Greece’s Glimmer of New Year Hope

The potential election of Kyriakos Mitsotakis as head of Greece’s main opposition party would be a watershed moment, Simon Nixon writes

The Wall Street Journal

By SIMON NIXON

Jan. 6, 2016 3:35 p.m. ET

It is easy to list what might go wrong in Europe in 2016: a global economic slowdown that rekindles fears over eurozone debt sustainability; a worsening refugee crisis that leads to the collapse of the Schengen passport-free travel zone; increased political instability as a result of rising support for populist parties; plus the possibility that the U.K. might vote to exit the EU in a referendum likely later this year, which would trigger a political earthquake that would destabilize the entire continent.

Greece aims for debt relief deal in Feb 2016 after reforms done

Mon Nov 30, 2015 12:11pm EST

ATHENS | BY LEFTERIS PAPADIMAS AND PAUL TAYLOR

Reuters

Greece wants a deal on debt relief with its euro zone creditors in February to remove financial uncertainty and spur economic recovery, its finance minister said, but euro zone officials said that timetable was very ambitious and likely to slip.

Addressing a conference of investors, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said on Monday that making the ailing euro zone country's debt sustainable was the key to liberating the economy and restoring confidence among depositors and companies.

ECB’s Stournaras Says Greek Euro Exit No Option as Reform Sought

by Jeff Black

10:25 PM EET

March 25, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank Governing Council member Yannis Stournaras said a Greek exit from the euro area isn’t an option and wouldn’t help the country’s economy in the long term, as he urged the government to act quickly to agree on reforms with the country’s creditors.

“Grexit would deliver no benefit but a lot of pain,” Stournaras, who heads the Greek central bank, said at an event in London on Wednesday. “The new Greek government has a unique opportunity to implement bold structural reforms, which would be backed by a large majority of political forces in the country.”

Austerity Is Not Greece’s Problem

MAR 3, 2015 32

Project Syndicate

By Ricardo Hausmann

CAMBRIDGE – When looking out a window, it is easy to be fooled by your own reflection and see more of yourself than the outside world. This seems to be the case when US observers, influenced by their own country's fiscal debate, look at Greece.

For example, Joseph Stiglitz regards austerity in Greece as a matter of ideological choice or bad economics, just like in the US. According to this view, those who favor austerity must be obsessed with the theory, given the availability of a kinder, gentler alternative. Why would you ever vote for austerity when parties like Greece's Syriza or Spain's Podemos offer a pain-free path?

Greece to draft new reform plan within days - EU leaders

BBC

20 March 2015 Last updated at 05:57 GMT

EU leaders say Greece has agreed to come up with a new reform plan within days to secure the additional bailout funds required to prevent bankruptcy.

The development came after marathon talks between Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders in Brussels.

If Greece Embraces Uncertainty, Innovation Will Follow

George Serafeim

MARCH 13, 2015

Harvard Business Review

No matter what happens with the Greek bailout, all parties agree that the Greek economy will have to become more competitive. Many politicians and commentators mention two critical factors in accomplishing this: increasing innovative capacity and reducing bureaucracy. Both are important, but they are far more difficult to achieve than many understand because they are, to a significant extent, influenced by culture.

O.E.C.D. Will Advise Greece on Economic Overhauls

By DAVID JOLLYMARCH 12, 2015

The New York Times

PARIS — Greece will get advice from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on ways to revamp the country’s economy, under a deal announced on Thursday.

The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, and the head of the O.E.C.D., José Ángel Gurría, made the announcement at a news conference in Paris, indicating that Mr. Gurría’s group would help Greece with the economic changes that its international creditors are demanding in exchange for unlocking additional bailout money.

Creditors Reject Greece's Reform Proposals

by Nikolaos Chrysoloras

Eleni Chrepa

(Bloomberg) -- Greece’s provisional agreement with creditors to avert a default started to crack as European officials said the country’s latest proposals fell far short of what was put forward two weeks ago and Greek ministers floated the prospect of a referendum if their reforms are rejected.

The list of measures Greece’s government sent to euro-region finance ministers last Friday, including the idea of hiring non-professional tax collectors, is “far” from complete and the country probably won’t receive an aid disbursement this month, Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Sunday. German Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter said ministers are not expected to advance on Greece today.

Greece must reform and forget Syriza's 'false promises:' ECB's Coene

BRUSSELS Sat Mar 7, 2015 3:09am EST

(Reuters) - Greece must realize there is no other way than to reform, European Central Bank governing council member Luc Coene said in an interview published on Saturday, telling Greeks they had been sold "false promises" by radical leftists now in power.

The Belgian central bank chief said that life outside the euro zone would be far worse for Greek people and warned that if Athens wanted to be financed by the euro zone, the ECB and the International Monetary Fund, it had to follow the rules.

Greece vs. Germany: Two Competing National Narratives

One reason behind the bitter turn in Greek talks is how the two countries view themselves

The Wall Street Journal

By STEPHEN FIDLER

March 5, 2015 4:34 p.m. ET

The tone of Europe’s political debate about keeping Greece afloat has turned bitter, particularly between Germans and Greeks. One important reason is the stories the two nations are telling themselves about their own recent history.

Germans see themselves as having built economic success from the ashes of World War II through self-sacrifice, personal reliance and hard work. When their economy started to underperform in the 1990s, they enacted a series of tough reforms more than a decade ago that laid the platform for economic strength today.

Greece: No escape from the inevitable

 http://www.voxeu.org/article/greece-no-escape-inevitable

by Lars P Feld, Christoph M Schmidt, Isabel Schnabel, Benjamin Weigert, Volker Wieland 

20 February 2015

Claims that ‘austerity has failed’ are popular, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world. This column argues that this narrative is factually wrong and ignores the reasons underlying the Greek crisis. The worst move for Greece would be to return to its old ways. Greece needs to realise that things could actually become much worse than they are now, particularly if membership in the Eurozone cannot be assured. Instead of looking back, Greece needs to continue building a functioning state and a functioning market economy.

Greece Can Teach The World A Needed Lesson

This story appears in the March 23, 2015 issue of Forbes.

Steve Forbes

3/03/2015 @ 10:00AM

DEAR PRIME MINISTER Tsipras and Finance Minister Varoufakis:

You may have won a four-month reprieve of sorts from your creditors, but your situation is desperate, and everyone knows it, most particularly Europe’s paymasters, the Germans. As you just painfully learned, your ability to blackmail your creditors is a fraction of what it once was. Businesses, banks and others have had plenty of time to prepare for the worst-case scenario: Greece’s exit from the euro zone. Your own citizens have no faith in you, as evidenced by the massive cash withdrawals from Greek banks and the exodus of capital from Greece to supposedly safer havens.

What Greece Has to Do Now: Fix Its Economy

Michael G. Jacobides

FEBRUARY 27, 2015

After weeks of media frenzy around the Greek election and the new government’s once-ambitious plans to renegotiate with the Eurozone over its debt crisis, the searchlights of publicity are shifting. For all of its bravado, Greece was pushed into a corner in an eleventh-hour deal that will extend a bailout agreement for four more months. And although it has been given a temporary lifeline, little has been resolved.

The Reason Austerity In Greece Didn't Work

2/26/2015 @ 4:13AM 71 views

Tim Worstall

Forbes

One of the little puzzles of the past few years has been why was the reaction of the Greek economy to austerity so much worse than that of other countries? For it is true that other countries (I think particularly of Spain and Portugal) had the same sort of shrinkage of the government budget, had the same (entirely wrong and inappropriate) monetary and currency policies but they did much better. Or at least not as badly. So what was the secret to that Greek economy that made the out turn so awful? And awful it is, Greece has had a fall in GDP akin to what the US had in the Great Depression of the 1930s. The answer, it appears, is that the underlying structure of the Greek economy is such that it just couldn’t take advantage of the meagre benefits that austerity did provide.

Greece debt crisis: Eurozone backs reform plans

BBC 

Eurozone finance ministers have approved reform proposals submitted by Greece in order to obtain a four-month extension of its bailout.

The Eurogroup said it had agreed to begin national procedures - parliamentary votes in several states to give the deal final approval.

The measures offered by Greece include combating tax evasion and reforming the public sector.

What The Eurogroup Demands Is Absurd

by Paul Krugman on 19 February 2015

Paul Krugman was interviewed by Evan Davis on the BBC’s Newsnight programme on 17th February. The following is a transcript of the part of the interview dealing with the negotiations for a new deal for Greece.

I don’t know what you think but how far should the Eurozone go, the European Commission, in helping yield to what Syriza is asking for?

GREECE'S FUTURE IS ITS PAST

Posted by Rebecca Harding on Feb 23rd 2015,

A deal was done at the last minute: Greece’s €172bn debt bailout was extended for a further four months after a turbulent week of bluff and counterbluff. Even now, there are no formal agreements on the required reform process ahead and without these agreements the deal will not be ratified. It appears that the Greek government is keen to demonstrate its willingness to reform by focusing on tax evasion and civil service reform, but it is unlikely that this will be sufficient for either Germany or the ECB.

Greece sends comprehensive reform plan to lenders: EU source

BY ROBERT-JAN BARTUNEK

BRUSSELS Tue Feb 24, 2015 4:56am EST

(Reuters) - Greece sent a list of economic reform plans to European institutions and the International Monetary Fund around midnight that was "a valid starting point" for talks over its bailout, a source close to the European Commission said on Tuesday.

Greece Delays Submittal of Its Overhaul Plans

By NIKI KITSANTONIS and JAMES KANTERFEB. 23, 2015

The New York Times

ATHENS — Greece on Monday delayed the submission of the proposed reforms that European creditors have made a condition of the country’s financial aid.

European and Greek officials spent much of the day exchanging drafts of the proposals paring back austerity and ensuring Greece can still meet its budget targets. While they underscored the progress made, Athens will now present the list Tuesday morning, after the original deadline of Monday night.

Greek reform list to comprise mainly structural actions: government source

BY RENEE MALTEZOU

ATHENS Sat Feb 21, 2015 12:41pm EST

(Reuters) - Greece's list of reforms to be submitted to the euro zone on Monday comprises pledges on structural issues such as tax evasion and corruption over the next four months without specific targets, a government official said on Saturday.

Athens clinched a last-minute deal late on Friday to avoid a banking collapse by accepting a conditional extension of its bailout program. The accord requires Greece to submit by Monday a letter to the Eurogroup listing all the policy measures it plans to take during the remainder of the bailout period.