EU's Schulz Warns Tsipras Against Straying From Stance Against Russia

[Purveyor]

Source: REUTERS

BERLIN Wed Jan 28, 2015 4:57pm EST

(Reuters) - European Parliament President Martin Schulz warned leftist Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Wednesday against diverging from the European Union's stance towards Russia in the Ukraine crisis.

Tsipras, who won election on Sunday, unsettled European partners on Wednesday by criticizing an EU statement that warned Moscow it faced new sanctions over its role in Ukraine.

His decision to receive the Russian ambassador before meeting any other foreign official did not go unnoticed either in Brussels and Berlin.

"I've noticed with dismay that Greece today has abandoned the joint position of the European Union on Russia," Schulz told the German broadcaster ZDF.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/us-greece-politics-eu-schulz-idUSKBN0L12LY20150128

[FLPanhandle]

1. Tsipras is either very smart or a bad politician

He really needs the EU to loan him more money in order to keep his promises of increased spending and no austerity.

Yet, he pisses off the exact same people on something that doesn't directly impact the crisis he has to fix.

So, he is either really smart and trying to improve his bargaining power (i.e. I'll get in line with Russia if you renogociate our debt and loan us more money), or he is hardening the opinions against him.

We will soon see which one it is.

[geek tragedy]

6. Tsipras is merely following the Syriza party line, which is explicitly pro-Putin

and anti-EU/NATO.

He's not dumb, he's a very smart politician doing what he and his party have been promising to do.

[FLPanhandle]

8. Well, if he is bound and determined to be pro-Putin and anti EU

Then, he isn't getting debt renegotiation nor any new money from the EU to avoid austerity measures which is also their party line.

I can understand using Putin as a bargaining chip, but if being pro-Putin is part of his ideology, then he better have financing from Russia lined up (and Russia isn't flush with cash right now).

[geek tragedy]

9. They're not expecting a renegotiation.

The plan is to default, drachma, and devalue.

Negotiations just lead back to where we are now: EU bureaucrats telling Greece how it can spend and how it must tax. That's not a tenable strategy.

[FLPanhandle]

10. Good plan in the long run for them

I think it's the best way forward.

However, the next few years will be even worse than what they have now.

Will this government survive the transition period?

It'll be ugly and painful.

[geek tragedy]

11. Ugly and painful can be managed if people can see how it ends

and they believe they control their own destiny.

Merkel and the troika will get what they most wanted too--containing Greece's issues to Greece, instead of them spreading to Italy and Spain. They can live with a default so long as the consequences (leaving the EU and losing all those benefits) are dire enough that others wouldn't try to do it.

[FLPanhandle]

13. The EU wants Greece gone as much as Greece wants to leave.

The EU over-expanded and should never have brought in Greece. I don't think the EU would shed a tear over Spain leaving either.

Italy would be bailed out and kept more for politics than for economy.

[geek tragedy]

14. Agree on Greece, Italy and Spain ain't going anywhere imo

They have a lot more to lose than Greece does.

[Pooka Fey]

2. In 1942, Axis powers, in the absence of any Greeks, "borrowed" 476M Reichsmarks and have repaid ZERO

Tsipras will tell Schulz that the 1st step in Greece resolving its debt problems will be for Germany to repay the loans and gold it took from Greece during the WWII occupation.

(snip)

On March 14, 1942, a team of German and Italian lawyers, in the absence of any Greeks, signed an agreement obliging the Bank of Greece to provide Germany with a ‘war loan’ of 476million Reichsmarks (a currency which preceded the Deutschmark). And 70 years later not one penny of it, let alone any interest, has been repaid.

Economists (German ones, as it happens) have calculated that, allowing purely for inflation, Greece’s 1942 loan to Germany would today be worth £9bn. But if one adds even a modest rate of interest of 3 per cent, then that debt increases to a staggering £60bn.

That would be enough to cover Greece’s fiscal deficit for the next five years, giving the country time to restructure its economy and put government finances on a more sustainable footing.

(snip)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056400/Greece-debt-crisis-Greeks-believe-Germans-owe-60bn.html

I say Good on Greece for acting in their own best interests, finally, after being sucked dry by the austerity policies of the EU.

[Demeter]

3. Germany going all Nazi on Greece, again

If they could hear how it sounds to the rest of the world...

[eustus]

4. Tsipras also halted many privatizations today, according to Reuters.

These were privatizations required by the EU in order for Greece to obtain bail-out loans. The following sales were halted:

(snip)

the sale of stakes in the Public Power Corporation of Greece, Greece's biggest utility, and refiner Hellenic Petroleum, and other planned asset sales of motorways, airports and the power grid.

(/snip)

Good on Tsipras! It looks like he's planning to play some hardball. Honestly, he has nothing to lose. The EU has so decimated the Greek economy that Greek living standards can't really fall much further. How can the EU continue to threaten Greece? By cutting off credit? By imposing sanctions? How can the EU hurt the Greeks anymore than they've already been hurt? The EU is out of bullets, and Tsipras knows this.

news via: [link:http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/28/us-greece-politics-idUSKBN0L10VP20150128|

[geek tragedy]

5. The Grexit is totally on.

Greece has much more in common with Russia than it does Germany or France, and as a sovereign nation it is certainly free to pursue its own foreign policy, including allying itself with Putin.

Greece and the EU is a bad marriage that just needs to end. Ditto Greece's membership in NATO.

Greece is much more at home in the Russian sphere of influence than being in the EU, and that's exactly where they should go, and be allowed/encouraged to go.

[killbotfactory]

7. Sounds like they are finding backup investors to strengthen their bargaining power

When they try to renegotiate their debt with the troika.

[geek tragedy]

12. Russia isn't made out of money these days. nt

[happyslug]

15. But Russia does have oil

And can give it to Greece. Yes the price of oil is dropping like a rock, but it is still the #1 item of trade in the world.