 Germans overwhelmingly oppose further aid for Greece, according to opinion poll released on Sunday, one day ahead of a vote in parliament on a new Greek bailout package where Chancellor Angela Merkel may be forced to rely on opposition support. The poll by the Emnid Institute in Bild am Sonntag newspaper found 62 percent oppose a new 130 billion rescue package while 33 percent are in favour. A similar Emnid poll in September found 53 percent opposed and 43 percent in favour. Merkel's centre-right coalition faces a testing vote in parliament on Monday when at least a dozen deputies are expected vote against the measure. It should still pass with ease because opposition parties will vote for it. But the prospect of the ruling bloc failing to win a majority on its own would be a humiliating setback for Merkel, with some analysts and opposition leaders warning it could endanger her coalition. Further signs of tension in the coalition emerged on Saturday when Merkel's Interior Minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, became the first member of her government to openly call for Greece to leave the eurozone. Merkel's government has 330 seats in the 620-seat parliament so Merkel can afford no more than 19 rebels if she is to deliver the 311-seat majority without relying on the opposition. In a September 27 vote, there were 15 rebels in the coalition and Merkel got 315 votes from her coalition deputies. 'Rescue only buys time' Wolfgang Bosbach, a respected member of parliament in Merkel's Christian Democrats, told Reuters he planned to vote against the Greek rescue package on Monday because it will not help resolve Greece's lack of economic competitiveness.
"My fear is we're only buying time with this rescue package and yet will be taking on more risk," said Bosbach, who also voted against the previous measure. "My fear is that the basic problems won't be resolved. On top of that, the drastic savings efforts that are necessary for Greece will further choke off the economy and lead to even higher unemployment." The Emnid poll in Bild am Sonntag also found that two-thirds of Germans believe a Greek state insolvency is unavoidable and only 31 percent believe it can be averted. Germans, who are making the largest financial contribution to the eurozone bailout to Athens, are growing increasingly impatient with what Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble recently described as a "bottomless pit" in Greece. At the same time, there is a growing awareness in Germany, Europe's leading economy, that its own prosperity is at risk as the debt crisis sucks in other countries and stifles demand within the currency bloc for German exports. German criticism of Greece has reopened wounds in Greece dating back to World War Two. Protesters in Athens burned a German flag earlier this month while Greek newspapers have portrayed Merkel and Schaeuble in Nazi uniform. Merkel is opposed to Greece leaving the eurozone but her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), face a difficult state vote in 2013 and have been raising the volume on calls for Greece to quit. Yet until Friedrich's comments on Saturday none of the three CSU ministers in her 15-member cabinet had dared express that view in public. Friedrich said Greece's chances of restoring its fiscal healthcare would be greater outside the euro. "Greece's chances to regenerate itself and become more competitive are certainly greater outside the currency union than they are if it stays in the eurozone," Friedrich told Der Spiegel magazine. "I'm not saying that Greece should be thrown out but rather to create incentives that it can't say 'no' to." (Reuters) |
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| Austerity-hit citizens queue for potatoes |
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 | 26 Feb 2012 |
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| People line up as they wait to buy potatoes in the northern town of Katerini February 25, 2012. The Pieria Volunteer Action Team, a group of local activists, decided to use the internet to help people get cheap food. As they struggle to make ends meet under EU/IMF-imposed austerity, consumers used the power of the internet to buy directly from growers at less than half the super market shelf price, cutting out all profiteering middlemen. |
 As dawn broke on a cloudless Saturday, buyers patiently gathered to buy directly from growers at less than half the supermarket shelf price - the unemployed who struggle to make ends meet, the retirees whose pensions have been cut by the cost-saving measures and even well-heeled lawyers and women in fur. The idea to cut out profiteering middlemen, started by a local activist group in Katerini, northern Greece, has led several other towns to seek advice on emulating the action. "Every penny counts," said Kyriaki Kotropoulou, a 41-year old jobless mother of three, as she stood in line to pick up five bags of potatoes, each containing 10 kg (22 pounds) of the produce at 25 euro cents ($0.34) apiece. Kotropoulou was a temporary worker at the local municipality but her contract was recently terminated as part of spending cuts demanded by Greece's eurozone partners who approved a 130 billion euro bailout this week. "We no longer buy any new clothes, we no longer go out for coffee or dinner. Day in, day out, my only concern is how to feed my children and my family," she said. SELLING 24 TONS IN 12 HOURS Katerini, a once prosperous town and local hub for agriculture, transport and tourism, has been hit by the crisis as hard-pressed as any other in debt-laden Greece. Streets are full of shuttered shops. Pawnshops offering to buy jewellery are mushrooming. Just like everywhere else in the nation, unemployment has climbed to record levels.
The Pieria Volunteer Action Team, a group of local activists, decided to use the internet to help people get cheap food. They first contacted a potato grower in northern Greece with surplus stock and a license to sell directly to customers. Then they invited members and friends to place their orders on the internet. "Within 12 hours, 530 people ordered 24 tons of potatoes. We had to stop taking orders," said Elias Tsolakides, a 54-year old member of the group. Saturday morning marked the first time the buyers gathered under the initiative. Most came in their cars, a few filled their bicycle baskets, behind them the snow-capped summits of Mount Olympus where Zeus, king of the Gods, sat on his throne according to ancient Greek mythology. Some of the clients, like doctors and other well-off buyers, came not because they were starving but because they wanted to make a statement against what they said was the failure of authorities to crack down on price fixers. "This is a symbolic move - everybody's income is falling but prices just don't," said Constantine Parastatides, a pensioned engineer. According to the EU and the IMF, oligopolies, transport bottlenecks, rigid market rules and inefficient policing are key reasons why prices in Greece are not falling as fast as they should to help restore the country's competitiveness. Under Greece's bailout plan, prices will be more tightly monitored and the competition authority given more teeth. "There is shameless profiteering in the market. Market police, competition watchdogs, the authorities - nothing works," said Vassilis Anagnostopoulos, a 38-year-old firefighter whose wages have been cut 40 percent. As soon as the Katerini initiative gathered pace, local supermarkets slashed their potato prices by half - to as low as 34 cents per kg, residents said. And now another 10 towns hope to follow suit. The initiative also makes sense for Greek farmers. Normally squeezed by wholesalers, supermarkets and cheap potato imports from Egypt, potato grower Lefteris Kesopoulos found himself doing good business at the parking lot on Saturday. "I've made a bigger profit and I got my money in cash - not in funny checks from some wholesaler that might bounce," the 40-year-old said behind the makeshift desk in front of his truck, from where he was busy signing receipts for customers. "I will definitely do it again." (Reuters) |
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| Iran says has not refused oil to Greece |
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| 26 Feb 2012 |
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 Iran said Sunday it had not blocked an oil shipment to Greece, denying earlier reports it had done so in retaliation to the EU phasing in a ban on its key export, the Iranian Student's News Agency (ISNA) reported. "There has been no change in Iran's oil shipment to Greece or any other country. No changes in our shipment schedule," said Pirouz Mousavi, managing director of the Iranian Oil Terminals Co. Earlier, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency said Tehran had refused shipment of 500,000 destined for Greek refiner Hellenic Petroleum, but a Hellenic official denied it. "That has nothing to do with us ... all supplies from Iran have been processed normally," the official told Reuters. The European Union decided in January to stop importing Iranian crude as of July 1, the latest in a series of international sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to halt its sensitive nuclear work, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council.
Iran stopped selling crude to British and French companies last week after the oil minister said Tehran would cut oil exports to "some" European countries. Brent crude surged to over $125 a barrel Friday amid fears of an escalation of tensions after the U.N. nuclear agency issued a report showing Tehran had increased its most sensitive nuclear work which the West says is part of a weapons programme, a charge Tehran denies. The price of oil has increased over the fear of tightening supplies, including a threat from Tehran to close a vital oil shipping route, the Strait of Hormuz, if attacked. Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes and has promised a "painful" response to any attack. The world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia said it would compensate for any oil shortage in the market and the European Commission has said that the bloc would not be short of oil if Iran stopped crude exports, as it has enough in stock to meet its needs for around 120 days. While Europe would suffer more directly from the lack of Iranian crude than the United States, which does not buy oil from Tehran, the knock on effect of a disruption would drive up prices across the globe. Greece is considered more vulnerable than most as it is suffering a major economic crisis and has been reliant on Iran for almost one quarter of its oil imports. Traders told Reuters on February 24 that Swiss-based Totsa, the trading arm of French oil major Total, and trading house Mercuria were in separate negotiations with Hellenic to help it replace Iranian crude. Glencore, a leading Swiss-based commodities trader and one of the few that conducted business with Greece during the debt crisis, may also boost supplies, trading sources have said. Hellenic would pay back the traders with refined products, which could then be sold in Greece or abroad. (Reuters) |
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