Vocal Voices

Tomorrow on the EU "deal" for Greece? (it is the FT but was not paywalled for me)....

Fine words and all that, but the catch is that the EU want Athens to spell out that they are going to continue with Austerity and Athens don't want to spell out anything of the kind.

Another interesting day in the money markets tomorrow as it is all thrashed out.

One of the key points of the agreement on Friday was that Athens was beholden to give direct figures on primary surplus and revenue streams. Looking at the FT, Athens has, again, failed to deliver that. If they don't, Germany will veto again. If they do, their party may fracture even more than it already has.

Well now. It's Tomorrow, or today verses yesterday when I posted that above. Do we have a deal? Erm? Not yet. Seems Greece presented 3 pages into the EU at lunch. Now they are going to present 6 pages in the morning. According to the Guardian.

The goal, all weekend, has been to promise as little as possible whilst, at home, claiming the largest part of victory. Now, given the Tsipras speech on Saturday saying that the budget surplus was dead and they could get on with their reform program of winding back pension cuts, hiring civil servants and hammering the "wealthy".

Because of that speech, the finance ministers will want figures. Spreadsheet type figures, stating exactly how much, when and how and where from. Athens, on the other hand, wants to give promises of "action" on "postulated" areas of lost revenue. I still don't hear no fat lady singing, but I do hear the growls from the cheap seats. The growl will be building on every twist and turn of the EU attempts to force Greece back into the "program". It might even overwhelm Tsipras.

More joy. The Euro is back at 1.364 against the £. Down from 1.349 at the weekend. I'm sure Tsipras is reflecting on the embodiment of "Rock and hard place". I'm sure he's feeling squeezed. The $64k question is how much pressure a 40 year old non life career politician can take before he explodes all over the place.

Much to the chagrin of the Eurosceptic fringe the sky still refuses to fall in.

Listening to them bluffing and blustering on the TV makes the Greens' leader, Natalie Bennett. sound knowledgeable and professional: Well, yes, erm, our predictions were, ah, no, not quite right, but wait, we will err, have a new set to work on.

Yes a bad dose of sanity seems to have broken out over there. I think that someone is holding a knife behind the back of the German finance minister, but they have approved the "proposal".

However, nothing finally agreed till April, no money till April, they have to have concrete actions by April and both the German and Finnish governments have to pass the changes through parliament, before it's all over.

Then, the whole game starts again in April with "negotiations" to change the bailout continuing to a cliff hanger some time at the end of June.

Meanwhile the markets are not confused as to what this is. The Euro continues at €1.3635 much lower to the £ than the €1.31 after the announcement of QE....

So, in good Euese, we have an agreement on what we need to agree in order to come to an agreement so that we can agree to release some money. Once we've all agreed.

Of course, they won't get anything agreed with "Bad Behaviour".

Not only have the Greeks not climbed down, they have actually just given themselves a small window to get wound up to speed.

The article above talks about two Greek PM's who came a cropper over Greek debt and bailouts. However this is a different Greece. Austerity appears to have no end and if you have Austerity forever, what is the point of having the Euro, as it brings no benefits.

Ding Ding, round 2.

They do, after all, need time to dust off the presses, buy paper, design a new currency. Takes about 4 months they say. There simply was not time after the election with a pending bank meltdown. The Euro Group won't find Athens so unready ever again.

If you like that kind of thing, it makes for a very interesting spectator sport.