The next few weeks may indelibly stain the future of Europe. There are three issues which can irreparably hurt the Old Continent. Starting from Britain in the extreme northwest, this week the country showed that she risks plummeting into a jingoistic abyss. A confrontation with Spain about the Gibraltar Rock has provoked a wave of […]Twenty days that may remold the future of Europe
April 6, 2017 by 1 Comment
The next few weeks may indelibly stain the future of Europe. There are three issues which can irreparably hurt the Old Continent. Starting from Britain in the extreme northwest, this week the country showed that she risks plummeting into a jingoistic abyss. A confrontation with Spain about the Gibraltar Rock has provoked a wave of […]Why the Greeks forgave Tsipras’ pirouettes around austerity and voted again for SYRIZA
September 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Sunday the Greek voters, at least those who went to the polls, gave to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras not only a second chance to continue in the premiership, but voted also for Panos Kamenos a nationalist right winger, the junior partner of the governing SYRIZA-ANEL coalition. And this as if nothing had happened in […]The new general election will secure Greece’s position in Eurozone; at least for some time
August 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The very next day that the Greek government signed a three year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a new stability support program of €86 billion with the European Commission, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras triggered an early legislative election. To do this he had to resign and according to the constitution, the President of the Republic […]Hardened creditors drive Greece to dire straits; Tsipras desperate for an agreement
July 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, his government and their depressed country are now in real dire straits. This is a much worse position than in any time during the last five years, a period in which Greece repeatedly faced total collapse and was rescued by a troika of creditors (the European Union, the European […]Greece’s Tsipras: Risking country and Eurozone or securing an extra argument for creditors?
June 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his governing left wing SYRIZA party, cornered between its populist rhetoric for greener grass and the realities of the dragging on negotiations with the country’s creditors, called for a referendum next Sunday 5 July without a clearly defined question, denying to exactly clarify where the ‘yes’ or the […]A Monday to watch the final act of a Greek tragedy; will there be catharsis or more fear?
June 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today’s Eurogroup summit of the 19 euro area heads of state and government is convened by Donald Tusk, the President of European Council in order to bluntly present Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM with a final ultimatum; ‘comply or leave the Eurozone’. Of course this initiative was not Tusk’s, given that his mandate is rather […]“If they think they can slave an entire nation, then they will just have the opposite results!”, Alexis Tsipras cries out from the Greek parliament
June 6, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The world is moving forward full speed ahead and the Greeks seem to be the heavy anchor that has not been effectively lifted. This time though it is nothing about the glass of the negotiations being half empty or half full, as the eurosceptics or the pro-Europeans would normally say. The glass broke last Wednesday […]Although Greece is struggling to pay salaries and pensions Varoufakis is “optimistic”; the Sting reports live from EBS 2015
May 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Greek government found a very last-minute solution to pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was only due yesterday. However, it was last Thursday when Yanis Varoufakis was appearing to be optimistic about Greece’s situation and the overall negotiations with its creditors while attending the European Business Summit (EBS) 2015 where the […]Will Eurozone be able to repay its debts? Is a bubble forming there?
April 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This newspaper has been very reluctant in endorsing the widely accepted view that Eurozone has left behind its stagnation if not recession phase. The reason is that despite the GDP increases by a few decimal points – not more than three – of a percentage unit, inflation kept falling for more than twelve months until […]ECB with an iron hand disciplines the smaller Eurozone member states; latest victim: Greece
March 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi reacted strongly while answering a MEP’s question in the European legislature. He was asked if the ECB is “blackmailing” and financially “suffocating” Greece. As expected, he denied the accusations. Was he right though? Rather not. Only some hours afterwards the central bank ordered the […]Can Greece’s democratic institutions keep it in Eurozone?
March 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Paris, Washington and Brussels categorically reject the idea of a Grexit, while Berlin is still loudly insisting that the Eurozone can weather at a cost Greece’s secession. Behind closed doors though, the German decision makers are also not at all sure about that. Greece’s exit from Eurozone has lately become the talk of the town […]Greece at the mercy of ECB while sailing through uncharted waters
February 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
In the efforts to solve the latest Greek enigma, the European Central Bank has once more proved that when it comes to what matters more in the EU, the Eurozone, it constitutes the power house of the entire European edifice. The ECB emerges imbued by truly pan-European motives in serving the Union project. When the […]Greece to stay in the euro area but the cost to its people remains elusive
February 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The frantic search of the Greek government – pressed at home by an accelerating bank run which culminated last Friday with €1 billion withdrawals in a few hours – to achieve an agreement with its Eurozone partners ended up in an almost total retreat of Athens in front of its creditors. The Greek minister of […]Athens searches frantically for a new compromise between politics and economic reality
February 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the new Greek government started faltering on all accounts. The young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who got elected on 25 January under a populist banner to change everything in this crisis stricken nation, proposed Prokopis Pavlopoulos for President of the Republic, an old fox representing the corrupt and incompetent political system which governed […]Deep chasm still divides Athens and Brussels; can Eurozone use the nuclear arm of liquidity against Greece?
February 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today the Eurogroup, the 19 Eurozone ministers of Finance at 3 o’clock in the afternoon will start discussing the future of Greece. It’s quite uncertain if a decision will be reached. Late last Saturday the technical consultations for the Monday meeting were concluded in Brussels. The preliminary work was realized by a group comprising Greek […]What does Tsipras have to offer to the rest of Europe? Is it worth an early advance of €10 billion? Berlin sturdily denies it
February 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The discussion about what is needed to get the European Union out of its economic stagnation is gaining momentum in many European capitals and Brussels, probably at the exception of Berlin. The German government still believes that Europe’s growth drivers are working, if not perfectly at least adequately, and rejects all initiatives to revive the […]EU finally to extend sanctions on Russia despite arguments; Greece again in Europe’s spotlight
February 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The European Union Ministers of Foreign Affairs agreed to extend by six months the existing sanctions against Russia. That was the main decision taken during the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels last week, 29 January 2015, as described by an official announcement released on the same day. In the document the Council notes “evidence of continued […]Greece: The new government of Alexis Tsipras shows its colors
January 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Alexis Tsipras, the new Prime Minister of Greece and leader of the radical militant left SYRIZA party, who won last Sunday’s legislative election with a 36.34% of the vote and fell short of an absolute majority by two seats in a Parliament of 300, presented on Tuesday his new awkward coalition government. He had promised […]Alexis Tsipras ready to test Eurozone’s political sturdiness; Up to what point?
January 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
With the left-wing SYRIZA ready to form a new government in Athens, the party will be the first radical political formation to lead a Eurozone country, and its leader Alexis Tsipras will be the youngest Greek prime minister for more than one and a half century. The party won yesterday’s legislative election with an 8% […]Greece did it again
December 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday, the Greek government scheduled an early Presidential election before the end of the year, which according to the constitution is to be held in the Parliament. If the Parliament proves unable to elect a new President of the Republic (180 votes are needed in a house of 300) a new legislative election must […]
