Prime Minister Antonis Samaras held emergency talks with key cabinet ministers over the weekend as officials from the three parties in the coalition continued feverish negotiations in a bid to lock down an austerity deal with the troika, submit it to Parliament this week and secure the release of crucial rescue funding.
The aim of Samaras and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, who has been leading negotiations with the troika on a 13.5-billion-euro austerity package and a raft of structural reforms, is to overcome the reservations of Democratic Left to proposed labor reforms and those of socialist PASOK to the possible abolition of certain social benefits and to a bill aimed at fast-tracking privatization projects through Parliament. With a political agreement in hand, the plan would be to submit the reforms to Parliament by Wednesday and vote on them as soon as possible after that.
After a six-hour meeting with Samaras and several ministers on Saturday, Stournaras said «major progress» had been achieved but provided little detail.
European officials are pushing for an acceleration of the process, with a Euro Working Group scheduled to resume on Monday and a eurozone finance ministers’ teleconference scheduled for Wednesday. Sources in Brussels indicated over the weekend that Wednesday’s summit may lead to a decision on the release of a 31.5-billion-euro rescue loan that Greece needs to remain solvent as well as the granting of a two-year extension to the country’s fiscal adjustment period.
Back in Athens though, a political deal appeared elusive as Democratic Left appeared unrepentant in its opposition to the bulk of the proposed labor reforms. However Kathimerini understands that Samaras and PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos have agreed to rally their party ranks and push the austerity and reform package through Parliament even if Democratic Left resists. According to sources, the coalition leaders have taken a common line on the issue of severance for employees dismissed from private sector firms – that they should receive full compensation if they have worked for the same employer for at least 16 years. The partners also reportedly agreed on the dismissal of 25,000 civil servants by the end of 2013.
Πηγή: Ekathimerini.com
Ongoing strike action by judges, who object to the government’s plans to slash their salaries, has crippled the country’s courts, which had been struggling anyway due to staff shortages and cutbacks, Kathimerini understands.
Walkouts by judges and prosecutors in the past two months have led to additional delays in the dispensation of justice – already laboriously slow – with criminal, administrative and civil cases piling up to unprecedented levels. First instance courts are said to be the most neglected, with judges and prosecutors reportedly making increasingly rare appearances.
A recent decision by the country’s judges and prosecutors to extend their protest to November 10 prompted an angry response from Supreme Court prosecutor Yiannis Tentes, who described the action as unconstitutional.
Πηγή: Ekathimerini.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/lagarde-list-of-swiss-bank-accounts-leaked-2012-10
The Controversial 'Lagarde List' Has Leaked, And It's Bad News For The Greek Prime Minister
The list contains the names of 1,991 Greeks with bank accounts at HSBC's Geneva branch, and it got its name after Christine Lagarde gave it to former Greek finance minister Giorgos Papakonstantinou in 2010.
The list has been kept secret by the Greek government ever since.
Lately, the question of whether or not the accounts have been used by wealthy Greeks to evade taxes while its country is in dire fiscal shape has generated a political firestorm.
A few names on the list could create problems for the current prime minister, Antonis Samaras, who is desperately trying to bring parliament together over a controversial package of spending cuts in order to secure the next disbursement of much-needed bailout cash from troika lenders.
The big one is Georgios Voulgarakis, the speaker of the Greek parliament and a high-ranking member of Samaras' political party, New Democracy.
The New York Times has more on Voulgarakis, citing Hot Doc, the Greek magazine that published the list:
The magazine also carried a long report on Mr. Voulgarakis. According to Hot Doc, the parliamentary speaker opened an account at HSBC in 2003 that was jointly managed by him, his wife and an offshore company based in Liberia.
According to the magazine, the deposits do not show up on Mr. Voulgarakis’s tax declarations.
Mr. Voulgarakis, a former government minister who was investigated but later exonerated in another high-profile corruption inquiry, issued a statement saying, “I declare categorically that neither my wife nor I have any offshore companies or foreign bank accounts.”
Another name on the list is Stavros Papastavros, an advisor to Samaras.
Finally, the list contains the names of officials in the finance ministry, which has been at the center of the crisis in Greece. The list went inexplicably missing for more than a year after outgoing finance minister Papakonstantinou passed it to incoming finance minister Evangelos Venizelos in 2011.
One wealthy Greek businessman in the defense industry and another former government official involved in defense deals who both recently turned up dead in alleged suicides were not included in the list.
However, the Greek magazine that published the list, Hot Doc, stressed that it couldn't be sure whether the list had been edited before being given to the magazine.
A Daily Kos blogger cites local media in saying that the Greek government has already issued a warrant for the arrest of the publisher of Hot Doc:
While the official reason given by the Hellenic Police regarding the warrant issued against [Kostas] Vaxevanis is the violation of privacy laws relating to the personal information of the individuals on this list, the general opinion in Greece, particularly on the country's active blogosphere and social media landscape, is that Greek authorities are attempting to silence Vaxevanis and to "punish" him for publishing the Lagarde list.
Notably, unofficial versions of the list have been circulating on the Internet in recent weeks, while yesterday evening, zougla.gr, a website run by journalist Makis Triantafillopoulos, published the list just hours before the special edition of Hot Doc containing the list reached newsstands. As of the time of this writing, no similar warrants have been issued against Triantafillopoulos, who in Greece is largely regarded as a politician with very close ties to the political ruling class, for publishing the list.
Scans of the magazine pages on which the full list of names is published can be viewed at zougla.gr.
and Italy protests are growing larger and violent.....
http://rt.com/news/italy-austerity-protest-clashes-384/
Violent clashes erupt as Italy protests austerity (VIDEO)
Published: 27 October, 2012, 23:45
Demonstrators march on the ring road during the No Monti Day demonstration on October 27, 2012 in Rome (AFP Photo / STR)
(4.6Mb)
Screen shot from AP video
Screen shot from AP video
Screen shot from AP videoand....
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-27/thousands-italians-march-against-austerity-no-monti-day-berlusconi-threatens-scuttle
( Sooner or later Silvio B was going to try to pull the rug out from Monti ! )
As Thousands Of Italians March Against Austerity On "No Monti Day", Berlusconi Threatens To Scuttle Monti Government
- Bond
- European Central Bank
- Germany
- Greece
- Italy
- Nicolas Sarkozy
- Recession
- Reuters
- Silvio Berlusconi
- Tax Fraud
- Tim Geithner
- Unemployment
First, it was Greece who failed to stick with the "do not rock the boat until the US election" script so meticulously crafted by Tim Geithner, and now it is Italy's turn as Europe threatens to come unhinged precisely in the week when complete peace and quiet is needed to avoid deflecting attention from the peak season of the US presidential theater. As Reuters reports, "Tens of thousands of people marched through Rome in a "No Monti Day" on Saturday, some throwing eggs and spraying graffiti to protest against austerity measures introduced by Prime Minister Mario Monti's government. Appointed in November when Italy risked being sucked into the euro zone debt crisis, Monti has pushed through painful austerity measures to cut the country's massive debt, including tax hikes, spending cuts and a pension overhaul. "We are here against Monti and his politics, the same politics as all over Europe, that brought Greece to its knees and that are destroying half of Europe, public schools, health care," said demonstrator Giorgio Cremaschi... In another demonstration in northern Italy, a small group of protesters scuffled with police near where Monti was addressing a rally on the theme of family values."
So who gets to capitalize on the latest bout of surging discontent with the Goldman appointed technocrat? Why the same man who yesterday was sentenced to several years in jail (a sentence that will be never carried out of course), Silvio Berlusconi, and whom the ECB singlehandedly took down nearly a year ago, when it sent Italian bond yields to record highs: "The center-right bloc will decide "in the next few days" whether to withdraw confidence for Prime Minister Mario Monti in parliament or support him until elections in April, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Saturday. Monti's government of non-elected technocrats is backed by the center-left, the center and the center-right.It would have to resign if it lost the support of the entire center-right."
In other words, the man that many left for politically dead in the always entertaining Italian political scene, is about to come back with a stunning vengeance, and may even reclaim the throne that Goldman repossessed a year earlier.
From Reuters:
"We have to recognize the fact that the initiative of this government is a continuation of a spiral of recession for our economy," Berlusconi told a news conference in northern Italy a day after he was convicted and sentenced to four years for tax fraud related to his Mediaset media empire."Together with my collaborators we will decide in the next few days whether it is better to immediately withdraw our confidence in this government or keep it, given the elections that are scheduled," he said.The Monti government of non-elected technocrats is supported by the centre-left, the centre-right and the centre. It would lose its majority and have to resign if the entire centre-right, including Berlusconi's PDL party, withdrew support.
Unemployment in Italy has risen to 10.7 percent, its highest level since monthly records began in 2004, and unions are locked in disputes with companies over plant closures and layoffs.Berlusconi, a 76-year-old billionaire media magnate, gave no precise timing for when the decision on whether to keep supporting Monti or not would be made. An indication of the centre-right's strength will come on Sunday when Sicilians go to the polls to elect a new regional government.
Always one to have an immaculate sense of the public's pulse of discontent (if not so much contentment), Berlusconi continued:
Berlusconi also condemned the Monti government for following what he called the "hegemonistic" economic policies of Germany and accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of "trying to assassinate my international political credibility" when he was prime minister.
Berlusconi was convicted on Friday of inflating prices paid for television rights via offshore companies and skimming off money to create illegal slush funds.
The court imposed a five-year ban on running for political office but since the sentence does not come into effect until all appeals are exhausted, Berlusconi can run for parliament in the next national elections in April.
In an interview earlier on Saturday he had suggested that he might not leave front-line politics as expected, although he later confirmed that he would not be a candidate for prime minister. He did not rule out running for parliament.The former prime minister, who was convicted three times during the 1990s in the first degree before being cleared by higher courts, has the right to appeal the ruling two more times before the sentence becomes definitive.
He has often accused magistrates of waging a political war against him. "Ours is not a democracy but a dictatorship of the magistrature," he said, listing the amount of time and money he has had to spend to defend himself in trials he says are all based on unfounded accusations.
Then again, this is the same man who said he feels "obliged to stay in politics to reform Italy's justice system" the day after his conviction:
He announced what sounded like a political platform to undo many of Monti's reforms. And he warned that his People of Freedom party would be meeting in the coming days to decide whether to withdraw support from Monti's government and force early elections.
He said it would do so to end the "recessive spiral" that Monti's reforms had brought about.The rambling speech got personal at times, such as when he denounced a now-famous smirk about him shared by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's then-President Nicolas Sarkozy, which he termed an "attempted assassination of my international credibility."Berlusconi had wavered about his political future in the year since he was forced from office amid sex scandals and his inability to reassure financial markets that he could push through the economic reforms needed to ward off a debt crisis.
At the end of the day, for better or worse, it seems that the Italian people may once again be allowed to chose their elected leaders, which regardless of the outcome, is what democracy is truly about, and we are confident that even with Berlusconi back on top, the local electorate would be happier than being controlled by a proxy muppet of the world's most insidious investment banks-cum-hedge funds, whose only goal has always been a simple one: the enrich its shareholders, its partners, and the member of the global ruling oligarchy even more at the expense of the disappearing middle class.
and.......
http://rt.com/news/spanish-police-protest-cuts-387/
Spanish police rally against loss of Christmas bonus
Published: 27 October, 2012, 22:55
Spanish police officers take part in a demonstration against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in the center of Madrid on October 27, 2012. Hundreds of police officer gathered today in front of the Interior Ministry in Madrid to express their anger against the austerity measures and benefit cuts (AFP Photo / Cesar Manso)
Spanish police officers hold banners of the Spanish Confederation of Police (CEP) as they take part in a demonstration against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in the center of Madrid on October 27, 2012 (AFP Photo / Dominique Faget)
Spanish police officers hold banners of the Spanish Confederation of Police (CEP) as they take part in a demonstration against the Spanish government's latest austerity measures in the center of Madrid on October 27, 2012 (AFP Photo / Dominique Faget)and.....
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFBRE89Q0CB20121027
Greece to vote on labour reform despite coalition split
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ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece's government plans to put labour reforms demanded by foreign lenders to a parliamentary vote despite a junior coalition partner's refusal to back them, the finance minister said on Saturday.
The government will present the 2013 budget law - which contains the bulk of new austerity measures demanded by lenders - in parliament on Wednesday, and a separate bill with reforms including the contested labour measures a few days later, Yannis Stournaras said.
Near-bankrupt Greece needs a comprehensive deal on the austerity package and reforms to unlock its next tranche of aid before it runs out of cash in mid-November. Greece's gross public debt is equivalent to 171 percent of its economic output, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The Democratic Left party has the support of 16 deputies in the 300-seat parliament and the government - which has a 176-seat majority - could pass the package without its support.
But a vote against the package by the party would undermine the already fragile coalition and perhaps tempt other lawmakers to defect and vote against unpopular measures.
Athens has been locked in talks with its European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders on the austerity package for months, but a final agreement has been held up by Democratic Left's objections.
"The government plans to bring the budget bill to parliament on Wednesday," Stournaras told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. The bill including the labour reforms will follow days later, he said.
Samaras' government is still hoping the party, led by moderate leftist Fotis Kouvelis, changes its stance, but was prepared to move ahead without its support, a government official said.
"From the government's side we want to be ready on everything relating to the budget, reforms ... with or without Kouvelis's agreement," the official said.
and.....
BREAKING….Disaster for Athens as Troika advises EWG to reject austerity plans
Major eurozone crisis as Athens denied access to Nov 16th tranche
CRUNCH TIME
Surprise, surprise – the meeting that the EU flatly denied would happen today just wound up. The output is the biggest bombshell to hit the eurozone in a long time: Greece is to be denied access to the next bailout tranche….unless more cuts and reforms beyond those ‘agreed’ last Sunday are forthcoming.
In what looks to me like a pretty serious case of stabbing Antonis Samaras in the front, news is breaking in Athens as I write that an anonymous EU official has confirmed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report to the
Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) is damning about the cuts ‘agreed’ by Athens last Sunday. This is a direct quote from the document: (my emphasis)
Eurogroup Working Group (EWG) is damning about the cuts ‘agreed’ by Athens last Sunday. This is a direct quote from the document: (my emphasis)
“It is clear that Greece is off track and there is no chance they will cut the debt to 120 percent of GDP in 2020 as envisaged. It will be rather 136%. New prior actions will be needed, on top of the existing [ones] before any new tranches of eurozone and IMF emergency loans to Greece can be paid.“
Shortly after leaving the EWG meeting to leak its entire contents, the eurocrat noted in addition that the costs of a two year extension (the one Schäuble yesterday dismissed as “pure media speculation”) to the Greek repayment schedule “are now seen at around 30 billion euros”.
As per the long-hold Slog view that some disguised debt foregiveness would, in the end, be involved, the report also notes that ‘[debt] restructuring could take the form of a further reduction of the interest rate on existing loans to Greece and an extension of their maturities, but while that would reduce financing costs, alone it would not fill the funding gap’.
So, the good news is that a deal is on the table. The bad news is, Greece hasn’t fulfilled its side of the bargain….assuming anyone in Athens was ever clear WTF that bargain was in the first place.
I cannot emphasize too much how significant a piece of news this is….so significant in fact, that it’s been leaked just as most European financial and media executives were drifting off for the Friday lunch followed by another weekend of quiet denial in which to recover from reality.
These are the immediate ramifications that occur to me:
1. The Samaras Coalition is dead in the water.
2. There will almost certainly have to be another election in Greece.
3. Allegedly, Greece will run out of money in ten days time. If it isn’t going to get its next tranche of bailout monies, then direct funding for Greece from eurozone member-states looks inevitable. This would have to come from the eurozone’s
permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. It will face stiff opposition, especially from countries such as Finland, the Netherlands and Germany.
permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism. It will face stiff opposition, especially from countries such as Finland, the Netherlands and Germany.
4. Today’s leaker added that further bank liquidity is also a major urgency. No doubt Mario at the ECB can muddle some more paper around to fudge it, but his options are becoming limited.
5. French officials and bankers will be confined in order to deliver large numbers of kittens about the possibility of Greek default….and the subsequent high possibility of French State bankruptcy.
There is to be another emergency EWG meeting about Greece on Monday. Doubtless Wolfie Schäuble will dismiss this one as ‘a fantasy’ too.
Meanwhile, the world – and I mean THE WORLD this time – waits to hear what the Merkeschäuble version of reality actually is.
and.......
( Notice the thousand yard stare from Finance Minister Stournaras .... )
Crisis talks on package
PM leads bid to get measures to Parl’t this week as junior partner holds back 
The aim of Samaras and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, who has been leading negotiations with the troika on a 13.5-billion-euro austerity package and a raft of structural reforms, is to overcome the reservations of Democratic Left to proposed labor reforms and those of socialist PASOK to the possible abolition of certain social benefits and to a bill aimed at fast-tracking privatization projects through Parliament. With a political agreement in hand, the plan would be to submit the reforms to Parliament by Wednesday and vote on them as soon as possible after that. After a six-hour meeting with Samaras and several ministers on Saturday, Stournaras said «major progress» had been achieved but provided little detail. European officials are pushing for an acceleration of the process, with a Euro Working Group scheduled to resume on Monday and a eurozone finance ministers’ teleconference scheduled for Wednesday. Sources in Brussels indicated over the weekend that Wednesday’s summit may lead to a decision on the release of a 31.5-billion-euro rescue loan that Greece needs to remain solvent as well as the granting of a two-year extension to the country’s fiscal adjustment period. Back in Athens though, a political deal appeared elusive as Democratic Left appeared unrepentant in its opposition to the bulk of the proposed labor reforms. However Kathimerini understands that Samaras and PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos have agreed to rally their party ranks and push the austerity and reform package through Parliament even if Democratic Left resists. According to sources, the coalition leaders have taken a common line on the issue of severance for employees dismissed from private sector firms – that they should receive full compensation if they have worked for the same employer for at least 16 years. The partners also reportedly agreed on the dismissal of 25,000 civil servants by the end of 2013. |
Dutch not willing to give Greece more time
The Netherlands isn’t willing to give Greece more time to implement its reforms, acting Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said.
“We always have said we’re against any delay in the measures the country should take,” De Jager told reporters in The Hague today. While he reiterated the view that “we should wait for the report of the troika” of international creditors, De Jager said that “Greece must bear the costs of any delay.”
European policy makers are awaiting the report on Greece’s progress in meeting internationally agreed targets compiled by the so-called troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The German Finance Ministry said today that it didn’t know when the report was due.
Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras caused investor confusion on Oct. 24 when he told lawmakers in Athens that Greece had won approval for its bid to secure a two-year extension to 2016 for its bailout program. The Commission and ECB denied that a deal had been struck, saying the troika review is not yet complete. IMF chief Christine Lagarde is due to meet with French President Francois Hollande on Oct. 29 and German Chancellor Angela Merkel the following day.
De Jager is in his final weeks in office after his Christian Democratic Party CDA lost heavily in the Sept. 12 elections. Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who won the elections and is close to forming a government with the Labor party, has also said that any additional time for Greece shouldn’t cost more money. [Bloomberg]
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_26/10/2012_467580
Opposition SYRIZA leader rejects new cuts but won't force poll
Alexis Tsipras, head of the far-left SYRIZA party, said cuts to wages and welfare payments in a package the government agreed with the European Union and International Monetary Fund would pile misery on Greeks enduring a fifth year in recession. Tsipras, a 38-year-old former student Communist, said his party would vote against the package expected to go before parliament next week, and called on members of the ruling coalition to break ranks and do the same. "If these measures are implemented, it will be the final blow for the Greek economy,» he told Reuters in an interview, noting that economic output had already shrunk by a quarter over the past five years, leaving one in four Greeks out of work. "We have never seen anything like it in modern European history in a country at peace. Greece is like a country ravaged by war." Athens has been locked in talks for months with its coalition allies and international lenders on the 13.5 billion euro ($17.5 billion) austerity package required to secure the next tranche of the bailout and avert bankruptcy. A deal appeared to have been finalized this week but, in a setback to conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, a junior partner in his coalition said it would vote against labor reforms demanded by foreign lenders. SYRIZA has been the main beneficiary of a wave of anger unleashed by the crisis against Greece's traditional parties, conservative New Democracy and center-left PASOK, which ruled the country since a military dictatorship ended in 1974.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/golden-dawn-anti-semitic-parliamentary-address-2012-10
Greek MP Ilias Kasidiaris, the extremist Golden Dawn party's spokesman – who in July physically attacked a female lawmaker on live TV – is really starting to live up to the party's reputation as a "neo-Nazi" group.
Golden Dawn MPs Are Taking The Nazi Comparisons To A Whole New Level In Greece
The group has taken to the streets, terrorizing immigrants, and the police are reportedly colluding with them.
Meanwhile, Golden Dawn is surging in popularity among the Greek electorate – it now polls as the third-biggest political party.
In the latest disturbing episode to emerge from the chambers of the Greek parliament, Kasidiaris read aloud a passage from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic propaganda piece circulated and mandated in classrooms by the Nazis during that party's rise to power in 1930s Germany. It was also one of Hitler's key "justifications" for the Holocaust.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz has the story:
Ilias Kasidiaris, a spokesperson for Golden Dawn, read out Protocol 19 from the book: "In order to destroy the prestige of heroism we shall send them for trial in the category of theft, murder and every kind of abominable and filthy crime," according to Panayote Dimitras of the Greek Helsinki Monitor.
Kasidiaris was addressing parliament on October 23 at a discussion on lifting his immunity in connection with suspicions of assault. “There was absolutely no reaction” to this in parliament, Dimitras said, which, makes “all parties held as accomplices.”
Kasidiaris was addressing parliament on October 23 at a discussion on lifting his immunity in connection with suspicions of assault. “There was absolutely no reaction” to this in parliament, Dimitras said, which, makes “all parties held as accomplices.”
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