Greece: Reform or perish
PARIS | June 19, 2015 | By Francesco Saraceno | Very busy period. Plus it is kind of tiresome to comment on the daily ups and downs of the negotiations between Greece and the Troika Institutions.
grexit
Don’t give up on politics!
MADRID | June 18, 2015 | By Luis Martí | The negotiating tactics of the Greek government can only be understood against the backdrop of an impossible set of electoral promises –impossible, that is, unless the government gained access to an unlimited inflow of financial resources from abroad at no charge. This not being the case, President Tsipras has to act within a constrained framework.
Greek political saga is likely to have implications for FX markets
LONDON | May 27, 2015 | Barclays | Even if a last-minute agreement was negotiated on a technical level, the implied U-turn on election promises would likely push the Greek government into some sort of political crisis, forcing a change in the current set up.
Gambling on Greece
MADRID | April 27, 2015 | By JP Marín Arrese | The Euro-group meeting in Riga ended in bitter acrimony, Greece’s main creditors expressing their dismay at Varoufakis’s refusal to table credible reforms. They voiced deep mistrust on the chances the Hellenic government might escape from a full-fledged bankruptcy. Both Schäuble and Draghi seem ready to throw in the towel, thus triggering speculations on B plans involving a covert Grexit.
Europe at a crossroads
April 6, 2015 | Guest post by Jean Tirole | Embroiled with the Greek crisis, European policymakers will soon have to step back and reflect on the broader question of the future of the Eurozone. Before calling for an exit or, on the contrary, for further integration, it is worth pondering over the consequences of each option.
Greece in dire distress
MADRID | March 17, 2015 | By JP Marín Arrese | The cliffhanger tactics applied by Varoufakis have backfired. He has lost precious time in his bid to baptise the barbarous Troika under the more Christian and palatable name of Institutions.
Capital controls in Greece? A response to Professor Sinn
ATHENS | By Marios Zachariadis via MacroPolis | While capital controls might be an appropriate intermediate solution for Greece as argued by Professor Sinn in his recent Financial Times note, Professor Sinn misses or misrepresents the picture on a number of counts.
Greece and common political sense
LONDON | Sigrún Davíðsdóttir | Forget economics, politics is key to understanding the Eurozone. The cries of “Grexit” lately have mostly been a repetition of an earlier discourse: in February 2012 Citi’s economists Willem Buiters and Ebrahim Rahbari coined the term “Grexit,” by July 2012 estimating its likelihood to 90%. Cheered on by the media, economists have taken over the debate of the Eurozone which is why much of it has been such a futile exercise: it is not economics, which ties the Eurozone together but the political determination of its leaders to make the euro work. With political will likelihood of any exit is 0. Ergo, Grexit is as unlikely now as it has always been in spite of the EU brinkmanship. One route Greece seems to be exploring is a tried and tested one: the “bisque clause” from 1946.
Greece decides: Anti-austerity Syriza given strong mandate
MADRID | By Sean Duffy | Victory for the left-wing party of Alexis Tsipras has brought the European project into unchartered territory. The result has given the new Government a mandate for change, but the game of poker may be just beginning.
Fanciful notions of Greek tragedy ignore practicalities of realpolitik
MADRID | By Sean Duffy | Last week´s Der Spiegel article envisioning an “inevitable” Greek withdrawal from the euro in the event of a Syriza win in the upcoming elections has yet to have the desired effect, with Alexis Tsipras´ left-wing party continuing to hold a small but significant lead over the ruling New Democracy party in the polls. The piece, attributed to unnamed government sources in Germany, sparked a flurry of speculation and doomsday analysis across international media.