A wire released today from the German DPA news agency characteristically calls Greece’s financial situation ‘desperate,’ highlighting recent short term borrowing from Athens, high unemployment and paralysing deflation.
According to the wire, which refers to a relevant announcement made by Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, Greece borrowed a short term loan with an interest rate of 4.15% to ‘plug gaps’ in its budget.
The article stresses the fact that the troika has neither given the green light on Greece’s 2014 budget which has already been passed by the Greek parliament, nor approved the release of the next tranche of bailout funds for the country and is demanding further privatizations in its defense industries.
“Greece is battling against high unemployment which is at record levels and is sinking deeper into paralyzing deflation according to figures released on Monday by the Hellenic Statistical Authority [ELSTAT]” the wire concludes.
Meanwhile the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung featured a guest editorial which claimed that the Greek primary budget was more the result of creative accounting as opposed to sound fiscal policy stating, “The budget surplus is the result of accounting tricks. For example it does not include several billion the state owes to suppliers. At the same time the structural reforms are not being implemented. The creditors know this but they accept it because, due to the upcoming european parliamentary elections Greece must be portrayed as a success. However without a new haircut, the crisis will not end.”
The newspaper Tagesspiegel also added its voice to the negative chorus earlier this month when it stated that December could prove fatal for Samaras’s coalition government if there was no agreement reached with the troika before the new year.