Good evening ! Here some items of interest regarding Greece for your consideration !

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9087653/Just-as-Greece-complies-at-last-Europe-pulls-the-plug.html

The regime of drastic cuts has tipped the economy into a violent downward spiral. They thought that private industry would muddle through as the state went through the austerity mincer. What the EU-IMF "Troika" did not fully understand is how many firms were really part of the state in disguise.

"The Greek government outsources everything," said one official with close knowledge of the events.

Faced with the guillotine, the state first slashed procurement contracts and then stopped paying its bills altogether. The government is now €7bn (£5.8bn) in arrears to private companies, including €3bn in unpaid VAT refunds for exporters. It is why business has borne the brunt of the fiscal squeeze, suffering 450,000 job losses, and why Greece's unemployment has soared to 21pc.

At the same time the banking system seized up. More than €60bn of deposits were withdrawn. By November, no Greek bank could issue a letter of credit accepted anywhere in the world, with calamitous implications for trade – and for exporters trying to meet Troika demands for export-led recovery. "Greece became a leper, and is now stuck in Catch-22," said one official.

Hellenic Petroleum was unable to import basic fuel. The reason why Greece's reliance on oil imports from Iran jumped from 15pc to 70pc in a two-week period in November was because Tehran agreed to take on the credit risk."They need to find some way to unblock this or the Greek economy is going to suffocate from lack of oxygen: we are reaching the limits," said Dimitris Daskalopoulos, head of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises. The economy contracted at a rate of 7pc in the fourth quarter of 2011. Manufacturing fell 15.5pc in December from a year before.

Mr Daskalopoulos now seems resigned to a ghastly denouement, fearing that Greece has been turned into a "useful victim" for countries pursuing their own political agenda. "They need to stop pretending that Greece is a special case and decide once and for all what they are going to do with all the culprits or PIGS [Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain] and what they want Europe itself to be. Are they really going to flush Greece down the toilet and hope it will disappear from planet earth?" he said.

The rhetoric has turned poisonous as Berlin, Helsinki and The Hague show every sign that they intend to eject Greece from the euro whatever it now does, calculating that the eurozone is at last strong enough to withstand contagion.

German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is raising fresh demands, suggesting that Greece should postpone April's elections and appoint a technocrat government for a year without key PASOK and New Democracy parties, prompting the headline "Schaeuble Junta" in newspaper Eleftheros Typos.

The unprecedented meddling in the internal affairs of Greek democracy was angrily rejected by President Karolous Papoulias, the softly spoken elder statesman who fought against the Nazis as a teenager. "Who is Mr Schaeuble to insult Greece? Who are the Dutch? Who are the Finns?" he said.

It has fallen to Italian premier Mario Monti – with support from French socialists – to champion Greece and the eurozone's southern bloc against the austerity doctrines of the German-led group of AAA creditors.

"The very tough approach being taken toward Greece is probably excessive. There are no good guys and bad guys. We are all responsible," he said, noting acidly that Germany and France were among the first to violate the EU's Stability Pact.

The claim that Greece has failed to comply with the Troika demands is exaggerated. The primary budget deficit has fallen from 10.6pc in 2009 to 2.4pc in 2011, eight times the Thatcher squeeze in the early 1980s. Poul Thomsen, head of the IMF's mission, said the refrain that Greeks are recidivist violators "because of something in their DNA" had become insulting.

The Greeks clearly have an allergy to paying taxes. Their slang term for tax is the Turkish word "haradsi", a legacy from the Ottoman Empire which extracted tribute and conscripted Janissaries for the army without offering much in exchange. It is almost a virtue to cheat the tax authorities, a habit that dies hard.

Yet drastic reforms are under way. The Evangelismos public hospital in Athens has cut its operating costs to €112m last year from €149m in 2009, even though the number of patients had risen from 82,000 to 99,700 – due to the reliance of the newly pauperised middle class on public health.

"We have re-engineered the hospital," said Michael Theodorou, the hopital's director. Drug costs have been slashed by 30pc by switching to generics. His audit discovered that the price of one of the drugs used fell from €27to €3.83. "We never used to count the cost."

Greece's privatisation drive has undoubtedly stalled. The Hellenic Republic Assets Development Fund was supposed to raise €5bn last year, payable into a special account for debt repayment. It raised just €1.7bn, all from low-hanging fruit. The Troika has abandoned its target of €50bn by 2015, agreeing to a €19bn. The rest will be stretched out.

Costas Mitropoulos, the official in charge of the project, said is "totally unfair" to describe this as non-compliance. There is no historical precedent in the world for such breakneck privatisation. The closest parallel is the Treuhand disposal in East Germany after reunification, but that took 12 years, and the manager was "shot dead" by the Red Army Faction, Mr Mitropoulos said with a thin smile.

It is a tall order to find buyers when the Greek economy is in free-fall, and there is open talk of a Greek default and euro exit. Not even Anglo-Saxon vulture funds will nibble. "Investors are not prepared to commit funds until uncertainty is down to manageable and hedgeable levels," he said.

Mr Mitroupoulis said half the assets are Greek property. They cannot be dumped at once on the market with causing a further crash in prices. "The Troika fully understand the difficulties," he said.

The leaders of Germany, Finland, and Holland are less amenable, if they are still listening at all.

and......

Greece awaits eurozone verdict

 Athens says it has met all bailout conditions, sources suggest ECB is poised to swap its Greek bonds

A woman walks past a lottery seller post during a rainy day in Athens on Thursday.

Greece believes it has met all the conditions demanded by its eurozone partners and is hoping that the Eurogroup will approve on Monday a new bailout, although there is speculation that a final decision will be taken at a special eurozone leaders’ summit in Brussels on March 2.
Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis on Thursday confirmed that Athens had found how it would save 325 million euros, as demanded by the eurozone, and had no more loose ends to tie up. “The process for the new program and the cuts have been concluded,” he said. “There are no more economic issues outstanding.”
Kapsis denied that during a teleconference on Wednesday some eurozone finance ministers had suggested obtaining from Greece’s smaller parties a commitment to the package of austerity measures and structural reforms Parliament passed on Sunday.
Kapsis also declined to respond to a suggestion from German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble that Greece should postpone elections planned for April and install a technocratic government instead. “I have nothing to say in response to Mr Schauble,” said Kapsis. “It is absolutely up to Greece when to hold elections.”
Tension has grown this week between Greece and some of its eurozone partners over the conditions Athens has to meet for the next bailout of at least 130 billion euros.
Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager added to the pressure on Greece Thursday. “We’re back at square one,” he told Dutch MPs. “Greece is in a much worse state than had been anticipated at the time.”
When eurozone leaders agreed on more help for Greece in October, the country’s debt was expected to fall to 120 percent of GDP by 2020, which was taken to be the maximum threshold. The new level is now expected to be closer to 129 percent, according to the latest study by the International Monetary Fund.

In a new development aimed at reducing this debt, the European Central Bank is set to exchange its holdings of Greek bonds into new notes ahead of a deal for private bondholders to accept a haircut, eurozone sources told Reuters Thursday. The ECB is thought to hold 50 billion euros of Greek bonds, which it bought at a discount. A swap could reduce Greek debt by another 10-15 billion euros. and a prelude to nothing getting done Monday - a reference to the March Summit called by Rompuy..... 18.38 We are hearing reports that Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, has called a special euro summit on March 2. The meeting will reportedly focus on the single currency area's debt firewall and electing a new eurozone chief.  18.14 German Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter has said Greece must deliver or face an undesirable course. 18.12 Greek journalist Efthimia Efthimiou: and...... 16.57 More rumors swirling. This time: the eurozone central bank debt swap deal will spare their bonds from any part in losses (collective action clauses). The new bonds will reportedly have the same characteristics as the original bonds. 16.50 Greek conservative party leader Antonis Samaras says there is cautious optimism on outcome of Euro Group meeting on Monday. He adds that Greece has done all it had to do to secure the bail-out. Government spokesman Pantelis Kapsis confirms the country has met all its pledges, and states that it is up to Greece when it holds elections. 16.41 German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has told SW2 radio that Greece might install a technocratic government excluding Venizelos and Samaras. 16.17 So, the Greek talk today is that everything hinges on Monday's Euro Group meeting. It was looking good - the €325m funding gap has reportedly been filled, the PSI could start on February 22, and the only sticking point is over an escrow account. However, the spanner in the works has come from Greece's far right Laos party, which has refused to commit to the government's austerity measures - no austerity, no bail-out. 15.52 Here we go. An unnamed German lawmaker has told Dow Jones that finance ministers "are still not fully certain whether a positive decision can be made on Monday". 15.30 A German coalition source has told Reuters that if the Euro Group decides on a package on Monday then the PSI (worth €100bn) will start on February 22 and end March 9. The source reaffirms that the aid package amounts to €130bn but points still open include escrow account for debt redemption and better control of savings. The Euro Group is also allegedly awaiting for the Laos far right party to commit to continue the reforms. But a senior Laos lawmaker has said his party will not commit to the austerity package passed by parliament.