Tag Archives: structural reforms

“Greece’s latest cuts extend austerity to decade mark,” Associated Press wrote this morning with reference to the new austerity package bringing measures worth 4.9 billion euros for 2018-2021. Just a decade? The country is been restructured and rescued, while parts of the society cannot afford a descent living. The upcoming …

Read More »

Greece will lower tax-free threshold to 5,681 euros annual income. The European Union sets the poverty line at 6,000 euro. This is the biggest scandal in the package of additional austerity measures Greece and creditors agreed upon in the early morning hours of Thursday.The second scandal is an additional cut …

Read More »

Donkeys in Crete will get license plates. They will not carry their registration number on their head or their rump. The number that will allow them to wander around will be engraved on one of the four hoofs, I heard this morning on a Greek television channel. Donkeys with license …

Read More »

To tell you the truth when I read the title of the article below, my brain hit the wall of my own prejudice. “Greeks still hostile to reforms despite economic depression” I read on a German state media outlet and much to my shame I thought: “Oh, it’s the German …

Read More »

It isn’t about competitiveness and even lower minimum wages. It isn’t about the constantly changing taxation system and the over taxation. It isn’t about lack of growth-friendly policies, like lower tax rates and fast implementation of structural  -see: labor – reforms. It is about Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank …

Read More »

German chancellor Angela Merkel defended the German policy in the euro crisis. Citing the example of Greece, she claimed that “the right mixture was found” and added that Germany was not the only country supporting this police to tackle the economic crisis in the Eurozone. In an interview to German …

Read More »

The International Monetary Fund is apparently concerned about its image. “I really don’t like it when we’re portrayed as this draconian, rigorous, terrible IMF,” Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Thursday in an online news conference. “We don’t want draconian measures to apply to Greece, which has already made a …

Read More »

List of 48 Prior Actions Greece has to implement as soon as possible in order to receive the 2-billion-euro tranche from the 3. bailout. Prior Actions PART II – No 25-48 25. All supplementary pension funds will have to be under ETEA (Unified Supplementary Pensions Fund) and ensure that all …

Read More »

The long and winding road that leads to a 2-billion-euro bailout disbursement. The Euro Working Group agreed on Friday on …not one, not ten, not twenty… but forty eight (48) prerequisites (prior actions_ that Greece has to implement in the next two weeks in order to receive the first trance …

Read More »

The mission of German head of EU Task Force for Greece Horst Reichenbach has been apparently “successfully concluded.” Now another high-ranking EU official, Dutch Maarten Verwey will take the lead and take Greece to the much awaited destination of  “successful structural reforms.” According to Greek financial weekly Agora: Dutch commissar …

Read More »

Hurrah! The milk and bread market in Greece is to be liberated! The much anticipated liberation has been pushed forward by the Troika lenders since the first bailout agreement in 2010. The OECD had provided its famous Competition Assessment Tollkit for this. But although the previous Greek governments had passed …

Read More »

The bill of the 3. bailout for Greece has been uploaded on the website of the Greek Parliament at 3:30 am on Wednesday: 7 files in PDF, a total of 387 pages. The uploading of the bill deprives lawmakers and ministers from ‘future’ claims, that they had no idea what …

Read More »

After a negotiations marathon that lasted 22 hours, the Greek government and its creditors reached an agreement on the 3. bailout for Greece. Information indicates that there have been compromises on both sides so that the deal could be sealed on technical teams level, some minor issues were still open. …

Read More »

We normally call it a “horse trading”. But Greece makes the usual exception to the rule and invents a new term: The Beef Trading. In the hard and shrewd bargaining  with creditors, the Greek government achieved to lower the Value Added Tax of 23% to beef and beef products and …

Read More »

“Greece needs to do more to start third bailout talks” is the Eurogroup finance ministers conclusion on Sunday and it was the same on Saturday. Already yesterday a draft was on the making but the strong disagreement among the 18 EZ FinMins and it has been supposedly to be finishing …

Read More »

The European Central Bank issued it Financial Stability Review today and made very important conclusions: that Default risk has increased for Greece and that the Greek banking sector has suffered substantial deposit outflows. “Wow,” as Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis would say expressing his astonishment about the extremely surprising and nonplus …

Read More »

There would be “havoc” if Greece left the euro zone and adopted an alternative currency, Willem Buiter, global chief economist at Citi, told US-network CNBC. “I really think the notion that Greece exits with or without a shadow currency or a proper currency (is ridiculous). Greece has not, historically, been …

Read More »

The list Greek finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis sent to Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem has been publish in the Greek media. The list refers mainly to “real structural reforms” and not structural in the sense of “austerity adjustment”. Below is the list 1. Activate the Fiscal Council with a view to …

Read More »

Just hours before the meeting between Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis with his counterpart Wolfgang Schaeuble in Berlin, and the German side most probably thought to put the agenda of Thursday talks. In a document leaked to the press, Berlin made its positions towards Greece very clear and demands from …

Read More »

“Greek government should push ahead with structural reforms aiming at boosting the economy,” Governor of Bank of Greece Giorgos Provopoulos told the Parliament on Tuesday. Presenting the central bank’s interim monetary policy program, Provopoulos advised the government also to avoid the imposition of new taxes in order to raise revenues …

Read More »