Keep Talking Greece Greek News in English, Blog, Wit & Drama

Greece selected Norway’s Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) to carry out offshore seismic tests in the country’s south and west, the government said on Wednesday, paving the way for the launch of an oil and gas drilling bidding round in 2014. Oslo-based PGS will send a ship to the Ionian Sea and off …

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Greece’ property owners will become “tenants” in their own homes and pay “rent” in form of property taxes, should Samaras government plans on property taxation come true. The country’s economic team plans to unify all different taxes and fees and emergency levies that already lay heavy on the shoulders of real …

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“Tear gas has exhausted its effectiveness, we’re thinking to use water against rioters,” Greek Minister of Citizen protection Nikos Dendias said on Wednesday. Speaking to Real FM, Dendias described the use of water as an “attempt by the Greek police to focus on more modern ways.” As the autumn is expected to …

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What? You thought that dumping labor wages down to 500 euro per month would boost competitiveness? You thought that working 13 hours per day, 6 days per week will turn the debt-ridden country into growth paradise? The myth of “wages dumping as the fundament for competitiveness” is collapsing and thus by a report of …

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Greece’s public debt is on a non- sustainable path even after a restructuring earlier this year, the nation’s Center of Planning and Economic Research said. The country will not be able to cut its debt to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, as required under a bailout from …

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I remember the word “dengue fever” from the elderly in my family. I don’t know, if the family had a victim, so that grannies and grandpas felt the need to talk about it. In my ears, ‘dengue fever’ sounded ‘horrible’ alone through the sequence of letters. As in Greek it is not  …

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For some KTG readers, this may be an unknown aspect of the so-called “free education system” in Greece: The private tutorial schools for public high school students. A well-established system of tutorial classes that enables Greek students to pass exams and enter universities. A system that was established some decades ago for …

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More was not expected, no decision either. German Finance Minister told his Greek counterpart Yiannis Stournaras the usual, good old admonition: Greece must stick to reforms implementations. The two men meet in Berlin.   “German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told his Greek counterpart Yannis Stournaras at meeting on Tuesday that …

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That was a dynamic action nobody had dared to expect from pensioners who proved more brisk and vital than one would have thought. Some 200 pensioners from Greece’s biggest insurance fund IKA stormed the Health Ministry in Athens on Tuesday morning, when they were denied a meeting with minister Andreas Lykourentzos. …

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 Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras is in Berlin today, for a crucial meeting with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble. Stournaras is expected to submit the first unofficial request for the extension of the implementation period of the 11.9-billion-euro package*. The new austerity should be implemented for the year 2013-2014, but …

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Journalists and technical staff in Greece’s oldest English speaking newspaper, Athens News, launched a 24-hour strike as they have not been paid for two and a half months. It’s is the second strike of Athens News staff in the last two months. Below the press release uploaded on the newspaper …

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Greek Finance Ministry tries to estimate the amount Germany should pay to Greece as reparations for damages, atrocities and enforced loans during the World War II, alternate Finance Minister Christos Staikouras briefed the Parliament. According to estimations of the team in charge of the case, the amount for reparations reaches almost …

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