Economische Griekse Drama's bij de buren

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het hieronder beschreven rapport geeft aardig materiaal over Griekenland
  en anderen in de EU. Het artikel daaronder geeft een kijkje in de
Griekse keuken vanuit de buren en werpt de vraag op waarom de Griekse
banken wel grootscheeps in de buurlanden hebben geinvesteerd, maar
minder in Griekenland zelf.

In het rapport wordt duidelijk gekwantificeerd in hoeverre Griekenland
gelogen heeft (ALLE jaren, tot 2004 buiten proportie, daarna in mindere
mate).
Spanje heeft, in veel mindere mate, hetzelfde gedaan én ook tot 2004.
Na 1999 heeft Spanje boven de 3% van GDP tekort gehad en zit momenteel
boven de 10%.
Sinds 2002 stijgen de Spaanse loonkosten in 'manufacturing' sterk (van
101,6 naar 118,3 en dus ruim 16% hoger), terwijl het aantal werknemers
sterk terugloopt (van 17,6% naar 14,9% van alle werknemers - bijna 16%
lager).

Een andere grafiek zal het enthousiasme van Duitsland voor de Euro geen
goed doen. De relatieve waarde van de Euro t.o.v. de Mark is met meer
dan 15% afgenomen en de relatieve export is met meer dan 30% toegenomen.
Een mindere soortgelijke ontwikkeling voor Oostenrijk.
De relatieve waarde is toegenomen en de relatieve export gestegen in
Finland(2% en 20+%) en Ierland(20+% en 15+%).
Nederland kende een gemiddelde toename van de export en ongeveer 7%
hogere relatieve waarde (mijn eigen beleving spreekt dit laatste tegen!).
De andere landen kenden een lagere relatieve toename van de export en
een hogere relatieve waarde.

Groet / Cees

http://www.bruegel.org/publications/show/publication/two-crises-two-responses.html
The crisis in Greece presents an extraordinary test for the euro, but
also an opportunity to strengthen, and apply more diligently, existing
procedures governing the economic and monetary Union. This Policy Brief
authored by Bruegel Director Jean Pisani-Ferry, Senior Fellow Andre
Sapir and Resident Fellow Benedicta Marzinotto emphasises the need for a
more nuanced understanding of the different kinds of crises affecting
euro members.

Using Spain and Greece as examples, this paper makes policy
recommendations for both scenarios. It explains how budgetary
surveillance can be strengthened to prevent crises. For crises
management, the authors suggest that the scope of Article 143 of the
Lisbon Treaty be extended to provide the EU conditional loan facility to
euro-area members. They also highlight the need for defining a clear
framework for joint EU-IMF assistance in the euro area.
http://www.bruegel.org/fileadmin/files/admin/publications/policy_briefs/2009/January/pb_2010-01_final.pdf


ECONOMY:  Greek Crisis Impacts the Balkans
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50734
By Apostolis Fotiadis

ATHENS, Mar 20, 2010 (IPS) - Serious concerns are being raised about the
impact of the ongoing recession in Greece on the political and economic
situation in the neighbouring Balkans.

Greece has been at the centre of a financial tempest for the past five
months, after its newly-elected government accepted that its public
deficit was 12.7 percent rather than 3.3 percent and that its debt
figures had been engineered creatively by previous administrations.

This led credit trust institutions like Fich, Standard and Poors and
Moodys to devaluate Greece’s lending status in the international market,
thus opening the ground for profiteering over Greek debt bonds by hedge
funds.

When the crisis posed a direct threat to the stability of the European
monetary union, Brussels intervened, asking the country to adopt a
programme of economic shock therapy.

Under pressure from international markets and its European partners to
reduce its deficit, the Panhellenic Socialist Party (Pasok) government
announced tax increases and a 30 percent cut to the two-month "bonus"
pay Greek civil servants receive each year.

However, the cuts to public workers’ salaries, along with the two
percent increase in the value added tax, is expected to result in lower
consumption and perpetuate a more painful recession for all Greeks.

This could also mean a spillover of the recession from Greece to the
neighbouring economies. Greece is not only a major investor in the
Balkans but also a donor and host to several hundred thousand economic
migrants from the region.

"The political elites of the Southern Balkans are worried about the
impact that the Greek economic crisis may have on the countries in the
region," Dardan Velija, former integration advisor to Kosovo’s prime
minister, told IPS. "Albania has a large diaspora in Greece, which sends
money back home and the Greek banking sector is spread into the
neighbouring countries of Greece".

Remittances from Greece towards the Balkans have indeed amounted to many
million dollars annually, providing livelihoods for many families.

The main beneficiaries have been Albania and Bulgaria. International
Monetary Fund estimates up to the middle of the last decade were
respectively receiving 778 and 400 million US dollars annually. The
population of ethnic Albanians residing in Greece is estimated at over
half a million.

Greek investment began entering the region after the demise of the
eastern bloc. In the post-1989 era, big food processing, small food
retailers and clothing and textile companies have moved to Bulgaria,
FYR-Macedonia and Albania. Major investments in the construction,
telecommunication and energy sectors of Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia,
FYR-Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania have followed.

Greek banking capital has been the forerunner in this process. During
the last 15 years, Greek banks have penetrated deeply into the banking
system of the Balkan countries.

By 2007 seven major Greek banks had established a network of around 20
subsidiaries in the region with around 1,900 branches, employing
approximately 23,500 people.

Charalambos Tsardanidis, director of the Institute of International
Economic Relations in Athens, says: "By around 2005 business investment
in the Balkans, including telecommunications and petroleum, mounted to
3.5 billion dollars, creating jobs for tens of thousands of native workers".

A reverse trend is likely to follow in the next few years while Greek
capital will struggle with recession effects at home. The Greek Central
Bank has since last year advised Greek banks to adopt a restricted
lending policy in the Balkans, since the region is expected to be hit
hard by the recession.

Greek investors are also reconsidering their plans. In the first nine
months of 2009 over 70 million euros (953 million dollars) of Greek
capital left FYR-Macedonia with the Greek owners of the mobile operator
Cosmofon and the marble quarry Prilep selling out and leaving the country.

Greece’s role as a donor and promoter of Western Balkans’ integration
into the European Union (EU) will also be limited. In 2002 Greece
launched a massive development initiative known as the ‘Hellenic Plan
for the Economic Reconstruction of the Balkans’ (HiPERB) which so far
has allocated 163.4 million euros (22.4 million dollars) worth of aid
from the Greek GDP for improving public infrastructure and organising
community projects in seven Balkan states.

HiPERB, slated to run until next year, is expected to contribute a total
of 550 million euros (750 million dollars), a task unlikely to be
realised under current conditions.

The plan was part of Greece’s strategy for boosting the Western Balkans’
European aspirations, a task pursued intensively during the last few
years, and especially after country’s EU presidency in 2003.

But Velija says the current situation might compromise this strategy.
"The crisis in Greece can damage its capacity to play that role.
Moreover, it can help strengthen the negative image for the Balkans in
the West, which anyhow is very bad. That has the potential to damage the
prospects for faster EU integration for the region".

According to Florian Bieber, a Balkans expert who lectures at the
University of Kent, the ongoing crisis will inevitably slow down
regional integration.

"We have seen a serious erosion of solidarity among current EU members
and the economic crisis in Greece is likely to disadvantage the
countries of the region,’’ Bieber told IPS. ‘’Whether they are members
(such as Bulgaria) and are now less likely to be admitted to the
euro-zone, or whether they are in the Western Balkans, they are now
likely to be scrutinised more extensively than before.’’

Belgium, which is to take over European presidency from Spain, appears
less enlargement friendly than many of its predecessors. The state
secretary for European affairs, Olivier Chastel, while describing the
country’s stance on the issue said things are going to be "strict and
fair, without making promises".

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