Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras could not say it more clearly. That top priority of the EU partners is to safe the banks. “We learned our lesson from the crisis. We do everything what is possible to ensure that the banking system is safe,” Stournaras said during a joint press …
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Greek FinMin thinks “his work concluded”; may get new job as BoG governor
Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras might soon leave the “electric chair” he has been sitting on since summer 2012 and find a less stressful job at the Bank of Greece. According to Sunday Edition of Proto Thema, Stournaras has allegedly said that his work at the ministry has been concluded. …
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Greek FinMin invites SYRIZA to join Eurogroup negotiation table
Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras openly invited Greek opposition parties in general and leader of left-wing SYRIZA, Alexis Tsipras, in particular to join the negotiation table on the Greek debt issue. Speaking to private SKAI TV on Monday, Stournaras reiterated his invitation to the members of main opposition party SYRIZA …
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Switzerland turns down Greece’s wish to retroactively tax Greeks’ bank deposits
Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf turned down the proposal of her Greek counterpart Yiannis Stournaras to impose taxes on Greeks’ bank accounts and transfer the money to Athens. Currently in the Greek capital, Widmer-Schlumpf told Stournaras that Switzerland does not do such deals any more, focusing instead on automatic information …
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Greek Parliament Budget Office: taxes skyrocketed since 2010, up to 450% in fuel
The Budget Office of Greek parliament summarized the tax increases that took place since the country sought the aid of International Monetary Fund. The report was thought as an answer to finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras who denies the Greek households were overtaxed. “A series of tax increases from 2010 up …
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Greek FinMin shocked to hear, he has to pay €150 for Christmas Carols
Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras would be shocked to hear about the cost of Christmas Carols, should the kids be enforced to issue receipts. Below the very pointed caricature by Kostas Mitropoulos Stournaras: 150 euro for Christmas Carols? Are you nuts? Kid: Mister Yiannis, Christmas carols cost 5 euro. …
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Greek FinMin believes Greeks have to pay even more taxes
Beginning of the week Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras created confusion, not only among the people but also among his political colleagues in the parliament. In an interview, Stournaras had claimed that “Greeks were not overtaxed” as often complained by the media and the average taxpayer: the employee, the low …
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Greece’s two-class society: civil servants still earn more than employees in the private sector
You will be very surprised to hear the average gross monthly salary in the Greek finance ministry the moment wages in the private sector cannot feed even a single household. Responding to a relevant question about the finance ministry budget expenses, finance minister Yiannis Stournaras revealed the salaries of the …
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Greek FinMin: No horizontal cuts, but €500million in social security
What if coalition government leaders PM Antonis Samaras and deputy PM Evangelos Venizelos repeatedly assured there would not no new austerity measures. Appointed and not-elected finance minister Yiannis Stournaras gave things a sober approached and even indirectly announced where the new cuts will come from: from social security funds. “We …
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Debtors in Greece: Would you share your bedroom with the tax office?
Greece’s finance ministry has apparently run out of ideas. Ops! I should immediately correct myself: Greece’s finance ministry has obviously realized that the ideas the team of advisers produce to force citizens to “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” – in Modern English that’s “the taxes” – is sheer …
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Municipality workers donate food for Greek FinMin’s needy mother
Potatoes, onions, rice, beans and fave beans, pasta, oil, vinegar, raki, rabbits, chicken and fresh eggs: baskets full of goodies. Collected by municipality workers for the mother and mother-in-law of Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras. The protesting unionists had found an ironic way to respond to Stournaras who had claimed …
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ECB’s Asmussen rejects Greece’s call to roll over Greek bonds
The European Central Bank cannot roll over Greek bonds as this goes against a ban on financing governments, a senior ECB policymaker said on Monday, dashing Athens’ hopes it will help plug a funding gap next year through such a move. Athens will be financed by bailout loans until the …
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Eurogroup, Greece & the IMF: a new haircut or not?
The Eurogroup meets up on Monday in Brussels with Eurozone finance ministers expected to review individual bailout programs of Eurozone member countries. Greece will also be discussed even as its government is reportedly considering a proposal for a debt turnover Greek finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras will brief his counterparts about …
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Cretans fundraise food & clothes for Greek FinMin’s mom…
An aid parcel with food and clothes for the mother of Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras. A woman who apparently “lives in poverty with €500 pension per month” as her famous son recently claimed on Greek television. Touched by the poverty of the minister’s mother, some residents of Heraklio, Crete, …
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Troika – Greek Gov’t talks on primary surplus 2014 deadlocked
Ops! With so much Golden Dawn we almost forgot the Greek debt, the Troika, the austerity and all the relevant plagues. I write ‘almost’ because the bills have been coming in without a break. Anyway, the Troika was here, its representatives spoke with the Greek government and they reached not …
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Greek FinMin baptizes “lay-offs” in “obligatory exits”, promises to hire 15K new civil workers
AHA! Greek government found a new word to describe lay-offs in the public sector. They are not ‘lay-offs’ anymore but ‘obligatory exits’. In Greek government plans it comes even better: those 15,000 civil servants to be laid-off until end of 2014, will be replaced by 15,000 new employees! Finance minister Yiannis …
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Greek FinMin quotes Lenin: ‘useful idiots’ those who do not want Greece to succeed
Would you dare believe that a Finance Minister who applies neo-liberal IMF policies would cite a phrase attributed to Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin? Oh yes! In this surreal country called “Greece” everything is possible. Even that. Apparently because the ‘modern neo-liberals’ used to be ‘leftist’ or ‘communists’ when they …
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Greek financial crime units to investigate possible fraud on subsidies from EU funds (NSRF)
That’s really a very ambitious plan: Greece’s finance ministry wants to investigate whether the EU subsidies funds (NSRF) given to companies for further investment were misused or not. You know, for the usual purpose: privately… According to Greek media, financial crimes units (SDOE) in 13 regions are due to start …
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FinMin Stournaras: Greece could return to debt markets in 2014
Greece could return to debt markets to test the water in the second half of 2014 if his country returns to growth in the first half of next year and manages a primary surplus, its finance minister said in a German media interview out on Monday. “That would be a …
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Greece’s debt explodes to 321 billion euro – higher than before the crisis
Despite three years of strict austerity measures, incredible taxes and a debt haircut of 53% (100 billion euro in March 2012), Greece still owes 321 billion euro. According to newspaper To Vima, Greece’s debt exploded in the first half of 2013 up to 16 billion euro and is higher at …
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