Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue arrest warrants for officials from the country’s European Union and International Monetary Fund lenders for demanding deeply unpopular austerity measures.
In a letter obtained by Reuters Friday, the Federation of Greek Police accused the officials of “…blackmail, covertly abolishing or eroding democracy and national sovereignty” and said one target of its warrants would be the IMF’s top official for Greece, Poul Thomsen.
More here. My best guess is that the deal has broken down!
Hat tip goes to the excellent @counterparties.
Probably just a scheme for collecting bribes in exchange for nonenforcement.
Yeah, for when the IMF leaders show up in Greece?
I hear Croatia’s beautiful this time of era.
Do not take trade unions too seriously, they speak like this all the time. It is actually good that they focus their anger at the IMF, because this is a real relief for the local politicians.
Looks like good news to me
Until Greece doesn’t get its bailout. Then the citizens and uniosn will see true austerity.
I think there needs to be another European War to sort this out. The Germans have grown soft – it’s time to strike, and I need something interesting to read in the news.
Try the help wanted ads.
BOOM goes the dynamite.
Good one. But really though – it could be the Greeks against the Italians, the Dutch against the British, the British against the French, the French against the Germans – it would be just like old times again.
I think CBBB should look at the “Help Needed” ads. You know, counselling. Castro’s aging and Chavez’s ailments can do that to (some) people…
It is great news. The will be blamed when Greece goes tits up. They are the most corrupt, let them eat the most blame… knowing who the villain is is the first part of becoming upstanding.
Guess you’re only considered about the Rule of Law when it’s about bankers getting their money. I never hear you give too much thought to elite lawlessness.
They can default any time they want. What are you talking about?
Andrew’, don’t interrupt – CBBB is rambling.
Surely this has to be expected after the way in which the governments of Greece and Italy were pressured and overthrown.
The two countries may be mostly in the wrong and spent money that they couldn’t afford, but it wasn’t a case of politicians just tricking the populace. Berlusconi was as much a symptom as a cause.
This is as much a matter of perspective as anything else, but I would like to disagree on the overthrow aspect – let’s be clear here. Greece and Italy want to borrow money from other countries like Germany; Germany does not want to lend to countries led by people like Silvio Berlusconi. It is absolutely within Germany’s rights to refuse to lend money to a government they consider untrustworthy, and it is absolutely democratic for the Italian people to decide they’d rather be able to borrow money than keep Silvio Berlusconi as a leader.
If they wanted to keep Berlusconi, all they’d have to do would be to stop wanting to borrow money from the countries it wants to borrow money from. To imply that Germany somehow has an obligation to lend out money willy-nilly is, in my view, incorrect.
In any case, my prediction is the deal will muddle through. When Germany’s finally convinced that Greece has reformed enough such that there won’t be a repeat of this situation in a decade, then Germany will bail them out. But as for when that will be…meh. Let’s just hope Germany doesn’t mistime its bailout. Tyler’s been (excruciatingly politely) saying that the Eurozone is toast for months now, but it’s still around. Meanwhile, all I’ve learned is that it’s very hard to make accurate predictions, especially about the future.
+100 for those last 2 sentences. Tyler is kind of a concern troll. Remember his warning that we were all doomed to die of swine and/or bird/flu?
Greece is a complete sideshow here, folks. It’s already ring fenced and accounted for, no banks will fail because of it. It will go back to being a third world country. Which is a shame with their history and all, but facts are facts.
Oh, sure, that’s all they’d have to do. I just saw some bizarre commentary around the time of the change of governments, pretending that the problem was all solved now because those nefarious rulers were gone. No, Berlusconi was a symptom. Expecting the people of Greece and Italy to meekly go along was silly (not that everyone thought that.)
I don’t think that they’re right, but surely this should have been expected.
Actually comparing Greece and Italy is utterly wrong.
Italy had not a budget deficit. Actually, before the crisis Italy had a surplus. The trade balance was (and still is) slightly negative, but better then France. Italian crisis is a composition of slow growth and weak government, too weak to force unpopular laws, rising concerns in the market. It’s enough to notice that Italy is now considered mostly safe by markets, even if the real budget cuts was at most cosmetic, just after the new government shown it’s strong enough to pass unpopular regulations without big social uproar.
If, after 10 years with a shrinking debt, a couple years with a budget deficit during the strongest crisis in the last 80 years means “spending money they couldn’t afford”, what is USA doing?
Greece was hiding a big budget deficit, with a trade balance worse then Italy and France in LEVEL terms, even if with an economy that is a sixth of Italy. The crisis simply hastened a debt crisis that was going to happen when borrower discovered the Ponzi’s scheme. The comparison is meaningless.
Also spending money it can’t afford.
and praying we’re too big to fail
Walter Mead has it that Europe has said, “Frankly dear Athens, we don’t give a damn.”
“That seems to be the read from the last day’s events: the Greeks finally signed up to a new round of economic measures, and their “European partners” turned it down flat. In the old days, when Europe feared a Greek meltdown, there would have been lots of comforting noise in Brussels hoping to soothe global markets amid promises of an eventual resolution.
“There’s no mood music playing this time; Europe is waiting for Greece to make up its mind, and can live with the situation either way.
“Apparently, it’s the hour of tough love. Or at least of tough something.”
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/02/10/greece-faces-the-endgame-alone/
Ah, coercion.
Negotiation.
I have a gun to your head. Let’s negotiate.
Greek nationalism at its finest.
If Greece could actually pay off some of the debt to the outside lenders going forward, then it makes sense for the Troika to keep making deals and funding the rollovers, but these funds are not going to be spent on Greeks. If Greece can’t do this, then it makes more sense to let them default. I think the EU/IMF has understood since about last September that Greece is never going to be in a position to pay anything on net, and has decided to let them go into default, but they want the Greek government to declare this intention themselves. Of course, the Greek government wants the Troika to declare this intention of allowing default, too. So you have a standoff where the Troika makes ever increasing demands trying to induce a walk-away by the Greeks, and the Greeks keep pretending to meet these demands trying for the same result.
I think the thing to watch is where actual Greek default hurts the worst in the financial system outside of Greece. I am of the opinion that the French are using the Troika as a way to get the Germans and the other AAA rated Euro countries to bail out their banks.
You’re forgetting a significant issue: Greek pensions. They hold something like $30 billion worth. That’s already not going to be enough moving forward because of DB plans combined with changing demographics…what happens when they lose $15 billion?
Not forgetting them, the Greeks are screwed. Anything spent on Greek pensioners is going to have to come from Greece herself. The Troika has made it abundantly clear that any funds they extend are meant for external bondholders, and public ones at that.
A bit of game theory with the police unions.
At some point, they can call for a strike and all hell will break loose. Goverment would probably fall. The union knows that, but also knows it gets one strike. When do you call it?
ASAP. Get in the first shot. If they don’t move first, the next generation of colonels will.
Greece should pull out of the Euro and start printing their own money again. This experiment has failed.
And what do they do when nobody wants to hold the new currency? Or when there’s a bank run because people want to hide their euros under their mattresses?
I guarantee that a tourist-friendly exchange rate can keep Greece solvent for a long time. What German wants to sit in Munich in January when he could be having an affordable vacation in sunny Greece, paid for by cheap Drachma?
Oh dear.
This is a credible threat to mutiny if the police force’s paycheques bounce—one they can only make because barring a miracle that is exactly what will happen, and they have nothing to lose by making the threat. With Nicolas Sarkozy almost certain to lose the 2012 presidential election, the marginal benefit to Angela Merkel’s political career of continuing to acquiesce to propping up France’s banking system by throwing more money down the Greek rathole has reached zero or negative territory. (Bailing out banks is what the ECB’s for.)
Without German/EU aid to keep the lights on Greece’s government will lose all effective control of the country within weeks of the default, possibly within days, and the army will be battling the communists in the streets for the privilege of replacing it in clashes that’ll make the current scuffles in Athens’ streets look like a friendly soccer game. Forget the euro, forget the EU—Greece is on an express train headed at top speed out of the free world. Just where they’ll finally end up I wish I knew. I do know it won’t be anywhere anybody who values liberty or democracy will want to live if he has a choice.
I’m also reasonably certain that few Greece’s finest care to be on the wrong end of a firing squad, communist or juntaist. The message of the police force to the Greek government could not be clearer: The revolution has begun. You’re on your own. Lots of luck!
Chicken Little
I thought the police execute arrest warrants issued by……someone other than the Police Union.
Don’t other states call this a coup?
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