Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Greece jobless rate hits 27.4 in the first quarter of 2013 - as the knock on effects from the ERT snap closure trickle through the economy , Greece can expect more pain ....... ERT closure news and views and related job actions detailed.....
Samaras bids to defuse coalition row over ERT closure by agreeing to Monday talks with partners
By Lefteris Papadimas and Harry Papachristou
Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras moved to defuse a political crisis over the government's abrupt closure of state broadcaster ERT that prompted a nationwide strike on Thursday and brought thousands into the streets in protest.
Samaras, who has branded defenders of ERT hypocrites, invited two junior coalition parties opposed to the shutdown to talks next Monday, his office said, seeking to avert political instability in the bailed-out euro zone country.
A senior government official said the conservative prime minister was open to discussing their proposals and a compromise was likely, though he did not intend to back down from closing ERT and relaunching a smaller, more efficient entity.
"I believe there is scope for compromise and we will not go to new elections,» the official told Reuters.
The partners, who want ERT switched back on immediately, welcomed the meeting but kept up a critical broadside that has pushed Greece into its most serious political crisis since the uneasy right-left coalition came to power a year ago.
"The country doesn't need elections, they would be a colossal mistake, but PASOK is not afraid of them,» Socialist PASOK chief Evangelos Venizelos said. «We support a radical restructuring of ERT, but not with blacked-out screens."
An uneasy alliance of parties that have little in common apart from the desire to keep Greece in the euro zone and hooked to an international bailout, the coalition has regularly bickered over austerity policies and immigration issues.
But the ferocity of the public clash between Samaras, who has vowed to transform Greece from «a real Jurassic Park» into a modern economy, and his allies has raised doubts about whether a face-saving formula can be found.
"The country is on a knife's edge,» a coalition source said.
"Either there's a solution in a week or it's elections,» conservative newspaper Kathimerini said on its front page.
Opinion polls show both PASOK and Democratic Left would struggle to keep their share of parliamentary seats if elections were held now. Samaras's New Democracy has widened its lead over the hard left Syriza, but would fall well short of the majority needed to govern alone without smaller allies.
In a show of support, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) worked around ERT's shut down, putting the Greek broadcaster back on air late on Thursday, enabling Greek satellite subscribers to watch the station's news channel on television.
Before the move, ERT's output was only available via a live stream on the EBU website.
The ERT crisis erupted a day after the government failed to sell natural gas firm DEPA and was cut to emerging market status by equity index provider MSCI, pushing Greek bond yields to the biggest rise in the euro zone market this week.
Ten-year borrowing costs are back above 10 percent, their highest since early May, prompting analysts to suggest Athens will struggle to return to the bond market next year as planned.
Athens has described the 75-year-old broadcaster's shutdown as a temporary measure pending the relaunch of a slimmed-down station. About 2,600 employees are to lose to their jobs, though the government has promised to compensate them.
Late on Thursday, the finance ministry also asked the anti-corruption prosecutor to look into any possible wrongdoing at ERT over the procurement of equipment, production assignments and work contracts.
A senior government official said Athens was under pressure to show visiting EU and IMF inspectors that it had a plan to fire 2,000 state workers as required, and the ERT shutdown was the only option available to meet the goal.
Senior euro zone officials met on Thursday to discuss unlocking the next 3.3 billion euros of loans.
City buses did not run in Athens and train services were halted across the country after Greece's two biggest labour unions staged a 24-hour strike.
More than 13,000 protesters - including unemployed youths and leftists - gathered outside ERT's headquarters waving flags and holding banners reading «Fire Samaras, not ERT workers!"
"Samaras can't tell us what to watch or not. This isn't about ERT or about its workers any more, it's about democracy and freedom of speech,» said Thanos Lykourias, 30, an office worker who earns 800 euros a month and lives with his mother.
Many Greeks regard ERT as a wasteful source of patronage jobs for political parties. But the abruptness with which the government pulled the plug - blacking out screens with newscasters cut off in mid-sentence - was a shock.
An indefinite strike by a journalists' union prevented some newspapers appearing and forced private broadcasters to air reruns of sitcoms and soap operas instead of the news.
But there was little sign of private sector workers joining the stoppage. City streets were full of traffic, supermarkets were open and cafes were bustling.
Data released on Thursday showed unemployment climbed to an all-time high of 27.4 percent in the first quarter of 2013 after more than 850,000 jobs, most in the private sector, were wiped out since the beginning of Greece's six-year recession.
By Costas Iordanidis
The unity of Greece’s power-sharing administration is under severe strain and the country could possibly be heading toward general elections. If political memory went no further back than a year ago, it would be clear to everyone that the outcome of the May and June 2012 elections effectively derailed the nation’s fiscal adjustment program, added more debt to the country’s empty coffers, and exacerbated recession and unemployment.
On a political level, the outcome of those two ballots was the election of leftist SYRIZA as main opposition, the emergence of Golden Dawn as the most vigorous party in the existing Parliament, the near-elimination of PASOK from the political map and growing tension within New Democracy.
There is little love for PASOK or its current leader, Evangelos Venizelos. Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis may be irritating in the same way that the leader of a debating society can be annoying. Having been away from the country’s executive powers – barring some very short breaks – the Left has a rather theoretical understanding of politics.
But these are the only politicians Prime Minister Antonis Samaras can depend on at the moment. And he has an obligation not to insult their dignity, not to present them with tough dilemmas – regardless whether the issue at stake is a serious or an insignificant one and whether they beg to differ on certain issues.
The crisis has underscored the primitivism of the Greek political leadership. The politicians of the European north tend to work for the stability of the system and its adaptation to the needs of a constantly evolving environment. In the minds of the Greek political leader it is all about self-affirmation and survival. He is allergic to others. He is the provincial man on the European stage.
New Democracy could well win the next elections but neither PASOK nor Democratic Left would again join hands with Samaras, leaving the country in a deadlock. Even if a government were formed, the prime minister would be different, so the risk of a deeper conservative break-up is evident. But even if ND were to achieve a full majority in Parliament, on the back of Greece’s electoral law, it would find it impossible to govern as it would face all opposition parties given the absence of a rigid state apparatus and generalized corruption.
For better or for worse, the country’s two-party system is no more. Voting for Golden Dawn is a political act and expresses the will to destroy the political system – Valhalla on fire, Wagner’s twilight of the gods, not on the safety of the stage but in society.
It’s questionable if we should cry over the death of political dwarfs at a time when the country is in risk of going up in flames.
Union decides to maintain media blackout over Greek public broadcaster's shutdown until Monday
A strike in the Greek media that began on Wednesday, the day after public broadcaster ERT was shut down, is set to continue until early Tuesday.
The ESIEA journalists’ union decided on Thursday night that TV, radio, print and online media should remain on strike in a show of solidarity for some 2,700 ERT employees that are set to lose their jobs.
The blackout is set to last until the early hours of Tuesday. Only media that are carrying ERT’s signal, showing programs produced by the broadcasters’ staff in defiance of the government shutdown, are exempt from the strike.
Coalition leaders are due to meet at 6 p.m. on Monday to discuss their differences over the way ERT should be handled.
A cat and mouse game has been playing since Thursday, when the television channel of Greek Communist party KKE started to rebroadcast the pirate ERT program aired by the fired journalists who defy Samaras order to abandon the headquarters of the public broadcast company shut down on Tuesday.
Every time television station 902 switches to ERT live program, after 20 seconds the signal is set off air with color bars automatically replacing the picture and the sound. At first the technicians at the TV station thought of a retransmission problem. But it turned out, that it was an indirect government intervention.
TV station 902 denounced in a statement the government for silencing the freedom of press but also the digital transmission provider DIGEA for enforcing government orders to silence any private TV channel broadcasting ERT. At the same time, the statement stressed the fact that Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras threatened with sanctions every television or radio broadcasting the ERT program.
Last night, 902-TV asked its audience to join an experiment: to take the exact time needed for color bars to interrupt the ERT program rebroadcasting. When 902-TV switched into ERT, color bars fell exactly 22 seconds later.
TV station 902 denounced in a statement the government for silencing the freedom of press but also the digital transmission provider DIGEA for enforcing government orders to silence any private TV channel broadcasting ERT. At the same time, the statement stressed the fact that Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras threatened with sanctions every television or radio broadcasting the ERT program.
DIGEa is the private digital signal provider consisting of a consortium of the six biggest private Tv stations of Greece.
This phenomenon keeps repeating during the last three days.
Meanwhile, Greeks can watch the pirate ERT program on digital frequencies in some parts of the country, Athens downtown and the north-east suburbs of the Greek capital. European Broadcast Union (EBU) makes it possible.
PS Nobody could ever imagine that Greece’s public broadcaster would transmit in pirate frequencies and the people would switch to Communist party TV to get information about what’s going on with ERT.
European Broadcast Union (EBU) put Greece’s shut down public broadcaster ERT back on air. On Thursday afternoon the program produced by occupying journalists reappeared on television screens in several Greek cities via analog signal. The decision to take steps to keep ERT on air was made by the EBU Executive Board on Wednesday – see EBU press release below.
Outrageously concerned about the illegal program conducted by fired ERT journalists and technicians who occupy the premises of the shutdown public broadcaster for second consecutive day, the Greek government took an important and risky decision:
to send riot police to capture the EBU satellite transmitting the outlaw program.
The government saw no other solution than to riot-police’s space oddity after all attempts to find out, how ERT still manages to broadcast failed.
The government allegedly saw no other solution than to this adventurous riot police space oddity, after all attempts to find out, how ERT still manages to broadcast failed.
EBU PRESS RELEASE
EBU puts shelved Greek member ERT back on air
13 Jun 2013
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) today took the step of putting Greek broadcaster ERT’s news coverage back on air, allowing Greek satellite subscribers to watch NET, the station’s news channel, on television.
Until this afternoon, ERT’s output was only available via a live stream on the EBU website, redirected from ERT’s signal, which was carried back to EBU headquarters in Geneva. But EBU engineers have implemented a workaround to retransmit ERT’s signal via the EBU’s Athens earth station.
At around 3.45pm (CET) NET’s news programmes, being produced at ERT’s Thessaloniki studios despite the government order to cease operations, reappeared on Greek screens.
The signal is also being made available globally on these satellites: Hotbird 13A in Europe, APSTAR 7 in Asia, Intelsat 19 and Optus D2 in Oceania.
The decision to take steps to keep ERT on air was made by the EBU Executive Board on Wednesday.
EBU provides merely technical support for the transmission of the Greek signal. (EBU )
Greek government hired ERT advisers & secretaries for €2,000-4,000 per month – in Sept 2012 Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Politics Samaras’ decision to shut down Greece public broadcast ERT created a lot of enemies. That was expected. And this not only because 2,656 people lost their jobs overnight or because the action has authoritarian features. Moreover it was the attack prime minister Antonis Samaras and government spokesman & minister in charge of media Simos Kedikoglou launched against the ERT personnel. “ERT was the symbol of corruption,” Samaras said on Wednesday failing to explain how all governing parties stuffed the public broadcaster with own supporters. It wasn’t a secret that when Samaras (Nea Dimocratia) and his coalition partners Venizelos (PASOK) and Kouvelis (Democratic Left) formed the coalition government, new personnel was hired at ERT: 28 people hired as special advisers and secretaries. A list of 28 people displays one-year work contracts but also ‘austerity’ wages of even 4,000 euro gross per month, bonuses & extras excluded! Special advisers get 3,000-3,500 euro. A secretary is being hired for 2,000 euro per month, when in private sector with 27% unemployment, a newly hired secretary would consider herself “very blessed” and “very special” to earn 600 per month. Gross. The list was first published in October 2012. After the ERT shutdown on Tuesday night, several websites and news portals republished the list. Newspaper Proto Thema notes that “the hiring started in August 2012 with Simos Kedikoglou being the minister in charge of ERT.” Today, two independent lawmakers asked, the list should be submitted to Greek Parliament for … further investigation. See the list here . PS Do not falsely think that only the new hires were only Nea Dimocratia affiliated. My friend Dina told me today that “nothing will ever change in this country.”
Today's Greek General Strike Will Not Be Televized
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/13/2013 08:14 -0400
The Greek national broadcaster ERT situation is nowhere near a resolution, and the nation's political stability remains in the balance with Antonis Samaras’s coalition partners, Evangelos Venizelos of PASOK and Fotis Kouvelis of Democratic Left, appealing to him Wednesday for talks on the future of the TV and radio station, but the premier has so far stood by his decision to close and later reopen ERT, leaving the government’s future in doubt. What is certain to make matters worse is that today, Greek public transport and state services will be disrupted as thousands of workers join a 24-hour snap general strike called on Wednesday by the country’s two main labor unions, GSEE and ADEDY, in protest to ERT's shut down. The claim is that Samaras' unilateral decision was the equivalent of a coup, which of course is not true: one can't overthrow a country in which sovereignty has long since been ceded to the European Commission, and Germany in specific.
However, the market has no reason to worry about cracks forming in its ivory tower: since the journalists will also be on strike, and since the TV station is obviously shut down, there is no danger of a real-time video stream from Syntagma showing the all too well known Athens riots. As for Istanbul, that is another matter.
Buses, trolley buses and trains will not be running at all, while staff on the Athens metro, the Athens tram and the Piraeus-Kifissia electric railway (ISAP) will run a reduced service, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. There will be no metro service to Athens International Airport, with trains stopping as Doukissis Plakentias station as the remaining section of metro route to the airport is operated by the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) whose workers will be striking all day.
International flights are expected to be disrupted between 3-5 p.m. when air traffic controllers are to walk off the job. A five-hour walkout by staff of the Civil Aviation Authority, starting at noon, is expected to disrupt domestic flights.
The general strike, which is the third this year, will also upset public services, closing tax offices and schools, and leaving hospitals to operate on emergency staff.
A protest rally organized by GSEE and ADEDY is to be held outside ERT’s headquarters in Aghia Paraskevi, northeastern Athens, at 11 a.m. The unions called on workers from all sectors to join them to show solidarity for the sacked ERT workers, condemning the government’s move as “unprecedented and provocative.”
There will also be a media blackout as journalists will be on strike.
Key event
Proof that Greece's economic pain continues -- the country's jobless rate rose to 27.4% in the first quarter of 2013, a new record high, up from 26% in the las three months of 2012.
It's the highest quarterly unemployment rate since this data series started in 1998.
Out in Athens, blog reader Kizbot has now got inside the headquarters of ERT -- here's the view of the protests outside (see also 10.51am)
Photograph: Kizbot
Important political news from Greece -- the leaders of the country's three coalition parties are due to hold talks on Monday evening, at 6pm local time.
It will allow them to discuss the government's decision to shut the ERT broadcaster, and reopen it later this summer with a much smaller staff.
The meeting between Prime minister Antonis Samaras, Pasok leader Evangelos Venizeloz, and Democratic Left's Fotis Kouvelis had originally been called for Saturday, but was quickly pushed back.
so, by pushing back the samaras-venizelos-kouvelis meeting, the sense of crisis is prolonged for 4 more days. why?
Protest outside Greece's shuttered state broadcaster
Over in Greece, a protest rally is underway outside the headquarters of state broadcaster ERT following its shock closure on Tuesday night.
It is organised by the unions holding today's strike (see 9.25am).
One of our regular readers, Kizbot, is there, and reports that there's something of a "festival" atmosphere. She reckons the demonstrators number into the thousands, but there's no police presence beyond a traffic cop, she tells me.
General strike in protest at ERT's closure to affect transport, flights
Public transport and state services will be disrupted on Thursday as thousands of workers join a 24-hour snap general strike called on Wednesday by the country’s two main labor unions, GSEE and ADEDY, in protest at the conservative-led government’s surprise decision to shut down ERT.
Buses, trolley buses and trains will not be running at all, while staff on the Athens metro, the Athens tram and the Piraeus-Kifissia electric railway (ISAP) will run a reduced service, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. There will be no metro service to Athens International Airport, with trains stopping as Doukissis Plakentias station as the remaining section of metro route to the airport is operated by the Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE) whose workers will be striking all day.
International flights are expected to be disrupted between 3-5 p.m. when air traffic controllers are to walk off the job. A five-hour walkout by staff of the Civil Aviation Authority, starting at noon, is expected to disrupt domestic flights.
The general strike, which is the third this year, will also upset public services, closing tax offices and schools, and leaving hospitals to operate on emergency staff.
A protest rally organized by GSEE and ADEDY is to be held outside ERT’s
headquarters in Aghia Paraskevi, northeastern Athens, at 11 a.m. The unions called on workers from all sectors to join them to show solidarity for the sacked ERT workers, condemning the government’s move as “unprecedented and provocative.”
There will also be a media blackout as journalists will be on strike.
Electricity bills including the special property tax for 2012 will need to be paid by June 21, as Public Power Corporation has said that it will submit a list of all unpaid levies to the Finance Ministry on June 22 so that they may be collected by tax authorities.
Any PPC customers using alternative payment points such as Hellenic Post, banks etc, will need to pay their dues by June 18. Should any PPC customer pay an overdue bill that contains the tax after June 22, the amount of the property tax will be returned in the next bill and the tax debt will have to be paid at a tax office.
Electricity bills with the property tax for 2013 will start being issued in late June. On a practical level this means that as soon as taxpayers finish paying for the 2012 special property tax, they will have to start paying for the 2013 levy. This levy is expected to be 15 percent lower than that it was in 2011 and in 2012.
Troika also expected in Rome to discuss solutions for funding gap created by Greek bond payment
By Sotiris Nikas
The Euro Working Group of eurozone finance ministry officials will on Thursday decide on the disbursement of the next bailout loan tranche to Athens, amounting to 3.3 billion euros, under the cloud of political turmoil created within the Greek government by the decision to shut down and reopen the Greek state broadcaster.
On a technical level Greece has fulfilled all prior actions required, but the eurozone has sent a clear message that if government stability is in doubt the disbursement of the tranche would be delayed.
The representatives of Greece’s creditors left Athens on Wednesday to participate in Thursday’s EWG meeting in Rome. They will head back to Greece after that. If all goes well on a political level, negotiations will resume on Monday.
The heads of the troika – i.e. the heads of the mission of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – were scheduled to travel to Rome to participate in the EWG, where, according to government officials, the meeting will explore the issue of the funding gap Greece will face by the end of 2014, amounting to 4.6 billion euros.
Talks will particularly focus on Greek state bonds held by national central banks of the eurozone, which, according to a decision of last December’s Eurogroup, were not to be repaid upon maturity but after 2016. This would have allowed the eurozone to have a large part of its funding program for Greece covered by allowing Athens to delay payment to bondholders. However, that decision was never applied and in the last couple of months the Greek authorities along with the Eurogroup have been working to find a solution to the problem that has arisen.
Had the decision been applied, Greece would have avoided the payout of 2.1 billion euros this year, 2 billion in 2014, 1.5 billion in 2015 and 851 million euros in 2016. Now it has paid out 1.8 billion euros and will have to find other sources of funding in order to plug the hole created.
Update by Yves, 6:15 AM. Yanis isn’t exaggerating about the domestic impact. See details in the Guardian, Attempt to shut ERT rocks Greece.
By Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor at the University of Athens. Cross posted from his blog
For those of us who grew up in the Greece of the neo-fascist colonels, nothing can stir up painful memories like a modern act of totalitarianism. When the television screen froze last night, an hour before midnight, as if some sinister power from beyond had pressed a hideous pause button, I was suddenly transported to the 60s and early 70s when a disruption in television or radio output was a sure sign that another coup d’ etat was in the offing. The only difference was that last night the screen just froze; with journalists still appearing tantalisingly close to finishing their sentence. At least the colonels had the good sense of pasting a picture of the Greek flag, accompanied by military tunes…
After the state channels froze on our screens, I turned to the commercial ones assuming that this major piece of news would be recorded and commented upon by them. Not a word. Soaps, second rate movies and informationals. That was all we got. As if ERT’s, the public radio and television service’s, instant demise was not worth a mention by their commercial competitors. Soon after the phone rang. It was a journalist friend. Her message to me: “Come to ERT now. Thousands are gathering. It will be a long night.” And so I did.
Indeed, thousands had gathered. The dual carriageway in front of the building was closed to traffic as the crowds gathered in front of ERT’s building. Inside the building all the staff were there, despite a police order to vacate the facility. All studios were running, all systems were go. Only, of course, the signal was not reaching the outside world, cut off by technicians working for other parts of government. Still, ERT’s people managed to upload a tv signal onto a disused analogue transmitter and at least some Athenians had output. In that context, they ushered me into the studio, where I was interviewed by anchors in full make up, as if nothing had changed.
My words to them were:
I feel I have the moral authority to be here in support of your cause; to castigate ERT’s barbaric closure. I say this because, as you know, your government bosses had me blacklisted from this station ever since I refused to keep quiet about Greece’s bankruptcy. That act of totalitarianism was a prelude to the much grosser one that we are experiencing tonight. Clearly, I am not the person to say that ERT was a splendid organization unblemished by censorship, political interference or corruption. But I think I am the person possessing the moral authority to stand here tonight in front of you and say that, despite all its ills, the totalitarian manner in which ERT was closed down was a crime against all civilised people the world over. Think about it: Mr Rupert Murdoch, and people of his ilk, will be ecstatic tonight. Who is to say that ERT’s dismantling cannot be the blueprint that will lead to the privatisation of the BBC, of the ABC in Australia, of CBC in Canada etc. etc.?
Then, I stepped outside the studio to a cacophonous web of corridors and then outside the building itself. To find thousands of people gathered, joining in ERT’s excellent musicians in an impromptu heart-warming concert – see photo. When I left a couple of hours later, just before 5am, more people were arriving. Is this our Taksim Square? Only time will tell. So far the only certainty is that Greece took another step down the stairway to hell.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/13/2013 08:14 -0400
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) today took the step of putting Greek broadcaster ERT’s news coverage back on air, allowing Greek satellite subscribers to watch NET, the station’s news channel, on television.Until this afternoon, ERT’s output was only available via a live stream on the EBU website, redirected from ERT’s signal, which was carried back to EBU headquarters in Geneva. But EBU engineers have implemented a workaround to retransmit ERT’s signal via the EBU’s Athens earth station.At around 3.45pm (CET) NET’s news programmes, being produced at ERT’s Thessaloniki studios despite the government order to cease operations, reappeared on Greek screens.The signal is also being made available globally on these satellites: Hotbird 13A in Europe, APSTAR 7 in Asia, Intelsat 19 and Optus D2 in Oceania.The decision to take steps to keep ERT on air was made by the EBU Executive Board on Wednesday.
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