Tsipras has earned his punishment

The Greek people are enduring the consequences of their prime minister’s childish misbehaviour

European and international officials have required thick skins this year. In Anglo-Saxon countries, they are daily lampooned as economic illiterates who caused the Greek economic crisis and have asphyxiated the economy during the past five months of negotiations. Now they are harangued by Alexis Tsipras as “extremist conservative forces” who are supposedly “blackmailing” the Greek prime minister’s downtrodden people. Stop. Little could be further from the truth.
The cause of Greece’s misery was many years of homegrown economic mismanagement and fiscal profligacy masked with lies over its accounts. When the global crisis exposed its economic misdemeanours, it lost the ability to borrow from financial markets and sought support from the international community. This was granted, largely by its European partners, ensuring much less austerity in Greece than any plausible alternative. Sure, the motives of creditors were not purely altruistic, but the money was lent with the aim of helping the country secure a better present and future.

Greece has achieved much since receiving the bailout loans, reducing budget deficit from 15 per cent of national income in 2009 to 3 per cent in 2014. It has implemented many necessary economic reforms; and the programme began to work, with Greek output growth topping the eurozone league table in the third quarter 2014. This progress was made despite Greece persistently failing to implement fully the reforms to which it had agreed.

Deploying the kind of tactics that would shame student politicians, the Syriza government has thrown all this hard-won progress aside in an attempt to extract more money from other European countries. It initially asked to reverse spending cuts and tax increases, backtrack on economic reforms and receive a huge debt writedown. There was never any chance of the creditors funding a wishlist that contradicted the democratic wishes of all 18 other eurozone countries. The Syriza-induced stand-off has pushed the Greek economy back into recession.

Saying no to a blank cheque did not mean the creditors were simply unreasonable. From before the election, they have offered more money, more favourable terms and the prospect of debt relief if Athens keeps its side of the bargain. Debt relief has become another unnecessary sticking point in the negotiations. On Thursday, Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, said he would prefer to cut off his own arm than sign a new deal without debt restructuring.

Let us be absolutely clear about this. Greece has already benefited from massive debt restructuring. The face value of its debt might be 175 per cent of national income, but it faces a lighter interest payment burden than Italy, Spain and Portugal (and one barely heavier than Germany’s).

As Klaus Regling, head of the European Financial Stability Facility, said this week, Greece has already received by far the most generous lending conditions ever granted to bailout countries. The EFSF loans have an average maturity of 30 years, and for the vast majority of these loans Greece enjoys a grace period on interest and principal payments until 2023.

In another act of solidarity, creditors have made it perfectly clear that further debt relief will be on offer once Greece implements the lending conditions to which it says it agrees. This is a perfectly sensible attempt to reward good behaviour on the principle that you do not give treats to a misbehaving child.

None of this is good enough for Syriza. Mr Tsipras is calling on the Greek people to vote against the offers made by the creditors in Sunday’s referendum, hoping that the terms will magically improve.

His explicit threat is to bring everyone else in the eurozone down with him should creditors decline to meet his demands. They will refuse, and rightly so.

Greece’s default against the International Monetary Fund did not spook markets as Mr Tsipras must have hoped, but the capital controls he has been forced to impose have added an even greater burden on long-suffering Greek citizens. So it will continue.

The longer Syriza pulls fresh stunts, the more pain Greece will suffer — with the danger that Mr Tsipras will lead it out of both the eurozone and the EU. Contrary to the widespread belief that such a result would be a disaster for the euro, it would reinforce the message that membership confers rights and responsibilities, and that there are consequences for countries that abuse this delicate balance.

Alternatively, Mr Tsipras could sign up to reasonable lending terms that have been available since the start of the year and the prospect of further debt relief once conditions are met. Having lost so much trust among the creditors, this is now the more difficult path. Europe will not crow and make it impossible for him to take this route, but it will require Mr Tsipras and Syriza to show some leadership and to ditch the victim mentality.

Nekako mi ovo više o posledicama nego o uzrocima, opet ne kontam. I molim bez primjedbi da sam glup.
Da, dobijaju dobre kredite, ali šta je suština svege toga. Đe su oni spiskali te pare?

A whole island pretending to be blind to get benefits, 8,500 pensioners who faked being aged over 100 and lawyers who claim to earn just €12,000: New book reveals how Greeks cheated THEMSELVES into ruin

James Angelos' book looks at widespread tax evasion and benefit fraud
Includes case of the island where 498 people pretended to be blind
Also reveals how super-rich bought camoflage for pools to avoid tax
Greece is on the brink of collapse as it decides whether to reject EU bailout

Greece in teetering on the brink of ruin - and it is hard not to feel sympathy for the pensioners crying in the street and the mothers facing empty supermarket shelves.

Yet those reading a new book may find themselves feeling a little less compassionate towards the Greeks. It reveals an eye-popping catalogue of benefits scams and tax avoidance schemes that have robbed the public purse.

James Angelos' The Full Catastrophe: Travels among the New Greek Ruins lays bare the corruption which filtered through all levels of society - from the islanders who pretended to be blind, to the families who forgot to register their parents' death and the doctors who 'earn' just €12,000 a year - yet live in Athens' most exclusive neighbourhood.

It was the rumours of an 'island of the blind' which first bought Angelos, a journalist, to Greece in 2011.

He had heard that on Zakynthos, something like two per cent of the population were registered blind.

All was not quite how it seemed, however, and it transpired that 61 of the 680 'blind' residents were quite happily driving around the island.

In fact, an astonishing 498 of those 680 were not blind at all - or even partially sighted.

But being 'blind' had its advantages - in particular, the €724 paid in benefits once every two months, and a reduction in utility bills.

It was a scam which could be traced back to one ophthalmologist and one official, which was estimated to have cost the country €9 million.

And, as Angelos discovered, it was only the tip of the iceberg.

How big is the problem of disability benefits fraud, Angelos asked the then-deputy health minister Markos Bolaris.

'Very big,' came the accurate, but short, reply.

Indeed, when those claiming disabilities were asked to present themselves at government offices so records could be updated, 36,000 failed to do so.

That translated to an immediate saving for the government of €100m a year.

But the fraud was certainly not confined to just disability benefits.

When the government chose to take a closer look at who they were paying pensions to, they found a slightly suspicious 8,500 pensioners had surpassed the milestone age of 100.

An even closer look revealed, 40,000 pension claims were fraudulent. It seems people were forgetting to register their loved ones' deaths.

It's not that these scams were not known about before, of course.

A Daily Mail investigation in 2011 revealed the subway system was essentially free for the five million residents of Athens - because, with no barriers, it relied on an honesty system which few were honest enough to use.

It described street after street of opulent mansions and villas, surrounded by high walls and with their own pools, which, on paper, were the homes of virtual paupers.

They were all allowed to declare their own income for tax purposes - and officially, they were only earning €12,000 - or a paltry £8,500 - a year, below the tax threshold.

Apparently, only 5,000 people admitted to earning more than £90,000 a year - prompting one economist to describe Greece as a ‘poor country full of rich people’.

The lengths these doctors, lawyers and businessmen would go to to hide their wealth from the government was, it has to be said, impressive.

According to official records, just over 300 homes in Athens' most exclusive neighbourhood had swimming pools, and had paid the resulting tax for such a luxury.

But when the government decided to have a look on Google Earth, it became clear these residents hadn't been totally honest.

The real figure for swimming pools in the area is believed to be closer to 20,000.

But instead of coming clean, there was a boom in sales of camouflage tarpaulins to conceal their existence from the tax inspectors flying over the gardens.

And then there are the tales which seem to be more down to incompetence, rather than actual fraud.

In particular, there is the tale of treasury employee Savvas Saltouridis, who used an Uzi submachine gun to murder the mayor of his Greek mountain town in 2009, who remained on the municipal payroll for years afterwards - even though he was languishing in jail.

He was taking advantage of the complex disciplinary system

Angelos, then working for the Wall Street Journal, was told by retired clerk Apostolos Tsiakiris, who took over as mayor after the killing: 'You can't be a murderer and keep getting paid.

'That doesn't happen in any other government.'

But what do when so many are cheating the system? It is estimated tax evasion alone might be costing the country as much as €20billion a year in lost revenue, while years of benefit fraud will certainly have added up.

But when Angelos suggested punishing those who tried to play the system, he was given a straight forward - if depressing - answer.

'If you start putting people in jail, maybe you'll have to put half of Greece in jail,' an official said.

Ovo ljeto će Grci sjebati turizam, koji im donosi 28 mlrd Eura godišnje i koji im je jedina slamka spasa.

Bit će velikih nereda i iseljavanja u slijedećim mjesecima, pogotovo poslije ljeta.

U Grčkoj se danas oko 10 milijuna Grka izjašnjava na referendumu, o predloženom sporazumu s povjeriteljima, koji predviđa dodatne restriktivne mjere štednje u zamjenu za financijsku pomoć za spašavanje gospodarstva, a ishod glasanja prema posljednjim istraživanjima je gotovo neizvjestan, javlja Fena.

Biračka mjesta otvorena su jutros nešto poslije sedam sati po lokalnom vremenu, a građani će moći glasovati do 19 sati.

Prvi preliminarni rezultati, kako je najavljeno, bit će objavljeni oko 21 sat.

Da bi referendum bio valjan mora se odazvati 40% registriranih birača. Čini se da to neće biti problem jer se prema anketama očekuje izlaznost veća od 80%. Praznu grčku blagajnu sve skupa će stajati 20 milijuna eura.

Ako Grci glasuju protiv, najvjerojatnije ih čeka izlazak iz eurozone i neizvjesna budućnost. Bude li više onih za, političke promjene, ali i prema najoptimističnijem scenariju MMF-a, mjere štednje do 2030. Pred Grcima je težak izbor, piše Dnevnik.hr.

Podsjetimo, do referenduma dolazi nakon pet mjeseci neuspješnih pregovora između grčke vlade, koju je krajem siječnja formirala radikalna ljevica Sirize Aleksisa Ciprasa, i vjerovnika EU, MMF i ECB.

Austrijski ministar vanjskih poslova Sebastian Kurz u intervjuu za austrijske medije rekao je da Ciprasova vlada djeluje ekstremno populistički te da je zemlju dovela na rub. “EU će podnijeti eventualno istupanje Grčke, no pitanje je hoće li Grčka to podnijeti”, dodao je.

Predsjednik Vijeća ministara financija eurozone, Nizozemac Jeroen Dijsselbloem, koji istodobno obnaša i dužnost nizozemskog ministra financija, kazao je da je Grčka suočena s vrlo teškom budućnošću bez obzira na ishod referenduma te da su teške fiskalne mjere neizbježne.

“Bilo koji političar koji kaže da one neće biti potrebne u slučaju da građani glasaju ‘ne’ na referendumu, od njih radi budale”, rekao je Dijsselbloem nakon sastanka s članovima nizozemskog kabineta.

Prebrojano je 40 posto glasova. Trenutačno je 38,92 posto birača "za", a 61,08 posto "protiv"