The “eternal return” to a proposal to leave the euro seems to be an irresistable force for some people. A current case in point is Italy, but there are a couple of interesting precedents in the files, like Greece and Ireland.
What was a surprise in the IMF’s updated growth estimates was the correction made to the growth forecast for Spain this year (-0.1 pp to 2.4%) given “the impact of greater political uncertainty on confidence and demand.”
Greece enters a new year that could prove to be a watershed in its long and meandering traipse through three successive bailouts and faltering efforts to overcome the chronic weaknesses that contributed to one of the most damaging economic crises the developed world has seen.
Greece has been let down on numerous occasions by its politicians and Tsipras has often criticised opposition parties for their role that led to the crisis in 2009 and its management subsequently. However, he must look back at those six months of 2015 and wonder what he was thinking.
Yiannis Mouzakis via Macropolis | In an interview over the weekend, the head of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Klaus Regling aside from the optimism on the progress of the current review hinted of one of the options that eurozone lenders might be willing to consider for the debt relief that Greece is due to receive by the end of the programme.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | Alexis Tsipras’s recent visit to the USA was something of a curate’s egg, ranging between high diplomacy and acute embarrassment. It would be wrong, though, to dismiss its implications.
Yiannis Mouzakis via Macropolis | Last Friday’s release of the second quarter Greek GDP figures by ELSTAT confirmed that the economy has recorded two consecutive quarters of growth. The last time Greece started a year with two quarters of growth was in 2006.
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis| Next summer, Greece is due to exit its eight-year programme. Athens and its creditors, who have closely shaped and overseen this long adjustment process, will want to argue that a changed country is emerging. The sorry state of the judicial system currently stands as one of the biggest blots in their copybook. The case against the former head of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), Andreas Georgiou is a case in point.
Yiannis Mouzakis via Macropolis | Greece’s economic collapse in 2010-2013 has become legendary. The country had already been hit hard by the global financial crisis in 2009, when it posted a sharp GDP drop of -4.3 percent. This set the stage for what would become the deepest economic contraction of a developed country in history. But would the implementation of structural reforms have helped alleviate this situation?
Nick Malkoutzis via Macropolis | A stale parliamentary debate that rarely stayed on topic seemed a good way to wrap up another disappointing political season in Greece. The country has been stuck in a deep, dark hole for almost a decade and now it has a chance for a change in fortune. But its decision makers will have to display much more vision, determination and mastery than was on display in Parliament on Monday.