Greece: unpaid electrical bills amount to 1.7 billion euros, 2.16 Billion $

Greece: unpaid electrical bills amount to 1.7 billion euros, 2.16 Billion $. (Ansamed)

As of the end of June, the Greek public power company DEI is owed about 1.7 billion euros, which it intends to claim back through the courts as daily To Vima online reports today.

Prior to the introduction of the special tax on electrified real estate (Eetide) in 2012, unpaid electrical bills amounted to less than 300 million euros.

As a result though many customers were unable to pay the tax and ended up not paying their electricity bills at all. Even though the government later tried to improve the tax, customers were still unable to pay as necessary. Based on DEI's data, unpaid bills amounted to 1.4 billion euros at the start of the year and increased to 1.7 billion by the end of June.

About 950 million euros is attributed to households, 430 million euros to high voltage users and a further 180 million euros is owed by the greater public sector.

At this rate, the power company has estimated that unpaid bills will amount to 2 billion euros by the end of the year. In order to curb this increase, DEI has assigned the collection of 20,000 unpaid bills to experienced legal service providers. Hmmmm.....Good luck, as the saying go's 'You can't skin a stone' (ANSAmed).

Time to Admit Defeat: Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit.

Time to Admit Defeat: Greece Can No Longer Delay Euro Zone Exit.(Spiegel).By SPIEGEL Staff.After Greek voters rejected austerity in last week's election, plunging the country into a political crisis, Europe has been searching for a Plan B for Greece. It's time to admit that the EU/IMF rescue plan has failed. Greece's best hopes now lie in a return to the drachma.It's time to rethink the treatment. The Greeks were never ready for the monetary union, and they still aren't ready today. The attempt to retroactively bring the country up to speed through reforms has failed. No one can force the Greeks to give up the euro. And yet it is now clear that withdrawal would also be in the country's best interest. It isn't a matter of abandoning the Greeks. Greece is and remains an important part of Europe. A Greek withdrawal from the euro will have serious social, political and economic consequences -- mostly for the Greeks, but also for the rest of Europe. 
The continent's solidarity is not tied to the euro, which is why other European countries will still have to support Greece with massive amounts of money. But only a Greek withdrawal from the euro zone will give the country a chance to get back on its feet in the long term. The Greeks would have their own currency once again, which they could then devalue, making imports more expensive and exports cheaper. As a result, say American economist Kenneth Rogoff and others, the Greek economy could become competitive again. At the same time, a Greek exit from the euro would send a strong message to other financially ailing countries, namely that Europe cannot be blackmailed. Populist politician Tsipras is merely expressing views that are already widespread within large segments of the Athens establishment, namely that the Europeans will ultimately give in and pay up, because they fear a Greek bankruptcy as much as people in the Middle Ages feared the Black Death.Read the full story here.

The Euro crisis - Spain - when in debt grow marijuana.

The Euro crisis - Spain - when in debt: grow marijuana.(Spiegel).In Rasquera, they reckon marijuana is the solution. On Wednesday, the authorities in the eastern Spanish village, population 900, announced that the residents had agreed to an unsual plan that the municipality has come up with to fight the crisis. In the future, Rasquera will lease several fields to a Barcelona association that plans to grow hemp there. The revenue is intended to help the municipality reduce its debts of €1.3 million ($1.7 million). Around 500 kilometers (300 miles) away in Madrid, the national government is also worried about money. This week, Spain found itself in the financial markets' crosshairs again. On Tuesday, the government had to pay significantly higher interest rates of almost 6 percent on its 10-year bonds. Italy's borrowing costs have also risen. The rate that the country pays for one-year bonds more than doubled to 2.84 percent from last month's rate of 1.40 percent at an auction on Wednesday, while yields on three-year bonds hit 3.89 percent at an auction on Thursday, up from 2.76 percent last month. It looks like the euro zone is getting sick again -- this time with a case of Spanish flu.
For a while, it looked like the patient was recovering. The situation in the euro zone had stabilized at the beginning of the year. The head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mario Draghi, even said that the worst of the crisis had passed. So why is the situation heating up again? There doesn't appear to be a single, unambiguous reason for the concerns about Spain. But a speech by newly elected Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on March 2 played a key role in fuelling renewed uncertainty about Spain's ability to service its debts. The conservative prime minister announced that his country would not comply with the planned deficit target of 4.4 percent of gross domestic product for 2012, but would only cut its budget deficit to 5.8 percent. In itself, that was hardly surprising: The original target was somewhat ambitious, particularly given Spain's 2011 deficit of 8.5 percent.
But by revising the target, Spain broke a promise to its EU partners without consulting them first. It was only later that Madrid and its fellow euro-zone states retroactively agreed on a target of 5.3 percent. Spain has actually chosen "the right way," says Nicolaus Heinen, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. "The country needs to strike a careful balance between growth and austerity efforts." The issue of the deficit target being revised was mainly a communication problem, he argues. "It should have been announced earlier, ideally right after the boost provided by the ECB's loans."For Spain, however, generating new growth is at least as important as reducing the budget deficit. The situation on the labor market remains dire, with unemployment at almost 23 percent. As a result, the country is pinning its hopes on exports. "
Over the years, Spain has achieved relatively good export growth," says IW economist Jürgen Matthes, who recently published a new study on the subject. According to that report, Spain reduced its trade deficit -- the imbalance between imports and exports -- over the past four years from 5.8 percent of GDP to just 0.5 percent. Greece, by comparison, only managed to get its trade deficit down from 11.1 to 5.5 percent in the same period. Spain's export success comes despite the fact that Spanish unit labor costs have, unlike in Germany, been rising strongly for many years. Economists such as Hans-Werner Sinn, head of Germany's influential Ifo Institute for Economic Research, have demanded that wages and prices in the euro zone's crisis-stricken countries be reduced by up to 30 percent as a result.
But Matthes disagrees. "We doubt that such harsh cuts are necessary," he says. After all, he points out, Spanish companies are already managing to notch up significant growth. "They are having greater success than the textbooks say they should."
Meanwhile the German Der Spiegel reports that former German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin (SPD) has announced that she will launch a legal challenge at the German Constitutional Court on behalf of the ‘More Democracy’ campaign against both the ‘fiscal treaty’ on eurozone budgetary discipline and the ESM treaty establishing the permanent bailout fund. Däubler-Gmelin argued that the EU plans “cross a red line” by transferring too much power away from national parliaments to the EU level, and that "I'm all for Europe, but not for a Europe that is determined only by the governing elites”.Read the full story here.

Greece - Pensioner shoots himself at Greek Parliament, refuses to 'search for food in garbage'.

                                                   Image from twitter.com @Polyfimos


Greece - Pensioner shoots himself at Greek Parliament, refuses to 'search for food in garbage'.(RT).A 77-year-old Greek man has committed suicide in central Athens by the nation’s parliament, shooting himself with a handgun in apparent financial desperation. Eyewitness reports say that the man shouted “So I won’t leave debts for my children” before turning the gun on himself. Others claimed he said nothing. The incident occurred around 9 am (local time), just outside a metro station, when the square was filled with people and commuters. The man took his life behind a big tree, which concealed him from most eyes. Greek media identify the man as Dimitris Christoulas. This is yet to be confirmed by the police. The pensioner appears to have been a retired pharmacist who owned a drugstore in Athens, which he sold in 1994, Costas Lourantos, the head of the Attica Pharmacist’s Association told Skai radio.
A suicide note has been been found on the old man, saying “The Tsolakoglou government has annihilated all traces for my survival. And since I cannot find justice, I cannot find another means to react besides putting a decent end [to my life], before I start searching the garbage for food and become a burden for my child."
Georgios Tsolakoglou headed the Greek collaborationist government during the German occupation of Greece in the Second World War. The note has been widely regarded as drawing a parallel between Lucas Papademos’ current collaborationist government and Tsolakoglou’s regime because of the economic crisis in the country. In his note, the deceased forecasts the Greek government a fate similar to Benito Mussolini’s if they continue robbing young people of their future. The Italian dictator’s body hung in Milan for public view several days after his execution in April 1945. “Young people without a future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors upside down in Syntagma Square, as the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945,” the message reportedly reads. “Syntagma” is a Greek word for “constitution”. Syntagma Square, where the elderly man committed suicide, lies in front of the Greek Parliament. In the evening, hundreds of protesters made their way across the street from the square to outside Parliament and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, chanting: "This was not a suicide, it was a state-perpetrated murder" and "Blood flows and seeks revenge.” A couple of scuffles broke out between the protesters and riot police, who used pepper spray to repel youths throwing bottles of water at them.Read and see the full story here.

Greece’s Neo-Homeless Seek Shelter at Airport

Greece’s Neo-Homeless Seek Shelter at Airport.(KTG).By  keeptalkinggreece.This is another shocking evidence about Greece’ “Neo”- Homeless, middle class people who fell victim of the economic crisis. In a thrilling report published in daily Eleftheros Typos, workers at Eleftherios Venizelos, Greece’s biggest airport. speak of dozens of people who seek shelter in the area, pretending to be airlines passengers.“Usually they try to deceive the security personnel, therefore they often carry with them a suitcase or a bunch of magazines” as if they’re waiting either to travel or to pick up some passenger on arrival.Speaking to newspaper, Yiannis, 43, explains why he seeks shelter at the airport. “I have lost everything. My own people. I have no money, neither a home. The night is dangerous, I am afraid to sleep on park benches therefore I come to the airport.”“I remember one night I saw a homeless man to shave himself in the rest room. It froze my heart. I think of the suffering of all these people. How can we throw them out? And then? Where will they go?” an airport worker confessed to Eleftheros Typos.Indeed, it is often very difficult to distinguish as among the homeless are welldressed people who lost their homes recently due to debts and seek some place to spend the night.As the newspaper notes, the homeless arrive at the airport with the shuttle buses, they spend the night at the seats of the arrivals and departures and leave with the first light of the dawn.Speaking to the newspaper, Ada Alamanou from ”Klimaka”, an NGO that deals with homeless, said that homeless in Greece are estimated to be 20,000. She stressed the need to build capacities to offer shelter to those who found themselves on the streets from one day to the next.Read the full story here.