Category: Greece

Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras and Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis take a walk in central Athens on June 13, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has four days to capitulate to demands to keep Greece in the euro — or prepare for a messy divorce. The collapse of talks in Brussels on Sunday has made Thursday’s meeting of euro-area finance ministers the next deadline in the saga that opened in 2009. Bills are piling up and the aid spigot, shut for 10 months, is about to be withdrawn. “This week is deal week,” Mujtaba Rahman, head of euro zone analysis at Eurasia Group in London. So what happens if the gathering in Luxembourg is a bust? Once the prospect of a successful negotiation fades so do the odds of Greece paying the $1.7 billion it owes the International Monetary Fund this month. A default makes it difficult for the […]

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U.S. stocks fell on Friday as Greek debt talks hit a stalemate and as concern over how soon the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates kept investors cautious. Energy shares dropped as oil prices fell for a second straight day. The energy index .SPNY, down 1.2 percent, led the day’s decline, followed by a 1.1 percent drop in the healthcare index .SPXHC. Upbeat consumer sentiment and other data added to views the economy may be regaining momentum, which increased anxiety for investors ahead of next week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, the U.S. central bank’s last meeting before September. Also of concern, a day after the International Monetary Fund quit bailout talks with Greece, EU officials said they had held their first formal discussions on the worst-case scenario for the country. "It’s the Greek situation again, and that’s been played out on a day-to-day basis, where you had a […]

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ATHENS Greece hopes to clinch a deal with its lenders at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers on June 18, the state minister said on Friday, as time runs short for the country to stave off default at the end of the month. The statement by Alekos Flabouraris came a day after the International Monetary Fund walked away from negotiations in Brussels, citing major differences, and a top EU leader bluntly told Athens to stop "gambling" with its future. A Greek source told Reuters that the entire Greek delegation that had been negotiating a cash-for-reform deal had also left for home on Thursday, citing continuing disagreements. "I hope it (a deal) will come very soon, on June 18, when the Eurogroup takes place," Flabouraris, a close aid to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, told state television ERT. Greece needs a deal to unlock aid before the end of the […]

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ROME Greece could reach a deal with its international creditors if they dropped demands including cuts to pensions, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published on Tuesday. Reflecting the more conciliatory tone Athens has adopted in recent days, he said the two sides could find a compromise on key elements in any deal, including the size of a primary budget surplus. But he showed no signs of accepting creditor demands for cuts to pensions or other social spending, repeating comments he has made over recent days. "I think we’re very close to an agreement on the primary surplus for the next few years," he told the newspaper. "There just needs to be a positive attitude on alternative proposals to cuts to pensions or the imposition of recessionary measures." The comments came as Greece’s international partners, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and […]

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BERLIN European Parliament President Martin Schulz urged Greece in a newspaper interview to accept a proposal by its international lenders for a cash-for-reforms deal, warning Athens that failing to reach an agreement would have "dramatic" consequences. The European Union is willing to compromise with the Greek government, Schulz told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday, adding that the lenders had already made concessions in the debt negotiations. "I can only warn the Greek government against turning down the hand held out to them," Schulz, who has been supportive of Greece’s cause, said. "Time is running out and the consequences would be dramatic." Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has spurned the terms of proposed aid from lenders, creating an impasse that threatens to push Greece into default and out of the euro zone. Schulz said Tsipras and his Syriza party should come to terms with […]

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KRUEN, Germany The European Union’s exasperation with Greece burst into the open on Sunday when its chief executive rebuked leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and warned that time was running out to conclude a debt deal to avert a damaging Greek default. In unusually sharp terms, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker accused Tsipras of distorting proposals by international creditors for a cash-for-reform agreement and of dragging his feet in offering an alternative. He urged Athens to put its own ideas on the table swiftly to enable talks to resume on the sidelines of an EU-Latin America summit on Wednesday in Brussels. U.S. President Barack Obama discussed the Greek crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in private talks before a Group of Seven industrial nations’ summit in Germany and expressed hope that Greece and its partners would chart a course without causing volatility in financial markets, the White House said. […]

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Frustrated by Greece’s cat and mouse game with its creditors? Get used to it. Even if Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras clinches as much as 7.2 billion euros ($8 billion) from a bailout tranche creditors are withholding, he’s going to need another cash infusion shortly thereafter. What will ensue is a renewed battle after almost five months of trench warfare. The beleaguered country requires a third bailout of about 30 billion euros, according to Nomura International Plc analysts Lefteris Farmakis and Dimitris Drakopoulos. The final bill will depend on whether fellow euro member states grant Greece any debt relief, and what form that relief would take, they said. Tsipras says any aid must be on his terms rather than those of governments whose taxpayers have forked out billions in the past five years to keep Greece in the euro. The standoff has triggered an unprecedented liquidity squeeze, pushing the country’s […]

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras arrives at his office in Athens after returning from Brussels meetings on June 4, 2015. Photographer: Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg Greece became the first country to defer a payment to the International Monetary Fund since the 1980s as its game of brinkmanship with creditors goes down to the wire. With Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras getting ready to address parliament on Friday after receiving a list of creditors’ demands, the step underscores the state of the country’s shriveling finances. While international officials have reported some progress in recent days, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “we’re still far from reaching a conclusion.” The current phase of Greece’s crisis is nearing its conclusion as the country runs out of money after four months of deadlock. Stocks and bonds have whipsawed this week amid a flurry of political activity starting with a late-night meeting in Berlin between European leaders and […]

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ATHENS/BRUSSELS Greece delayed a key debt payment to the International Monetary Fund due on Friday as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, facing fury among his leftist supporters, demanded changes to tough terms from international creditors for aid to stave off bankruptcy. The IMF said Athens had informed the global lender that it plans to bundle four payments due in June into a single 1.6 billion euro lump sum, which is now due on June 30. "Under an Executive Board decision adopted in the late 1970s, country members can ask to bundle together multiple principal payments falling due in a calendar month," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said in a statement. It was the first time in five years of crisis that Greece has postponed a repayment on its 240 billion euro bailouts from euro zone governments and the IMF, and it came as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said talks on a […]

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ATHENS Greece will not make a June 5 repayment to the International Monetary Fund if there is no prospect of an aid-for-reforms deal with its international creditors soon, the spokesman for the ruling Syriza party said on Wednesday. The payment of 300 million euros ($335 million) is the first of four this month totaling 1.6 billion euros from a country that depends on foreign aid to stay afloat. Greece owes a total of about 320 billion euros, of which about 65 percent to euro zone governments and the IMF, and about 8.7 percent to the European Central Bank. On Tuesday, Greece’s creditors drafted the broad outlines of an agreement to put to the leftist government in Athens in a bid to conclude four months of negotiations and release aid before the country runs out of money. "If there is no prospect of a deal by Friday or Monday, I […]

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European stocks deepened a drop as another round of talks failed to end a stalemate in Greek debt talks. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 0.6 percent to 393.71 at 8:11 a.m. in London. Greek debt talks have dragged on even with loan-payment deadlines looming, helping push the benchmark gauge 5 percent down from a record in April. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rejected proposals by European leaders and the International Monetary Fund to help unlock more aid, instead backing his own government’s plans. The country has to make four payments totaling more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) to the IMF this month, even as its euro region bailout expires. Tsipras indicated that Greece won’t miss the first installment due Friday. Still, traders are betting stock swings will fade with Greek worries, letting them return their focus to the economy and company earnings. Options market data shows expectations […]

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Photo European leaders gathered on Monday night in Berlin to discuss the Greek debt crisis, conspicuously excluding representatives of Greece from the meeting. Credit Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters ROME — If Europe is finally coming to a moment of reckoning in the Greek debt crisis — a standoff now rattling financial markets and threatening European unity — then the critical meeting apparently occurred late Monday night, when Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany summoned critical players to an emergency summit meeting in Berlin. Everyone was invited, except Greece . This was not a big surprise, since those invited were Greece ’s creditors, who were in effect trying to form a united front against Athens and speed up the debt talks before a payment due on Friday. But the list of attendees symbolized how Greece’s far-left government had become very much alone politically, analysts said, and how its promise to roll back the […]

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BERLIN—The political consequences of a Greek insolvency would be “gigantic,” German Vice-Chancellor and Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Tuesday, calling on the left-wing Greek government to be willing to compromise. His comments come after German Chancellor Angela Merkel , French President François Hollande, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi and the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde , met in Berlin Monday evening to discuss ways to break up the deadlock of the Greek debt crisis. “I think it’s absolutely right that Germany and France once again try to find a solution, because the political consequences of Greece’s insolvency within the eurozone would of course be gigantic,” said Mr. Gabriel at a conference. “Many people seem to have somewhat the impression that it’s better to make a painful break than to draw out the agony. The truth is, that if the first […]

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ATHENS Greece will not make a June 5 repayment to the International Monetary Fund if there is no prospect of an aid-for-reforms deal with its international creditors soon, the spokesman for the ruling Syriza party said on Wednesday. The payment of 300 million euros ($335 million) is the first of four this month totaling 1.6 billion euros from a country that depends on foreign aid to stay afloat. Greece owes a total of about 320 billion euros, of which about 65 percent to euro zone governments and the IMF, and about 8.7 percent to the European Central Bank. On Tuesday, Greece’s creditors drafted the broad outlines of an agreement to put to the leftist government in Athens in a bid to conclude four months of negotiations and release aid before the country runs out of money. "If there is no prospect of a deal by Friday or Monday, I […]

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LONDON The euro tumbled on Monday after Greece missed a self-imposed Sunday deadline for reaching an agreement with its lenders to unlock aid, keeping alive fears of a debt default and potential exit from the euro zone. Athens and its euro zone and International Monetary Fund (IMF) creditors have been locked in talks for months, with the single currency reacting to any signs of deadlock or breakthrough. Without a deal, Athens risks default or bankruptcy in weeks. It faces a payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday and the expiration of its bailout program on June 30. "It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that (Greece) will be able to get the funding without some kind of political disruption along the way," said Hamish Pepper, a currency strategist at Barclays bank in London. "The news over the weekend was consistent with that and the impact on the currency is also consistent […]

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ATHENS Greece’s government on Wednesday said it is starting to draft an agreement with creditors that would pave the way for aid, but European officials quickly dismissed that as wishful thinking. Greece and its European and International Monetary Fund lenders have been locked in tortuous negotiations on a reforms agreement for four months without a breakthrough in sight. Without a deal, Athens risks default or bankruptcy in weeks. A new round of talks begin on Wednesday in Brussels, and a Greek government official said the two sides would start drafting a technical-level agreement there, along the lines of Athens’ longtime demands for no wage or pension cuts and a lower target for a primary budget surplus. But European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said the two sides still had some way to go before any agreement could be drawn up. "We are working very intensively to ensure a staff-level […]

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Photo A street in central Thebes, northwest of Athens. While the trash is being collected, budget cuts of 50 percent leave room for little else. Credit Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times ATHENS — Bulldozers lie abandoned on city streets. Exhausted surgeons operate through the night. And the wealthy bail out broke police departments. A nearly bankrupt Greece is taking desperate measures to preserve cash. Absent a last-minute deal with its creditors, the nation will run out of money early next month. Two weeks ago, Greece nearly defaulted on a debt payment of 750 million euros, or about $825 million, to the International Monetary Fund . For the rest of this month, Greece should be able to cover daily cash deficits of around 100 million euros, government ministers say. Starting June 5, however, these shortfalls will rise sharply, to around 400 million euros as another I.M.F. obligation comes […]

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ATHENS/BRUSSELS Greece’s European lenders on Tuesday played down Athens’s hopes of a swift end to negotiations on an aid agreement and said talks must speed up before the country runs out of cash. The sober outlook from Brussels and Berlin contrasted sharply with vigorous optimism displayed in Athens, where top officials from the new leftist government made a series of public appearances to promise that a deal was just days away. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told a talk show overnight that a deal could arrive in a week, while Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said talks were in their "final stretch". The comments helped push Greek stocks up 2.6 percent on Tuesday. But euro zone policymakers said talks were not moving nearly as fast as needed to clinch a deal in a short time. "More time and effort is needed to bridge the gaps on the remaining open issues. We […]

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LONDON The euro slid to a two-week low and a rally in European shares stalled on Wednesday after a Greek official said the country may not make an upcoming repayment to the International Monetary Fund. The euro’s fall follows remarks from a European Central Bank board member on Tuesday that the central bank could increase the pace of its bond-buying in May and June, bringing its losses against the dollar this week to more than 3 percent. The pause in European shares mirrored the sticky performance of Asian bourses, although the Nikkei in Tokyo jumped to a 15-year high after Japan posted surprisingly strong economic growth for the first quarter. European bank shares were in focus were in focus after Switzerland’s UBS ( UBSG.VX ) paid $545 million to settle with U.S. authorities over currency rigging. Four other global banks are expected to settle later on Wednesday. Ahead of […]

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Photo Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, right, at a session of the Greek Parliament. Finance officials from Greece and other European nations will meet Monday on its debt. Credit Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters Greek leaders have fought fiercely in recent months with politicians from other European countries over relief on Greece ’s vast debt load. Yet the power to decide the fate of Greece lies not just in the hands of these national governments, but also with unelected officials at two powerful institutions: the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund . Each is a creditor to Greece, and each is expecting the country to repay it billions of dollars of debt in the coming weeks. The influence of the E.C.B. and the I.M.F. will be felt behind the scenes on Monday, when finance ministers from Greece and other European nations meet in their latest effort to break an impasse that […]

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Photo Amos Hochstein, left, a State Department envoy, met with Nikos Kotzia, the foreign minister of Greece, in Athens on Friday to discuss a proposed pipeline that would carry Russian natural gas. Credit Yorgos Karahalis/Associated Press ATHENS — The United States, wading into the international efforts to shape Greece’s economic and geopolitical orientation, is pushing the leftist government in Athens to resist Russia’s energy overtures. A State Department envoy in Athens urged Greece on Friday to embrace a Western-backed project that would link Europe to natural gas supplies in Azerbaijan, rather than agree to a gas pipeline project pushed by Moscow. The dueling sales pitches, reminiscent of a Cold War struggle, come as debt-burdened Greece is desperate for new sources of revenue of the sort that a gas pipeline could bring. In an interview in Athens on Friday, before meeting with Greek officials, the State Department envoy, Amos J. […]

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ATHENS (Reuters) – Negotiations between Greece and its international lenders over reforms to unlock remaining bailout aid have made headway and an agreement could be closer this month, a government official said on Sunday. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s three-month-old government is under growing pressure at home and abroad to reach an agreement with European and IMF lenders over reforms to avert a national bankruptcy. Talks have been painfully slow as the leftist-led government is resisting cuts in pensions and labour reforms that would clash with its campaign pledges to end austerity. "There were very important steps made at the Brussels Group (talks) which bring an agreement nearer," the official said, declining to be named. "All sides aim for an agreement at a Brussels Group level within May." The talks between technical teams from Athens and EU/IMF/ECB lenders are expected to resume on Monday, the official said after the country’s […]

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Greece is once more on the brink of failing. Why now? What happens if it goes bankrupt? WSJ’s Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer. ATHENS—Five years into the biggest bailout of a debtor in history, Greece is closer to the brink than ever, with time running out to avert a bankruptcy that could destabilize not only the eurozone, but the global economy as well. When Europe and the International Monetary Fund first agreed to bail Greece out on May 2, 2010, the plan was to return Greece to growth and bond markets within three years. Instead, after half a decade and €245 billion ($274 billion) in promised loans, the two sides have reached an impasse. Although Greece has come close to financial meltdown before, the ideological divide has never been deeper. The government’s refusal to inflict on an exhausted society the further belt-tightening that creditors insist is needed has created a […]

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Greece’s Plan "B" Needs Politics Over Theory: Fricke Greece reshuffled its bailout-negotiating team, reining in Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, after three months of talks with creditors failed to unlock aid and a meeting with his euro-area counterparts ended in acrimony. The coordination of the day-to-day efforts to strike a deal with creditors was handed to Deputy Foreign Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, a Greek government official said in an e-mail to reporters Monday. Varoufakis will supervise the political negotiations with euro-area member states and the International Monetary Fund. No change was announced to Greece’s representation in euro-area finance ministers’ meetings, which Varoufakis attends. A Eurogroup meeting in Riga, Latvia on Friday descended into name-calling as the currency bloc’s finance ministers hurled abuse at their Greek colleague, accusing him of being a time-waster, a gambler and an amateur. Still, the 54-year-old academic-turned-politician in the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras remains popular […]

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Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Greece is struggling to amass cash to pay its pensioners and employees this week, as the country and its creditors resume efforts to break the deadlock in bailout talks. Europe’s most-indebted state is counting on deposits of local governments, cities and other funds to meet end-of month payments of over 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) after euro area finance ministers on Friday said they won’t disburse more aid until bailout terms are met. That may further strain liquidity buffers at banks, after households and companies withdrew almost 1.3 billion euros in savings last week, according to a person who’s not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. “Despite the inelegant way the government did it, we will deposit our reserves at the Bank of Greece,” Yiannis Boutaris, Mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, said in comments on Mega TV. As polls show that a […]

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People sit at the foot of Acropolis Hill in Athens, Greece. Photographer: Kostas Tsironis/Bloomberg A euro area finance ministers meeting over the disbursement of bailout funds ended in acrimony on Friday, as creditors expressed frustration with the country’s refusal to comply with the terms attached to its emergency loans. While focus now turns on a May 6 interest repayment to the International Monetary Fund and the next Eurogroup meeting on May 11 in Brussels, the country has a number of funding hurdles to clear before then and beyond. From Monday through to the end of the month, the government needs to pay pensions and salaries to civil servants and retirees. The country’s alternate finance minister, Dimitris Mardas said Wednesday there’s not enough cash in state coffers to meet these obligations, unless local authorities comply with a decree ordering them to transfer reserves to the Bank of Greece for short-term […]

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LONDON (Reuters) – The euro edged up on Monday ahead of a meeting of euro zone finance ministers that investors hope will find common ground to support Greece beyond its current bailout program and keep it inside the currency bloc. The single currency has gained steadily through a nervous month of deadlock between the new government in Athens and its international creditors in Europe and at the IMF. That, and the relative calm on debt markets in Spain, Italy and Portugal, suggests euro zone leaders might be risking less in letting Greece leave the euro now than they would have done during a previous standoff in 2012. But at least for now, analysts seem more inclined to attribute the lack of a significant sell-off to confidence that ministers will find a way to satisfy the complicated political agendas on both sides. "This can quickly turn sour for the euro […]

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ENLARGE Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addresses a news conference after a European Union leaders summit in Brussels on Thursday. Photo: Reuters It is a mark of the gulf that still separates Greece and the rest of the eurozone that an agreement last week simply to engage in “technical discussions” was hailed as a step forward in the search for a solution to the country’s debt crisis. It was certainly a climb-down by the new Greek government, which had previously ruled out any negotiations with its “troika” of international lenders. And it followed previous climb-downs: Athens is now asking for debt restructuring rather than write-downs, and it now says it will abide by 70% of the reforms required under its current bailout program. But talking signifies nothing. Even this latest step was only possible on the basis of a fudge after an initial attempt by eurozone finance ministers to […]

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Greece’s new leftist government and its international creditors failed to agree on a way forward on the country’s unpopular bailout and will try again on Monday, with time running out for a financing deal. In seven hours of crisis talks in Brussels that ended after midnight, euro zone finance ministers were unable to agree even a joint statement on the next procedural steps. Both sides played down the setback, insisting there had been no rupture. But Greek stock prices, which whipped higher after hours in New York on talk of an accord, sagged with disappointment when it emerged that Greece’s laconic new Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis had walked away from a draft deal to extend current credit terms after conferring with fellow Greek officials. "We had an intense discussion, constructive, covering a lot of ground, also making progress, but not enough progress yet to come to […]

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(Bloomberg) — Greek manufacturing shrank at the fastest pace since 2013 as uncertainty about the country’s political future mounted, threatening to undermine efforts by the European Central Bank to stimulate the euro-area economy. A Purchasing Managers’ Index for Greece slipped to a 15-month low of 48.3. The measure has been below 50, the mark that separates expansion from contraction, since September. A final reading for the 19-nation currency bloc stood at 51 in January, London-based Markit Economics said on Monday. That’s up from 50.6 in December and in line with a Jan. 23 estimate. Subdued growth and a slide in prices aggravated by a slump in the cost of oil prompted the ECB to announce a 1.1 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) quantitative-easing program on Jan. 22. Business confidence improved last month in anticipation of the move. Three days after the QE announcement, Greek voters elected Alexis Tsipras as new […]

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