Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has signalled that his country could not survive beyond November if it isn’t granted the next tranche of bailout aid.
Samaras highlighted that the most important thing for Greece is liquidity and underlined the necessity of the international financing.
When questioned in the Handelsblatt interview how long Athens could survive without additional help he answered: “Until the end of November, then the cash box will be empty.”
Samaras also felt that the European Central Bank (ECB) could help out by accepting lower interest rates on Greek bonds and rolling over the debt at maturity. However, ECB President Mario Draghi ruled out the idea, because he considers it to be “monetary financing”.
In an International Herald Tribune conference held in Paris, Samaras also warned that a Greek exit from the euro would be “disastrous” for the Eurozone and could slash the Greek standard of living by up to 70%.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble gave some show of support stating that countries with problems should be allowed more time to reform but he did lash out at Greece by stating that all the other Eurozone states had made good progress on their austerity measures. He did however admit that Athens is in a “difficult situation”.
Archives of “greek prime minister” tag
rssEU sues Goldman over volcanic ash
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso announced late Sunday that the European Union has filed suit against investment banking giant Goldman Sachs for the fallout of ash from Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. The volcanic ash, which has blanketed the skies over most of Europe for the last four days, has grounded almost all European air traffic, stranding travelers and disrupting economic activity throughout the European Union.
In a statement delivered in Romansh, the official EU language of the month, Barroso said, “We have uncovered evidence that this so-called ‘natural disaster’, which is costing the EU hundreds of millions of Euros, is in fact an Act of Goldman, and we intend to hold the Zionist-American cabal in charge of the firm accountable.” “First the profligate Americans drag the world into a near-depression and now they crap all this ash on us. Who the hell do they think they are?” added Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou from Athens, where he was chairing a conference on Greek sovereign debt entitled, “How American Speculators Forced Us to Cook the Books, Lie to Our European Partners, and Pretend We Don’t Need A Massive Bailout”.
The EU complaint alleges that Goldman operated a proprietary wind-blowing strategy to direct the volcano’s ash into Europe’s stratosphere. Goldman is accused of profiting from the fallout by buying complex Flight Cancellation Swaps that are netting Goldman millions of dollars every time another European flight is cancelled. The complaint cites a smoking gun email from Francois Tubbey, a 16-year old Goldman vice president, to an unidentified woman at “i@&$*[email protected]” stating, “That’s right, baby, Fat Franky’s in charge of the weather.”
Several European banks who are counterparties to the FCS’s are alleged to be suffering billions in losses with no end in sight, apparently because they continue to sell the FCS’s to Goldman. Reached for comment, the Chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the counterparty banks, said, “Yes, we know almost all European flights are cancelled, but our advisor is Goldman Sachs, and they keep urging us to sell these FCS’s to them, so we do. We intend to hold them fully responsible.”
Goldman issued a statement saying that it intends to “vigorously defend itself,” adding that the EU’s charges are “unfounded in meteorology and probably also in fact.”
In a related development, the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change said today it is considering investigating Goldman’s role in climate change. “We’re going to get the documents, proceed cautiously, and determine precisely when Goldman started melting the Polar icecaps.” [via email]
Europe: A Continent Of Lies And Broken Promises
Openeurope.org.uk has put together a paper of the most blatant half-truths, propaganda, and outright lies, abused by Europe not only over the past month, but also over the past 10 years, for the entire duration of the now rapidly collapsing eurozone experiment. As the paper notes: “More than ten years since the euro was launched, and with the single currency facing its greatest ever crisis, the parameters have radically changed. Amid all the uncertainty, one thing has become painfully clear: the EU elite simply got it wrong on the euro.” The authors demand for “a call for greater honesty about the future of European cooperation and a reminder of the urgent need to find a new model that is both politically and economically sustainable” is just as valid in Europe as it is in the US: any system based on lies and opacity is doomed to failure. Europe found this out the hard way. We will too unless somehow we restore the basic truths like transparency, honesty and integrity, instead of merely campaign promises and teleprompter soundbites.
A sampling of the best quotes:
THE DOZEN WORST BROKEN PROMISES AND RECKLESS PREDICTIONS
“The Community shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of central governments, regional, local or other public authorities, other bodies governed by public law, or public undertakings of any Member State, without prejudice to mutual financial guarantees for the joint execution of a specific project”.
– Article 104b, Maastricht Treaty, 1992.
“We have a Treaty under which there is no possibility of paying to bailout states in difficulty”.
– German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, 1 March 20101.
“[Greek Prime Minister] Papandreou has said that he didn’t want one cent. The German government will not give one cent, anyway“.
– German Economy Minister, Rainer Brüderle, 5 March 2010.
“The single currency, far from being an agent of continental style corporatism, is probably the greatest export vehicle of Anglo-Saxon economics. The euro has done more to enforce budgetary discipline, to promote privatisation and force through labour and product market liberalisation in the rest of Europe than any number of exhortations from the IMF, the OECD, or the editors of The Economist”.
– Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2002.
“The reality of the euro has exposed the absurdity of many anti-European scares while increasing the public thirst for information. Public opinion is already changing […] as people can see the success of the new currency on the mainland and the alarming fall in inward investment into Britain as international companies show an increasing reluctance to locate here”.
– Kenneth Clarke MP, 2002.
“The euro has been a rock of stability, as illustrated by the contrasting fortunes of Iceland and Ireland. Joining the single currency would be a major step”.
– Former Labour MEP Richard Corbett, 2009.
“We must enter the euro with a clean sheet on all the criteria”.
– Then Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Papantoniou, 1999.
“The thrust of the spirit and of the letter of the Treaty is that everything is done to construct the euro area as an optimum currency area. First by ensuring that it incorporates economies that have already proved being convergent in the fiscal field as well as in the monetary and financial fields”.
– Then Governor of the Bank of France, Jean-Claude Trichet, 1997.
“It is sometimes said that while the single monetary policy may be ‘right’ for the euro area as a whole, it is ‘wrong’ for many individual countries within the area. I disagree with this view. First, it overlooks the fact that within a single currency area adjustment can occur via prices and wages”.
– Then President of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, 1999.
“Solidarity is possible, [and] will exist. A bailout is not possible and will not exist”.
– Then EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Joaquín Almunia, 29 January 2010.
“I will defend European Central Bank’s independence under any circumstance and with all my strength”.
– ECB President, Jean-Claude Trichet, 2007.
“The euro is a protection shield against the crisis”.
– European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, 5 February 2010.
“THE EURO WILL REMAIN STABLE AND EUROZONE COUNTRIES WILL BE PROTECTED FROM CRISES”
What they said then (more…)