Greece

[mistermagic]

Great speech and one that will give the wrong people very deep nationalistic ideas. I don't know who this Farage is but his equivalent in my country is basically a woman who doesn't know the first thing of finance and will probably get a lot of votes if Greece do get out of the Euro pushing France's case to do the same if she is elected in May 2017.
Worst thing it I'm starting to question the whole Europe thing. If Grexit happens and Greece actually do quite well then all the latin countries (Spain as top of the pile) will want out asap. Not sure if it's such a bad thing going back to the franc.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

It would be a good thing in my opinion. We don't need an ever-closer political union. All we really need is a free-market agreement, a defence pact, and maybe some science & technology research co-operation. Trying to fit a continent as diverse as Europe into a large unwieldy political framework is ridiculous, and I find the 'we need less countries not more' rhetoric coming out of Germany quite creepy to be honest.

 

[Jason M]

Germany's attitude is at least irritating... They are trying to make Europe their little playground...North is already their glass house...If Greece leaves the Zone tonight,i believe it will be the end of EU long term

 

[Veggie Legs]

Agreement has been reached, don't know if this means that Greece has accepted the terms imposed or some kind of compromise.

 

[nousername]

It's still got to go through the Greek Parliament though?

 

[Jason M]

It's still got to go through the Greek Parliament though?

Yes...They will vote for it...1/3 of the government will vote the measures though...So they will have general election in September as it seems..

 

[smat]

Varoufakis interview in the New Statesman:

HL: What is the greatest problem with the general way the Eurogroup functions?

YV: [To exemplify…] There was a moment when the President of the Eurogroup decided to move against us and effectively shut us out, and made it known that Greece was essentially on its way out of the Eurozone. … There is a convention that communiqués must be unanimous, and the President can’t just convene a meeting of the Eurozone and exclude a member state. And he said, “Oh I’m sure I can do that.” So I asked for a legal opinion. It created a bit of a kerfuffle. For about 5-10 minutes the meeting stopped, clerks, officials were talking to one another, on their phone, and eventually some official, some legal expert addressed me, and said the following words, that “Well, the Eurogroup does not exist in law, there is no treaty which has convened this group.”

So what we have is a non-existent group that has the greatest power to determine the lives of Europeans. It’s not answerable to anyone, given it doesn’t exist in law; no minutes are kept; and it’s confidential. So no citizen ever knows what is said within. … These are decisions of almost life and death, and no member has to answer to anybody.

D:

 

[Alty]

I remain genuinely confused by all this. I can only think that post-referendum the Eurozone leaders, Tusk and Juncker made some pretty scary threats. Why would the Greeks actively propose a worse deal than the one they were offered days earlier??

God I hope we get out and precipitate the collapse of the whole thing. We have the political and economic clout to do it. Poor little Greece has been well and truly shafted.

 

[Jason M]

I remain genuinely confused by all this. I can only think that post-referendum the Eurozone leaders, Tusk and Juncker made some pretty scary threats. Why would the Greeks actively propose a worse deal than the one they were offered days earlier??

God I hope we get out and precipitate the collapse of the whole thing. We have the political and economic clout to do it. Poor little Greece has been well and truly shafted.

Because their government was hoping that the result of the referendum would be a "yes"

 

[DarkSithLord]

Because their government was hoping that the result of the referendum would be a "yes"

But didnt Tsipras campaign for a "No" vote?

 

[Jason M]

He did..But welcome to "politics"...A leftish government could never back the "yes" option...

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Right, so..

Merkel and her Eurozone bigwigs spent days negotiating with Tsipras and Greece, on the basis that the IMF would front up a ton of cash to bring the Greek banks out of the crap. The Eurozone bask in their magnificence at saving their Euro project.

And then the IMF turn around and tell them to bugger off, that the deal is non-workable and that they don't want to touch Greece with a barge pole.

So did nobody think to ask the IMF first? Or did Merkel just assume they'd step in line?

You can't make this stuff up.

And today is the deadline for the Greek Parliament to pass these humiliating reforms and jump through the hoops, how can they do that with this huge question mark over the deal?

 

[nousername]

^ I read the BBC article about the IMF this morning (albeit briefly) and my take on it was that the bailout was still on, only that the IMF were not particularly best pleased with the terms.

Were the IMF involved in the recent last minute negotiations? Looking back I can only recall hearing about Merkel, Juncker and the Greeks.

Anyway, as you say, the whole thing is a complete mess.

 

[Alty]

So having listened to some very clever people explaining all this, I think I've got a better idea of what's happened and why.

The deal is terrible and won't be a long-term solution. However, it will see Greece through in the short-term and that was a minimum requirement for Eurozone members. They don't trust or like Syriza and so are happy to kick the can down the road for now, especially as they've been able to refuse Greek requests for debt relief (a big plus with Northern European electorates - particularly the German one).

The reason the Greeks seem to have accepted an even worse deal than they were offered pre-referendum is the other Eurozone Ministers realising that there simply hadn't been the requisite contingency plans made in Greece for leaving the Euro. Tspiras knew there would have been genuine chaos had a deal not been done as there was no means to recapitalise the banks and no logistical blueprint for the months immediatelypost-Grexit. and this left him with no leverage at all in negotiations. He basically had to take whatever he was offered.

Most people of all political hues now seem to accept that Greece would be better off outside the Euro. But they remain trapped inside. The misery continues.

Not sure what impact all this will have on our own renegotiation and referendum. While on the face of it it casts the EU in a very poor light, there's also the possibility that both the Commission and other Member States will fear the project is on the verge of collapse and so will give Cameron some genuine reforms to present to the electorate in order to boost the 'Yes' campaign.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Greek election called for September because the Syriza party is split on how to vote on the bail out terms.

 

[Red]

Yeah, their PM has resigned. I might apply for the job. I haven't got a fucking clue how to run a country, but judging by the last few years I don't think that will be on the person spec.

 

[rudebwoyben]

The troika and Wolfgang Scauble have basically chewed up Syriza and spat them out.

 

[Jason M]

The troika and Wolfgang Scauble have basically chewed up Syriza and spat them out.

That was the plan from the beginning actually...Mission accomplished err Schauble