TA NEA

Restart: The road to recovery opens

Samaras announces a turn towards growth following agreement with the troika

The benefits
500 million euros will be disbursed in the form of a one-off payment to one million Greeks in April.

Liquidity
The state will pay 1 billion euros worth of outstanding debts to private companies

The Easing
A reduction in the social security contributions workers and employers are obliged to pay from the 1st of July.

The Compromise
The troika backed down on many of its demands such as those regarding the sale of fresh milk, pharmaceuticals and mass layoffs. 

 
 

AVGI

A Memorandum/bomb for salaries and pensions

They are keeping the agreement under wraps, fearing reaction

The pre-election ‘tip’ for the purchase of 935,000 votes amounts to 0.6 – 3.3 euros per day

Greece is officially to become a country of the poor and the unemployed thanks to the latest agreement between the government and the troika which will deliver the final blow to social security funds and lay waste to wages. The reduction of contributions to social security funds by 21% of which 15% is the reduction in employer contributions, amounts effectively to a new PSI and will lead with mathematical certainty to the imminent disappearance of pensions.

For wages a mechanism is being established which will keep them below 500 euros. The agreement which is being kept under wraps even from the MPs [of the coalition government] of New Democracy and PASOK includes all of the troika’s demands which the government had stated were not up for negotiations – including the re-definition of ‘fresh milk’ to include milk with a shelf life of 11 days, opening the Greek market to large foreign producers. The public relations dressing of the agreement/monstrosity is the disbursement of the ‘social dividend’ worth 500 million in May to 935,000 ‘lucky’ beneficiaries, an amount which is the equivalent of 0.6 – 3.3 euros a day.

KATHIMERINI

Crisis deepens for Golden Dawn

The internal crisis in Golden Dawn is deepening. Yesterday the MP Stathis Boukouras was stricken from the party as a ‘response’ to his stated intention to become an independent, while party leader Nikos Michaloliakos spoke provocatively to the members of the parliament’s Ethics Committee who travelled to Korydallos prison in order to question the Golden Dawn parliamentarians who are imprisoned pending trial for charges of belonging to a criminal organisation. He told them, “you will be back here soon.” 


 

EFIMERIDA TON SYNTAKTON

Tsipras: the exemption of Latsis is scandalous

The head of the opposition submitted a parliamentary question to the Prime Minister yesterday denouncing as scandalous the fact that Spiros Latsis would not be held to account over the bankruptcy of Eurobank. Damages worth tens of billions of euros will arise from the process which the troika, government and bankers agreed on for the recapitalisation of the Greek ‘systemic’ banks [The National Bank of Greece, Eurobank, Piraeus Bank and Alpha Bank].

 

IMERISIA

A successful return to the markets for Piraeus Bank

Foreign investors show high degree of interest

For the first time since the crisis a Greek bank has returned to the market with the offer of a three year unsecured bond. It raised 500 million euros with an interest rate of 5%.

240 investors from 25 countries took part. Reuters called the bond offer a watershed while the Financial Times maintained that foreign investors are betting on a significant recovery for Greece.