In Greece, Property Is Debt

by Nikos Konstandaras

New York Times
November 1, 2016

At law courts throughout Greece, people are lining up to file papers renouncing their inheritance. Not necessarily because some feckless uncle left them with a pile of debt at the end of his revels; they are turning their backs on what used to be a pillar of Greece’s economy and society: real estate. Growing personal debt, declining incomes and ever higher taxes as Greece’s depression grinds on have turned property and the dream of easy money into dread of a catastrophic burden.

The figures are clear. In 2013, two years after a property tax was introduced (previously, real estate tax revenue came mainly from transfers or conveyance taxes), 29,200 people declined to accept their inheritance, according to the Justice Ministry. In 2015, the number had climbed to 45,627, an increase of 56 percent in two years. Reports from across the country suggest that this year, too, large numbers of people are refusing to inherit.

“This can be very painful,” said Giorgos Voukelatos, a lawyer. “People may lose their family home. Because if the father or mother had debts, the child might be unemployed and unable to carry this weight as well.”

The growing aversion to property is evident in the drop in business at notaries public. The national statistics service, Elstat, reported in July that in 2014 there were 23,221 deeds in which living parents transferred property to their children, down from 90,718 in 2008. The number of wills drawn up or notarized has been steady through the crisis, at around 30,000 annually, suggesting that many inheritances being rejected were not part of formal wills. (More than 120,000 people die each year.)

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Tsipras Caught Between EU and Voter Demands

by Giorgos Christides & Katrin Kuntz

Spiegel
November 1, 2016

When he got elected nearly two years ago, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised to stand up to the EU's austerity demands and restore his country's dignity. His failure to deliver risks plunging the country into a new political crisis.

The neighborhood around Villa Maximos could be out of a fairy tale: There's an avenue lined with bitter orange trees in front of Alexis Tsipras' official residence, and the National Garden, with benches for couples, is located just next door. It has been reported that the Greek prime minister and his cabinet used to take calm strolls here. After his victory in early 2015, Tsipras had ordered that security barriers in front of parliament be torn down. "We don't need a police state," he announced. In other words: the 11 million Greeks who love us will take care of our security.

Today, 21 months later, the neighborhood has changed. Two riot police buses now seal the avenue leading to Villa Maximos. Officers stand watch in front of it around the clock.

The people's love of Tsipras has turned into anger. Because of their diminishing salaries, air-traffic controllers, doctors and teachers are standing up to the government. About four weeks ago, retirees tried to topple the police buses, their faces full of anger and disappointment. When police officers drove the seniors back with tear gas, an outcry swept across the country: Hadn't Tsipras promised that things like this would never happen again, they asked?

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Greek Homeowners Scramble as Repossession Looms: ‘It’s Like a Horror Movie’

by Niki Kitsantonis

New York Times
October 29, 2016

Even after retiring as an accountant, Michalis Hanis dutifully kept up with the mortgage payments on the small house in a suburb of Athens where he has lived for 23 years. That was until several years ago, when Greece’s economic crisis hit.

As part of belt-tightening measures demanded by Greece’s creditors, the government cut his pension by 35 percent. Like his country’s debts, his debts grew.

Now he has joined the tens of thousands of Greeks fighting to save their homes as a sudden wave of repossessions has struck this year, prompting mounting protests across Greece.

“It’s like a horror movie,” said Mr. Hanis, 63, who takes antidepressants and sleeping pills to cope. “You can never relax. I just want to protect my home.”

The country’s creditors have pressed the government to allow the auction of delinquent debtors’ properties, collecting billions of euros that could be used to prop up tottering Greek banks.

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Greece’s Syriza Defiant After Judges Annul Key Policy

by Marcus Walker & Nektaria Stamouli

Wall Street Journal
October 27, 2016

Greece’s ruling Syriza party vowed on Thursday to continue fighting for its radical agenda after judges struck down its plan to revamp Greece’s media sector, the culmination of a weekslong power struggle that produced allegations of blackmail and “fascist” methods.

Greece’s supreme administrative court, the Council of State, ruled late Wednesday that the government, led by the left-wing Syriza party, acted unconstitutionally by licensing TV broadcasters itself, a power that the constitution reserves for an independent media regulator.

“The decision creates a feeling of injustice,” said State Minister Nikos Pappas, an aide of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras who has overseen the auction. “Governments are not brought down by judicial decisions, but only by the people.”

In early September, the government auctioned broadcast permits for only four private TV channels, leaving several existing TV stations facing closure. The court ruling annuls the government’s auction and removes the threat of forced closures.

The government billed its reform of Greek TV as necessary to combat corruption and dismantle a network of vested interests among media moguls, banks and the political establishment.

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Highest Greek court blocks Syriza media law

by Kerin Hope

Financial Times
October 27, 2016

Greece’s highest court has ruled that a media law pushed through parliament by the leftwing Syriza-led government is unconstitutional, raising the stakes in a dispute over the award last month of nationwide television licences to four local business magnates.

Wednesday night’s decision by the 25-member council of state, comprising the country’s leading judges, came after more than five hours of bitter argument, according to people briefed on the deliberations.

The ruling was passed by 14 votes for to 11. Nikos Sakellariou, president of the council, declined to comment, saying details of the decision “must remain confidential”.

According to one person with knowledge of the discussions, the court upheld a constitutional provision that the broadcasting regulator, not the government, was responsible for licensing commercial TV stations.

The ruling marks a damaging setback for the Syriza government, which went ahead with the auction after failing to reach agreement with opposition parties over appointing new members to the regulator’s board.

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Greek court blocks Syriza plan to shut TV channels

by Kerin Hope

Financial Times
October 19, 2016

The Syriza-led government’s plan to exert greater control over local media by limiting the number of nationwide television licences suffered a setback when Greece’s highest court upheld an appeal by six private channels facing imminent closure.

The decision by the 25-member Council of State, made up of the country’s leading judges, came five days before the six channels were due to shut down with the loss of more than 2,000 jobs.

The private channels had argued in their appeal that the decision by the government to shut down their stations was unconstitutional.

The court’s ruling has now opened the way for the council to hold a full discussion on whether a new media law allowing only four nationwide channels to operate in Greece is at odds with the country’s constitution.

Tuesday night’s ruling, which was approved by a 16 to nine majority after hours of fractious argument, is also likely to derail a procedure in which four local bidders were awarded nationwide licences at a closed auction last month for a total price of €246m.

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‘We’re never getting out of here’: How refugees became stranded in Greece

by Anthony Faiola

Washington Post
October 14, 2016

When Europe abruptly closed its land borders last spring to refugees fleeing war, it made a much-heralded promise: Wealthy nations across the European Union would take in tens of thousands of desperate Syrians and Iraqis who had made it as far as near-bankrupt Greece only to find themselves trapped.

But one by one, those nations have reneged, turning primitive camps such as this one into dire symbols of Europe’s broken pledge.

Amid allegations of Greek mismanagement, this site on the grounds of an abandoned toilet-paper factory still lacks basic heat, even as nighttime temperatures dip into the low 50s.

Mosquitoes infest the white canvas tents of refugee families stranded here for months. A 14-year-old Syrian girl was recently raped. There are reports of stabbings, thefts, suicide attempts and drug dealing.

“I won’t go out alone anymore,” said Rama Wahed, a 16-year-old Syrian girl hugging herself in her family’s tent.

In the opposite corner, her 17-year-old brother, Kamal, stared blankly ahead. Since their father died in Syria, he is the “man of the family.” But he looks like a lost little boy. Like so many other families here, their family of five has been waiting for word to go somewhere, anywhere but here. Caught in a broken system, they are losing hope.

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Syriza at odds with Orthodox clergy over religious teaching plans

by Kerin Hope

Financial Times
October 14, 2016

Damned as a “wretched man” and “religious racist” who should be excommunicated, Greece’s minister of education has ignited the anger of hardline Orthodox clerics with his plans to reduce their role in religious teaching.

Under the reforms, due to be introduced next year, the state will take control of religious education in schools, broadening it out to include other faiths.

“In our [party’s] opinion, religious studies are too confessional — they try to persuade pupils of the correctness of Orthodoxy, which is not the job of the educational system,” said Nikos Filis. “We’ve taken the decision to go ahead with changes [in the religious studies curriculum] to reflect the increasing diversity of faiths in our society, especially following the arrival in Greece of so many refugees.”

It is the latest salvo in a battle between Syriza — a hard left party which once campaigned for the separation of church and state — and a religious establishment that still holds huge political sway.

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Greek yogurt is no longer the trendiest yogurt

by Abha Bhattarai

Washington Post
October 13, 2016

Move over, Greek yogurt.

The protein-rich breakfast staple, which has enjoyed an astronomical ascent in recent years, is being replaced by a new form of dairy.

The latest fad: Yogurt drinks, according to a report by research firm Mintel.

Yogurt smoothies, kefir and other drinks are experiencing double-digit growth because, researchers say, they offer a more portable, spoon-less alternative to traditional forms of yogurt. As a result, sales of yogurt drinks have climbed 62 percent over the past five years and are projected to grow another 11 percent this year, according to Mintel. (Sales of “spoonable” yogurt, by comparison, grew 27 percent since 2011.)

Meanwhile, year-over-year sales of traditional forms of yogurt have been sliding since 2013.

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The IMF should stay in the Greek rescue squad

Financial Times
Editorial
October 11, 2016

Good news coming out of the dismal mess of the Greek economy and its international bailout has been a rare commodity over the past six years. So it is tempting to celebrate the decision of the eurogroup of finance ministers that Athens has done enough structural reform to receive the latest €2.8bn tranche of its bailout.

In practice, a quiet measure of relief would be more appropriate than unbridled joy. While Greece’s government has done better than many sceptics feared following the shambles of last year’s referendum and re-election of Alexis Tsipras as prime minister, the measures it has enacted are highly unlikely to make a material difference to growth in the short to medium run.

The repeated warnings from the International Monetary Fund that Greece needs more fiscal space — and, if necessary, debt relief — are more apposite in addressing the country’s immediate priorities. If the eurozone authorities want to translate Athens’ fragile recent achievements into growth, they will need to look at the demand side of the economy as well as its productive efficiency.

Despite some grumbling from the usual quarters (Berlin), the eurogroup ministers have decided that Greece has done enough to reform its expensive pension system, liberalise the energy sector and set up a new privatisation agency to warrant the release of the final part of a tranche of money originally due earlier this year.

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Greek reforms on target for €2.8bn EU bailout

Jim Brunsden & Mehreen Khan

Financial Times
October 10, 2016

Eurozone ministers gave the go-ahead for Greece to receive €2.8bn in bailout money, as Athens met the deadline to implement reforms needed to unlock the funds.

Ministers meeting on Monday in Luxembourg confirmed that Greece has successfully met all the policy “milestones” in areas such as liberalising of the energy sector, pensions reform, bank governance and management of a new privatisation agency.

This marks a turnround compared with last month, when Greece’s finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, was chastised by eurozone counterparts for Athens’ slowness in implementing the measures needed to release the funds. At the time, Athens had completed only two of 15 reforms.

Speaking after the meeting, Pierre Moscovici, EU economic affairs commissioner, said “all remaining milestones have been completed”. Earlier he praised the “tremendous” work done by the government of Alexis Tsipras in implementing “difficult reforms for Greek society”.

The €2.8bn, which is a leftover from a larger tranche of money released earlier this year, had threatened to become a symbol of the euro area’s difficulties in getting Greece to comply with the conditions of its bailout programme.

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Greece forecasts economic growth of 2.7% in 2017

by Helena Smith

Guardian
October 2, 2016

After more than half a decade of gruelling, austerity-driven recession, Greece has forecast economic growth in 2017, in what would be its first annual rebound in seven years.

Europe’s most indebted country will see growth of 2.7% next year partly as a result of an upsurge in tourism, according to the draft budget that Athens’s leftist-led coalition will table in parliament on Monday.

“We are at a turning point at which we can say, with certainty, that we are leaving the recession behind us,” the national economy minister, Giorgos Stathakis, said last week.

The blueprint, which officials hope will form the basis of talks when lenders begin a second review of the economy later this month, is expected to highlight better-than-expected tax revenues and renewed interest in investments under the country’s privatisation programme.

Insiders said Greece would easily meet its bailout goal of achieving a surplus – excluding debt-servicing costs – of 0.5% GDP this year. Its draft budget is projecting a 1.75% surplus for next year in line with last summer’s €86bn (£74bn) rescue programme.

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Greece’s 2017 Budget Plan Sticks With Robust Growth Forecast

by Stelios Bouras

Wall Street Journal
October 3, 2016

Greece’s budget plan for 2017 sees the economy rebounding strongly after a seven-year slump, but analysts say continued austerity and tight credit conditions are likely to weigh on its recovery prospects amid uncertainty over the country’s public debt.

Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos submitted a draft copy of the budget to parliament on Monday that is expected to be finalized in coming weeks after the country resumes talks with lenders on its reform program.

The 53-page budget sticks with Greece’s previous forecasts that the economy is expected to contract by 0.3% this year before growing by 2.7% in 2017. Many see these targets as too optimistic, saying the economy is now entering a period of stagnation, rather than growth, having shrunk by more than 25% since the debt crisis erupted in 2010.

“Although there are some indications pointing to some stabilization in the economy, tight fiscal policy, difficult credit conditions and muted external growth are expected to limit the recovery in 2017,” said Diego Iscaro, senior economist at consulting firm IHS Global Insight. Mr. Iscaro projects the Greek economy will grow by 0.7% next year.

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What’s Derailing Greece’s Plan to Sell State Assets? Its Own Government

by Nektaria Stamouli

Wall Street Journal
October 3, 2016

The day that Christos Spirtzis became responsible for much of Greece’s ambitious privatization program, he vowed to ensure it failed.

Greece’s leftist infrastructure minister has resisted every sale of roads, airports and trains, even though he and his government have promised to raise €50 billion from privatizations as part of the country’s international bailout.

“I hope the deal will not bear fruit,” the combative, chain-smoking former labor unionist said after his government, under pressure from Greece’s creditors, confirmed the sale of 14 regional airports to a German investor. He backed calls for local referendums to scuttle the deal. When he finally had to sign the contract, he did so “with a great deal of pain,” he told Greek radio listeners in a trembling voice.

The Greek government is at war with itself, and that is threatening to derail a key plank of Greece’s bailout, which consists of selling state assets to pay down debt and bring in foreign investment. Leaders in the ruling left-wing Syriza party are touring the world, from New York to Shanghai, lobbying investors to come to Greece and help kick-start its depressed economy. But Syriza’s roots in the Marxist, anti-globalization left make privatization a bitter pill.

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Greece’s Least Wanted Man Lives in Maryland

by Robert Schmidt

Bloomberg
September 30, 2016

For 21 years, Andreas Georgiou worked in relative obscurity as an economist at the International Monetary Fund in Washington. When the European debt crisis hit and his home country of Greece began teetering toward bankruptcy, Georgiou felt a patriotic urge to help. In early 2010 he applied online to run a newly created office designed to clean up Greece’s much maligned economic statistics. He got the job, and in August 2010 he moved to Greece for a five-year term as president of the Hellenic Statistical Authority.

Six years later, rather than being seen as a hero who helped fix Greece’s broken finances, Georgiou is vilified there. His review of the country’s public accounting exposed years of bogus statistics and along the way made him a target for critics who blame him for the strict austerity measures Greece’s creditors imposed. Last year, Georgiou, 55, moved back to suburban Maryland and now faces a variety of civil and criminal charges in Greece, including one that could put him in prison for life. “This is beyond my wildest imagination,” says Georgiou, who says he feels at times as if he’s living in a Kafka novel. “This would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.”

After arriving in Greece, Georgiou quickly realized that entrenched forces were aligned against him. Within months he discovered his e-mail had been hacked after a member of the board that oversaw the statistics office, known by its acronym, Elstat, showed him a copy of a message he’d written. Although that board was later replaced, its members were especially upset, Georgiou says, that they didn’t get to vote on the stats before he released them. “I told the staff that we are going to draw a line in the sand,” he says. “I don’t care what you did before. We are going to go by the book.”

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4.1 Miles

by Daphne Matziaraki

New York Times
September 28, 2016

When I returned home to Greece last fall to make a film about the refugee crisis, I discovered a situation I had never imagined possible. The turquoise sea that surrounds the beautiful Greek island of Lesbos, just 4.1 miles from the Turkish coast, is these days a deadly gantlet, choked with terrified adults and small children on flimsy, dangerous boats. I had never seen people escaping war before, and neither had the island’s residents. I couldn’t believe there was no support for these families to safely escape whatever conflict had caused them to flee. The scene was haunting.

Regardless of the hardship Greeks have endured from the financial crisis, for a long time my home country has by and large been a peaceful, safe and easy place to live. But now Greece is facing a new crisis, one that threatens to undo years of stability, as we struggle to absorb the thousands of desperate migrants who pour across our borders every day. A peak of nearly 5,000 entered Greece each day last year, mainly fleeing conflicts in the Middle East.

The Greek Coast Guard, especially when I was there, has been completely unprepared to deal with the constant flow of rescues necessary to save refugees from drowning as they attempt to cross to Europe from Turkey. When I was there filming, Lesbos had about 40 local coast guard officers, who before the refugee crisis generally spent their time conducting routine border patrols. Most didn’t have CPR training. Their vessels didn’t have thermal cameras or any equipment necessary for tremendous emergencies.

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A New Twist on Greece’s Old-Style Dysfunction

by Yannis Palaiologos

Wall Street Journal
September 28, 2016

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing in Europe about the rise of right-wing populism, about the clampdown on media freedom and judicial independence in places such as Hungary and Poland. But Greece’s populist government, led by the hard-left Syriza party, seems to share many of the same authoritarian instincts of its formerly communist partners, whose values Syriza claims to abhor.

On Sept. 15, corruption prosecutors in Athens raided the advertising business of Lina Nikolopoulou-Stournara, whose husband, Yannis Stournaras, is the governor of Greece’s central bank. The raid was ostensibly part of an investigation into funds allegedly misused by KEELPNO, Greece’s centre for disease control.

But this raid had been ordered by the corruption prosecutor, Eleni Raikou, and not the magistrate responsible for the case, which is highly irregular. It occurred merely a few hours after Mr. Stournaras had notified the government that he was vetoing its picks for key positions, including the CEO and chairman, of the board at Attica Bank. Attica is a troubled lender closely linked to the construction sector. Mr. Stournaras further declared that until the leadership question was resolved (as it since has been, on his terms), all lending by Attica Bank would be frozen.

Mr. Stournaras has long been the villain in Syriza’s version of the Greek crisis. Their first skirmishes came when, as minister of development in the country’s caretaker government from May to June 2012, Mr. Stournaras tried to push through a number of major investments. Syriza accused him of attempting a “political coup d’etat.”

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Fatigued Investors Want Draghi to Buy Greece Before They Do

by Nikos Chrysoloras

Bloomberg
September 28, 2016

Michel Danechi isn’t buying the Greek turnaround story just yet.

As Greek business leaders and government officials presented to investors last week in London a list of reasons why valuations of the country’s assets make them attractive, Danechi’s Duet Asset Management took note. But what he wants to see is for Greece to show it can make good on pledges made to euro-area creditors so it can be included in the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s quantitative easing program.

“Valuation is there, but few believe that this government can deliver,” said Danechi, who helps oversee $1.5 billion in emerging-market assets at Duet. “If Greece goes into the QE program then the mood would turn automatically.”

Investors are in no rush to pour money into a market where the value of stock and bond holdings has been repeatedly crushed. In dozens of meetings at the annual Athens Stock Exchange roadshow, Greek executives were bombarded with well-worn questions about political risk, delayed reforms, lack of liquidity, excessive corporate taxes and an unfavorable business climate.

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Athens approves fund to speed up privatisation programme

by Kerin Hope

Financial Times
September 27, 2016

The Greek parliament has approved a fresh package of structural measures required to unlock another €2.8bn slice of bailout funding, including the establishment of a controversial fund to accelerate the country’s lagging privatisation programme.

The ruling leftwing Syriza party and its rightwing coalition partner, the Independent Greeks, won Tuesday night’s vote by a comfortable margin, with hard-left MPs backing the government even though some had decried the sale of public utilities and transport companies as a “crime”.

Among the other measures legislated were additional pension system reforms and further liberalisation of the electricity market. Several other reforms, including sweeping board changes at Greek banks, will be enacted by decree.

Privatisation is an especially sensitive issue for the Syriza-led government, which has been reluctant to complete a series of sales agreed by the previous centre-right government, despite having endorsed them last year as part of Greece’s €86bn third rescue package.

Several extreme-left Syriza cabinet ministers attempted to delay specific deals, among them a €1.2bn concession agreement with Germany’s Fraport to operate 14 regional airports and the €370m sale of a controlling stake in Athens’ port of Piraeus to the China Cosco Shipping group.

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EU's Dombrovskis: Greece government populism made adjustment worse

Reuters
September 26, 2016

Greece has had to go through tougher austerity than it would have otherwise been necessary, because of the populist stance of the left-wing government of Alexis Tsipras in 2015, European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday.

Tsipras, who took power in January 2015, rejected belt-tightening in public finances requested by lenders in exchange for emergency loans and reversed some of the reforms introduced by the previous Greek governments.

As new loans were frozen, Greece defaulted on the International Monetary Fund in July 2015 and had to introduce capital controls to prevent its banking system from collapse.

"Populism doesn't solve problems. Populism creates problems," Dombrovskis told a round-table in Riga in a discussion on the growing support for populist parties in many EU countries.

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