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http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=15....
Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Greece΄s government is seeking a bridge loan from the country΄s foreign lenders to cover its financing needs until September, a finance ministry source said on Tuesday.

Cash-strapped Greece is set to run out of money in weeks without further aid from the European Union and International Monetary Fund [cnbc explains] bailing out the country.

Greece΄s European partners have promised that they will find a solution to cover the country΄s funding needs through August, but have yet to specify how that will be done.

"We are fighting to secure the bridge loan by September," a finance ministry official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity...

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ECB financing to Greek banks rose in June after May stall
http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=15....
Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Greek banks’ use of the European Central Bank’s refinancing operations dropped to almost nothing in May as they were frozen out of ECB liquidity operations, before increasing again in June after they got a capital boost, according to Bloomberg.

Greek bank reliance on ECB liquidity fell to 3.4 billion euros ($4.1 billion) in May from 62 billion euros in April, according to an Athens bourse filing from the Bank of Greece today. Reliance on Emergency Liquidity Assistance, or ELA, which is extended by the central bank, climbed to 124 billion euros in May from 59.2 billion euros the month before, it said in the statement....

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Greek Banks Borrow $90.3 Billion From ECB in June
http://english.capital.gr/News.asp?id=15....
Wednesday, 18 July 2012 - 01:15

ATHENS--Greek banks borrowed 73.7 billion euros ($90.3 billion) from the European Central Bank in June and received EUR61.9 billion in emergency liquidity assistance from the Greek central bank, data showed Tuesday.

According to the Bank of Greece, banks borrowed a combined EUR135.6 billion from the Eurosystem in June.

Greece's banks borrowed a combined EUR127.5 billion from the Eurosystem in May. Nearly all of that came from the Greek central bank because the ECB temporarily suspended the banks from its funding operations...

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Wednesday Jul 18, 2012 (15:16)

Greece’s coalition leaders have agreed on some of the 11.5 billion euros of cuts being demanded by the country’s lenders and that no more additional fiscal measures would be needed this year.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras held a meeting lasting almost four hours with PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos and Democratic Left chief Fotis Kouvelis after Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras held two days of talks with ministers to discuss spending cuts.

Stournaras briefed the three leaders on where the savings would be made. Sources said that about 7.5 of the 11.5 billion euros have been identified.

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The PASOK chief said they agreed that Greece would have to ask for an extension to its fiscal adjustment period, that a new mid-term fiscal plan would have to be drawn up to act as a basis for the 2013 budget and that structural reforms, including privatizations, would have to be speeded up.

Greece has to make 3 billion euros of savings by the end of the year, based on its agreement with the troika early this year. Venizelos said that no more fiscal measures would be taken beyond this, following rumors that another 2 billion euros of cuts were being demanded.

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Wednesday Jul 18, 2012 (16:52)

Reuters claimed in its piece that offshore companies owned by Sallas and his two children paid for shares in the Piraeus Bank, the country's fourth-biggest, by borrowing more than 100 million euros from a rival bank.

Author Stephen Grey writes: “Together the shares make the Sallas family the largest shareholder in Piraeus, with a combined stake of over 6 percent. The purchase of these shares has not been declared to the Athens stock exchange by Piraeus.”

According to audit reports seen by Reuters, most of the money borrowed by companies linked to Sallas was allegedly used to buy shares in a Piraeus Bank rights issue in January 2011. The issue was designed to strengthen Piraeus's capital base, claims the agency.

“The disclosure highlights concerns that Greek banks have been borrowing money from each other and using it to meet recapitalization requirements, but not making that clear,” writes Grey...

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Thursday Jul 19, 2012

European Union officials are reluctant to extend Greece the bridge loan it has said it is seeking from its international creditors -- the European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund, known as the troika -- to cover a 3.2-billion-euro loan that comes due on August 20, Skai understands...

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Due to the expiration on 25 July 2012 of the buy-back scheme for marketable debt instruments issued or fully guaranteed by the Hellenic Republic, these instruments will become for the time being ineligible for use as collateral in Eurosystem monetary policy operations.

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Police used tear gas to disperse the strikers in a pre-dawn operation involving around 100 officers. Six protesters were arrested after minor clashes at the factory gate.

Government officials said the police action shows their resolve to stop festering labor protests and is a warning to labor unions that the new government will act forcefully.

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IMF tempted to pull the plug on Greece, report says
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Sunday Jul 22, 2012

The International Monetary Fund is considering ending its support to Greece, a report to be published in Der Spiegel on Monday says.

Greece could default as soon as September, according to the same report, which claims that patience of officials at the Washington-based organization with Greece is wearing thin.

“High ranking officials at the Fund have informed the European Union that the IMF is no longer willing to provide Greece with more aid,” according to a translated version of the report...

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Sunday Jul 22, 2012

Greece is in a “Great Depression” similar to the American one in the 1930s, the country's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told former US President Bill Clinton on Sunday...

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“You had the Great Depression in the United States,” Samaras told Clinton, who was visiting Greece as part of a delegation of Greek-American businessmen. “This is exactly what we're going through in Greece -- it's our version of the Great Depression.”

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“You had the Great Depression in the United States,”

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Grexit scenario has 'lost its horror,' Roesler says
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Sunday Jul 22, 2012

Germany's vice chancellor is questioning whether Greece can fulfill the conditions to receive further international aid and says the idea of it leaving the euro has "lost its horror."

Philipp Roesler, who is also economy minister, leads the Free Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition. It often talks tough on Europe's debt crisis...

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Greece should start paying half of its pensions and state salaries in drachmas as part of a gradual exit from the euro zone, a leading German conservative was quoted on Monday as saying

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Alexander Dobrindt, general secretary of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-based sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), has long argued that Greece would be better off outside the euro zone.

"With Greece we have reached the end of the road. There must not be any further aid. A country which does not have the will to fulfill the conditions, or is not able to do so, must get a chance outside the euro," Dobrindt told the daily Die Welt

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http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_art....
Monday Jul 23, 2012 (15:17)

A senior German lawmaker on Monday said that if Athens were to become insolvent it would not necessarily mean an automatic exit from the eurozone.

Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Norbert Barthle, the most senior conservative member of German parliament's influential budget committee, said that Greek insolvency «does not mean Greece's exit from the eurozone. I see no tendency for Greece to exit the euro, he added...