Intervista al presidente della camera di commercio di Atene. Non e' l'opinione del giornale. E' che questi di Syriza non hanno alcuna idea di quello che stanno facendo, secondo lui. Secondo me hanno un'idea molto precisa di quello che vogliono.
Se non erro, questo l'articolo:
Leaders flannel as Greeks prepare for exit
Matthew Campbell, Athens Published: 21 June 2015
ARRIVING at her bank in Athens on Friday morning, Andriana, a widow in designer sunglasses, took one look at the lengthy queue and decided to go home. As she turned to leave, a friendly manager rushed up, took her by the arm, and said: “You really should make a withdrawal.”
The country was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and rumours were swirling around the Greek capital that bank deposits might soon be frozen — in other words, life as normal for a country that has become used to doom-laden predictions after five years of turmoil.
Even so, several customers at the Alpha bank branch in the well-to-do district of Kolonaki were withdrawing their savings — just in case — in what seemed more like a “bank walk” than a “bank run”.
Andriana, 82, joined the queue behind Damianos Iannounis, a 42-year-old businessman who is transferring €40,000 (£28,600) to London. “It’ll be party time for robbers this weekend,” he said with a grin, gesturing to the front of the line where an elderly man, propped on a walking stick, waited as his banknotes went through the counting machine.
Andriana’s withdrawal of €5,000, the maximum the bank would allow in a day, brought to €40,000 the amount she has at home, which is why she did not want her full name to be published.
Like other Greeks with cash stuffed under the mattress, lawn or floorboards — some even hide it in chickens in the freezer — she is afraid of being mugged or burgled. “I’ve heard robbers sometimes follow you home from the bank,” she said, with a nervous glance behind her as we made our way onto the street.
The European Central Bank on Friday agreed to an emergency transfer to Greece of €1.8bn (£1.29bn) to allow people to carry on withdrawing money from cash machines and the banks to open as usual tomorrow.
But the left-wing Syriza government has been warned that unless it does a deal at an emergency EU summit in Brussels tomorrow, a messy “Grexit” — Greek exit from the single currency — is imminent.
Britain is preparing for the worst, deeply concerned over the prospect of the eurozone, our main trading partner, being thrown into turmoil. Plans are in place for the evacuation, if necessary, of British tourists — 2m are expected in Greece this summer — from a country at risk of food shortages and civil unrest.
Some hotels, for their part, are considering the idea of distributing euros to tourists if cash machines run dry, in exchange for a charge on their credit cards.
Greece’s leaders, by contrast, are doing little, if anything, to help their citizens through the chaos that could ensue if the state runs out of money.
As his country teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, Alexis Tsipras, the radical firebrand who came to power with a promise to end painful austerity measures under the EU’s bailout plan, attended an economic forum in St Petersburg with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, on Friday.
His talk of sailing to “new seas to reach new safe ports” was taken as yet another brazen warning that he would seek help elsewhere, even from Russia, if the EU did not give in to Greek demands. So far, even the Russians have seemed unwilling to dip into their pockets.
Europe is getting tired of such posturing and is apparently willing to call his bluff in what is turning into a high-stakes game of “chicken”. “The deadline is clear and this is not a moving target,” said an aide to Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. “If he refuses to accept a deal, Tsipras will take his nation in a very bad direction.”
The Greek government “have got themselves into a real mess”, a diplomat in Athens agreed. “They’ve overplayed their hand. What looked like a cunning plan and subtle negotiating tactics a few months ago now looks like desperation.”
Tsipras had apparently been calculating that the EU would go to any lengths to keep Greece afloat for fear that the eurozone might unravel if it were forced out.
But Donald Tusk, the European Council president, warned on Friday: “The game of chicken needs to end and so does the blame game.”
Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, seemed to ignore him, telling EU leaders that they would be blamed for a “Grexit”.
Greece’s departure from the eurozone would “unleash destructive powers no one can tame”, he wrote on his blog. “Citizens from all over Europe will target not the institutions but their elected finance ministers, their prime ministers and presidents.”
Constantine Michalos, president of the Athens chamber of commerce, said the Greek government had badly miscalculated — and “the problem now is that there’s no plan B”.
Greece should have already started by now printing counterfeit-proof euro-denominated “IOUs” that could be used to pay a percentage of salaries in the event of funds running out, as will happen by August if there is no agreement, Michalos said. But they have yet to do so. “We’re going to have complete chaos,” he warned.
For Stefanos Manos, a former finance minister, “the public administration has ceased functioning” and no precautions have been taken.
He said of Tsipras: “It’s like watching someone standing high up on a ledge of a building. You say, ‘Careful, you could hurt yourself.’ But they say, ‘No, it’s all right, I can fly.’ It’s completely mad.”
Life is already so challenging for many Greeks that it is hard for them to imagine how things could get any worse.
At the Evangelismos hospital, Hercules, a 38-year-old doctor, described how his salary had shrunk from €1,200 (£860) a month when he started the job six years ago to €1,000 today.
“I can only survive on that because I live with my parents and don’t have a family of my own to support,” he said. “But I don’t know how anyone else would.”
George Patoulis, the conservative mayor of Maroussi, a suburb of Athens, is in no doubts about the dangers in the next act of the Greek drama.
Chairman of a local authorities association, he brought together dozens of his counterparts from around the country for a conference entitled on the “humanitarian crisis” and role of local authorities in dealing with it.
“We’re preparing for much more difficult days to come,” he said during a break in proceedings. “We’re looking at what we can do for the most vulnerable people.”
One idea under discussion was freeing municipal land so impoverished families could grow vegetables there. The mayors are also planning to tap businesses to help fund mobile clinics for the growing number of people deprived of medical care because they have no insurance.
Just as Greece is defying its international creditors, Patoulis is one of several mayors who are refusing the government’s demands that they hand over their cash reserves — an estimated €450m (£322m) — to help repay the €1.5bn due to the IMF by the end of the month.
“If the government tells me that it is the last drop of money needed to stay in Europe and the euro then we’ll hand it over,” he said. Otherwise, his municipality’s €5m is more useful in helping to feed the growing army of poor. “We give hungry schoolchildren from poor families tickets so that they can get free meals at school,” he said.
Greeks who lived through the Second World War and its aftermath are under no illusions about how bad things can get.
“People died like rats in the street after the war. They didn’t have anything to eat,” said Stratis Stratigis, 82, a retired lawyer who recalls, as a child, seeing cartloads of bodies. He sees hope of an agreement: “Nobody in Europe wants to be blamed for the dire consequences of failure.”
Theodoris Kouloumbis, a professor of international relations, said he feared civil conflict — a Greek tradition — could be reignited among opponents of the bailout and supporters of reforms. “My dream for us Greeks is to be normal and boring,” he said.
As she walked home tightly clutching her handbag, Andriana said she hoped her country’s “amateurish” leaders would not bring back the drachma.
“We must definitely keep the euro and stay in the EU,” she said. “Otherwise we’ll be just another one of those failed states like they have in the Middle East or Africa.”
UK institutions pull out
British financial institutions have withdrawn £5.29bn from Greek banks, leaving £19.5m — by far the lowest amount since records began in 2004.
The banks, pension funds and insurers withdrew almost all their cash in the first three months of this year, the Bank of England has calculated.
Public bodies in Greece owed British financial firms a further £97m; the amount owed by other sectors in Greece stood at £1.9bn.
The institutions have withdrawn cash before, particularly between 2010 and 2012, but even at its low point the British institutions still held £84m with Greek lenders. Exposure rose to £6.3bn at the end of 2013.
The figures cover only the financial sector and do not take into account money owed to other British companies.
Thousands of holidays unsold
Travel firms are slashing holiday prices to Greece by as much as 50% as the prospect of Grexit looms,
writes Chris Haslam.
Kayak, a travel search engine, saw online inquiries for Greek holidays fall by 53% last week against the same week last year, leaving tour operators with thousands of unsold holidays.
Thomson has dropped the price of a self-catering week at the Nostos Studios in Thassos to £384pp, a 45% reduction; a self-catering week at the Elenitsa Studios, Corfu, from Travelzoo in July is now £159pp — less than the cost of the flight.
Ionian Island Holidays, an upmarket villa specialist, has taken up to 50% off the price of hundreds of flight-inclusive holidays and the website of Sunvil features 176 pages of discounted package holidays departing in July.
