Greece: ‘third world’ aid and debt
By Michael Roberts
Source: Michael Roberts Blog
February 22, 2015
In return for staying in the Troika programme for another four months to end-June and keeping to the still to be agreed conditions on fiscal targets, government spending and privatisations, the Eurogroup, the ECB and the IMF will disburse the outstanding tranches of loans under the existing programme. The FT might call this aid but it is nothing of the kind. It is not even bailout money for Greek banks. The 11bn funding for that has been returned by the Greeks to the Troika who are keeping it for security.
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Back then, eventually the international agencies agreed what was called a Brady debt swap that wrote off a portion of the debt that could never be repaid. No such plan is available to Greece, although Syriza asked for it in their negotiations with the Eurogroup.
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/greece-third-world-aid-and-debt/
Germany owes Greece money for the war but morality neednt come into it
Hagen Fleischer
Instead of focusing on the emotionally charged issue of reparations for the second world war, Berlin and Athens should set up a future fund for the joint rehabilitation of a shared history
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/10/germany-greece-second-world-war-reparations
Get the rest of your money, Greece.
potone
(1,701 posts)But in either case, the Greeks won't get paid back. The real issue now is whether they will continue to have austerity forced upon them despite the fact that all it is doing is getting them deeper in debt. The attitude of German politicians towards the Greeks has been so moralistic and condescending that it is nauseating. Yes, Greece is not blameless, but it is also true that when the Greek government in the midst of the crisis tried to cancel orders for arms from German companies, the German government wouldn't let them do it despite the fact that they were demanding severe cuts in pensions, pay and civil service jobs at the same time. So I have very little sympathy for the German position, which is irrational and punitive. This is disaster capitalism, and it has to stop!