In a sign that Berlin could be open to the idea of debt relief, German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble said the issue could be discussed over the coming days, though he hinted that the impact of any measures would be minimal. “The room for manoeuvre through debt reprofiling or restructuring is very small,” he said.
German chancellor Angela Merkel also explicitly ruled out a debt writedown for Greece. “I have said that a classic haircut is out of the question for me and that hasn’t changed between today and yesterday,” she said, echoing comments she made on Tuesday in Brussels.
Speaking within hours of Mr Tusk’s comments, she said that Greece’s debt sustainability had already been addressed under previous bailouts.
So, just as we said: Germany and the US are now at odds over a Greek debt writedown.
Ultimately, Tspiras has submitted the same proposal that Greeks, at his behest, voted against last weekend. The PM will use a shrewd political maneuver to secure parliamentary support and new FinMin Euclid Tsakalotos will attempt to close the deal on Saturday. And although that would mean selling Greek "no" voters down the river, it's once again a nearly impossible choice because as Bloomberg reports, citing Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad, the ECB "will terminate emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to Greece as of 6am on Monday morning if Greek reform proposals are deemed too light and if Greece is unwilling to cooperate with withdrawal from the euro zone."
Here's Commerzbank's Markus Koch summing things up: "The 'No' in the referendum appears to be turning into a 'Yes' from Tsipras."
Sorry Panagiotis Lafazanis. Maybe there's a cabinet position open in Moscow.
* * *
So much for "hope"...
...and so much for this as well...
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I can see it now "Prime Minister of Greece beheaded and dragged through streets of Athens!"
Give this weakling the Mussolini
http://listcrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/mussolini-petacci-hangin...
The Partisans hung them after they shot them full a holes. Ruskies did it one better, they'd hang you upside down like that, alive. Then they'douse you with gasolne and lite you up. That way you'd burn to death and not be asphixiated by the smoke if they hung you right side up and did it.
This reminds me of a company survey I took once.
The results were so bad and critical of management, they made everyone take the survey again.
Like voting till you get the result you want.
Greece will not be fixed as long as a Greek is in charge.
Damn it, that mirror makes me look fat
I remeber one of those surveys years ago. I kept putting my form aside as my manager tried peeking at it, we were doing it for fun. I held up my anonymous form to the overhead lights and said out loud, "I have a strange watermark on my form".
50 Drachmas says he gets "suicided" within the next two weeks
Green arrow Nail gun accident
Red arrow defenestration
JUDAS!
You mean because his party promised manna from socialist heaven?
You must not be a Bob Dylan fan
Slow Train a Coming
Gotta Serve Somebody
It ( current world finance and government) is like one of those disco fires that always seems to kill hundreds somewhere else....Everybody was swaying to the music and dropping E...until the stage caught fire and everyone found the exits chained shut by management who didn't want people going to the ovens without paying cover charge first!
Does anyone here assert that even if the EU totally forgave bailout money from 2011, that absent billions more from the EU, Greece would be unable to service its social welfare state?
Most of the funds go to the Banks. National Bank of Greece, BNP Parbas, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa San Paolo, ING, Allianz, and AXA, according to a Forbs Article. Little makes it to the Greek People.
Like in the u.s, the u.k and the rest of Europe the banks own it all. Many are displeased with the possible ( probable ) sellout but would ( will ) cry like a baby when their bank accounts are seized or the currency worth zero, their pensions gone.
All western nations, especially the u.s will be Greece at some time in the near future. Then they will discover the banks own them as well. And the banks did this without having to use real wealth,,, we sold out for worthless pieces of paper.
Therefore it is befitting that the people in SC are removing the Confederate Flag, the last symbol of a proud Peoples attempt to be free and independent, to make their own decisions, to control their own destiny. The final capitulation. and all because of the non stop history changing horse hockey. All from a people that allow the passage of secret laws and Treaties with their military practicing for Martial Law out west. A people that somehow claim to have eliminated slavery. A People where most are on government handouts.
Welcome to the new slavery folks.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2012/02/21/greek-bailout-deal-...
http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8911791/confederate-flag-south-carolina
Uh Oh. It's too late.
Look at this view of Tsipras from behind.
Looks like he's been Zontar'd.
http://i1301.photobucket.com/albums/ag118/iabditn/Tsipras%20Zontard.jpg
It's worth noting that Paul Craig Roberts called this to a tee last week.
He received information that Victoria Nuland (yes that one), talked with Tsipras and made it absoltuely clear that Greece was to stay in the union, and stop cosying up to the Russians. According to PCR the issue isn't the EU, but NATO. That venerable peace keeping force (now a full-tilt war machine) must stay together to further Americas global neo-con ambitions.
Apparently she also made it clear that disobediance carried consequences (a polite term for assassination). This exaplains the rapid change policy and the abandonment of an overwhelming call by the people.
However, if you've ever been to Greece, Greeks and Syriza support a socialist welfare state, which is also the will of the people. But their economy simply cannot afford it. They will live in this hell until they wake up and act like adults instead of spoiled children. (Don't hold your hand on ...)
I hope this leftist sellout starts wearing a tie. In the form of a noose around his neck.
I have just as much distaste as any one here for the bankers willing to step over their dead mother to make the quick buck, snort coke and drive Porsches. And yes Germany and France were negligent about their banks' exposure to Greece, maybe they should have given them a heads up that all those growth figures that attracted lenders in the first place were all fabricated to the last decimal. Some of your 401ks might have been invested in euro zone debt especially when the euro was getting stronger vs the dollar, i bet you all would have demanded you were made whole instead of graciously letting Greece pay you back only half of what it promised.
So foreigners are NOT the reason behind Greece's collapse. Greek citizens voted for corrupt politicians and were fine with that so long as their friends in power would look the other way
And foreigners are NOT imposing austerity that Greece would not otherwise have had to do immediately and in a much more brutal fashion in the first place once bond investors ceased lending to Athens back in 2010.
Even if they abandoned the euro, life would have been very, very tough.
What Germany and France do share is the responsiblility for first lying about the costs to their own voters and ramrailing the bailout through their own parliaments to secure the euro project, which does have a certain geopolitical value here on a continent that for centuries fought wars with each other.
other countries like Portugal, Ireland and Spain have all had to suffer through periods of austerity, just like Germany did under Schroeder and Merkel (who pushed through Germanys biggest postwar tax hike in history).
The difference is their pro-growth structural reforms kicked in and they didnt blame others for their own mistakes. Greece decided to vote for a populist who sold them a version of events that had nothing to do with the truth or what he could realistically achieve. He has been a disaster for both Europe but more so for his own people,
Live within your means is something i thought ZH readers believed in their hearts.
I went to a hooker and asked her: "Can I do you 'Greek style'?"
"Yeah baby, you can do whatever you want.", said the Hooker.
So I fucked her ass and left without paying.
When you understand what's for sale here, then everything else falls into place.
People especially the fuckwit retards the MSM are dribbling and spouting off pretending to be smart, saying the Greeks don't understand they cannot have a NO vote and stay in Europe.
Fucking morons.
What needs to be understood is really quite simple.
The Greeks are for sale.
They are going under the hammer voluntarily.
They don't mind being enslaved in the Euro,so that they , their kids and grandchildren can be butt raped at will by Brussels
But they objected to being sold into slavery and then asked to pay for it too.
That is what they took exception to
That is why they said NO.
They don't mind being sold, after all, every fucking American, Japanese, European British, Australian and especially China and Venezuela and Argentina sold themselves, their kids and grandchildren into slavery to be abused and raped at will years ago.
Fucking deny it anyone,
All they have have to do is tell you such fucking shite as they will keep you safe, keep you healthy, look after you, stop any other cunt calling you names and stop anyone hurting your pathetic childlike feelings and all you have to do is support us, your fucking butt raping govt so we can share you with our buttfucking buddies in the IMP.
Greeks want to be enslaved, they want the fucking blanket the comforter of being in Euro fantasy land.
Tsipras understood this, this is why he called a referendum.
Knowing when they said no he could ask for a better price for them, that they were iin the negotiations too
Thats why hes back.
He knows they are all for sale, the only thing to negotiate now is the price europe will pay to fuck them for the next few generations.
He might just be a lot smarter than many think, because now he has the fucking EU in a bind,
They cant say no because he offered more, and now they know they have to pay something. Even if its 50 billion or so, or the Greeks fuck the EU.
Because the ordinary Greeks have now decided to enter the negotiations and bidding, and they will want to get a goof price for their kids and grand kids to get fucked.
Why else do you think the elite cunts have a hissy fit when referendums are called.
Its the slaves entering the bargaining ring.
And so will Spain and Italy and France and Portugal pretty damned soon when they figure it all out. Which they will cos I keep telling them
All negotiations are about is who gets paid what and what you get in return.
When you finally realize that power is nothing more than the right to sell people, like the faggot Kenyan monkey is doing right now, and flogging you for peanuts I might add,and how the Hilarious clit will do soon enough,to the highest bidder. is when you might wake up enough to start to do something about it
You get no fucking say in the matter as it is.
Sham democracy propaganda and free fucking weed without jail time is taking care of that.
Sold in the market, that's all this fucking shit is about and 11 million Greeks are about to go under the hammer. But they are helping decide the price now
I hope they extract a good price, because the raping and butt fucking is going to be savage.
My father was a geologist for Anglo-American mining and he was adamant that once we(The West) had finished scalping Africa, Latin America, south east Asia and any other country stupid enough to listen to our economic doctrine, they will feast on Europe, eventually devouring ourselves. I laughed at the time and said, that would never happen as (whites) are not that stupid. He explained that big business, big finance, the mainstream media and politics was one and the same. He said this to me in 1982. He asked me(pre-google-pre-internet) which was virtually impossible at the time, to look at the ownership of the biggest mining operations, finance, the media and which demographic has disproportionate representation in politics in the western world. My reply was, "you sound like Hitler" and dismissed his views. 33 years laters my dad was right on the money. Despite the fact I've come to the same view as my father since the late 90's, it is astonishing the general public at large has no idea of the interconnections of this cabal. It is old news that the Troika and their associated coven of vampires, eyed Greece's ports, transport and telecommunications as prizes(to be privatised) into you know who's hands.
This is classic economic hit-man tactics. Find a fool and preferably a traitor in power, or an opposition leader, once they have their man in place introduce neo-liberal economic policies that don't work, but enrich the current entrenched elite of said country. Post failure of the IMF-World bank neo-liberal economic policy, load the country with unpayable debt on unfavourable terms with austerity measures, or no loans will be forthcoming. Post-post IMF inspired economic failure, restructure debts against the last remaining assets of the state. It is a verifiable fact that no IMF-World bank policy has ever worked for any country stupid enough to listen and adopt their measures, for they are designed not to work by these parasitical debt slavers and asset strippers, yet our western media has never laid this fact bare for public consumption and repeated this fact ad nauseum to the masses.
Greece is being scalped and stripped of her last remaining assets, only to be left in a state of unpayable indebtedness after this charade is over. Let’s not play around with words and be politically correct, so not to offend. The Truth remains, Greece is indebted to the banks. The banks will not budge and want paying out. The banks are owned by the Jews. Jewish intransigence within the banking system is suffocating, destroying, scalping and stripping Greece of her dignity and her last remaining assets. This is a travesty no person of European heritage should accept. Most importantly this situation of Greece being scalped can only happen with the acquiescence of treasonous western politicians speaking on behalf of their paymasters, placing unbearable pressure on Greece. It is truly a Greek tragedy.
Cristal clear.
The neo-liberals always only tell half the story about their wealth redistribution schemes. What they don't teel you is the wealth distribution is UPWARDS not downwards using the full force of the co-opted politicians.
Like i have said the left doesn't have the gut to pull the trigger now its time for the far right to take charge.
aw c'mon, they are so adorably 'hopey - changey' though
Quote: Tsipras Sells Out Referendum 'No' Vote Ahead Of Weekend Deadline
Typical of socialists to "talk-the-talk" and not "walk-the-walk".
Someone once said "if voting could change things, they'd make it illegal" Ironically I think it was a communist/socialist in the US that said it.
Worse than making it illegal is to push for it and then ignore it.............
Either do the deed or go back to the bush leagues from whence you came.
Why are Greek politicians afraid of freedom?
Ye of little faith.
Shocking....a politician talking all tough and then running back to his/her bosses with tail between legs. Who could have foreseen this.......
Golden Dawn would have gone the distance, if the PTB hadn't jailed them on a conspiracy so
the socialists could sell Greece to the banksters.
He's a traitor. I hope they string him up.
I am confused...was the referendum a vote for change or just a poll survey...
What part of NO doesn't Tsipras understand??