Titoli di Stato area Euro GRECIA Operativo titoli di stato - Cap. 1 (10 lettori)
- Creatore Discussione Imark
- Data di Inizio
- Stato
tommy271
Forumer storico
Defense minister on Israel visit
Defense Minister Panos Beglitis on Sunday began a three-day visit to Israel, where he is to meet with top government officials and discuss matters of bilateral interest including cooperation in the military and defense sectors, as well as developments in the eastern Mediterranean.
Beglitis is to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (19:02)
***
Nei giorni scorsi è notevolmente cresciuta la tensione tra Israele e Turchia.
Beglitis is to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (19:02)
***
Nei giorni scorsi è notevolmente cresciuta la tensione tra Israele e Turchia.
tommy271
Forumer storico
Gov’t insists it is in control
PM rules out early polls while Venizelos stresses reforms are on track
Following intense media speculation over the unexpected departure of foreign inspectors from Athens, Prime Minister George Papandreou and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos sought to send messages of reassurance over the weekend, stressing that economic reforms are broadly on track and that early elections are out of the question despite mounting political discord.
Papandreou, addressing a conference marking the 37th anniversary of his Socialist party’s foundation by his father on Saturday, pledged that his government will extricate Greece from its debt crisis by 2013 when the next general elections are scheduled. “Citizens will judge us in 2013,” the premier said. “By then, we will have managed to extract Greece from the crisis and we will have completed many important reforms,” he said.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos responded to frenzied press speculation about a rift between the government and auditors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, insisting that reforms were being accelerated.
“There are the approved measures which now need to be implemented and several structural issues for which we need to show better results... and this is what we are doing,” Venizelos said in a statement. The minister said the government was determined to stick to its promises to lenders, not because the measures have been imposed by foreign creditors, but “for the sake of our children.”
According to sources, one of the key bones of contention between the government and Greece’s foreign creditors in talks that broke down at the end of last week were calls by the auditors for additional measures to plug a revenue shortfall.
Sources told Kathimerini that the plan agreed between authorities and auditors foresaw the dismissal of 7,500 public sector employees - a move that is certain to prompt furious protests and that would cost the government dearly in political capital.
Already the ruling Socialists are losing popularity. Three opinion polls published in yesterday’s newspapers showed that the main conservative opposition New Democracy party had widened its lead by between 0.6 and 5.1 percentage points over PASOK.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:17)
PM rules out early polls while Venizelos stresses reforms are on track
Papandreou, addressing a conference marking the 37th anniversary of his Socialist party’s foundation by his father on Saturday, pledged that his government will extricate Greece from its debt crisis by 2013 when the next general elections are scheduled. “Citizens will judge us in 2013,” the premier said. “By then, we will have managed to extract Greece from the crisis and we will have completed many important reforms,” he said.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos responded to frenzied press speculation about a rift between the government and auditors from the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, insisting that reforms were being accelerated.
“There are the approved measures which now need to be implemented and several structural issues for which we need to show better results... and this is what we are doing,” Venizelos said in a statement. The minister said the government was determined to stick to its promises to lenders, not because the measures have been imposed by foreign creditors, but “for the sake of our children.”
According to sources, one of the key bones of contention between the government and Greece’s foreign creditors in talks that broke down at the end of last week were calls by the auditors for additional measures to plug a revenue shortfall.
Sources told Kathimerini that the plan agreed between authorities and auditors foresaw the dismissal of 7,500 public sector employees - a move that is certain to prompt furious protests and that would cost the government dearly in political capital.
Already the ruling Socialists are losing popularity. Three opinion polls published in yesterday’s newspapers showed that the main conservative opposition New Democracy party had widened its lead by between 0.6 and 5.1 percentage points over PASOK.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:17)
tommy271
Forumer storico
Privatization revenues will fail to meet target
Hellenic Petroleum selloff may be brought forward, says Papaconstantinou
By Vangelis Mandravelis
Revenues from privatizations by the end of the year will not even amount to half the target Athens has agreed to with its creditors, due to the delays in the process and the devaluation of stocks on the local bourse.
Against a target of 5 billion euros until the end of the year, revenues from state selloffs are not expected to exceed 2.4 billion.
Environment Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou said in an interview on Saturday that the government may sell its stake in the country’s biggest refiner, Hellenic Petroleum, earlier than originally planned.
“Our plan for Hellenic Petroleum is to proceed with the stake sale in the first quarter of 2012 or earlier,” he stated. Originally the sale of the state’s 35.5 percent stake in Hellenic Petroleum was earmarked for the first quarter of 2012.
The sale of a 55 percent stake in natural gas company DEPA and a 31 percent stake in natural gas grid operator DESFA remain on the country’s privatization list for the last quarter of this year, Papaconstantinou added.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:10)
Hellenic Petroleum selloff may be brought forward, says Papaconstantinou
Revenues from privatizations by the end of the year will not even amount to half the target Athens has agreed to with its creditors, due to the delays in the process and the devaluation of stocks on the local bourse.
Against a target of 5 billion euros until the end of the year, revenues from state selloffs are not expected to exceed 2.4 billion.
Environment Minister Giorgos Papaconstantinou said in an interview on Saturday that the government may sell its stake in the country’s biggest refiner, Hellenic Petroleum, earlier than originally planned.
“Our plan for Hellenic Petroleum is to proceed with the stake sale in the first quarter of 2012 or earlier,” he stated. Originally the sale of the state’s 35.5 percent stake in Hellenic Petroleum was earmarked for the first quarter of 2012.
The sale of a 55 percent stake in natural gas company DEPA and a 31 percent stake in natural gas grid operator DESFA remain on the country’s privatization list for the last quarter of this year, Papaconstantinou added.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:10)
tommy271
Forumer storico
Soft and hard default scenarios draw closer for Greece
Country could be recognized as a basket case
By Dimitris Kontogiannis
It looks increasingly likely that Greece’s political elite and social partners - such as the trade unions, the employers’ associations and others - on one hand and the European Union on the other, will face a critical dilemma in the next few weeks, months or quarters choosing between a hard default or a soft default scenario.
Any suggestion at the end of 2009 that a eurozone country would have been forced to seek IMF financing a few months later would not have been taken seriously. Yet, this is what happened a few months later thanks to a large extent to the mismanagement of the crisis by the Greek side.
The pressure of time to avoid a default and the relatively limited experience of Greek officials involved in the negotiations with the EU and IMF officials produced an economic program that failed to recognize that the country faced a solvency rather than a liquidity crisis.
Sometime in the fall of 2010, the troika - namely the representatives of the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB (European Central Bank) - must have recognized that the main goal of the program was not going to be fulfilled. In other words, Greece would not gain access to the world capital markets by early 2012 at the latest as envisaged.
Around that time or a bit later, the troika must have also recognized that implementation of the economic program was not going well. After a strong start marked by legislation to overhaul the ailing social security system, some spending cuts and many tax hikes, the government dragged its feet.
By spring 2011, it must have become clear Greece was lagging behind in the implementation of the program on both fronts: structural reforms and fiscal consolidation. Faced with the prospect of contagion of the Greek debt crisis to other vulnerable eurozone countries, especially Italy and Spain, and the choice between integration and disintegration of the eurozone, the EU leaders decided “to support last July a new program for Greece and, together with the IMF and the voluntary contribution of the private sector, to fully cover the financing gap.”
The approval of the midterm fiscal strategy by Greek Parliament helped a lot to that end since the other governments could sell the new austerity program to their constituencies. But the EU summit’s decision was political and had to be converted into technical terms before heading for approval at national parliaments.
The problems that have arisen with Finland’s demand for collateral to back the new loan and signs that private sector participation in the second Greek bailout is not proceeding as expected or hoped for apparently have not helped sentiment and have clouded the prospects for the second package.
But nothing did more to cloud the prospects more than the temporary halt of the negotiations between the government and the troika late last week. It was by any account a serious development, given that the previous loan tranche of 12 billion euros from the first rescue package of 110 billion euros had been released although Greece had not fully met the conditions of the program.
At this point, the government appears to want a so-called “political” solution at the highest EU level that translates into providing Greece the same amount of financing under the second bailout program - 109 billion euros of official loans - while allowing the country to miss the budget deficit target this year and perhaps next in exchange for some upfront structural reforms. Whether this is politically acceptable by the other EU leaders remains to be seen.
However, the Greek side should note that more and more EU officials and some market participants increasingly see the country as a special case. This may eventually lead to a market differentiation between Greece and the rest of the eurozone periphery, namely Portugal and Ireland, on one hand and isolate it from Spain and Italy as well.
There is no doubt that Greece’s problem was a complex one from the beginning. On the one hand, the country had to tackle its large budget deficit, underpinning a high and fast rising public debt-to-GDP ratio, and on the other it had to improve the eroded competitiveness of its economy without controlling its own currency.
Yet slashing the budget deficit by increasing taxes and cutting spending in a frontloaded fiscal consolidation program to help restore market confidence in the country’s public finances soon also meant the Greek economy would have to suffer a deeper recession than otherwise thought.
The hope of the planners was that structural reforms and successful fiscal consolidation would have teamed up to pull the economy out of recession relatively soon. In so doing, they did not pay enough attention to the fact that structural reforms, even when implemented, take some time to bear fruit, and that the local economy was a relatively closed one, meaning it cannot count on the external sector, i.e. exports, to pull it out of recession like Ireland.
In past episodes of successful fiscal consolidation, countries could regain competitiveness relatively quickly by letting their national currency depreciate against the others. By being a member of the eurozone, however, Greece did not have such a luxury.
But going through a period of deflation and fiscal consolidation without the benefit of depreciation means a protracted recession which may not be politically and socially acceptable after a while. We are not sure whether Greece has reached the threshold of pain - perhaps not - but it is clearly heading there.
In situations like this and given all the obstacles the government and the political establishment brings to the fore, Greece and its EU partners will have to make a decision at some point down the road. This means restructuring the Greek debt in a way so that the debt-to-GDP ratio falls considerably, perhaps close to 100 percent from an estimated 166 percent this year before the impact from PSI (Private Sector Involvement).
Whether this leads to a hard default and the exit of Greece from the eurozone or a soft default will have to be decided.
It is clear to us that the EU leadership has grown increasingly disenchanted with Greece. Therefore, any concession on a large-scale restructuring of the Greek debt will hinge both on their estimates about the possible impact from contagion to other europeriphery countries and the so-called moral hazard problem. The latter refers to putting Greece under less pressure to achieve a primary surplus and implement structural reforms.
So, if they decide to give Greece another go, the country will have to give a lot in return, such as constitutional limit to the budget deficit, to counter moral hazard.
This is the soft default scenario. This would have been unimaginable a few months ago but it is possible now as reform and fiscal consolidation fatigue has gripped Greece.
The worst is what some call the hard default scenario. Here, the EU pulls the plug, recognizing that Greece is a basket case or/and that the Greek political elite and social partners cannot honor their commitments.
Neither scenario is good for the country, especially the hard default one. However, they can no longer be dismissed.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:22)
***
Punti di vista.
Country could be recognized as a basket case
It looks increasingly likely that Greece’s political elite and social partners - such as the trade unions, the employers’ associations and others - on one hand and the European Union on the other, will face a critical dilemma in the next few weeks, months or quarters choosing between a hard default or a soft default scenario.
Any suggestion at the end of 2009 that a eurozone country would have been forced to seek IMF financing a few months later would not have been taken seriously. Yet, this is what happened a few months later thanks to a large extent to the mismanagement of the crisis by the Greek side.
The pressure of time to avoid a default and the relatively limited experience of Greek officials involved in the negotiations with the EU and IMF officials produced an economic program that failed to recognize that the country faced a solvency rather than a liquidity crisis.
Sometime in the fall of 2010, the troika - namely the representatives of the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB (European Central Bank) - must have recognized that the main goal of the program was not going to be fulfilled. In other words, Greece would not gain access to the world capital markets by early 2012 at the latest as envisaged.
Around that time or a bit later, the troika must have also recognized that implementation of the economic program was not going well. After a strong start marked by legislation to overhaul the ailing social security system, some spending cuts and many tax hikes, the government dragged its feet.
By spring 2011, it must have become clear Greece was lagging behind in the implementation of the program on both fronts: structural reforms and fiscal consolidation. Faced with the prospect of contagion of the Greek debt crisis to other vulnerable eurozone countries, especially Italy and Spain, and the choice between integration and disintegration of the eurozone, the EU leaders decided “to support last July a new program for Greece and, together with the IMF and the voluntary contribution of the private sector, to fully cover the financing gap.”
The approval of the midterm fiscal strategy by Greek Parliament helped a lot to that end since the other governments could sell the new austerity program to their constituencies. But the EU summit’s decision was political and had to be converted into technical terms before heading for approval at national parliaments.
The problems that have arisen with Finland’s demand for collateral to back the new loan and signs that private sector participation in the second Greek bailout is not proceeding as expected or hoped for apparently have not helped sentiment and have clouded the prospects for the second package.
But nothing did more to cloud the prospects more than the temporary halt of the negotiations between the government and the troika late last week. It was by any account a serious development, given that the previous loan tranche of 12 billion euros from the first rescue package of 110 billion euros had been released although Greece had not fully met the conditions of the program.
At this point, the government appears to want a so-called “political” solution at the highest EU level that translates into providing Greece the same amount of financing under the second bailout program - 109 billion euros of official loans - while allowing the country to miss the budget deficit target this year and perhaps next in exchange for some upfront structural reforms. Whether this is politically acceptable by the other EU leaders remains to be seen.
However, the Greek side should note that more and more EU officials and some market participants increasingly see the country as a special case. This may eventually lead to a market differentiation between Greece and the rest of the eurozone periphery, namely Portugal and Ireland, on one hand and isolate it from Spain and Italy as well.
There is no doubt that Greece’s problem was a complex one from the beginning. On the one hand, the country had to tackle its large budget deficit, underpinning a high and fast rising public debt-to-GDP ratio, and on the other it had to improve the eroded competitiveness of its economy without controlling its own currency.
Yet slashing the budget deficit by increasing taxes and cutting spending in a frontloaded fiscal consolidation program to help restore market confidence in the country’s public finances soon also meant the Greek economy would have to suffer a deeper recession than otherwise thought.
The hope of the planners was that structural reforms and successful fiscal consolidation would have teamed up to pull the economy out of recession relatively soon. In so doing, they did not pay enough attention to the fact that structural reforms, even when implemented, take some time to bear fruit, and that the local economy was a relatively closed one, meaning it cannot count on the external sector, i.e. exports, to pull it out of recession like Ireland.
In past episodes of successful fiscal consolidation, countries could regain competitiveness relatively quickly by letting their national currency depreciate against the others. By being a member of the eurozone, however, Greece did not have such a luxury.
But going through a period of deflation and fiscal consolidation without the benefit of depreciation means a protracted recession which may not be politically and socially acceptable after a while. We are not sure whether Greece has reached the threshold of pain - perhaps not - but it is clearly heading there.
In situations like this and given all the obstacles the government and the political establishment brings to the fore, Greece and its EU partners will have to make a decision at some point down the road. This means restructuring the Greek debt in a way so that the debt-to-GDP ratio falls considerably, perhaps close to 100 percent from an estimated 166 percent this year before the impact from PSI (Private Sector Involvement).
Whether this leads to a hard default and the exit of Greece from the eurozone or a soft default will have to be decided.
It is clear to us that the EU leadership has grown increasingly disenchanted with Greece. Therefore, any concession on a large-scale restructuring of the Greek debt will hinge both on their estimates about the possible impact from contagion to other europeriphery countries and the so-called moral hazard problem. The latter refers to putting Greece under less pressure to achieve a primary surplus and implement structural reforms.
So, if they decide to give Greece another go, the country will have to give a lot in return, such as constitutional limit to the budget deficit, to counter moral hazard.
This is the soft default scenario. This would have been unimaginable a few months ago but it is possible now as reform and fiscal consolidation fatigue has gripped Greece.
The worst is what some call the hard default scenario. Here, the EU pulls the plug, recognizing that Greece is a basket case or/and that the Greek political elite and social partners cannot honor their commitments.
Neither scenario is good for the country, especially the hard default one. However, they can no longer be dismissed.
ekathimerini.com , Sunday September 4, 2011 (22:22)
***
Punti di vista.
tommy271
Forumer storico
Siamo intorno ai 137,18 sul Future Bund.
tommy271
Forumer storico
Bund tocca nuovo massimo, timori su economia Usa, debito Europa
lunedì 5 settembre 2011 08:49
LONDRA, 5 settembre (Reuters) - I derivati dei governativi
tedeschi hanno aperto la seduta toccando un nuovo massimo
storico.
Le attese sono per un proseguimento della decisa
impostazione rialzista, a fronte dei crescenti timori sullo
stato dell'economia americana, dopo i deludenti dati sui nuovi
occupati di agosto e sull'evoluzione della crisi debitoria nella
zona euro.
Oltre al verdetto della Corte Costituzionale tedesca sulla
legittimità della partecipazione di Berlino ai bailout di
Grecia, Irlanda e Portogallo e alle incognite sul proseguimento
degli acquisti della Bce sul mercato secondario a sostegno dei
titoli di Stato italiani e spagnoli, gli occhi sono puntati
sull'Italia e sulla capacità del governo italiano di portare
sotto controllo i conti pubblici.
In apertura il futures a settembre sul Bund ha toccato un
nuovo massimo storico a 137,04, mettendo a segno un rialzo di 40
tick FBLc1. Il decennale tedesco intorno alle 8,35 avanza di
32 centesimi e rende l'1,974%.
lunedì 5 settembre 2011 08:49
LONDRA, 5 settembre (Reuters) - I derivati dei governativi
tedeschi hanno aperto la seduta toccando un nuovo massimo
storico.
Le attese sono per un proseguimento della decisa
impostazione rialzista, a fronte dei crescenti timori sullo
stato dell'economia americana, dopo i deludenti dati sui nuovi
occupati di agosto e sull'evoluzione della crisi debitoria nella
zona euro.
Oltre al verdetto della Corte Costituzionale tedesca sulla
legittimità della partecipazione di Berlino ai bailout di
Grecia, Irlanda e Portogallo e alle incognite sul proseguimento
degli acquisti della Bce sul mercato secondario a sostegno dei
titoli di Stato italiani e spagnoli, gli occhi sono puntati
sull'Italia e sulla capacità del governo italiano di portare
sotto controllo i conti pubblici.
In apertura il futures a settembre sul Bund ha toccato un
nuovo massimo storico a 137,04, mettendo a segno un rialzo di 40
tick FBLc1. Il decennale tedesco intorno alle 8,35 avanza di
32 centesimi e rende l'1,974%.
- Stato