Troika back in Athens , more / additional measures will be required to fill latest but not last funding gap ! OPAP under pressure from Emma Delta - another privatization failure looming ? And what should come as no surprise - deposits below 100 K are NOT safe , they still can be seized - which means they will be seized under next pretense.....

http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_29/06/2013_506603

Troika due back in Athens, with mixed agenda As the government prepares for the return of envoys representing Greece’s troika of foreign lenders on Monday, a draft plan of the revised memorandum seen by Kathimerini indicates the potential need for new austerity measures if authorities fail to meet revenue targets and to plug a funding gap. According to the draft document, unspecified new measures may have to be taken if authorities fail to collect adequate revenue from outstanding debts to the state and fail to plug a funding gap for this year of just over 1 billion euros, chiefly attributed to the debts of the country’s main healthcare provider, EOPYY. One potential method of narrowing the funding gap likely to be proposed by troika officials is the payment of the emergency property tax for 2013 in four installments rather than five. Such a move would narrow the funding gap for this year by an estimated 400 million euros, troika officials are expected to argue. Another thorny issue expected to dominate talks is the troika’s demand for the induction of 12,500 civil servants into a so-called mobility scheme, in which the employees will receive a reduced wage for a year before a status review. Greek authorities have yet to finalize the list of 12,500 public workers and the new Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is expected to ask the troika for a two-month extension for the completion of the scheme. The draft memorandum also foresees some relief, with recruitments in the state sector – on a strict ratio of one departure to one hiring – as well as the introduction of certain tax breaks to help draw much-needed investment. It remained unclear on the weekend whether envoys of the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund are prepared to accept Greek requests to lower a 23 percent value added tax rate on tavernas and restaurants to 13 percent. Ahead of fresh talks with the troika, conservative New Democracy – which now leads a coalition of two with PASOK following the departure of Democratic Left – continued with its party congress. Addressing the congress on Saturday, prominent ND cadre and former Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis called for a parliamentary inquiry to determine how the country signed its first bailout in 2010 when PASOK was in power. http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_29/06/2013_506590 Kouvelis lashes out at ex-partners, seeks new allies A week after his party pulled out of the ruling coalition following a dispute over Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’s unilateral decision to close down state broadcaster ERT, Democratic Left leader Fotis Kouvelis lashed out at his former partners in government and appealed to the broader center-left to bolster his beleaguered party. In a speech to his party’s central committee on Saturday, Kouvelis called on “reformist, progressive, ecological, leftist and democratic forces” to come together in an alliance that would seek a “democratic and just Greece.” He rebuffed speculation about his party cooperating with the main leftist opposition SYRIZA, which he accused of following “dead-end policies” that would not help the country emerge from a protracted economic crisis. Referring to the ERT closure, and other unilateral decisions by Samaras, Kouvelis accused the premier of “despotism,” noting that his tactics had not promoted reform but the opposite, while indirectly accusing PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos of exploiting the ERT debacle for his own party’s gain. Questioned about Kouvelis in an interview with Sunday’s Kathimerini, veteran socialist and former Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos remarked that the Democratic Left leader “proved to be useless in the government and was not even capable of provoking a major political crisis.” “Kouvelis and his cadres didn’t want anyone to be fired from the public sector, ever,” Pangalos said. “That was their basic problem.” http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite2_1_28/06/2013_506492 OPAP under pressure from Emma Delta By Alexandra Kassimi The corporate war around the OPAP gaming company is raging while the time to find a solution is running out, with hundreds of millions of euros at stake for the state coffers. State privatization fund TAIPED is said to have issued another ultimatum to the head of OPAP, stressing that by Monday the company will need to have signed the now infamous contract for the 12-year operation of state lotteries, otherwise the position of OPAP president Costas Louropoulos will be under threat. Yet replacing him would not be an easy decision to make as that could lead to more delays in the two very important privatization projects that are unfolding, those for the state lotteries and OPAP. Louropoulos did not refute a report in the Financial Times according to which he came under strong pressure from the Dimitris Melissanidis family which controls 33.3 percent of the Emma Delta consortium, the contractor in the OPAP tender. “You dare to sign [the Intralot and lottery contracts] and I will take your head off,” Melissanidis is reported to have told Louropoulos last month, according to the FT. “The references in the Financial Times article that involve my name concern business rivalries,” Louropoulos stated on Friday, stopping short of rejecting what the British newspaper had reported. In response to the FT article, Emma Delta stated that it maintains its interest in OPAP even though in recent days there had been leaks from the Greek-Czech consortium that it was about to opt out of the deal for the 33 percent stake in the Greek gaming company. It stressed that it does not intend to intervene in law-abiding existing or future agreements by OPAP or in its entrepreneurial behavior, meaning it is not applying pressure for the contracts to change. “The sole concern of Emma Delta refers to securing that the legal framework applying to every deal concerning OPAP, including corporate governance, is absolutely respected by all parties involved,” said Emma Delta, thereby focusing its objections on the fact that two of the minority stakeholders (Intralot and Scientific Games) in the OPAP-led consortium to acquire the lottery license reserve the right to veto the decisions of the main shareholder, whom they also supply on a regular basis. The situation is therefore as follows: Louropoulos will not sign the contract regarding the lotteries, which has caused Scientific Games to threaten to depart, leading to the cancellation of the deal for the lotteries. If he does sign it, along with the other agreements among the three parties (OPAP, Intralot and Scientific Games), there is nothing that can guarantee Emma Delta will not abandon the OPAP privatization project. TAIPED wishes to have the lotteries contract signed so as to have at least one of the two deals completed. On the other hand, if Emma Delta’s demand for a change in the contracts is satisfied, the concession of the lotteries contract will likely be canceled, as will the sale of OPAP due to the objections that will be raised. One would rightly argue that with the changes to the contract for the lotteries and the technology supplier, it will be another OPAP that will be sold, with different characteristics, and not the one the tender was about. In the meantime, TAIPED yesterday approved the procedure, the timetable and the terms for the concession of 100 percent and control of railway service operator Trainose to an investor who will be chosen via an international open tender. http://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2013/06/27/eu-finmins-agree-on-banks-bail-in-deposits-below-e100k-safe-or-not/ EU FinMins agree on banks bail-in; deposits below €100K safe. Or not? Posted by keeptalkinggreece in Economy …and so it’s definite. Money savers will bail-in banks going bankrupt. The European Union ministers decided so early Thursday. The noble ministers took this decision in an effort to cut the cost of taxpayer-funded bailouts. From what I understand the bail-in will be based on a pyramid scheme according to which first to come up for the bail-in will be shareholders, bondholders, then depositors with more than 100,000 euro in their bank accounts. With this decision depositors of more than 100K are renamed as “investors”. Exempted from the enforced bail-in are depositors with less than 100,000 euro. EU Reaches Pact For Failing Banks Ministers stressed that depositors with less than 100,000 euros($130,820) in their accounts would always be safe, while small and midsize companies and bigger savers would only be hit during the most severe bank failures. As an extra layer of protection for taxpayers, governments will have to start building up resolution funds by collecting levies from banks. Before national authorities can employ either money from their resolution funds or public purses, they have to impose losses on at least 8% of a bank’s total liabilities. Taxpayer-funded bailouts will only be allowed under “extraordinary circumstances,” when it is technically impossible to impose losses on certain creditors in a rush or when a government is worried about effects on financial stability, officials said. Such exceptions will have to be authorized by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. Rich countries like Germany and Finland worked hard to make it as difficult as possible for poorer countries to tap the euro-zone rescue fund. (full article Nasdaq) While millions of depositors with less than 100K burst into tears of joy upon hearing the good news, Capital.gr claims that the EU finance Ministers left a window open to be able to grab also this money. “The “bad” news is the small print of the agreement reached yesterday. According to EU sources, there is a window: That’s not even safeguard depositors considered as Secured, ie those with lower amount of 100,000 euros. That is if all other options (stocks, bonds, unsecured deposits over € 100,000) fail and in order to avoid  burdening  public money and taxpayers, also the small depositors will be called in to bail-in.” (full in Greek here) I would not worry about the fate and risk for my 102,68 euro deposits, distributed in three banks, to safeguard them from a haircut, so to say. I have faith in our finance minister Yiannis Stournaras. He told the Greek Parliament on Wednesday that “The guaranteed bank deposits are absolutely secure. I feel  sorry for those who speak about another “bank deposit haircut”. Who are these Greeks upsetting our finance minister and make him feel sorry? oh, that’s the opposition… PS If the depositors are to come up for bank losses, they should also be appointed to management board so they can control how the bank deals with their money. Through a small depositors representation. Not ? EU Ministers press release here