Greece’s anti-austerity government was set to begin its European charm offensive in Paris yesterday aiming to renegotiate its 240 billion euro (US$270.84 billion) bailout, although Germany has already refused to consider any debt relief.
Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, who is looking to write down half of Greece’s debt, was scheduled to meet with French Minister of Finance Michel Sapin and French Minister of Economy, Industrial Renewal and Information Technology Emmanuel Macron in the afternoon, before heading on to London and Rome.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has tried to calm nerves and markets spooked by his radical plans, saying he did not intend to renege on commitments to the EU and the IMF.
“It has never been our intention to act unilaterally on Greek debt,” Tsipras said in a statement to reporters.
However, he said Greece needed greater leeway to tackle root problems in its economy, such as tax evasion, corruption and policies which favor a wealthy elite.
“We need time to breathe and create our own medium-term recovery program,” he said.
Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said he welcomed Tsipras’ comments. Their divisions had been laid bare during a meeting in Athens on Friday.
“It is now up to the Greek government to determine its position on how to move forward,” Dijsselbloem said in a text message. “Further decisions will be taken jointly in the Eurogroup in the coming weeks.”
Varoufakis is likely to get a warm hearing in France, where Sapin has already said the EU should be open to restructuring Greek debt or extending the bailout terms.
Amid the flurry of diplomacy, Tsipras spoke with European Central Bank President (ECB) Mario Draghi on Saturday night and has booked meetings with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, French President Francois Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker this week.
Neither he nor Varoufakis are intending to visit Germany, which has shouldered the bulk of Greece’s loans and which strongly objects to Athens’ plans.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday ruled out fresh debt relief, telling the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper: “There has already been voluntary debt forgiveness by private creditors, banks have already slashed billions [of euros] from Greece’s debt.”
“I do not envisage fresh debt cancellation,” she added, as a new poll for broadcaster ZDF found 76 percent of Germans oppose any debt reduction.
Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho and Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb also oppose any debt relief.
Despite a restructuring in 2012, Greece still has a debt of more than 315 billion euros — more than 175 percent of GDP — an EU record.
In its first week in power, the government scrapped the privatization of Greece’s two main ports and the state power company and announced a major increase in the minimum wage.
Varoufakis has further raised the stakes by refusing to continue talks with the “troika” — composed of the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB — saying they want to deal only with individual governments.
Greece has been promised another 7.2 billion euros in funds from the EU, IMF and ECB, but this is dependent on the completion of a review of reforms at the end of this month.
Varoufakis said his government does not want the loans, but there are concerns Greece cannot survive without them.
The danger for the new government is that both the nation’s banks and the government could be left without funding.
Ending the bailout program could see Greek banks effectively excluded from ECB liquidity operations and the government is still shut out of international markets. Former prime minister Antonis Samaras said last month the government might run short of financing as early as March.
Greek bonds tumbled on Friday, with the yield on three-year government debt rising 187 basis points to 19.15 percent, the highest level since the 2012 debt restructuring.
Ten-year yields posted their biggest weekly increase since May 2012 and bank stocks have dropped 38 percent since the election, their biggest weekly decline in almost two years.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last