While the scenarios over the weekend claim a Greek haircut of 50% and the most odious preconditions with more austerity measures and the Troika be seated in Athens for a decade, Greek Finance Minister EvangelosVenizelos meets with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in Washington. Tomorrow he will hold meetings with IMF-Chief Christine Lagarde. It is maybe the most critical weekend for the fate of the Greek debt. Apparently they try to rescue Greece from a ‘disorderly default’ that will explode like a huge bomb within the eurozone and will swallow the economies of the weak states as well.
Wolfgang Schaeuble gave a signal yesterday about Berlin’s plans on the issue. He said in a interview to German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche that Greece would not be able to return to capital markets next year and would need a decade to make its economy competitive. “It is clear that Greece will not be able to return to capital markets in 2012, as we thought in 2010,” and added that “Greece will need a decade rather than a year to get fully competitive.”
In the same edition of German WirtschaftsWoche there comes a news item of not minor interest. The newspaper claims that a private consulting company has worked out a rescue plan for Greece:
“The well-known strategy consultants company Roland Berger worked bailout of Greece with immediate debt relief and a broad privatization program under the supervision of the EU.
The plan provides for immediate reduction of the debt of Greece to 90% of GNP by creating a trust ‘Treuhand’ (Troichant) under the control of the Eurozone on privatization in Greece.
In it will revert to the privatized entities and assets of the Greek public that are privatized in most EU countries, such as airports, ports, highways, etc., but rather “cultural goods”.
The firm Roland Berger estimates the value at 125 billion. It proposes to dispose € 60 billion to pay off the debt of Greece to the rest of the Eurozone and the rest to take the temporary support mechanism EFSF. In this way Greece’s debt “would be reduced from 145% to 90% of GDP,” told to WiWo, the director of Roland Berger, Martin Vitti.
Wiwo argues that the German Finance Minister is aware of the project and said that “these thoughts are in line with what we think.” (WiWo via news247)
OK, I got the point. Everybody is trying to rescue Greece (the state) so that the eurozone will not get harmed. What if the Greece (the people) have started to hate the euro and the whole system of banksters in the meantime? What makes the EU, IMF brains believe that this government will survive the next elections and that the agreements will be eternal? Unless the Troika will forbid the people’s democratic right to choose their rulers. No that the results of the last elections turned for the benefits of the Greeks….
The Rulers of the EU don’t care about the Greek people, they only want to protect their wet dream of a supra-national EUSSR. Actually they don’t care for any of the peoples in Europe.
It would have been better for Greece to have defaulted half a year ago, when there was time for an ‘orderly’ default (if such do exist) … now it’s too late, look at the fear and panic of the politicians all over Europe, and the lack of real leadership.
The endgame is approaching fast, and Greece will be forced to default soon, and it will not be in an orderly manner. When it comes so far, follow the example not of Argentina but of Iceland, back in business after five years.
I wish the Greek people good luck in the future. I met my wife some thirty years ago in a small village of southern Crete, and we would like to go back there for holiday once more; hopefully in a free Greece and not a serfdom of the EUSSR.
Good luck to the Greek people.
@Sven Anderson
I have to agree on your statement and conclusions.
Good luck to the Greek people also from Germany!