100 posts
Prevention is the Keyword
‘Prevention is the Keyword’. This was the clear message from Colonel Papadimitriou – one of the senior officers in charge of the Greek fire fighting squadron at the Elefsina air base. Last week I visited Greece to learn how one of...
Status Quo to do Greek benefit concert
Update at the bottom. Legendary rockers Status Quo are planning a benefit concert in Athens this summer. Among their songs two will be particularly poignant for the audience: Down, down and a reworking of In the Army Now. The Brussels Jungle has obt...
Special Issue Greek Law Journal on ECHR
A special issue of the Greek Law Journal "Nomiko Vima" has just been published online with a range of articles celebrating last year's fifth decade of existence of the European Court of Human Rights. With over twenty contributions, mostly in English,...
EU summit faces Spain’s woes and a Slovak threat over Greece
Rumours are flying thick and fast that the troubles of Spain’s banking sector will require emergency attention at Thursday’s summit of European Union leaders in Brussels. But it appears highly improbable that Spain will ask for help fr...
Eurozone rescuing Greece: Conditionality is a big stick
Solidarity towards Greece and eurozone self-interest both motivated the efforts to get the team back into the play. The stakes were unprecedented on both sides, and they still are. The euro area countries and notably the International Monetary Fund (...
Eurozone team rescue Greece: Legal base
Today the Council Decision on fiscal surveillance and deficit reduction in Greece was published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU): COUNCIL DECISION of 10 May 2010 addressed to Greece with a view to reinforcing and deepening fiscal...
Deficit reduction in Greece: Official publication
There is a striking difference between financial markets and news reporting operating globally around the clock on the one hand, and the complex task of officially publishing information about the European Union in all the languages on the other hand...
Erdogan’s Visit, the Financial Crisis and the Future of Turkish-Greek Relations: What to expect, what not to expect?
The financial crisis has finally catalyzed an awareness of the Greek economy’s long-standing problems, including development, modernization, corruption and clientelistic relations within the political parties. It is clear that the crisis will also...
Tracking eurozone crisis measures: Activating financial support for Greece
The moment of truth for Greece arrived. On 23 April 2010 the president of the Euro Group, the European Commission and the ECB took note of the request by the Greek government to activate the financial support mechanism, which was being prepared by th...
Turkish PM’s historic visit to Greece
A series of agreements were signed during the visit which shows political will of both sides. READ MORE...
Grèce et Allemagne: La cigale et la fourmi…
Plus je lis sur les attentes et reactions ce ces deux pays, plus je pense que cela correspond à des profiles… fabuleux! En tout cas, il y a de nombreux préjugés sur les pays latins (ou méditeranéen, pour être précis) et germaniques. Or...
Tracking eurozone crisis measures: Greek aid from words towards deeds
On Sunday, 11 April 2010 the finance ministers of the Euro Group held a teleconference, where they agreed to prepare the activation of support, jointly with the IMF, for Greece. Support by the eurozone countries during the first year of the three yea...
'Yes we cheated, but you should have noticed'
Greek PM George Papandreou made quite an astonishing comment over the weekend regarding the charge that Greece had cooked the books in order to gain entry to the euro.Papandreou insisted, in an interview with El Pais, that letting Greece into the eur...
Tracking eurozone crisis measures: Beware the ides of March
In Tracking Eurozone crisis measures: Half empty or half full? (23 May 2010) we recapitulated the official ECB and EU decisions published and sketched the road map to track the communications from the institutions and informal groups on the eurozone...
Let's see if I get this right...
1) "markets" suddenly start worrying about Greek public debt, after years of being oblivious to...
Cyprus Mail: Historic talks open in Athens
Long-time rivals Greece and Turkey agreed yesterday to try and ease tensions and attempt to cut heavy defence budgets, seeking to gain something positive from the Greek debt crisis currently shaking the euro. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erd...
Roundup: Turkish gov’t seizes the moment to ask Greece for less armament in Erdoğan’s historical visit
Greek far right protesters burn the Turkish flag during a rally against the visit of Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Athens May 14, 2010.… Read more » REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol Turkish PM Erdoğan starts landmark visit to Greece...
Relations gréco-turques: un “grand pas en avant”
Le Premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, s’est rendu à Athènes avec dix ministres et quelque 80 hommes d’affaires pour ce que les deux parties présentent comme une nouvelle ère de coopération entre les deux pays. M. Erdogan a...
Europe view: Greece viewed from the region
Europe.viewDefault, and other dogmasMay 13th 2010From Economist.comThe experience of ex-communist countries in the 1990s undermines many of the claims now made about GreeceFOR anyone from the ex-communist world with a medium-term memory, the frantic...
Three killed as violence flares over Greek austerity measures
Three people die as protesters set fire to an Athens bank during clashes over government austerity measures. Rioters threw petrol bombs and stones in a bid to storm parliament, while police used tear gas. READ MORE...
Greece and its neighbours
Greece's woes and the neighbours Greased upMay 6th 2010From The Economist print editionThe region may share in some of Greece’s painAVERTING a meltdown in Greece, at least temporarily, is good news for that country’s fragile ex-communist neighbo...
The Greek crisis, Germany and the future of Europe
It's a dark time for the EU and eurozone - but does this current cloud have a silver lining?
Reality punches Greece in the face.
Watching a news report on the demonstrations in Greece, I was struck by the comments of one of the demonstrators, a teacher, who pledged that they will strike for years if necessary ”until the IMF and the European Union are out of Greece”...
What Act of the Greek Tragedy?
It looks like the markets don’t really buy the “end of the Greek tragedy”. At the same time the eurozone member Slovakia will only vote on financial aid for Greece after the June national election. Meanwhile the New Democracy party in Greece (t...
The Greek Crisis is a ticking Social Bomb
The Greek crisis is not merely economic: behind the numbers are people, most of whom bear no responsibility for the economic mess they have ended up with. Manintaining social cohesion as poverty and unemployment levels rise ought to be a policy prior...
Greek rescue plan leaves troubling questions unanswered
Better late than never. That is one way of looking at the three-year, €110bn rescue plan for Greece that was announced on Sunday by eurozone governments and the International Monetary Fund. It took seven months of indecision, bickering and ev...
LSE panel discussion on Greece with former ministers from Greece
Now is the time to learn more, and so why not turn to academia instead of the media to do so. Last week, on 28 April, the London School of Economics held a panel discussion titled "The Greek Fiscal Crisis and the Future of the Euro-Zone" with two re...
Greece and the story of George and Angela
ATHENS Two leaders. They do not know each other well. They find themselves locked in a high-stakes game. They sit on opposite sides of the table. The outcome of the game is so important that the US president calls. The...
The Greek Bailout: the Details
The Greek bailout is here, and we have the details: The financial package makes available € 110 billion to help Greece meet its financing needs, with euro area Member States ready to contribute for their part € 80 billion, and the rest provided b...
Greece: 110,000 million Euro & smiling faces
Diplomatically spoken: I took note of the Eurogroup statement issued Sunday evening. I don't want to talk about the decision itself, it's big enough for the traditional media to notice, so why spend a blog post on the matter? Just wanted to leave a...
Euro roundup: Saving Greece begins…
Huge Greece bail-out deal agreed from BBC News | Europe | World Edition Eurozone members and the IMF agree an historic 110bn-euro ($146bn) bail-out to rescue Greece’s ailing economy. Greece’s debt crisis strains European u...
EU Finally acts on Greece – But where do we go from here?
So it is finally done. After dragging their heels for months, the leaders of the Eurozone have agreed a rescue package for Greece. As the BBC reports, it has a total volume of 110bn Euro, 30bn from the IMF and 80bn from other Eurozone countries. This...
Details avenge
Set a point of no return, move past it, don’t worry about public opinion and let the details take care of themselves”. This is how Chancellor Helmut Kohl summarized the strategy that led to Maastricht and EMU. A policy well disliked by the German...
Explaining German angst over Greece
Crises usually come with sub-plots, back-stories. So, too, with the Greek bail-out. Sure Athens is being urged to slash its spending further, but the big squeeze is on the Germans. Sometimes as you listen in on Europe's angst it would...
The Greek meltdown
The Greek wave that for so long has been gathering strength on the horizon has finally hit the shore. The Greek debt crisis risks spiralling out of control and dragging other countries down with it. A member of the eurozone...
Why not ask China and Russia to top up Greece’s rescue package?
Nothing captures Germany’s anger and frustration with Greece better than the story - if you can call it that - in Tuesday’s Bild, the mass-circulation German tabloid. “Goodbye, euro. Bild gives the drachma back to the bankrupt Gre...
Greek crisis - it ain't over yet
Time and time again with the Greek debt crisis it has seemed that a solution has been found, only for the drama to continue. So again with Greece's formal request to activate the EU-IMF rescue package last Friday. It turns...
The Greek Tragedy Continues
The future of the Eurozone is decidedly hanging in the balance at the moment. As I said earlier in the week, the problem isn’t a simple question economics anymore: everything now is all about credibility, about who does what, and when, and how ever...
EEAS recruitment process designed to boost Greek economy
The Greek economy is in shambles and the European Union has been at pains to solve the issue without having to disrupt existing arrangements (and without annoying Germany too much). A first step was achieved when over the weekend, Euro-zone Member St...
What the Doomsayers Haven’t Been Telling You about Greece
The recent battle over healthcare reform in the United States, in which the Obama administration was barely able to pass weak reform, is just further proof of how far the US has fallen behind Europe. Yet all the media has been able to obsess over for...
Questions over Greek rescue package remain
When they announced their provisional rescue package for Greece on Sunday, European officials pointed not only to its size - at least €30bn- but also its details. For euros and details are what the markets have been demanding these last frustrating...
The Bailout for Greece: Will It Work?
We now have some details on the bailout package for Greece. The program will be managed jointly by the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The program will cover a three-year period. The euro area Memb...
Greece: 'Nobody can play with euro'
At the third attempt, the cold hard details of rescuing Greece have been revealed. Over three years, 80bn euros ($108bn; £70bn) can be drawn on. The eurozone countries are putting in two-thirds, the rest will come from the IMF. That...
Angela Calling Update
Well, it seems the EU leadership have finally been able to take a decision on what to lend and what to charge (see original post here). According to initial press reports the German government has decided in principal to participate in loans to Gree...
Greece: Bankruptcy hovers
The fix was in. The deal done. Just a couple of weeks back Greece had been saved. The leaders of the eurozone countries had conjured up a rescue package if Greece needed it. The President of the European Commission, Jose...
JENS BASTIAN – Don’t Forget the Real Economy
Published in BUSINESS PARTNERS / MARCH-APRIL 2010 /page 6, OBSERVATORY WHILE THE POLITICAL AUTHORITIES IN GREECE CONTINUE TO SEARCH FOR SOLUTIONS TO THE COUNTRY’S FISCAL AND PUBLIC DEBT CRISES, THE EFFECTS OF THE DOWNTURN ARE INCREASINGLY BEC...
Chaos and confusion in Greece hits Euro still further
At the last European Council of Ministers meeting, with the German's and French to the fore the Eurocrats thought they had finagled a way through the Greek Euro morass.Seems like they forgot to tell Athens. Bloomberg report that,The euro declined for...
EU decides to save Greece…
MAIN FOCUS: Europe stands by Greece | 26/03/2010 from euro|topics The Eurogroup countries on Thursday evening agreed a rescue package for Greece that entails a mixture of bilateral loans and International Monetary Fund help. According...
Not a great leap forwards, but not a bust up either
Europe agrees a rescue plan for the euro...
The Relief of Athens
It was the morning after the night before and I was riding an elevator to the 13th floor in the European Commission. Two men smiled at each other and one said "I hear Greece has been saved". "Couldn't be better,"...
To IMF or not to IMF?
You were lucky yesterday if you caught a glimpse of Angela Merkel running around Brussels like a mad woman. The German chancellor was the center of attention during the spring summit of EU national leaders, as all of Europe looked to her to come to t...
Greece is not the word for Germany
The reluctance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to help Greece has tarnished the image of Germany and Germans in the country of Aristotle, Plato, and feta cheese. The coverage given by the German press regarding the need for an EU rescue plan for...
Relief in euro world as leaders back Greek deal
There is joy and harmony in euro world today. After looking over the precipice, European leaders decided to pull back and agree a rescue package for Greece. At a press breakfast this morning, José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, was p...
Is Greece Really Getting a Bail-Out?
We now have the solemn statement by the heads of state and government of the euro area. It says that as part of a package involving substantial International Monetary Fund financing and a majority of European financing, Euro area member states, are r...
