Vocal Voices

a spanking?

Or is Merkel really serious about working together to resolve the issues Greece faces?

After all the Greek parliament was never going to authorise the deal agreed by Tsipras and actually enact the changes he promised. In fact they have gone the opposite way and said that they will re-start public asset sales but they will use that money for social welfare and not for debt repayment.

In many ways, this whole game in Brussels seems to have been more about gaining time and funds to keep the Greek central bank open, than being about a real solution to the problem. If they were serious, they would already have hammered those who have not paid their taxes and levied huge fines on them for not doing so. That would have given a sudden jump to the treasury in both taxes and fines.

Given that it is not the ordinary Greeks who are not paying taxes, it means that Syriza is playing a longer game here.

This week a senior representative from the US has been in Athens talking to the Government. Rumblings in the US are around the US possibly having to help bail Greece out if they default. Next week Tsipras meets with Putin at Putin's request and Putin is offering funding and stabilisation if Greece has to exit the Euro.

I wonder when the ECB, Merkel and the German finance ministry, along with the other EU countries in the bailout, will realise that far from being a petulant child; Tsipras is actually playing them all.

Over the weekend I read about the woes of the UK currency printer (the largest in the world). In that article it was rumoured that in 2012 they took an order to print the entire currency run for Greece in Drachmas. If that is true, Tsipras could hold a referendum on a Saturday and bring the house down by Monday. After all he would actually have the currency.

However more interesting to me is the timing. Greece wanted a 6 month extension. It takes 6 months to print the currency he needs. It's a bit too coincidental for me. After all, the second place "Varoufakis on tour" went was the UK, immediately after France. Did he come with a cheque book and an order for a hundred billion in Drachma?? It would have been the perfect cover for the meeting especially the press furore when he made his announcement about his financial plan after his meeting with Osborne.

There is an old military strategy which says if you are going to do something sneaky and underhand in one direction, make a huge and obvious noise in the opposite direction.

Then, of course, there has been the actions of Varoufakis. He's been confrontational, abrasive and has shown absolutely no respect at all. He's a bright intelligent man who has worked in the Business world. He knows exactly what kind of impression he is making and he knows what pressures it is creating within the Eurozone countries.

I must admit I have to ask myself if he would have acted this way if he were really serious about staying in the Euro and working with his Euro partners to resolve the issues. In fact he's been acting more like a kid in a candy store, taking great delight in goading and provoking these staid and stern bankers.

Only when it has all seemed to be going to head out the front door to oblivion has Tsipras stepped in and calmed ruffled feathers in order to get what Greece needed. Immediately followed by Tsipras himself driving those tensions back up again by speeches in the parliament which were designed to goad those in the Eurozone.

Now, again, Tsipras is talking about "repatriating" German government property in Greece. Something which would be massively destructive to any further relations or agreements with the Eurozone.

It all seems like a waiting game to me. Either Tsipras has the currency and is trying to force the Eurozone to boot Greece rather than the other way round. But not just boot them, but cripple them in a way which the Greek people (and the rest of the world), cannot see as anything other than high handed tactics to browbeat and cow an entire nation.

Or

He is playing a very dangerous game of see saw. Bend enough to get his Eruozone partners to give him time. Spring back to keep himself from a power struggle at home. Bend to the Eurozone again...

Not for nothing do the Greeks call what is being done to them "Fiscal Waterboarding". It is setting a scene for something because what they are doing right now is not sustainable. The Eurozone and the EU thought they had Greece in hand and had forced them to do what they wanted. Capital flight which is not being funded by the ECB, very tight money strings, demands that Greece continues to pay back whilst not providing funds for the country to function properly. All things they did very successfully to Cyprus and to Greece before that.

However I think the ECB and the EU are missing a trick here. Neither the Cypriot nor Greek Governments of the crisis time had a clear public mandate and they held a lot of responsibility for the mess the countries were in. They caved and simply did what they were told. To the massive detriment of the people.

Now fast forward to 2015. Syriza and Tsipras had nothing whatsoever to do with the mess. They have a popular public mandate to get out from under the penalties of the Troika. Syriza only has something to lose if they don't stick it to the EU and the Eurozone and the Troika.

So, in the end, has Varoufakis' position changed? Or does he still think that the best action is to "give Germany the finger" and default?

That is the $64k question.

So now I've kicked off the rumour mill, what do you think?

Tsipras could be going for a spanking or a hug, who knows, but it does not really matter what us conspiracy theorists think.

What we do know is that the loan in its current form will never be paid off, not in 27 years or 270 years. It might be that fiscal strategies are used to make it look as though the loan is being paid off, but the true amount will not actually be handed over. We also know that Greece will not pull itself out of the €: Tsipras does not want that and nor do the Greek people. It might get pushed out by its creditors, but that is also unlikely as it really would be goodbye to loan repayments.

I predict more fudge, huge plates of it, all in different flavours.

If the USA have got involved they might be worried about the Russians cosying up to the Greeks?

No one wants the Greeks to leave the Euro apart from some fed up Germans. The Greek people and government want them to stay in and the EU political establishment want them to as well because it would be a humiliation if Greece had to leave the euro. As WM says the debt isn't ever going to be paid back, and that's a fact.

Greece can't be pushed too far or the Russians will step in to be their good buddies, and the US won't want that - at all.

Yep it's going that way with the US and Russia and Syriza is using everything they can to get what they want.

However the reality is still that whilst Greece is small potatoes, the money lent to the rest of the PIIGS is still more than the German and French banks can sustain in losses.

Because they lied to the people at the outset about the scale of the problem and who was to blame for it, they are now having a big problem with the people. Ordinary Germans feel that Greece should pay it's penance and be a "good EU member".

I do wonder what the Germans would say if they were told that if Greece exits and the rest of the PIIGS go with them, then the entire German banking system, including their savings, will be significantly at risk because the German banking system was out 8 times what the UK banking system was. At least the UK was mainly down for bad mortgage debt. The German system was down for bad Government debt.

Reality is that German GDP is less than 30% bigger than the UK GDP. Yet German banks were out nearly 800bn Euro and UK banks were propped up to the tune of about £75bn.

Makes a very different story doesn't it. One which, if told, would topple Merkel and produce a very different attitude to Greece in Germany.

This is not over by a long shot and the vultures are circling.

One more round of Greece trying to get money out of the EU without actually implementing the reforms they committed to.

Latest statement.

Send us a detailed blueprint list and we'll think about it.

Can kicked further down the road. But, more importantly, one more session of EU 1 : Greece 0. Eventually this will play out into something else in Greece. Tsipras has committed, again, in the Greek parliament, that they are not backing down from the Anti Austerity programme and will vote on government measures to give money and aid to the poorest in Greece. Directly in opposition to their commitment to apply the terms of the bailout.

I don't see anything changing here, Greece is just trying to keep afloat for 6 months. Why we might ask, in 6 months they will be in the same mess as they are now. Unless they intend to dump the Euro and 6 months is the earliest possible timeline to get the currency to do that.

It's like watching a child trying to wheedle something out of a grumpy parent. Next stop? Tsipras in Russia. I wonder if Greece will, eventually, veto an EU resolution to keep sanctions on Russia? That is a possibility and it would be a very serious escalation. But, then again, if the EU is going to keep on dumping on Greece, then they're going to get some payback some time.

my view is that if Greece turns to Russia and out of the EU---how long til Greek naval bases are offered to Putin?

If the EU push it that far, then I would guess that it will happen sooner rather than later.

victor wrote:my view is that if Greece turns to Russia and out of the EU---how long til Greek naval bases are offered to Putin?

Good point. Russia signed an agreement for their warships to use Cypriot ports two years since, so they have already got a foot in the door.

Then NATO member, Turkey, closes the Bosphorus and the Straits of Gallipoli from the Sea of Marmara to the Agean Sea, thus rendering the Russian Black Sea fleet obsolete.

Think about it. Russia only has one base in the Med, Tartus in Syria. That gives it a gateway, providing the Straits of Gibraltar and the Suez canal remain open, to the Atlantic and the Indian oceans.

Without Tartus, Russia has only cold water bases in the West, from the Barents Sea, and a very long and vulnerable overland 6,000 km supply line to its bases on the Pacific.

If the Greek politicians do go 'Russian' they will not take the Greek people with them. And if they do it by State force they will be surrounded by NATO.

It is not a good idea for Greece or Russia, and all sides know it.

The Greek debt will be resolved because nobody wants an EU version of the Arab Spring, hence the recent €2bn 'Humanitarian Aid'.

Workingman wrote:The Greek debt will be resolved because nobody wants an EU version of the Arab Spring, hence the recent €2bn 'Humanitarian Aid'.

Always assuming that this is what Syriza want, rather than what they say they want. I know most of their rhetoric is designed to force the EU to do what they want (or perhaps need desperately is a better phrase), but they seem to be preparing the people for an eventual exit from the Euro and they seem to be positioning it so that they can blame Germany.

In the first days of the parliament, they talked about a referendum on the Euro if they did not get what they needed. Since, then topic has come up many more times. You know the political reality, a position, no matter how bad, repeated enough times, can become policy. Simply by getting people used to it.

The phrase Grexident is being used much more nowadays. It is not being used to describe the Greek actions as much as it is being used to describe Eurozone country actions. To me, it's not the Greeks who are the white knuckle riders here and that is a whole new view on the situation if you think of it that way.