EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON

How the big con worked

The routes from the Postbank to offshore companies

 
  • Prosecutor’s findings set to cause a storm
  • International arrest warrants for Kyriakos Griveas and Anastasis Vatsika
  • The role of Aggelos Filippidis who is currently abroad
  • The charges against Dimitris Contomis and his response

Executives of the Hellenic Postbank would approve, without guarantees or collateral, loans worth millions of euros to businessmen, after which the money would appear in offshore havens, with the bank never receiving back a single euro! This is roughly how, according to prosecutors, the Hellenic Postbank operated. Indicative of the impunity of those involved is that in at least one instance a loan was granted to Lavrentis Lavrentiadis (currently also facing charges of financial crime in another case) with the agreement stipulating that the bank was forbidden from monitoring what happened to the money! The losses suffered by the Hellenic Postbank between 2007 and 2012 are estimated to reach 500 million euros.

 

 

NAFTEMPORIKI

Shipping companies threaten to leave Greece

The president of the Hellenic Chamber of Shipping George Gratsos issued a clear warning to the government yesterday that shipping companies would consider leaving the country regarding a recently passed bill that mandates for the obligatory double taxation of shipowners. Mr Gratsos didn’t mince his words at the Chamber’s ceremony for the cutting of the traditional New Year’s ‘vasilopita’ pie at the Evgenides Foundation. He railed against the government’s recent legislative initiatives provoking a reaction from the Shipping Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis as well as opposition representative, Syriza MP Theodoros Dritsas.

 

 

TA NEA

Smog: We are close to becoming Beijing

Wood being burnt in fireplaces in Athens has led to the city resembling Beijing in terms of the levels of black carbon in the atmosphere, and also surpassing many much larger cities such as Istanbul and Paris according to researchers at the Athens Observatory.

KATHIMERINI

Structural Reforms to increase GDP by 115%

The findings of a European Commission study for Greece over next decade

Implementing structural reforms – mainly reducing the costs of starting a business, improving research, and labour market reforms to increase employment – will have a particularly positive effect on growth according to a study by the European Commission. According to the Commission’s analysts, in Greece these reforms would lead to a cumulative increase in GDP of 15% over the course of ten years. Employment rates would also increase by 10%. The Commission highlights that the increase in GDP would lead to increases in tax revenue and fewer transfer payments, with the result being a significantly more balanced budget.

 

 

RIZOSPASTIS

They want teachers to be propagandists for the EU!

The Representation of the European Commission in Greece and the local office of the European Parliament in cooperation with the government will implement a programme in February inviting teachers to a seminar to train them how to implant the vision of the EU in elementary school children!

The particular scheme which is titled “Teachers4Europe” is the latest to be added to similar initiatives implemented from time to time in schools.

At the same time that the Greek EU Presidency and the European Union will oversee the continuation of the attack on the laity with long-standing memorandums for all peoples with the aim of achieving an exit from crisis for capital, mechanisms are being set up to improve the EU’s image using teachers to target children’s consciousness.

According to the relevant invitation sent out by the program which Rizospastis reveals today, “The desired outcome of the training of educators is: to manage effectively the challenges and opportunities of the European Project in such a way that they come to share the european idea.