Euro zone demands more from Greece, delays decision on aid

[GliderGuider]

Source: Reuters

Skeptical euro zone finance ministers demanded on Saturday that Greece go beyond painful austerity measures accepted by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras if he wants them to open negotiations on a third bailout for his bankrupt country to keep it in the euro.

The ministers postponed until Sunday a decision on whether to recommend starting talks on a new loan for Athens and sought further commitments first on product market liberalization, labor laws, privatization, state reform and more defense cuts, plus a promise to pass key laws next week, officials said.

Highlighting the depth of reluctance to grant another rescue to Greece after two bailouts since 2010 worth 240 billion euros, Germany's finance ministry put forward a paper demanding stronger Greek measures or a five-year "time-out" from the euro zone that looked like a disguised expulsion.

Ministers lined up to vent their anger at Tsipras on arrival at their umpteenth emergency meeting on Greece's debt crisis, with Athens staring into an economic abyss unless it wins a pledge of fresh aid before financial markets reopen on Monday.

Read more: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKBN0P40EO20150711

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It looks like Varoufakis was right in his Guardian article on Friday: Germany won’t spare Greek pain – it has an interest in breaking us.

In my first week as minister for finance I was visited by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the Eurogroup (the eurozone finance ministers), who put a stark choice to me: accept the bailout’s “logic” and drop any demands for debt restructuring or your loan agreement will “crash” – the unsaid repercussion being that Greece’s banks would be boarded up.

[Ghost Dog]

1. So the EU is finished. It's over.

Let the Games begin.



(Or else we expel Germany & sycophantic followers, and regroup around just France).

[abelenkpe]

5. Have you seen this short video?

Pretty surprised it's lasted this long.

[Ghost Dog]

7. Yes. Those transfers from richer to poorer were part of the idea

(surplus recycling). However, Germany apparently is happy growing richer & fatter (on a cheap for them Euro) at the expense of the rest.

Game over.

It's gonna get nasty now.

[Hydra]

15. That's a really great video

Hits all the points I've been trying to make.

[cstanleytech]

2. I support the trust fund idea................somewhat.

But it shouldnt be for paying the debt it should be for helping the Greek people themselves do things like paying for college and also starting up businesses with no interest loans, after all the sooner Greece recovers the sooner they can begin paying down the debt.

[Hydra]

16. We're way past the point of them doing something to help Greek recovery

Someone else called it disaster capitalism at work, and it sure looks like what they casually did to South American countries. They just want the assets and whatever money is left...and then they will withdraw, or keep them chained to the debt for decades.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. Fuck it. Time for Greece to take a hike and not look back.

[Ghost Dog]

4. Do you understand at what exchange-rate to other currencies a Deutschmark

would be at today? The for them cheap Euro makes German elites extremely rich, and German industry very unjustly competitive, compared to others. At the expense of their so-called 'partners'.

Look at the Swiss SNB printing & blowing so many CHF on buying Euros, just so that country's traders can also suck the lifeblood out of the rest of us on the cheap.

[abelenkpe]

6. Ah never mind above post...you clearly get it. :)

[Ghost Dog]

8. 'Fraid so.

[roamer65]

10. The current USD to DM exchange rate is .57 USD, within the ERM2.

If the DM comes out of ERM2 (aka the Euro), I suspect it would go to .80 USD at the very least. The old DM within ERM2 is probably devalued by at least 40 percent.
The German "economic miracle" would end with such a revaluation. Germany had better think about the ramifications of how it's acting right now.

[Ghost Dog]

12. It's now too late for Germany's 'leaders'.

The damage is done.

(Note: I cannot bring myself to blame (at least thoughtful) ordinary German people, who are equally victims of the 'elites').

[roamer65]

17. True. For example, if I were PM of Italy, I would be issuing orders on Monday for the plan to reconvert to lira.

I would realize it's just a matter of time and I'm next.

[roamer65]

9. As much as I dislike Nigel Farage's UK domestic policies, he's dead on right about the EU.

Time for Greece and Britain to leave. Poor Portugal is next, followed by Spain and Italy.

The French had better start planning the return to the franc.

[pampango]

13. It's not just UKIP but the far-right all over Europe that will celebrate th

the demise of the EU.

[roamer65]

14. Very true, Marine Le Pen in France makes UKIP look like socialists.

The NF in France is that virulently racist and xenophobic.

Germany has got to back off and take a "chill pill". So does Finland.

[geek tragedy]

11. They're probably venting.

No one trusts Greece's government. No one.

[ladjf]

18. It looks like the Euro Zone wants to evict the Greek citizens

for failing to pay their mortgage. They have created an unsolvable financial situation. Hypothetically, if all the Greeks left the Country,
would everything of value be turned over to the banks? And then what?