Friday, November 15, 2013

Europe Watch November 15 , 2013 - Spain public debt surges to new record , Madrid trashmen strike sends garbage to new record levels in Madrid....... Greece continue dance of death with Troikans.....

Spain........


Spanish FinMin "Concerned" As Public Debt Surges To New Record

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Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/15/2013 11:16 -0500



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Spain’s public debt climbed sharply in September to a new record high of 954.863 billion euros, casting doubt about the government’s ability to meet its target for the end of the year. Even finance minister Cristobal Montoro acknowledged that "there are concerns about the pace of the increase,"adding that this meant bringing down the public deficit even more of a priority. As El Pais reports, according to figures released Friday by the Bank of Spain, the state’s outstanding obligations climbed 10.181 billion euros in the month from August to a level equivalent to 93.4 percent of GDP. The government’s target for the full year is 94.2 percent, a figure that has already been revised upward. The central bank estimated GDP in the 12 months to September at 1.022 trillion euros.

But, apart from that, Spanish bond spreads near pre-crisis lows...

Yep - makes perfect sense...



Madrid Buried In Trash As Garbagemen Strike Continues For 10th Day

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Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/15/2013 09:46 -0500



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The trouble with proclaiming 'victory' over the crisis in Spain (read the whole of Europe) and the ECB enabling governments profligacy with the ghost of OMT future is that it merely emboldens. As Al Jazeera reports, Madrid's garbage collectors have been on strike since November 5 to protest layoffs and pay cuts. With garbage piling up on the streets of Madrid, the mayor issued private trash-collecting companies an ultimatum on Wednesday: end the street cleaners' strike or lose their contracts. More than 30,000 residents have signed a petition to the defense minister asking for the streets to be cleaned. The following images show the chaos...

Madrid bins overflowing in the streets...

View image on Twitter
Alberto Garzón @agarzon
Fotografía que han sacado esta tarde en Madrid, donde comienza una huelga indefinida de barrenderos y jardineros.
Translation: Worker for the Madrid garbage collectors yesterday in Madrid protesting against layoffs.


Some expressed their frustration with the strike:
Translation: The Madrid Cleaning Strike shouldn't be called a strike; it's vandalism and crime. This is how you lose the argument.
View image on Twitter
Nicolás Martínez @nicomarbel
no deberian llamar huelga a lo que es vandalismo y delincuencia.Asi es como pierden la razon.
Translation: This Madrid Cleaning Strike is lamentable and like the Third World.


View image on Twitter
Berenice Flocco @FloccoBerenis
Esto es lamentable y tercermundista
Seems to us that this might be a great opportunity to put some of the record high unemployed youth back to work... (though one wonders just how big the disincentive to work is in Spain...)



Greece........



Dijsselbloem: Greece must step up efforts to unlock funds

Eurozone finance ministers pressed Greece late Thursday to speed up structural reforms and continue fiscal consolidation and privatization to unblock more of the international loans that keep it afloat.
“A lot of progress has been made, also at social and political costs for the Greek society, and I think we fully acknowledge that,” the chairman of eurozone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem said after a meeting of the group.
“Yet the only way forward to strengthen economic perspectives, to strengthen competitiveness, is to follow up on what we agreed, on the commitments that we made to each other.”
Officials said Greece had to urgently step up progress on structural reforms, find a way to plug a fiscal gap in the 2014 budget, accelerate privatization, overhaul its public sector and boost competition in product and services markets.
EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn declined to say what the size of the fiscal gap in the 2014 budget was, but officials had earlier put it at 2 billion euros.
A team of officials from the troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank visits Athens regularly to check on progress on its bailout commitments and decide whether to release subsequent loan tranches, without which Greece would default.
The latest inspection began in September but then paused, only to resume on Nov. 4 after Athens provided the lenders with information enabling them to discuss the financing of the 2014 budget. The talks have made no progress since then.
Dijsselbloem said the urgency of progress was political rather than financial as Greece would have enough cash until early next year.
“I think it is very important that the review is finalized as quickly as possible. As we stand now it's going to be difficult to finalize it in time for us to take decisions in December,” he told a news conference.
“That's where we stand at the moment and I'm worried about that. I'd like to see progress made.”
Greece has been kept afloat by a financial lifeline from the euro zone and the IMF since 2010, with 240 billion euros of loans pledged in exchange for spending cuts and reforms.
A senior euro zone official said on Tuesday the only deadline for Athens would be the date the country runs out of cash to pay back creditors and keep the state functioning.
After a six-year recession that wiped out 40 percent of household disposable incomes and sent unemployment soaring to almost 28 percent, the Greek people say they can take no more.
The coalition government argues it deserves some slack after making the biggest budget deficit reduction ever seen in the euro zone. Greece's president said his country would not yield to international pressure to impose more austerity.

ekathimerini.com , Friday November 15, 2013 (10:02) 





Stournaras: Fresh austerity measures would be 'unnecessary' and 'dangerous'

Debt-hit Greece will resist pressure from its lenders for more austerity measures, the country's finance minister has said while downplaying a discrepancy in projections about the country's fiscal gap.
“No austerity measures are needed. They are dangerous; we should let the automatic stabilizers work. We are willing to take structural measures with a fiscal impact, but not austerity measures,” Yannis Stournaras told CNBC late Thursday.
“Greece has achieved tremendous progress up to now, people have made huge sacrifices; so we have to be very careful now what kind of measures we implement to close the fiscal gap, if any,” he said.
Late on Thursday eurozone finance ministers meeting in Brussels pressed Greece to speed up structural reforms and continue fiscal consolidation and privatization to unblock more of the international loans that keep its ailing economy afloat.
“The only way forward to strengthen economic perspectives, to strengthen competitiveness, is to follow up on what we agreed, on the commitments that we made to each other,” the chairman of eurozone finance ministers Jeroen Dijsselbloem said after the Eurogroup meeting.
Responding to a question from CNBC regarding the discrepancy in projections about the country's fiscal gap, Stournaras said: “As an academic, this is not a precise exercise, so we are negotiating."
Troika inspectors have said that Greece faces a 2 billion euro shortfall in achieving its primary budget surplus target of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014. Greek government officials say the figures is just 500 million euros.
During the interview, Stournaras also brushed aside concerns about the solidity of the county's conservative-led coalition which last weekend survived a no-confidence vote.
“There is absolutely no risk,” he said, adding that the country has covered 80 percent of the necessary fiscal adjustment.
“We are clever people, now that we're close to the end, we will not destroy what we have achieved so far,” he said.
An opinion poll published on Thursday showed coalition leaders New Democracy trailing left-wing opposition SYRIZA by 0.5 percent.

ekathimerini.com , Friday November 15, 2013 (12:12) 




Merkel extends new invitation to Samaras for talks

For the second time in 15 months, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is to hold talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, with the aim of lifting some of the gloom that has descended over Greece and its prospects.
Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said Samaras would have a working lunch with Merkel at the chancellor‘s office on November 22 while he is in Berlin to give a speech at a business congress organized by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The two leaders are to give a joint news conference after their meeting, just as they did when Samaras paid his first official visit to Berlin in August 2012, shortly after being elected. Athens has been encouraged by the fact that Merkel extended the invitation and that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was relatively upbeat about Greece at Thursday’s Eurogroup.
Sources close to the Greek prime minister said they hope that positive comments from Merkel could help improve the mood in Greece as it struggles to reach an agreement with the troika over the size of next year’s fiscal gap and to complete the structural reforms needed to receive its next bailout tranche of 1 billion euros.
A day before traveling to Berlin, Samaras will hold talks in Athens with US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. The Chicago businesswoman joined the Commerce Department in June and her trip was agreed when Samaras visited the White House in August.

ekathimerini.com , Friday November 15, 2013 (21:25) 





Eurogroup ministers frustrated by Greece? Try to see it the other way around…

Posted by  in Economy
Eurozone finance ministers are allegedly for one more time frustrated by Greece. The frustration comes apparently from a disagreement over a hole in the budget. A hole with a diameter of almost three billion euro. Greek government claim, it needs further spending cuts of just 500 million euro, while the country’s lenders – the Troika – claim, the shortfall is 2.9 billion euro.
Eurozone finance ministers will meet on Thursday (14 November) with the currency union’s four bailout programmes dominating an otherwise quiet agenda.
Officials are, once again, becoming frustrated by Greece. The Greek government and its creditors are “billions apart” on the country’s 2014 budget, an EU official with knowledge of the programmes told reporters earlier this week.
The Greek government believes that it needs to find spending cuts worth a further €500 million, while the Troika – composed of officials from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank – estimates the current shortfall to be €2.9 billion.
Troika officials will return to Greece on Friday, a day after briefing finance ministers in Brussels.
“The signals are not good,” the official said, adding: “I am starting to get more concerned about how we can get this review under our belt.”
The wrangling means that the next €1 billion tranche of the rescue package is highly unlikely to be disbursed before the end of 2013, as officials wait for Athens to back down.
Although Greece does not face an immediate cash-flow crisis, it is expected to require an additional €10 billion in bailout loans to cover its bills over the course of 2014. (full article EUobserver)
PS Are euro finmins really frustrated by Greece? We, Greeks, are frustrated by the euro finmins and the EU officials too. And you know what? We don’t even bother to organize meetings and shout out our frustration.



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