Category: Greece

A frayed Greek national flag flutters among antennas atop a building in central Athens, Greece July 20, 2015. The Greek government submitted legislation to parliament on Tuesday required by its international lenders to start talks on a multi-billion euro rescue package. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has until Wednesday night to get those measures adopted in the assembly. A first set of reforms triggered a rebellion in his party last week and passed only thanks to votes from pro-EU opposition parties. The second bill, though less divisive, will still be a test his weakened majority. It puts into Greek law new European Union rules on propping up failed banks, decreed after the 2008 financial crisis and aimed at shielding taxpayers from the risk of having to bail out troubled lenders. The so-called bank recovery and resolution directive (BRRD) imposes losses on shareholders and creditors of ailing lenders, in a process […]

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A National Bank official opens the door of a bank branch while people wait to enter in Athens, Greece July 20, 2015. Greeks queued outside banks on Monday as they reopened three weeks after closing to stop the system collapsing, the first cautious sign of a return to normal after a deal to start talks on a new package of bailout reforms. However limits on withdrawals will remain and payments and wire transfers abroad will still not be possible – a situation which German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday was "not a normal life" and warranted swift negotiations on a new bailout, expected to be worth up to 86 billion euros. The stock market will also remain closed until further notice. Increases in value added tax agreed under the bailout terms have also taken effect with VAT on food and public transport jumping to 23 percent from 13 […]

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Photo Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, on Friday. Both urged the German Parliament to back the Greek bailout. Credit Tobias Schwarz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BERLIN — German lawmakers on Friday approved entering into detailed negotiations for a Greek bailout amid a simmering international debate over providing more debt relief to Athens and intensifying questions about whether Greece would be better off leaving the European common currency. With resistance to providing more help to Greece growing among conservatives, 439 lawmakers voted in favor of moving ahead with the bailout deal European leaders negotiated last weekend in Brussels. There were 119 votes against, and 40 legislators abstained. Chancellor Angela Merkel and her finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, had urged Parliament to back the bailout, which both called “a last attempt” to order Greece’s finances and build a functioning state. It would be Greece’s third bailout in five […]

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Photo Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, said on Thursday that a temporary Greek exit from the eurozone could give Greece the flexibility it needs to reduce its debt load. Credit Ralph Orlowski/Reuters BERLIN — Despite bitter opposition in many quarters to the austerity-first policies Germany has imposed on Europe’s poorer nations, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has hung on to its role as champion of integration on the Continent through deft use of diplomacy and the country’s economic clout. But in negotiating a new deal this week to bail out Greece , Germany displayed what many Europeans saw as a harder, more selfish edge, demanding painful measures from Athens and resisting any firm commitment to granting Greece relief from its crippling debt. And that perception was fueled on Thursday when the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, suggested that Greece would get its best shot at a substantial cut in its […]

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacts during a parliamentary session in Athens, Greece July 16, 2015. Greece awoke with a political hangover on Thursday after parliament approved a stringent bailout program, thanks to the votes of the pro-European opposition, amid the worst protest violence this year. The vote, vital to unlocking emergency financing from European partners as early as Thursday, left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras weakened by a revolt in his leftist Syriza party but clinging to power for now. The European Central Bank’s governing council, meeting in Frankfurt, was expected to ease its funding squeeze on shuttered Greek banks, the first step toward permitting them to reopen after nearly three weeks’ closure while cash rationing and other capital restrictions will remain in place. European finance ministers were to hold a conference call on Thursday morning to agree on a plan for 7 billion euros in bridging funds to […]

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacts during a parliamentary session in Athens, Greece July 16, 2015. Greece awoke with a political hangover on Thursday after parliament approved a stringent bailout program, thanks to the votes of the pro-European opposition, amid the worst protest violence this year. The vote, vital to unlocking emergency financing from European partners as early as Thursday, left Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras weakened by a revolt in his leftist Syriza party but clinging to power for now. The European Central Bank’s governing council, meeting in Frankfurt, was expected to ease its funding squeeze on shuttered Greek banks, the first step toward permitting them to reopen after nearly three weeks’ closure while cash rationing and other capital restrictions will remain in place. European finance ministers were to hold a conference call on Thursday morning to agree on a plan for 7 billion euros in bridging funds to […]

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FRANKFURT — The International Monetary Fund said what everyone knew but would not admit when it laid out in gory detail late Tuesday how Greece could be crushed by its staggering debt unless creditors agreed to lighten the load. The I.M.F. was not saying anything different from what it and its chief, Christine Lagarde, had quietly told eurozone leaders last weekend. But by going public with its warnings, the fund was putting the world on notice: Without some relief that might enable Greece to grow its way out of debt, the I.M.F. is unwilling to continue throwing good money after bad. The question in the next couple of days will be whether that frank appraisal helps or hinders attempts to keep Greece in the eurozone. The I.M.F. report on Greece’s debt said the country had a financial shortfall of 85 billion euros, or $93 billion, and predicted that within […]

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ATHENS — Under threat from the nation’s creditors to move quickly or lose any chance of obtaining a desperately needed new bailout package, Greece ’s Parliament approved painful new austerity measures early Thursday, virtually guaranteeing that life would get harder for millions of Greeks. With banks closed and the economy on the verge of collapse, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had urged the adoption of the measures, saying that while it was a difficult deal the creditors were offering, it was the only one available and would avert a humanitarian and fiscal disaster. The measures passed easily, with a vote of 229 to 64, with six abstentions. Yet much of the support came from opposition parties. Thirty-two members of Mr. Tsipras’s own Syriza party voted no, including three of his ministers, throwing the stability of his left-wing coalition government into question. Mr. Tsipras, who unexpectedly took the floor before the […]

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WASHINGTON—The International Monetary Fund questioned the ability of Greece to deliver on promised bailout overhauls and warned in its starkest language yet that the eurozone must commit to debt restructuring to ensure the program will work. The IMF’s warning—made in a three-page paper circulated to eurozone officials over the weekend and published more broadly Tuesday—is a reality check for Europe and Greece about the political and economic commitments needed from both sides. “The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date—and what has been proposed by” eurozone authorities, the IMF said in its latest assessment of Greece’s economy. The IMF’s dour debt assessment is a clear warning that the fragile bailout accord hasn’t removed the risk of a Greek exit from the eurozone and that the IMF needs […]

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Photo Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece after reaching an agreement with European leaders in Brussels on Monday. Credit Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Associated Press ATHENS — Forced by his nation’s creditors into broad new concessions to avert financial collapse, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece returned home on Monday with just days to sell the deal to fractured lawmakers and a dazed electorate. The agreement he struck with other European leaders early Monday after a contentious all-night bargaining session would give Greece the chance to receive its third international bailout in five years, a package of as much as 86 billion euros, or $96 billion, as well as easier repayment terms on some of its existing debt of more than €300 billion and a short-term economic stimulus plan. But it would require Greece to swallow a wide array of measures, including pension cuts and tax increases, and effectively subject itself […]

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