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Specter Rises of Greece Being Kicked Out of Euro
[An Nahar]  The prospect of throwing Greece out of the Eurozone moved cener-stage Thursday, after the Dutch called for the "ultimate sanction" and Germany warned a second bailout deal may need re-negotiation.Under a proposed new regime that would place economies in deep trouble under the wardenship of Eurozone partners, Netherlands finance minister Jan Kees de Jager threatened expulsion as an "ultimate sanction". "If a country doesn't want to fulfill its obligations, well, there's no other option than that it leaves (the Eurozone," de Jager told a presser in The Hague, stressing that this would only be "the last resort". German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble meanwhile also pushed for a tougher approach, telling his parliament he will fight for "the necessary treaty changes so that we can act sooner and more effectively when things go wrong." And ratcheting up the pressure on Athens, Schaeuble said it was "very premature" to talk about a second bailout package for Greece before it had implemented the reforms required to receive its first full disbursement. "At the end of the day, it is up to Greece itself to decide whether it is ready to take the necessary measures to reduce its deficit and its too-high debt," added Schaeuble. The Greek government is currently scrambling to come up with new financial planning to prevent a debt burden of more than 350 billion Euros spinning "out of control," as a national body recently admitted. On Thursday Greece announced that its economy shrank 7.3 percent in the second quarter on a 12-month comparison, a greater fall than expected. The Greek government warned the economy could shrink by about 5.0 percent this year instead of the previously estimated 3.5 percent, underlining the problems for the economy. International auditors from the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and the International Monetary Fund cut short an inspection visit to Athens last week, aimed at establishing if conditions had been met that would allow the release of the next eight-billion-euro tranche of loans under last year's initial bailout. Posted by: Fred 2011-09-09 |
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