{"id":5672,"date":"2015-02-13T07:41:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T12:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5672"},"modified":"2015-02-13T07:41:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T12:41:23","slug":"athens-vs-brussels-greece-inches-closer-to-renewal-of-debt-crisis-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=5672","title":{"rendered":"Athens vs. Brussels: Greece Inches Closer to Renewal of Debt Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Athens vs. Brussels:<\/span>\u00a0Greece Inches Closer to Renewal of Debt Crisis<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n

The new government in Athens is intent on forcing Europe to change its approach to Greek debt — thus far in vain. A confrontation is brewing, and both sides stand to lose.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After new Greek Finance Minister Giannis Varoufakis had been repeatedly rebuffed on his introductory tour of European capitals, he opted for flattery and solicitation during his visit to Berlin last week. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Sch\u00e4uble, Varoufakis said, had been an object of his admiration since way back in the 1980s for his dedication to Europe. He said that his host’s career, focused as it has always been on European unity, has been impressive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Varoufakis went on to say that Germans and Greeks are linked by their experiences of suffering. Just like the Germans, who were yoked with the burdensome Versailles Treaty after losing World War I, his country too has been humiliated by agreements forced onto it from the outside. Both countries, he said, suffered from deflation and economic depression, the Germans in the 1930s and the Greeks today. “The Germans understand best how the Greeks are doing,” Varoufakis said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sch\u00e4uble’s sympathy for Varoufakis’ plight was limited. Indeed, the German finance minister sees Greek demands for an end to the troika and for a renegotiation of previous agreements as an affront. “We agreed to disagree,” is how Sch\u00e4uble summed up their meeting, a t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate that took 45 minutes longer than the one hour that had been scheduled.<\/p>\n

Just one day prior to his meeting with Sch\u00e4uble last Thursday, Varoufakis had been\u00a0given the cold shoulder<\/a>\u00a0at European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. ECB head Mario Draghi rejected virtually all of Varoufakis’ requests, including his demand for more leniency on debt repayments. That evening, the ECB opted to stop accepting Greek government bonds as collateral, a move which will make it even more difficult for banks in Greece to access liquidity. The move came as a surprise to Varoufakis. Draghi had told him nothing about it during their meeting that morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athens vs. Brussels:\u00a0Greece Inches Closer to Renewal of Debt Crisis The new government in Athens is intent on forcing Europe to change its approach to Greek debt — thus far in vain. A confrontation is brewing, and both sides stand to lose. After new Greek Finance Minister Giannis Varoufakis had been repeatedly rebuffed on his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2504,95,233,282,284,1167,418,434,2868],"class_list":["post-5672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","tag-athens","tag-brussels","tag-ecb","tag-european-central-bank","tag-european-union","tag-greece","tag-imf","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-troika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5673,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5672\/revisions\/5673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}