One phrase echoed from Brussels to Frankfurt and Washington as Greece’s creditors examined and then waved through the country’s new economic policies: “starting point”.
While the month-old government in Athens was praised for coming up with a workable package of measures including maintaining state-asset sales and collecting more tax, the European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF all warned that action speaks louder than words.
“The conditional agreement to extend the current programme is just the first hurdle in a long race,” Maria Paola Toschi, global market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, wrote in a note to clients on Tuesday. “We expect the negotiation process to continue to blow hot and cold.”
The measures were a condition for extending the availability of bailout funds for another four months based on an initial agreement on February 20. While their approval on Tuesday marked another compromise in Greece’s five-year financial crisis for the euro region, the country finds itself in all too familiar territory: act or face insolvency.
The list is “not very specific” and doesn’t convey “clear assurances” that reforms will happen, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde wrote in a letter to the head of the euro region’s group of finance ministers. Commission officials and ECB president Mario Draghi also said the key to Greece winning more funding were “commitments” on legislation.
The current programme, which has been keeping Europe’s most indebted state afloat since 2010, was scheduled to expire at the end of this month. After almost four weeks of negotiations, all parties stepped back from the brink, with prime minister Alexis Tsipras, 40, declaring an end to austerity while creditors said previous agreements were upheld.
Now Mr Tsipras’s government doesn’t just need to offer more details on its plan, it has to follow through - and fast. Its cash-flow problem still needs to be resolved, a Greek Finance Ministry official said yesterday.
Greece has until April to refine the details and show the finance ministers how it will do it. Greece can’t access more bailout funds, including the next tranche of about 7 billion euros (Dh29.18bn), unless it passes the review. The government and its creditors can now also begin talks on how to overcome the cash squeeze next month, with issuance of more Treasury bills one option to consider, the official said.
Even so, the agreement marks a turning point for Greece and Europe, the government said in an email to reporters on Tuesday. Mr Tsipras is due to speak with his party on Wednesday.
Greece managed to escape from the “death trap” that extreme austerity had created, it said.
Euro-region finance ministers approved the Greek reforms, which also include changes to the labour market and a clampdown on illegal trade and corruption, on a conference call Tuesday following the recommendation from the creditor institutions.
As Mr Tsipras and his finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, locked horns with the euro region, there was a show of support with thousands of people rallying in Athens. Yesterday, it was stock and bond markets that reacted more positively, while Greeks appeared more subdued about the outcome.
The ASE stock index rose almost 10 per cent, while yields on three-year bonds fell 268 basis points to 12.39 per cent, the lowest since the day after the January 25 election.
“I am satisfied with how negotiations turned out in the sense that an accident, such as an exit from the euro, has been avoided,” said Yiannis Pelekanakis, 38, who is in the process of setting up an ice-cream business in Athens. “However, this is merely the beginning. A series of deep, necessary reforms must occur in Greece so it is not more of the same yet again.”
The package needs to be put to national parliaments for formal consent. Lawmakers and officials in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands signalled they won’t stand in the way once their governments grant approval for the aid extension.
Keeping the Greek Parliament onside is what will concern Mr Tsipras, whose Syriza party was hoisted to power on a platform of ending austerity, a partial debt writedown and no more audits by the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF.
The government must now win over sceptical lawmakers that its compromises were worthwhile. The agreement has been criticised by figures in the party, including Manolis Glezos, a 92-year-old Syriza European Parliament lawmaker and World War II resistance veteran.
The finance ministry official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said already cracks are appearing in the party over the new measures.
“Syriza may not be able to pass these internally,” said Pelekanakis. “Unfortunately, uncertainty remains.”
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Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Jumanji: The Next Level
Director: Jake Kasdan
Stars: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, Nick Jonas
Two out of five stars
Tips to keep your car cool
- Place a sun reflector in your windshield when not driving
- Park in shaded or covered areas
- Add tint to windows
- Wrap your car to change the exterior colour
- Pick light interiors - choose colours such as beige and cream for seats and dashboard furniture
- Avoid leather interiors as these absorb more heat
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MATCH INFO
Fixture: Thailand v UAE, Tuesday, 4pm (UAE)
TV: Abu Dhabi Sports
The biog
Favourite colour: Brown
Favourite Movie: Resident Evil
Hobbies: Painting, Cooking, Imitating Voices
Favourite food: Pizza
Trivia: Was the voice of three characters in the Emirati animation, Shaabiyat Al Cartoon
Barcelona 3
Messi (27’, 32’, 87’)
Leganes 1
El Zhar (68’)
If you go
- The nearest international airport to the start of the Chuysky Trakt is in Novosibirsk. Emirates (www.emirates.com) offer codeshare flights with S7 Airlines (www.s7.ru) via Moscow for US$5,300 (Dh19,467) return including taxes. Cheaper flights are available on Flydubai and Air Astana or Aeroflot combination, flying via Astana in Kazakhstan or Moscow. Economy class tickets are available for US$650 (Dh2,400).
- The Double Tree by Hilton in Novosibirsk ( 7 383 2230100,) has double rooms from US$60 (Dh220). You can rent cabins at camp grounds or rooms in guesthouses in the towns for around US$25 (Dh90).
- The transport Minibuses run along the Chuysky Trakt but if you want to stop for sightseeing, hire a taxi from Gorno-Altaisk for about US$100 (Dh360) a day. Take a Russian phrasebook or download a translation app. Tour companies such as Altair-Tour ( 7 383 2125115 ) offer hiking and adventure packages.
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Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Key findings of Jenkins report
- Founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al Banna, "accepted the political utility of violence"
- Views of key Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, have “consistently been understood” as permitting “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” and “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
- Muslim Brotherhood at all levels has repeatedly defended Hamas attacks against Israel, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.
- Laying out the report in the House of Commons, David Cameron told MPs: "The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism."
Film: Raid
Dir: Rajkumar Gupta
Starring: Ajay Devgn, Ileana D'cruz and Saurabh Shukla
Verdict: Three stars
UAE and Russia in numbers
UAE-Russia ties stretch back 48 years
Trade between the UAE and Russia reached Dh12.5 bn in 2018
More than 3,000 Russian companies are registered in the UAE
Around 40,000 Russians live in the UAE
The number of Russian tourists travelling to the UAE will increase to 12 percent to reach 1.6 million in 2023
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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