There are 15 painful reasons why Greek Prime Minister cut short his trip to the US. The EU / ECB / IMF troika listed 15 fresh demands, including a cut of 100,000 jobs in the next few years.
The Greek government is reportedly meeting before markets open to discuss these demands. It’s unclear if they will move to approve them, but it is quite clear that approving them will trigger serious civil unrest.
The Greek newspaper Vima published an internal email within the ranks of Greek officials, which lists the demands and the people responsible to answer on these demands by Monday, September 19th. Original article / Google Translate version.
In a meeting of finance ministers in Poland over the weekend, it became clear that Greece’s European counterparts refuse to provide the €8 billion tranche without more measures. This is quite different from the messages heard a few days ago – messages reassuring the next tranche, after Greece offered a new property tax to bridge the budget gap.
The measures are very painful and thought to be very unjust by many. The salary cuts and the job cuts will surely trigger unhappy responses from citizens and unions. Athens was rocked by mass protests during June, when the government then passed the previous measures.
The ECB, the Federal Reserve and 3 other central banks cooperated to provide dollar liquidity to European banks, as they had trouble getting dollars due to high Greek exposure. This move looks like a preparation for the Big Greek Default.
Will the Greek government accept these 15 demands and try to pass them? Or will they collapse under the pressure and prefer to default?
Time is running out.
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