Greece’s bailout was at risk of unraveling as a governing coalition party pushed back against German demands for deeper budget cuts needed to prevent financial collapse.
Greek police used tear gas to counter demonstrators in Athens as Prime Minister Lucas Papademos called a meeting of his ministers this evening to discuss a bill detailing the austerity measures to be put to a parliamentary vote this weekend. The Cabinet was due to meet after one minister and three deputies from the Laos party as well as a Socialist minister said they were quitting in protest at the steps worked out for a rescue.

“What has particularly bothered me is the humiliation of the country,” George Karatzaferis, whose Laos party has 16 members in the 300-seat parliament, said in televised comments. “Clearly Greece can’t and shouldn’t do without the European Union but it could do without the German boot.”
Karatzaferis spoke hours after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers in Berlin that Greece was missing deficit goals and had to do more to meet the targets in the 130 billion-euro ($172 billion) bailout being negotiated.

With Greece’s second rescue package in the balance, the parties that support Papademos’s interim government are meeting ahead of parliamentary votes on the new measures. Lawmakers from both the Socialist Pasok party and the New Democracy party that leads in opinion polls before elections due as soon as April will meet to discuss the steps tomorrow.

Stocks Fall
Global stocks fell for the first time in four days and the euro weakened from yesterday’s two-month high against the dollar as the plan for Greece ran into turbulence.
Underscoring the mood in Athens, police scuffled with protesters as Greek unions held the first day of a 48-hour strike against the austerity measures demanded by the so-called troika of international creditors who monitor progress made by Greece.

Schaeuble, briefing lawmakers on troika estimates relayed to euro-area finance ministers in Brussels yesterday, said that current plans would leave Greece’s debt as high as 136 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, according to two people in the meeting in Berlin. That compares with the 120 percent foreseen in the country’s second bailout. Debt was about 160 percent of GDP last year.
“The Greek offer is not sufficient and they have to go away to come up with a revised plan,” Bertrand Benoit, a spokesman for the German Finance Ministry, said by telephone.

Juncker’s Conditions
Emergency talks of euro-area finance chiefs broke up late last night with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker saying Greece must turn its budget cuts into law, flesh out 325 million euros in spending reductions and have its major party leaders sign up to the program so they don’t retreat after upcoming elections. Another extraordinary meeting was set for Feb. 15.

“In short: no disbursement without implementation,” Juncker said. “We can’t live with this system while promises are repeated and repeated and repeated and implementation measures are sometimes too weak,” he said.

In a bid to pressure his country’s lawmakers, Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the parliamentary vote on budget cuts amounted to a ballot on euro membership.
‘Salvation and Future’

“If we see the salvation and future of the country in the euro area, in Europe, we have to do whatever we have to do to get the program approved,” Venizelos said in Brussels.
Resolution of the aid talks, which have dragged on since July, would allow Greece to make a 14.5 billion-euro bond payment on March 20 and contain the threat that speculators will target debt-saddled nations including Italy and Portugal.

The standoff put the spotlight on the leaders of the three Greek political parties backing the caretaker government of Papademos, a former European Central Bank vice president. Greece’s private-sector union GSEE called a 48-hour strike, shutting down schools, government services, and some public transit for the second time this week.

“They want to privatize the entire country,” Ploumitsa Triantafillopoulou, 42, who works for an organization that promotes daycare facilities for children, said today in an interview. “All of us here we will lose our jobs. They don’t care for us. They don’t care for the people of Greece.”

Hardline
Europe’s hardline stance follows more than two years in which Greece failed to carry through promised reforms to tackle its uncompetitive economy and meet the terms for aid. Greece blamed its shortcomings on a deepening recession now set to worsen with reports yesterday showing unemployment jumping to 20.9 percent in November and industrial production declining.

Bondholders met separately in Paris yesterday to discuss accepting an average coupon of as low as 3.6 percent on new 30- year bonds in the proposed debt swap. An agreement would slice 100 billion euros off more than 200 billion euros of privately- held debt and a formal offer must be made by Feb. 13 to allow all procedures to be completed before the March 20 bond comes due. European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said the deal is “practically finalized.”

The Brussels meeting, attended by International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, came hours after Papademos and party chiefs ended a week of meetings with a deal on fresh budget cuts.

The measures are aimed at delivering budget reductions totaling 1.5 percent of GDP this year and range from a 20 percent paring of the minimum wage to lower pension payments and immediate job cuts for as many as 15,000 state workers

"Stocks added to losses Friday, on track to logging their worst session this year, after stalled debt negotiations in Greece, some disappointing economic news and reports that S&P downgraded a handful of Italian banks.

In the latest disappointment from the euro zone, ratings agency S&P downgraded 34 of 37 Italian banks, citing worries over the banking industry and economic risks in the country"




Anyone who beleives the happy talk about the Eurotrash getting this all squared away in time spring break simply is not paying attention


Doom, dispair and agony on eU(you)

SevenSeventeen wrote:

"Stocks added to losses Friday, on track to logging their worst session this year, after stalled debt negotiations in Greece, some disappointing economic news and reports that S&P downgraded a handful of Italian banks.

In the latest disappointment from the euro zone, ratings agency S&P downgraded 34 of 37 Italian banks, citing worries over the banking industry and economic risks in the country"




Anyone who beleives the happy talk about the Eurotrash getting this all squared away in time spring break simply is not paying attention


Doom, dispair and agony on eU(you)

actually if youve been jumping in and out of the markets the last month their was a shitload of money to be made


ive been to busy with my new chinese and european overlords
but my jap girl and MS got me covered

they can make fun all they want by the way

theyre throwing dump trucks of money at me

HAIL YELLOW NIGGAS !!!!!!!

hey if ya work hard ya make money
if ya dont work hard ya make squat
if ya plant alfalfa ya get alfalfa ....and ponies



whats changed anyway
its the same ol song and dance

theyre this close to a deal
talks broke down
theyre this close to a deal

talks broke down


greece will be forced out and all we're waiting on is for italy and spain to get to the point where it should push the entire union off the edge and into depths of disintegration

along with a french wild card/sideshow of hallendale
spring and summer is gonna be pretty interesting

go greece !

fuck eu