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Greece's Varoufakis warns of referendum if eurozone rejects debt plans Deutsche Welle March 8 Athens could call for a referendum or early elections if the eurozone rejects its debt plans, Greece's finance minister has said. The present government won elections on promises of renegotiating the EU bailout program. Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said his government was willing to hold a referendum or even early elections if Eurogroup ministers reject debt and growth plans. Varoufakis' statements came shortly before finance ministers of the eurozone countries were due to meet on Monday for crucial talks on Athens' list of reforms, which the EU received last week. . . . <http://www.dw.de/greeces-varoufakis-warns-of-referendum-if-eurozone-rejects-debt-plans/a-18302509> Greece to dominate eurogroup meeting Greece signals referendum intention if international lenders reject reform plan Suzanne Lynch Irish Times March 8 Minister for Finance Michael Noonan travels to Brussels on Monday for a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers that is expected to be dominated by Greece...The eurogroup gathering, which will be attended by Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, is the first since euro-zone finance ministers granted a four-month loan extension to Athens just over two weeks ago, on condition the government presses ahead with reforms. Mr Varoufakis ratcheted up the pressure on Greece’s lenders to accept Athens’s latest reform proposals this weekend, telling Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera that Greece may call new elections or hold a referendum if European finance ministers reject the government’s reform proposals. The latest proposals submitted by Greece in a letter to eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Thursday, which included a suggestion of hiring tourists to work temporarily as undercover tax collectors, elicited a bemused response from some EU officials in Brussels. Mr Dijsselbloem welcomed the proposals as “helpful” but added that they needed to be scrutinised by Greece’s international lenders. “This document will be helpful in the process of specifying the first list of reform measures,” the euro group head wrote in his official response to Mr Varoufakis, adding that the proposals “will need to be further discussed with the institutions.” With Athens facing about €2 billion of debt-servicing payments later this week, it needs to convince its international lenders to unlock the outstanding €7 billion due to the country under the current bailout programme. Negotiations are ongoing between Greek officials and the three creditor institutions, and no specific decision is expected from Monday’s meeting. The suggestion that Greece might hold a referendum is the latest proposal by the government of Alexis Tsipras to break the deadlock between Greece and the lenders that have financed the country for the past five years. Mr Varoufakis said citizens would be asked to vote on the country’s economic policy – not EU membership – in any referendum. . . . <http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/greece-to-dominate-eurogroup-meeting-1.2131114> Early Greek election, referendum possible if EU rejects debt plan: Varoufakis by Steve Scherer Reuters, Rome March 8 Greece could call a referendum or have early elections should its euro zone partners reject its debt and growth plans, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in a newspaper interview on Sunday. . . . Most Greeks want the country to keep the euro, but two-thirds also continue to back the government's tough stance to renegotiate the bailout package. A referendum over a deal with lenders that keeps the country in the euro zone but falls short of Tsipras's promises could give the government cover to accept a deal even though it was elected with a different mandate. But even floating the idea of a referendum is politically risky. In 2011, then-prime minister George Papandreou suggested calling a referendum over the bailout and was later forced to make way for a unity coalition led by a former central banker. With the Tsipras government's popularity level above 40 percent, Varoufakis said "people understand" that the government is fighting the "establishment that said it was saving Greece while it put everything on the backs of the poor". . . . In the interview, Varoufakis said that the response so far by euro zone partners to his proposals to replace its current debt with bonds linked to nominal growth is "silence." . . . He also criticized the European Central Bank for being "disciplinary" in not letting Athens issue more short-term debt, and said the central bank should buy Greek debt as part of its bond-buying program right away and not this summer, as it has said it would. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/08/us-eurozone-greece-varoufakis-idUSKBN0M40F420150308 Creditors Reject Greece's Reform Proposals by Nikolaos Chrysoloras Bloomberg News March 8 (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 tabled 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 such as tourists, is “far” from complete and the country probably won’t receive an aid disbursement this month, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Sunday. . . . Varoufakis said on the weekend that if the country’s creditors raise requests which aren’t acceptable to the government, then the people of Greece may have to decide on how to break the deadlock. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras also signaled the referendum option is being considered. “If we were to hold a referendum tomorrow with the question, ‘do you want your dignity or a continuation of this unworthy policy,’ then everyone would choose dignity regardless of difficulties that would accompany that decision,” Tsipras told Der Spiegel Magazine, in an interview published Saturday. Tsipras is walking a tightrope between sticking to his election pledges, which found resonance in a country with a 26 percent unemployment rate, and avoiding default and a possible exit from the euro region. Some of his post-election glow is starting to fade, one opinion poll showed. A survey conducted by Marc for the Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper on Saturday showed 64 percent of Greeks had a positive opinion of the government, down from 83.6 percent in February. . . . If talks between euro-area finance ministers in Brussels fail, the government may have to decide its next step fast. “Time is running short for Greece,” ECB Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said in interview with Cypriot newspaper Politis published Sunday. <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-08/greek-tensions-revived-as-creditors-reject-reform-list> Greece threatens new elections if eurozone rejects planned reforms Athens’ finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, says referendum or new election on fiscal policy is possible if deadlock remains by Helena Smith in Athens The Guardian March 8, 2015 . . . Varoufakis was the second high-ranking official in as many days to suggest the possibility of a referendum being held. On Saturday, Panos Kammenos, who heads the government’s junior partner in office, the small, rightwing Independent Greeks party, said such a ballot could be a “possible response” to protracted disagreement with creditor bodies propping up Greece’s debt-stricken economy. “If [lenders] question the will of the Greek people and of the government, one possible response would be to carry out a referendum,” Kammenos, who is also defence minister, told the financial weekly Agora. Reforms have been set as a condition for unlocking a €7.2bn (£5.2bn) tranche of aid that Athens has yet to draw down from its €240bn bailout programme agreed with the EU, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). With Greece shut out of capital markets, the disbursement is vital to meeting debt obligations. A letter outlining prospective government reforms – including the novel idea of clamping down on tax evasion by enlisting the support of tourists and housewives – was dispatched to the Euro group chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Friday. But with the proposals reportedly receiving a lukewarm response, the Greek finance ministry spent the weekend feverishly fine-tuning the policies. One EU official in Brussels was quoted as saying that the leaked letter “bore no relation” to the deal recently reached between Athens and its creditors enabling the country to extend its current bailout programme until June. Another described the proposals as “amateurish”. Faced with the prospect of a new credit crunch, the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, also worked the phones at the weekend, speaking with French President François Hollande and the ECB president Mario Draghi. . . . Ahead of tomorrow’s meeting, creditors have signaled that they want Athens to specify reforms with “harder facts and figures” including showing a renewed commitment to the country’s stalled privatisation process. Militants on the far-left of Syriza have made such “asset stripping” a “red line” that they will not cross. “The country is at war with lenders,” warned the interior minister, Nikos Voutsis, giving voice to the increasingly combative sentiments now colouring relations with creditors. “Every month the leash is getting tighter for us. But we are not going to proceed in this war like happy scouts ready to follow bailout policies.” With the rhetoric at such levels, Athens is treading a very fine line. Piling on the pressure, senior ECB officials also repeated at the weekend that the Frankfurt-based institution would not allow Greece to issue more short-term debt on the basis that it would be tantamount to illegally financing the Greek government. Last week, Draghi insisted that lending to Greek banks would only resume once the new government in Athens implemented reforms. Greece’s young premier has said in the absence of rescue funds that his administration will resort to short-term treasury bills to cover cash shortfalls in the coming weeks. “If the ECB insists on this decision, which in our opinion is not the right one, then it will be taking on a major responsibility,” Tsipras told Der Spiegel before appealing to Draghi by phone on Saturday to change course. With the current impasse threatening to lead Greece into defaulting on its payments and the spectre of a referendum renewing fears of further turmoil for an economy already blighted by the twin ills of bankruptcy and political uncertainty, Varoufakis’ remarks were quickly described as “irresponsible” by the political opposition. . . . <http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/mar/08/greece-threatens-new-elections-if-eurozone-rejects-planned-reforms> _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
