Greece

Jean-Claude Juncker raises the stakes for the Greeks

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, has suggested that if Greece votes No in the referendum on whether to accept the terms of a bailout, it will be voting not just to leave the Euro but the EU too. Juncker has clearly decided that the best thing to do is to put the pressure on for a Yes vote in the referendum on Sunday. A Yes vote would force the Syriza-led government to resign. At that point, a deal could—potentially—be done with the new Greek government. However, it is worth noting that any new deal would have to get through various Northern European parliaments which could be tricky. Meanwhile, Alexis

If Greece leaves the Euro, Cameron should start the British renegotiation all over again

Tonight, it is still not clear how the Greek situation will be resolved. The European Central Bank–which is desperate to avoid being dragged into the politics of this situation–has chosen a middle way on its emergency assistance to Greek banks. It has neither ended it—which would have crashed the whole Greek banking system—nor extended it, which would have enabled the banks to stay open and eased the pressure on the Syriza-led government. Greek banks will definitely be closed tomorrow and probably until the referendum on Sunday. The next big question is what happens on Tuesday when the bailout programme ends and a payment comes due to the IMF which Athens

Greece: ‘The crisis has commenced’

Alexis Tsipras’ gamble in calling a referendum on the bailout deal has failed in two respects. First, it has not prompted Greece’s creditors to offer the country a better deal. Second, they are not going to extend the bailout until the referendum—so, it will end on Tuesday. This means that without capital controls, the Greek banks will not be able to open on Monday morning. As the Irish Finance Minister put it, ‘The crisis has commenced’. We are now waiting for two things. First, will the Greek parliament and president approve the referendum. Second, will the European Central Bank continue to prop up the Greek banks. But, at the moment,

Greece to hold referendum on bailout deal

The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has just announced that there will be a referendum on the proposed bailout deal next Sunday, July 5th. He will ask for the current bailout to be continued until then to allow the Greek people to have their say. The signs from Athens are that Tsipras will campaign for a No vote unless the creditors offer Greece a radically better deal at tomorrow’s meeting. This move from Tsipras will infuriate Greece’s creditors.  It will also, almost certainly lead to the introduction of capital controls for Greek banks until the referendum. If the creditors don’t blink tomorrow and improve the terms they are offering Athens,

Hesiod on Grexit anxiety

Why do Greeks want to keep the euro, or remain in the European Union? The combative, creative, competitive, mercantile classical Greeks throve on independence. The farmer-poet Hesiod (c. 700 BC) makes the point about competition by calling it Eris, ‘strife’, which he characterises as painful but also helpful. On the one hand, he said, it creates conflict and discord; on the other, ‘It gets the shiftless working. For when someone whose work does not come up to scratch sees someone else, a rich man, busy himself ploughing and planting and managing his household well, then there is competition between neighbours in the race to riches. This Eris is good for

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 25 June 2015

People write about ‘Grexit’ and ‘Brexit’ as if they were the same, but they need not be. Grexit is about leaving the euro. Brexit is about leaving the EU. It seems, however, that the Greeks fear that leaving the euro would mean leaving the EU, and so feel paralysed. It simply is not clear what the true situation is. Although Britain has a specific opt-out (as does Denmark), for the other member states, euro-membership is, after a preparatory period is completed, an obligation. Does this mean that, once in the euro, an EU member state cannot leave it? If so, then William Hague’s famous phrase likening it to ‘being in

If Merkel shrugs…

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/angelamerkel-sburden/media.mp3″ title=”Fredrik Erixon and James Forsyth discuss the challenges facing Angela Merkel” startat=36] Listen [/audioplayer]German chancellor Angela Merkel may still be the most formidable politician in Europe, but this week she lost a bit of her reputation as the scourge of Mediterranean debtor nations. Greece’s firebrand leftist premier, Alexis Tsipras, actually gets on well with Merkel, however much his countrymen enjoy burning her in effigy and adorning her portraits with Hitler moustaches. In a recent profile of their relationship in Der Spiegel, Tsipras gushed, ‘She has this East German way of telling you honestly and straightforwardly what she thinks.’ His top adviser Nikos Pappas also admires Merkel, calling her

Martin Vander Weyer

Contagion of a different kind as Greece wriggles off the hook

The clear winner in the Greek crisis is the author of The Little Book of Negotiating Clichés, whose royalties must have been pouring in as the clock ticked towards midnight while European leaders took positive steps back from the brink and found themselves speaking the same language, perhaps because they were reading from the same page. But assuming this predictable dance results in terms that Prime Minister Tsipras can persuade his comrades to accept before the IMF’s default deadline and the moment when the Greek banking system can no longer seek life-support from the European Central Bank — which is all still quite a big assumption — who will be

Greece’s service economy is no match for Germany’s mercantile one

It sounds a bit odd these days but economics was actually invented by the Greeks. Back then, in ancient Greece, the ethos of economics was to keep the house in order and generally manage finances in a way that would make Wolfgang Schäuble blush with embarrassment for extravagant habits. Now economics is about to get a new meaning for Greeks. Perhaps not a science, but Greekonomics is now the art of killing an economy softly. The Greek tragedy is not that it teeters on the brink of default. Greece is going to get its deal – and its euro membership will live to die another day. The deal that is

The one thing that might ensure a Greek deal: fear

On a narrow, sloping street in downtown Athens sits a graffiti-strewn wall that has captured the spirit of a nation. Amidst the spray-painted slogans and flaking posters, a black-and-white stencilled image of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras looks down benignly (beneath a perfectly-observed monobrow) at passers-by. His arms outstretched, dressed in flowing robes and with a halo circling his head, he is Christ come to redeem Greece. Such is the bitter humour that now pervades the country’s capital city as the prospect of financial implosion nears. Tsipras came to power promising to get rid of austerity and take the fight to Greece’s European partners. Reality, alas, proved less accommodating. The

Greece: The devil will be in the detail

The Greek economy minister Giorgos Stathakis has told Robert Peston in an interview that the deadlock between Athens and its creditors has been broken, that $7.2 billion of funds should soon be released enabling the IMF to be paid at the end of the month. But this judgement seems distinctly premature. First of all, the technical negotiations have yet to take place — and it is all too easy to see how a deal could fall apart then. While the IMF tends to take a tougher line than the European Commission and so might not sign off on this deal. It is also worth remembering that there have been times

Douglas Murray

A trip to Greece might make Charlotte Church fear national debt

It is amazing what some people are willing to listen to on a Saturday.  I have just watched Charlotte Church’s speech to the small fringe of ‘anti-austerity’ activists in Westminster at the weekend. And my reaction is very much ‘Coo!’  Of course I knew how humourless this portion of the left can be, with their beliefs that Ukip is a ‘fascist’ party and that the current government is secretly selling off all schools and hospitals.  But even I didn’t think that they would wish to spend their weekends hearing lectures on David Cameron’s ‘neo-liberal vernacular’ from Charlotte Church.  Yes, she actually used that phrase in her speech. Highlighting one of the problems of the

Greece may soon face a humanitarian crisis of its own

Normally, the phrase ‘continent in crisis’ is hyperbole. But it seems appropriate today as we contemplate the situation Europe, and more specifically the EU, finds itself in. In the next few days, Greece could default, triggering its exit from the single currency and financial disruption across the Eurozone. Meanwhile, Rome is on the verge of unilaterally issuing Mediterranean migrants travel documents enabling them to travel anywhere in the Schengen area because—as Nicholas Farrell reports in the magazine this week—Italy simply cannot cope with many more arrivals. Those involved in the British government’s preparations for a Greek exit put the chances of it at 50:50. If Greece did leave, which would

Let Greece go

The campaign to keep Greece in the euro has resulted in five years of groundhog days. The unfortunate country seems to be forever approaching a day of repayments it cannot afford. Ministers and diplomats assemble to thrash out a deal. Meetings collapse in bad temper, and markets sink. Then, at the eleventh hour, a deal is somehow forged. Greece agrees to reforms which seek to cut spending and balance the books in return for billions of pounds of bailout cash. Markets rebound. The money is paid, the debt repayments met. And then all starts to go wrong again. A few months later we are back where we began. Anyone who

Portrait of the week | 18 June 2015

Home Talha Asmal, aged 17, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died in a suicide bomb attack on forces near an oil refinery near Baiji in Iraq, having assumed the name Abu Yusuf al-Britani. A man from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, Thomas Evans, 25, who had changed his name to Abdul Hakim, was killed in Kenya while fighting for al-Shabab. Three sisters from Bradford were thought to have travelled to Syria with their nine children after going on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Britain had had to move intelligence agents, the Sunday Times reported, because Russia and China had deciphered documents made public by Edward Snowden, the CIA employee who has taken refuge in

Podcast: Greece and the lessons of Black Wednesday, plus the latest on the Labour leadership contest

As the situation in Greece becomes more serious by the day, is a default or Grexit on the horizon? In this week’s View from 22 podcast, Channel 4’s Paul Mason discusses this week’s Spectator leading article with Ambrose Evans-Prichard from the Daily Telegraph. Which side is being more unreasonable in this stand off, the European Central Bank or Syriza? Is anything drastic likely to happen over the next few weeks? Are the Greek people feeling resentful towards to the rest of the EU? And what effect is the crisis having on the whole European project? The Spectator’s James Forsyth and Stephen Bush from the New Statesman also discuss the ongoing contests for Labour leader and deputy leader. Given that he remains the favourite to win, what does Andy Burnham need to do over the next

Martin Vander Weyer

Late news: what was really served at the Mansion House banquet

Last week’s deadline did not allow me to report from ringside at the Mansion House dinner, but there was so much to observe that I hope you’ll forgive a late dispatch. What a vivid guide to City psychology and precedence it offered. In the anteroom, Lord (Jim) O’Neill, the Treasury’s new Northern Powerhouse minister, could be seen chatting to ex-BP chief Tony Hayward, now chairman of mining giant Glencore Xstrata. At the top table, HSBC chairman Douglas Flint was carefully separated (by António Horta-Osório of Lloyds) from Governor Carney, so they could avoid discussing HSBC’s plans to move back to Hong Kong. But in prime place next to George Osborne

If Grexit happens, parliamentary egotisms may well be to blame

In 1987, the American historian Richard R. Johnson wrote a quite brilliant essay explaining how a clash of legislatures had contributed to the American declaration of independence. In short, his argument was that a deal was eminently achievable, but ‘parliamentary egotisms’ made it impossible to achieve. Westminster wouldn’t give way to the Massachusetts Assembly and vice-versa, for they feared that any concessions would strengthen the power of the crown against them. I wonder, increasingly, if history won’t end up saying something similar about the Greek crisis. The gap between the various sides is actually relatively small. But neither side wants to be seen to back down and both want the