If Syriza Blinks

Only I do not think you mean “Blair”

Surely you mean “when Syriza blinks”? George Osborne rather than Blair? I keep on saying that the current British Conservative Party under Cameron are far far more radical than they were under Thatcher or Major.

Otherwise I agree with pretty much everything here. I don’t see the hard left gaining much traction I think it’ll be the hard right.

mfi

This NC post (and the talk embedded) have convinced me that Syriza doesn’t have a choice–the collapse of the payments mechanism will happen too son. Even the intra-Euro sabotage strategies I was pinning my hopes on would take too long to execute. Legally, what the ECB’s doing of course wildly illegal and challenges could be telling, but they’d take too long, and anyway EU authorities appear to have read their Schmitt and know that sovereign is he who decides on the exception (we’ve seen this with the ECB’s OMT).

Only reason I comment here is to highlight how key to the ECB->Germany power is the structure of payments, which I think will reinforce Russian and Chinese efforts to create a parallel payments/etc. structure. The real-world, supply-chain consequences of Greece’s losing access to the Euro payment/clearing systems are the really-existing equivalent to those (largely) fantastical claims Western air-force people are always making for strategic (or “effects based”) bombing. Governments will notice.

“If Syriza surrenders they won’t be the next government of Greece.”

Hell, they won’t even be a party. The various wings and factions of the Greek Left will likely separate, splinter and go through a break up that will make a married couple’s divorce look amicable by comparison.
That is, if they follow the pattern of past Left movements.

Sigh. Looks like we’re now going to see just how bad bad can get.

I’ve suspected for a long time that the real driving force behind neoliberalism is Anglo nationalism.

Forcibly assimilate the heathens before resource depletion closes the window on planetary-scale empires.

Assimilation requires that it be possible to destroy anyone who insists on continuing to act native. Normally this involves using in turn military power –> juridical power –> economic power –> employer power. Employee protections must be removed or else the last step is effectively neutered. Where this system cannot work (e.g. where there is no wage earner economy to speak of) they send in the drones.

Again, the Eastern European countries are another stalking horse here. They simply cannot understand why austerity is not what Greece precisely deserves.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/griechenland-krise-die-osteuropaeer-mucken-auf-a-1042711.html#utm_source=politik#utm_medium=medium#utm_campaign=plista&ref=plista

(In German, they usually translate OK in Google Translate.)

Mike; I read that blurb [I can’t call it an article], nothing new, bromides and implicit lies tightly wound around a misleading headline…I’ll file it under anglo-trash.

Meanwhile in South America The Guardian reports Unbridled capitalism is the ‘dung of the devil’, says Pope Francis. Actually he said rather more than that:

Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil”. An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home.

[snip]

A lot! They can do a lot. You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is in great measure in your own hands, through your ability to organize and carry out creative alternatives, through your daily efforts to ensure the three “L’s” (labor, lodging, land) and through your proactive participation in the great processes of change on the national, regional and global levels. Don’t lose heart!

You are sowers of change. Here in Bolivia I have heard a phrase which I like: “process of change”. Change seen not as something which will one day result from any one political decision or change in social structure. We know from painful experience that changes of structure which are not accompanied by a sincere conversion of mind and heart sooner or later end up in bureaucratization, corruption and failure. That is why I like the image of a “process”, where the drive to sow, to water seeds which others will see sprout, replaces the ambition to occupy every available position of power and to see immediate results. Each of us is just one part of a complex and differentiated whole, interacting in time: peoples who struggle to find meaning, a destiny, and to live with dignity, to “live well”.

Full text of Pope’s address here: Pope Francis: Speech at World Meeting of Popular Movements

Leaked: Greece’s new economic reform proposal

Peter Spiegel : | Jul 10 00:41 | 14 comments | Share

 

Late on Thursday, the Greek government submitted its long-awaited economic reform proposal to go along with Wednesday’s request for a new three-year bailout programme.

The package sent to creditors included three documents: first is a letter from Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, which we’ve posted here; second it a more detailed letter from Euclid Tsakalotos (here), the new finance minister; and the third is what’s called the “prior actions” – a 13-page plan of reform measures that must be completed prior to winning bailout aid (here).

We will more completely gut these documents in the morning, but a few things that stand out. First, none of the documents mentions debt relief. This was a major demand of Yanis Varoufakis, Tsakalotos’ predecessor. And while it is obliquely mentioned in Wednesday’s bailout request, there’s nothing in the documents sent to Brussels Thursday night that mentions the topic.

Instead, what is interesting about both the Tsipras and Tsakalotos letters is their explicit mention of wanting to remain in the EU’s common currency. As Tsipras puts it:

With this proposal, the Greek people and the Greek government confirm their commitment to fulfilling reforms that will ensure Greece remains a member of the Eurozone and ending the economic crisis. The Greek government is committed to fully implementing this reform agenda – starting with immediate actions – as well as to engaging [sic] constructively on the basis of this agenda, in the negotiations for the ESM loan.

Tsakalotos puts it with a bit more flourish:

[The proposal is] a vision which serves our commitment to remain an integral member of the eurozone and respect the evolving rules of our monetary union; one that underpins that commitment with a comprehensive set of reforms and measures to be implemented in the areas of fiscal sustainability, financial stability, long-term economic growth and sustainable development, and, last but not least, reforming the public administration….

On substance, the new “prior actions” come very close to creditors’ last “prior actions” proposal, which Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected in a referendum at the weekend. It maintains a primary budget surplus target (revenues minus expenses when debt interest payments are not included) of 3.5 per cent by 2018, though it remains a bit more vague about how fast it will get to that level. The previous progression – 1 per cent this year, 2 per cent next and 3 per cent in 2017 – remains in the proposal, but tellingly in parentheses.

On the two areas that proved most divisive before negotiations were cut off two weeks ago, overhauling the value-added tax system and pension reform, there is also a lot of convergence.

In the VAT system, Athens vows – as the creditors demanded – to find new revenues amounting to 1 per cent of gross domestic product (about €1.8bn) every year. It also concedes to a creditor demand to allow processed foods to be taxed at the standard 23 per cent rate.

The Greek proposal also incorporates one of the creditors last concessions – moving hotels to a lower 13 per cent VAT bracket – but it appears to hold out on one thing that could prove problematic: a separate, lower-rate system for Greek islands.

Creditors have demanded a single system for the whole country, arguing that a separate rate for the islands – which Athens has insisted on because many are remote and expensive to supply – requires a completely separate administrative system, raising expenses needlessly.

The new Greek proposal agrees to “eliminate discounts on the islands”, and offers to start with the bigger islands that are popular tourist attractions. But it also says the discounts will not be ended “for the most remote ones”, which may defeat the purpose of a single nationwide system.

On pension reforms, there are still a handful of gaps. The 2012 pension reform legislation will not be implemented until October 2015 under the Greek plan, whereas the creditors wanted it done immediately.

But on the big things – implementing measures to raise the effective retirement age to 67 by 2022 and phasing out a “solidarity grant” to poorer pensioners by December 2019 – Athens appears to have conceded.

The problem with this assessment, of course, is it measures a new proposal against an offer made for a bailout that does not exist any more. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has made clear that what’s required under a new multiyear bailout – which could cost more than €70bn – is much different than a reform plan needed to release just one €7.2bn aid tranche. More needs to be done, she argued.

So can this new plan live up to Merkel’s new, tougher expectations? It is now in the hands of Greece’s trio of bailout monitors – the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund – to determine.

Source: Financial Times:Leaked: Greece’s new economic reform proposal | Brussels blog

Documents [PDFs]:

Link to letter from Alexis Tsipras: TsiprasLetter_09-07-2015-1.pdf

Link to letter from Euclid Tsakalotos: Letter_Tsakalotos-1.pdf

Link to "prior actions" document: Prior-action-final-version-July-2015.pdf

@ Pluto July 9, 2015

Even if they were to start construction now it would be several years before it had any impact. Then there’s the little problem of opposition from Brussels.

Greek energy minister unveils plan for €2bn gas deal with Russia – FT.com:

Greek energy minister unveils plan for €2bn gas deal with Russia

Christian Oliver in Athens

Greece has mapped out details of a planned landmark €2bn gas project with Russia in a move that could stir tensions with Brussels just as Athens is seeking a third bailout.

Panayotis Lafazanis, the firebrand leftist energy minister, presented preliminary plans for the project to Greek energy executives in Athens on Thursday in a defiant speech, vowing the government would not be pushed around by EU institutions.

EU policy makers are concerned that Russia could take advantage of the crisis to pull Greece deeper into its orbit, and pipeline politics is critical to relations between the two nations.

Athens and Moscow say the new project, the so-called South European Pipeline, will bring 47bn cubic metres annually of Gazprom’s gas into Europe after 2018. Mr Lafazanis — the political patron of Greece’s biggest public sector company, the Public Power Corporation, which holds a near-monopoly of its electricity market — pledged it would create 20,000 much-needed jobs in Greece.

The promised deal with Russia is a sharp rebuke to Brussels, which wants to reduce EU dependence on Gazprom and argues that southeastern Europe should diversify its supply by prioritising gas from Azerbaijan.

[snip]

The planned Greek gas deal comes after Russia late last year dropped its landmark South Stream project that was intended to bring 63bn cu m into the EU, bypassing Ukraine by running under the Black Sea to Bulgaria. Moscow has rebranded the project as Turkish Stream, which would export the same volume to the southern coast of the Black Sea and then to Greece. Industry experts are sceptical that the Turkish project can be built and financed in the next few years.

Brussels opposed South Stream because it ran against EU competition rules that prevent Gazprom from dominating both upstream gas supply and distribution. The European Commission insists any pipeline across Greece will face the same competition restrictions.

To diversify away from Gazprom, the EU is throwing its political weight behind the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, partly owned by BP. This is expected to pipe 10bn cubic metres of Azeri gas from the Turkish-Greek border to southern Italy by 2020.

Mr Lafazanis said he supported both projects but stressed that he also had specific demands regarding TAP, including compensation for farmers affected by the pipeline and benefits for communities nearby. “We hope that the management of TAP will respond to our demands,” he said.

All emphases mine. I’d be delighted if what you accurately describe as a “happy outcome” were to come about. But I don’t see it ever happening.

mfi

@markfromireland

My understanding, from following this development through oil and gas trade magazines, is that Russia would give Greece a substantial advance on transit fees, just as China has done for Russia in regards to the landmark oil/gas pipeline they signed last year.

I believe construction has begun very recently, Turkey signed on, and a completion date of 2017 was mentioned.

Certainly, Europe does not have to accept this gas. It had no “competition” problem when it was the “South Stream” entering Europe through Bulgaria. Europe signed off on that. (The entire point of these pipelines was to divert from transiting through Ukraine.)

Perhaps Europe can begin fracking in Brussels to replace the long expected gas from the South Stream, in order to power their factories and stay warm.

Greece can disperse the gas in the same way that all gas-producing nations in the region do, even ISIS. Either way they profit from the arrangement.

That, too, would be a delight to see.

Open to correction Pluto but I think the date for distribution to begin was 2018. I’ll believe in the advance payment fees when I see them. A lot can happen in 2½ years. Including the installation of a compliant Greek government however achieved.

mfi

So I know that a lot of you are chomping at the Grexit bit, but if a Grexit happens, it has to happen as a direct action and choice of the creditors.

http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/4131/4131

This is what the referendum bought. I told you in my post that the point of the referendum was to “sea lion” the creditors: to force them into a persistent political dialogue that they did not want to have. They are having this dialogue, and it is up to Schaeuble to pull the plug on it. To utter the Machtwort.

My “yes” was to Stirling.

Failure to do so will is sure death for Syriza. Doing so would give Syriza a chance—if Grexit works by the next election, they’re golden. If not, well, at least they tried to take a shot.

Grexit and the survival of Syriza are actually orthogonal. Even if they get help from Russia, Russia is not inherently “Syrizist”. Golden Dawn will also be happy to cooperate with Putin and without the lefty internationalism and left-liberal social attitudes.

Meanwhile in South America The Guardian reports Unbridled capitalism is the ‘dung of the devil’, says Pope Francis. Actually he said rather more than that:

Meh. I liked it better when it had killer robots in it.