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Sunday, June 24, 2012

EU fiscal pact clears another hurdle in Germany


Boston.com

EU fiscal pact clears another hurdle in Germany
Boston.com
BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel's government says it has reached a deal with Germany's 16 states to secure the timely ratification of the European Union's new treaty enshrining fiscal discipline. The agreement struck during talks at Berlin's ...
Germany tells Greece to stop asking for help and start cutting budgetsTelegraph.co.uk
Schaeuble says "no" to throwing money at euro crisisChicago Tribune
The eurozone's long reform wishlistBBC News
Washington Post (blog) -Financial Times
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Greece's ailing leaders to miss EU summit on eurozone crisis

Inspection tour of Greece delayed with PM Antonis Samaras and Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos in hospital

Greece's new leaders will be unable to attend this week's EU summit on the euro crisis or host the "troika" team of creditors in Athens because two senior figures in the incoming administration are ill.

Days after a new conservative-led coalition was installed, doctors said the new prime minister, Antonis Samaras, would be unable to attend the Brussels summit. International auditors then said they had been forced to postpone a visit to assess Greece's financial progress.

The inspection tour by monitors from the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, the first since March, had been seen as key to releasing rescue funds for the cash-strapped Greece. But officials said on Sunday the hospitalisation of Samaras and his finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, had meant it would be delayed until both were back at work.

In the case of Samaras, 61, who underwent an eye operation on Saturday, that is not likely for at least a week. On Sunday the prime minister's physician, Panaghiotis Theodosiadis said he had "staunchly forbidden" Samaras from any travel following "difficult surgery" for a detached retina. After his release from an Athens clinic on Monday, the conservative leader would have to stay at home for at least a week to "fully recover" the doctor told reporters gathered at the hospital.

Rapanos, 65, was under orders to rest after fainting on Friday. He was taken to hospital, where doctors revealed he was suffering from intense abdominal pain, nausea and dizziness, and is expected to stay until Tuesday, but it is unclear if he will be able to travel after that, said the daily Vima on Sunday.

Rapanos, a respected economist who was imprisoned during Greece's 1967-1974 military dictatorship after he was caught targeting banks with bombs, has long battled health problems. He had still not been sworn in when he collapsed on Friday.

Greece, which will now be represented by a four-strong team headed by the foreign minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, had announced that it would launch efforts to ease the punishing terms of its latest €130bn (£104bn) international rescue package at the summit.

Athens is under pressure from foreign lenders to restart a reform programme delayed by uncertainty during its elections. But Greeks have become increasingly radicalised after five years of recession and austerity that have left many facing poverty and unemployment.

At the weekend, the new government said it would seek to freeze public sector layoffs, reverse cuts in pensions, reduce taxes and extend help to the rising numbers of poor people. Athens has pledged to try to extend its financial support programme by two years to meet deficit reduction targets – goals bound to put it on a collision course with EU countries propping up the economy.


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Schaeuble says "no" to throwing money at euro crisis

Germany's Finance Minister Schaeuble talks to the media as he arrives to attend an eurozone finance ministers meeting in LuxembourgBERLIN (Reuters) - Throwing more money at the eurozone debt crisis will not solve the problem because the troubles have to be resolved at the cause, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday. Schaeuble also said in an interview with German TV network ZDF that Greece has not done enough to fulfill promises it made in exchange for bailout funds. Schaeuble also criticized the recent interventions by U.S. President Barack Obama. "We have to fight the causes," Schaeuble said. ...



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Hollande's pro-growth rhetoric won over France. But what about Merkel? | Jonathan Fenby

François Hollande must now find if his rhetoric can translate into a left-leaning, pro-growth agenda for the eurozone

François Hollande has been a busy man since he won the French presidency on 6 May. But he still has all to play for on the most important field – Europe – particularly after the lack of progress at his summit with the leaders of Germany, Italy and Spain in Rome on Friday.

In the past six weeks "Mr Normal" has constituted a new government, seen his Socialist party win an overall majority in legislative elections to add to its already formidable grasp on regional decision-making, journeyed to the United States to meet President Obama and join a Nato summit, gone to Mexico for the G20 meeting, and met an array of European leaders to discuss the euro crisis. All the while he has been putting through the first planks of his campaign promises, including the lowering of the pension age to 60 for some workers, a cap on earnings of bosses of state companies, and the reduction of ministerial salaries as he tries to make the fifth republic a more down-to-earth ruling system to which ordinary people can relate.

But all this is mere preamble to the new president's main task – the effort to combine renewed growth with cuts in the government deficit as the spearhead of a new European approach that will stress economic expansion rather than austerity. This week, starting with the German-French-Italian-Spanish summit in Rome, will test whether his rhetoric can be translated into a left-leaning, pro-growth agenda for the eurozone to pull it out of its seemingly endless crisis.

The new Socialist administration in Paris believes that Hollande's policies will muster a sufficient head of steam to overcome German reservations at the European summit in Brussels at the end of this month. It hails any mention of the word "growth" by leaders in other EU countries as a sign that Paris has the wind in its sails. At last, a government of the left claims to have come up with an answer to the drawn-out eurozone crisis that goes beyond belt tightening.

That sounds very attractive, especially given the way that the austerity preached from Berlin offers a bleak future for many European nations. But the room for hope looks considerably less than optimists in Paris might believe. We are not back in the heady opening months of the previous Socialist president, François Mitterrand, who declared in 1981 that there was nothing wrong with dreaming. But, as with Mitterrand, reality has a nasty way of intruding on even the most pleasant of reveries.

The decision at the Rome summit to launch a €130bn growth package consisted largely of the re-bottling of old funds in supposedly new bottles, including use of unspent budget structural funds. The post-summit press conference showed up once more the divergence between Hollande and Angela Merkel. Financial markets will not be impressed given the continuing tide of bad news.

Though coming off the heights reached last week, Spain's medium-term borrowing reached its highest level since the euro was introduced at the beginning of this century, and an audit showed that the country's banks would need up to €62bn in additional capital to meet adverse conditions. The unelected domestic political honeymoon of Mario Monti, the Italian prime minister, is over as tax increases and reductions in pensions fuel recession, and both trade unions and business are unhappy at his labour sector reforms. This makes it harder for him to push through changes while calls mount for more positive European policies to help Italy through its difficulties; and Silvio Berlusconi lobbed in a political grenade by saying that an Italian exit from the eurozone was "not blasphemy" and might not hurt the country's economy.

Above all, Merkel is resisting the growing chorus of calls for her to relax her resistance to measures that could ease the pressure on other countries to reduce their debts, and her limitation of Germany's readiness to commit itself further to bailout packages. She and Hollande have avoided an outright confrontation so far but it is difficult to see a collision being put off much further unless one or other cedes ground. Facing a federal election next year, Merkel will not wish to be seen by a suspicious German electorate as a lady ready for turning; Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister, took the occasion of the Rome summit to warn Greece that it must fulfil the conditions of its aid programme with no room for manoeuvre on the target of reducing debt to 120% of GDP by 2020.

As Simon Tilford notes in a report for the Centre for European Reform, Germany seems to have a sense of invulnerability amid the storms around it. "For many Germans, including many senior policymakers, the crisis seems to be someone else's problem," Tilford writes. "Merkel's obduracy is widely credited with striking a blow for Germany's national interests … This is puzzling, because Germany is much more vulnerable than German policymakers appear to believe. And Germany's strategy for dealing with the crisis is maximising, not minimising, the risks to the country's economic and political interests."

He is right, but national psychologies are difficult to shake even if Merkel was persuaded of the need to do so. Equally, with the wind of his double election victories behind him, the French leader is unlikely to be the first to blink. He knows that he courts domestic disillusion if he does so. He is the first president of the fifth republic who has inherited a political party rather than forming one in his own image, and that comes with a price in a country where many on the left (not to mention the Front National) are wary of a Europe they see as run by market-friendly bureaucrats ready to act in contravention of the democratic verdict of voters.

The trouble is that more papering over of the euro-cracks is not going to pass muster, not only with markets but also with jaundiced citizens who are realising the extent to which their leaders have failed to get to grips with the ongoing crisis. Hollande's big pro-growth story may have appeared a panacea but his policy of fiscal pumping rather than structural reform will not please the Germans and offers no longer-term solution to France's lack of competitiveness – highlighted by news that Air France-KLM (in which the state has a 16% stake) is to cut 5,000 jobs in France after losing €597m in the first quarter of this year, a harbinger of more bad tidings in a country with a 10% unemployment rate. French unions warn that 45,000 jobs in all may go in all in sectors such as steel, telecoms and automobiles.

Hollande may have won office as the prophet of expansion but his promises involve apparently irreconcilable aims. Adding to the 56% of GDP already accounted for by state spending, his pledges in areas such as education will unbalance the economy further. Hitting this year's state deficit target of 4.5% of GDP will need additional savings of €10bn, while achieving the 3% goal for 2013 will require an extra €25bn, and at a time of weak growth. Simply soaking the rich through higher taxes will not be enough. Something else will have to give.

On the European front, the Franco-German entente on which the present European framework – and the euro – was built has changed in nature as Berlin has become a political power as well as the continent's economic motor. The heritage of leadership from Paris handed down by Charles de Gaulle has evaporated. But the election of Hollande was, in part, a refusal by France's voters to submit to policies dictated from across the Rhine – even if German funding will be needed for the eurozone public works programme the new president wants, and even if the strong nationalist vote in both France's elections bodes ill for the sovereignty-surrendering fiscal union the eurozone needs to function efficiently.

Germany's policies may be what Europe should need for its long-term health, but the crisis management on offer is far more short-term. Mr Normal has to play with the hand he dealt himself, and the backing he has been receiving may end up by making Germany all the more determined to stick to its guns; the more isolated Merkel is, the more she may need to prove her determination to the electorate. The Hollande saga is, indeed, only just beginning, and its outcome is far less certain than the impressive electoral margin of victory he and his party racked up might suggest.

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Greek PM to miss vital EU summit

Greek PM to miss vital EU summit

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Greece’s New Leaders to Miss Crucial European Meeting

Both the newly installed prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and his nominee for finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, have been hospitalized since Friday.





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Greece's New Leaders to Miss Crucial Meeting


Sydney Morning Herald

Greece's New Leaders to Miss Crucial Meeting
New York Times
Both the newly installed prime minister, Antonis Samaras, and his nominee for finance minister, Vassilis Rapanos, have been hospitalized since Friday.
Greece's Auditors Postpone Athens VisitWall Street Journal
Greek PM to miss EU summit, "troika" postpones tripReuters
Greece outlines bailout revisions ahead of talksSan Francisco Chronicle
Pittsburgh Post Gazette -Sydney Morning Herald -Businessweek
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Greece is the word


Greece is the word
Philippine Star
Greece is the word.” All eyes were on Greece as the financial world was counting down to June 17, the date of Greek elections.


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Greek PM to miss EU summit, "troika" postpones trip


Greek PM to miss EU summit, "troika" postpones trip
WXXI
Greek PM to miss EU summit, "troika" postpones trip. (2012-06-24). Newly appointed Greek PM Samaras arrives for the first cabinet meeting of his government at ...


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Greece's Auditors Postpone Athens Visit


Sydney Morning Herald

Greece's Auditors Postpone Athens Visit
Wall Street Journal
Greece's international auditors were forced to put off a visit to Athens as health problems sidelined both the nation's new prime minister and finance minister, just ...
Greek PM to miss EU summit, "troika" postpones tripReuters
Greece outlines bailout revisions ahead of talksSan Francisco Chronicle
Greece outlines issues to be renegotiatedPittsburgh Post Gazette
Sydney Morning Herald -Businessweek -Chicago Tribune
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Greek Auditors Postpone Athens Visit, PM to Miss EU Summit


Greek Auditors Postpone Athens Visit, PM to Miss EU Summit
Wall Street Journal
Instead, Mr. Samaras will be represented by a senior Greek government delegation led by the country's foreign minister. Accompanying Foreign Minister Dimitris ...

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Press Watch, June 24

All eyes are firmly locked on the newly formed government this Sunday, as the Greek press try and make sense out of the choppy waters that Samaras and co have immediately faced.

You can understand the tense focus. After two electional battles, after the country all but reaching breaking point amid a storm of Grexit scenarios and after a tight confrontation between New Democracy and Syriza, the country perhaps faced the formation of a new government with (...)

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Greek PM to miss EU summit due to eye surgery

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will not attend the forthcoming critical EU summit in Brussels on June 28, as doctors advised him against air travel following an urgent eye surgery he underwent on Saturday.

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Greek PM to miss EU summit after eye surgery: govt

Newly-elected Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will not attend next week's EU summit as he is recovering from serious eye surgery, the government spokesman said on Sunday.

Greece will be represented at the June 28-29 summit by Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos, who will be accompanied by acting Finance Minister George Zannias, spokesman Simos Kedikogkou told reporters.

Kedikoglou said Samaras' surgeon had "strictly forbidden" a voyage.


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Greek PM cannot attend EU summit due to surgery

FILE - Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras takes part in a swearing in ceremony officiated by Greece's Orthodox Archbishop Ieronimos at the Presidential palace in Athens, in this Thursday, June 21, 2012 file photo. Samaras underwent surgery for a detached retina Saturday June 23, 2012. Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said Sunday that the doctor treating him had forbidden him from flying. So he will not be well enough to travel to a critical European Union summit in Brussels . (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)Greece's new Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will not be well enough to travel to a critical European Union summit in Brussels after undergoing an eye operation.






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Greek prime minister cannot attend EU summit due to eye surgery, will send ...


The Guardian

Greek prime minister cannot attend EU summit due to eye surgery, will send ...
Washington Post
ATHENS, Greece — Greece's new Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will not be well enough to travel to a critical European Union summit in Brussels after undergoing an eye operation, the government said Sunday. Samaras, 61, underwent surgery for a detached ...
Greek PM cannot attend EU summit due to surgeryThe Associated Press
Greek PM and finance minister to miss key EU summit due to health problemsThe Guardian
Greek PM Samaras to miss EU summit following surgeryBBC News
Reuters
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Greek PM cannot attend EU summit due to surgery




Greece has been dependent since May 2010 on funds from two international rescue loan deals with other European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund, in return for which it imposed a series of deep spending cuts and tax hikes.

Anti-bailout parties made massive gains in Greece's May 6 and June 17 elections, with Greeks furious at the drop in living standards by measures that have left the country struggling through a fifth year of recession and sent unemployment spiraling to above 22 percent.

The new government on Saturday issued a policy statement outlining what it aims to change in its bailout conditions, saying it would seek to repeal some taxes, halt layoffs and extend by two years the mid-2014 deadline for tough austerity measures.

"The general aim is no more cuts to salaries and pensions, no more taxes," the statement said, adding the government would not carry out any public sector layoffs.


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Samaras and Rapanos to miss EU summit.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who underwent eye surgery on Saturday, will not attend a summit of EU leaders on June 28-29, when Greece will seek to ease the punishing terms of its international bailout, a government spokesman said.

Incoming Finance Minister Vassilis Rapanos will also miss the summit having been rushed to hospital on Friday before he could be sworn in, complaining of nausea, intense abdominal pains and dizziness. He remains in hospital.

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Greece government says PM not well enough to travel to EU summit ...


Greece government says PM not well enough to travel to EU summit ...
Washington Post
Athens, GREECEGreece government says PM not well enough to travel to EU summit; Foreign Minister to attend.

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New Greek leader Samaras to miss key EU summit


Telegraph.co.uk

New Greek leader Samaras to miss key EU summit
Telegraph.co.uk
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, who had eye surgery on Saturday, will not attend this week's key EU leaders summit, where the new government will attempt to ease the harsh terms of its bailout, a government spokesman said.
Greek PM, incoming finance minister to miss EU summitReuters
Greek PM cannot attend EU summitCBC.ca

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Greek PM and finance minister to miss key EU summit due to health problems

Foreign minister and outgoing finance minister will instead attend talks where Greece will ask for austerity concessions

The new Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, who underwent eye surgery on Saturday, will not attend a key summit of EU leaders this week, when Athens will seek to ease the punishing terms of its international bailout.

The incoming finance minister Vassilis Rapanos will also miss the summit having been rushed to hospital on Friday before he could be sworn in, complaining of nausea, intense abdominal pains and dizziness. He remains in hospital.

Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said Greece would be represented at the EU summit by foreign minister Dimitris Avramopoulos and outgoing finance minister George Zanias.

Samaras underwent successful surgery to repair a damaged retina and Kedikoglou said he would leave hospital on Monday. "The orders of his doctor are for him not to travel and to stay at home for a few days," he said. The hospital said his condition was "good and improving."

A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said inspectors from Greece's "troika" of lenders – the EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – were considering postponing "for a few days" a visit to Athens that was due to start on Monday.

They are expected to review the state of play in the implementation of reforms sought by Greece's lenders, given the time lost to two elections since early May.

Samaras's conservative New Democracy narrowly won the 17 June election that saw the radical leftist Syriza bloc surge into second place on a promise to tear up the terms of Greece's €130bn bailout, potentially forcing Greece out of Europe's single currency.

A coalition government of New Democracy, socialist Pasok and the small Democratic Left was sworn in on Thursday. It said it would renegotiate the painful terms of the bailout, which is keeping Greece from bankruptcy but at the cost of harsh economic suffering.

Under a coalition programme seen by Reuters on Saturday, the government will seek tax cuts, extra help for the poor and unemployed, a freeze on public sector lay-offs and more time to cut its deficit, responding to pressure from a society facing its fifth year of recession.

The programme is likely to run into strong opposition from Greece's eurozone partners, notably paymaster Germany, who have offered adjustments but no radical rewrite of conditions.


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Greek PM to miss summit

GREECE'S government says its new prime minister will not be well enough to travel to a critical European Union summit in Brussels.






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