What’s Up in Greece on Jan 30/12? tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

What’s Up in Greece on Jan 30/12?

Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Very Mix

Ice cold weather with “Siberia-style” temperatures are up in Greece, hitting the Greeks inside and outside. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will be confronted with the cold front of tough leaders at the EU Summit in Brussels, in case the EU leaders manage to reach the summit hall due to the general strike in Belgium.  The Belgian government took austerity measures worth 11 billion euro and people protest. That’s the answer to whose fiercely complaining about the strikes in Greece…

Greece’s EU partners send the one ultimatum after the other and threaten to switch off the financing of the country. Over the weekend German politicians lashed out against  Greece with a non-stop keep talking. “Greece needs to decide” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said on Sunday in an interview to the Wall Street Journal and warned about the second bailout that  “unless Greece implements the necessary decisions and doesn’t just announce them … there’s no amount of money that can solve the problem.”

 Papademos has three “Neins” in his luggage. The louder one concerns the German proposal to appoint a state commissioner to supervise the Greek state budget expenditures and to personally veto your chronic-ill mother’s or child’s welfare benefit. The other Greek objections refer to the Troika demands to crack down the private sector for the shake of the so-called “competitiveness”.

Mine in Siberia or Greek Budget Hole?

Proto Thema reports that the Troika want the minimum wage (€751 gross) to be cut by €200.

A tsunami of property taxes will sweep Greeks this year. The regular property taxes of 2009, 2010 and 2011 will have to be paid additionally to the emergency property taxes of 2011 (2nd installment), 2012 and 2013 (1st installment). I can forecast that Greek household will declare “default” in terms of stop paying, before the state will do so. Then who can spare some 5,000+ euro for the shake of state disabilities?

Last Friday, deputy Finance Minister Pantelis Oikonomou said that the emergency property tax was raised because the statecould not collect the property tax of 2010.  Oikonomou’s admission triggered a wave of reactions as he was speaking at a meeting organized by the association of property owners. Nice video here, however in Greek.

As if we don’t have enough of our own, internal problems, our Turkish neighbors sent corvette “Bandirma” for a ‘cruise’ in the Greek territorial waters. Bandirma came close to the island of Mykonos…

 Talking about islands… Anotherearquake 4.6R  occurred in the sea area north of Crete shortly after Monday midnight.

A man, 46, committed suicide due to financial problems. He shot himself with a gun. Another victim on the long list of the economic crisis.

Snow is expected to fall in the northern suburbs of Athens. Temperatures will be below zero in many parts of the country, north winds will blow with intensity of 9 Beaufort. Check with local port authorities if you want to travel via the sea way.

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