Les propositions de réforme de la Grèce arrivent à Bruxelles

Le patron de la zone euro, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, a déclaré devant le Parlement européen que « le gouvernement grec [était] très sérieux dans sa volonté de réformes », tout en rappelant qu'« il s'agi[ssai]t juste d'un premier pas » et que la finalisation des réformes « prendra[it] du temps ».

...

Une source européenne proche des discussions, citée par l'Agence France-Presse (AFP), affirmait toutefois que le gouvernement grec n'aurait pas renoncé aux mesures sociales d'urgence, dans le cadre de la lutte contre la « crise humanitaire », pour aider les plus vulnérables comme :

la fourniture d'électricité gratuite à 300 000 familles dans le besoin ;
l'accès gratuit aux soins médicaux pour les plus défavorisés ;
la distribution de coupons d'aide alimentaire ;
l'aide au transport pour les plus modestes ;
le soutien financier spécifique aux retraités touchant de faibles pensions.

La liste ne mentionnerait cependant pas l'augmentation du salaire minimal - de 580 à 750 euros - prévue par le parti Syriza, mais mal vue à Bruxelles. Toujours selon l'AFP, d'autres mesures retenues pourraient toutefois susciter le débat, comme le blocage des saisies de résidences principales et les mesures incitatives au paiement des arriérés d'impôts et d'emprunts bancaires passant par un effacement d'une partie des sommes dues.

Reuters has now published the full text of Greece's reforms.

At first glance it is broadly as expected -- lot of commitments to reform the tax base, fight corruption, and improve Greece's public sector.

There are also several clear concessions to its creditors. Athens is pledging not to reverse the state asset sales that are already underway. And it says it will aim to raise minimum wages in a manner that "safeguards competiveness and employment prospects", and in consultation with its partners.

The government is also promising help for families and businesses who simply cannot pay their debt, while clamping down hard on "strategic defaulters".

It's rather long, but I've pasted it in full here
I. Fiscal structural policies

Tax policies - Greece commits to: 

Reform VAT policy, administration and enforcement. Robust efforts will be made to improve collection and fight evasion making full use of electronic means and other technological innovations. VAT policy will be rationalised in relation to rates that will be streamlined in a manner that maximises actual revenues without a negative impact on social justice, and with a view to limiting exemptions while eliminating unreasonable discounts.

 Modify the taxation of collective investment and income tax expenditures which will be integrated in the income tax code.

 Broaden definition of tax fraud and evasion while disbanding tax immunity.

 Modernising the income tax code and eliminating from it tax code exemptions and replacing them, when necessary, with social justice enhancing measures.

 Resolutely enforce and improve legislation on transfer pricing.

 Work toward creating a new culture of tax compliance to ensure that all sections of society, and especially the well-off, contribute fairly to the financing of public policies. In this context, establish with the assistance of European and international partners, a wealth database that assists the tax authorities in gauging the veracity of previous income tax returns.

Public Finance Management

Greece will: 

Adopt amendments to the Organic Budget Law and take steps to improve public finance management. Budget implementation will be improved and clarified as will control and reporting responsibilities. Payment procedures will be modernised and accelerated while providing a higher degree of financial and budgetary flexibility and accountability for independent and/or regulatory entities.

 Devise and implement a strategy on the clearance of arrears, tax refunds and pension claims.

 Turn the already established (though hitherto dormant) Fiscal Council into a fully operational entity.

Revenue administration

Greece will modernise the tax and custom administrations benefiting from available technical assistance. To this end Greece will:  Enhance the openness, transparency and international reach of the process by which the General Secretary of the General Secretariat of Public Revenues is appointed, monitored in terms of performance, and replaced.

 Strengthen the independence of the General Secretariat of Public Revenues (GSPR), if necessary through further legislation, from all sorts of interference (political or otherwise) while guaranteeing full accountability and transparency of its operations. To this end, the government and the GSPR will make full use of available technical assistance.

 Staff adequately, both quantitatively and qualitatively, the GSPR and in particular the high wealth and large debtors units of the revenue administration and ensure that it has strong investigative/prosecution powers, and resources building on SDOE's capacities, so as to target effectively tax fraud by, and tax arrears of, high income social groups. Consider the merits of integrating SDOE into GSPR.

 Augment inspections, risk-based audits, and collection capacities while seeking to integrate the functions of revenue and social security collection across the general government.

Public spending -

The Greek authorities will:  Review and control spending in every area of government spending (e.g. education, defence, transport, local government, social benefits)

 Work toward drastically improving the efficiency of central and local government administered departments and units by targeting budgetary processes, management restructuring, and reallocation of poorly deployed resources.

 Identify cost saving measures through a thorough spending review of every Ministry and rationalisation of non-salary and non-pension expenditures which, at present, account for an astounding 56% of total public expenditure.

 Implement legislation (currently in draft form at the General Accounts Office - GAO) to review non-wage benefits expenditure across the public sector.

 Validate benefits through cross checks within the relevant authorities and registries (e.g. Tax Number Registry, AMKA registry) that will help identify non-eligible beneficiaries.

 Control health expenditure and improve the provision and quality of medical services, while granting universal access. In this context, the government intends to table specific proposals in collaboration with European and international institutions, including the OECD.

Social security reform -

Greece is committed to continue modernising the pension system. The authorities will:  Continue to work on administrative measures to unify and streamline pension policies and eliminate loopholes and incentives that give rise to an excessive rate of early retirements throughout the economy and, more specifically, in the banking and public sectors.

 Consolidate pension funds to achieve savings.

 Phase out charges on behalf of `third parties' (nuisance charges) in a fiscally neutral manner.

 Establish a closer link between pension contributions and income, streamline benefits, strengthen incentives to declare paid work, and provide targeted assistance to employees between 50 and 65, including through a Guaranteed Basic Income scheme, so as to eliminate the social and political pressure for early retirement which over-burdens the pension funds.

Public administration & corruption - Greece wants a modern public administration. It will:  Turn the fight against corruption into a national priority and operationalize fully the National Plan Against Corruption.

 Target fuel and tobacco products' smuggling, monitor prices of imported goods (to prevent revenue losses during the importation process), and tackle money laundering. The government intends immediately to set itself ambitious revenue targets, in these areas, to be pursued under the coordination of the newly established position of Minister of State.

 Reduce (a) the number of Ministries (from 16 to 10), (b) the number of `special advisors' in general government; and (c)

fringe benefits of ministers, Members of Parliament and top officials (e.g. cars, travel expenses, allowances)

 Tighten the legislation concerning the funding of political parties and include maximum levels of borrowing from financial and other institutions.

 Activate immediately the current (though dormant) legislation that regulates the revenues of media (press and electronic), ensuring (through appropriately designed auctions) that they pay the state market prices for frequencies used, and prohibits the continued operation of permanently loss-making media outlets (without a transparent process of recapitalisation)

 Establish a transparent, electronic, real time institutional framework for public tenders/procurement - re-establishing DIAVGEIA (a side-lined online public registry of activities relating to public procurement)

 Reform the public sector wage grid with a view to decompressing the wage distribution through productivity gains and appropriate recruitment policies without reducing the current wage floors but safeguarding that the public sector's wage bill will not increase  Rationalise non-wage benefits, to reduce overall expenditure, without imperilling the functioning of the public sector and in accordance with EU good practices  Promote measures to: improve recruitment mechanisms, encourage merit-based managerial appointments, base staff appraisals on genuine evaluation, and establish fair processes for maximising mobility of human and other resources within the public sector

II. Financial stability

Instalment Schemes.

Greece commits to:

Improve swiftly, in agreement with the institutions, the legislation for repayments of tax and social security arrears  Calibrate instalment schemes in a manner that helps discriminate efficiently between: (a) strategic default/non-payment and (b) inability to pay; targeting case (a) individuals/firms by means of civil and criminal procedures (especially amongst high income groups) while offering case (b) individuals/firms repayment terms in a manner that enables potentially solvent enterprises to survive, averts free-riding, annuls moral hazard, and reinforces social responsibility as well as a proper re-payment culture.

 De-criminalise lower income debtors with small liabilities 

Step up enforcement methods and procedures, including the legal framework for collecting unpaid taxes and effectively implement collection tools

Banking and Non-Performing loans.

Greece is committed to:  Banks that are run on sound commercial/banking principles  Utilise fully the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund and ensure, in collaboration with the SSM, the ECB and the European Commission, that it plays well its key role of securing the banking sector's stability and its lending on commercial basis while complying with EU competition rules.

 Dealing with non-performing loans in a manner that considers fully the banks' capitalisation (taking into account the adopted Code of Conduct for Banks), the functioning of the judiciary system, the state of the real estate market, social justice issues, and any adverse impact on the government's fiscal position.

 Collaborating with the banks' management and the institutions to avoid, in the forthcoming period, auctions of the main residence of households below a certain income threshold, while punishing strategic defaulters, with a view to: (a) maintaining society's support for the government's broad reform program, (b)

preventing a further fall in real estate asset prices (that would have an adverse effect on the banks' own portfolio), (c)

minimising the fiscal impact of greater homelessness, and (d)

promoting a strong payment culture. Measures will be taken to support the most vulnerable households who are unable to service their loans  Align the out-of-court workout law with the instalment schemes after their amendment, to limit risks to public finances and the payment culture, while facilitating private debt restructuring.

 Modernise bankruptcy law and address the backlog of cases

III. Policies to promote growth

Privatisation and public asset management:

To attract investment in key sectors and utilise the state's assets efficiently, the Greek authorities will:  Commit not to roll back privatisations that have been completed. Where the tender process has been launched the government will respect the process, according to the law.

 Safeguard the provision of basic public goods and services by privatised firms/industries in line with national policy goals and in compliance with EU legislation.

 Review privatisations that have not yet been launched, with a view to improving the terms so as to maximise the state's long term benefits, generate revenues, enhance competition in the local economies, promote national economic recovery, and stimulate long term growth prospects.

 Adopt, henceforth, an approach whereby each new case will be examined separately and on its merits, with an emphasis on long leases, joint ventures (private-public collaboration) and contracts that maximise not only government revenues but also prospective levels of private investment.

 Unify (HRDAF) with various public asset management agencies (which are currently scattered across the public sector) with a view to developing state assets and enhancing their value through microeconomic and property rights' reforms.

Labor market reforms

Greece commits to: 

Achieve EU best practice across the range of labour market legislation through a process of consultation with the social partners while benefitting from the expertise and existing input of the ILO, the OECD and the available technical assistance.

 Expand and develop the existing scheme that provides temporary employment for the unemployed, in agreement with partners and when fiscal space permits and improve the active labour market policy programmes with the aim to updating the skills of the long term unemployed.

 Phasing in a new `smart' approach to collective wage bargaining that balances the needs for flexibility with fairness. This includes the ambition to streamline and over time raise minimum wages in a manner that safeguards competiveness and employment prospects. The scope and timing of changes to the minimum wage will be made in consultation with social partners and the European and international institutions, including the ILO, and take full account of advice from a new independent body on whether changes in wages are in line with productivity developments and competitiveness.

Product market reforms and a better business environment

As part of a new reform agenda, Greece remains committed to: 

Removing barriers to competition based on input from the OECD.

 Strengthen the Hellenic Competition Commission.

 Introduce actions to reduce the burdens of administrative burden of bureaucracy in line with the OECD's input, including legislation that bans public sector units from requesting (from citizens and business) documents certifying information that the state already possesses (within the same or some other unit).

 Better land use management, including policies related to spatial planning, land use, and the finalisation of a proper Land Registry  Pursue efforts to lift disproportionate and unjustified restrictions in regulated professions as part of the overall strategy to tackle vested interests.

 Align gas and electricity market regulation with EU good practices and legislation Reform of the judicial system - The Greek government will:  Improve the organisation of courts through greater specialisation and, in this context, adopt a new Code of Civil Procedure.

 Promote the digitisation of legal codes and the electronic submission system, and governance, of the judicial system.

Statistics - The Greek government reaffirms its readiness to:  Honour fully the Commitment on Confidence in Statistics, and in particular the institutional independence of ELSTAT, ensuring that ELSTAT has the necessary resources to implement its work programme.

 Guarantee the transparency and propriety of the process of appointment of the ELSTAT President in September 2015, in cooperation with EUROSTAT.

IV. Humanitarian Crisis -

The Greek government affirms its plan to: 

Address needs arising from the recent rise in absolute poverty (inadequate access to nourishment, shelter, health services and basic energy provision) by means of highly targeted non-pecuniary measures (e.g. food stamps).

 Do so in a manner that is helpful to the reforming of public administration and the fight against bureaucracy/corruption (e.g. the issuance of a Citizen Smart Card that can be used as an ID card, in the Health System, as well as for gaining access to the food stamp program etc.).

 Evaluate the pilot Minimum Guaranteed Income scheme with a view to extending it nationwide.

 Ensure that its fight against the humanitarian crisis has no negative fiscal effect.

European Commission says deal should be approved

Brussels has determined Greece's reform plan is "sufficiently comprehensive" and should be approved by eurozone finance ministers, the clearest signal yet that Athens will secure an extension of its €172bn bailout beyond Saturday's expiry date.

According to two European Commission officials, the reform list -- which was received by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the 19 eurozone finance ministers, "close to midnight" on Monday evening -- contained significant changes from a more vague outline originally discussed at the weekend.

"In the Commission's view, this list is sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of the review, as called for by the eurogroup at its last meeting," said one of the officials. "We are notably encouraged by the strong commitment to combat tax evasion and corruption."

@YanniKouts The author of the leaked Greek Proposals PDF is not the same as the author of the Greek Proposals PDF leak. #proTip

— Migeru (@MigeruBlogger) febrero 24, 2015

The Commission services have carefully reviewed the Greek government's reform proposals sent to you yesterday as President of the Eurogroup. This has been preceded by constructive exchanges over the week-end between the Greek authorities and representatives of the European Commission and the other institutions.

In the view of the Commission, this list is sufficiently comprehensive to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of the review as called for by the Eurogroup at its last meeting.

We are encouraged by the commitment to combat tax evasion and corruption, inter alia through efforts to modernise tax and custom administrations, as well as to pursue reforms to modernise the public administration. The Commission also notes the commitments in the area of statistics and considers it of vital importance that the institutional and operational independence of ELSTAT and its senior management be respected at all times.

Further specification of the reforms in these and other key areas is expected to be provided and agreed before the end of April, in line with last week's Eurogroup statement. The Commission looks forward to working with the new administration to elaborate what are at the moment still general commitments and transform these into clear policy actions.

The Commission underlines its willingness to continue to provide technical assistance in key areas to assist in the design and implementation of policies. As part of this process, the Commission underlines the importance of Greece fully respecting its commitment undertaken at the Eurogroup of 20 February 2015 to refrain from any roll back of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions.

Determined and swift implementation of reform commitments will be key for a successful conclusion of the review.

Otherwise I think it qualifies as the first small step back by the Europowers that be on their austerity offensive, and the first time in recent years that a Greek government manages to be the principal author (however constrained) of its own policies. In this light the Feb. 20 agreement acquires a different significance. Probably. Any thoughts?

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

The eurozone's 19 finance ministers have approved the Greek government's six-page list of reforms, clearing one of the last hurdles to extending its €172bn bailout for another four months, according to an EU official.

The approval, which came in a teleconference between the ministers and representatives of the three institutions that monitor Greece's rescue programme, shifts the debate of the Greek programme to national capitals, where several eurozone parliaments must approve the extension before the week's end.

The most crucial approval will be that of the German Bundestag, where there remains strong scepticism about the new Greek government's ability to meet the programme's reform requirements.

Parliamentarians from Chancellor Angela Merkel's party - the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union - were to meet on Tuesday afternoon with Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, to discuss the Greek extension.

I just translated the scathing letter written today by #Syriza MP and Economist, Costas Lapavitsas http://t.co/JKlnflXzjK #Greece #Eurogroup

— The Greek Analyst (@GreekAnalyst) febrero 23, 2015

Establish a closer link between pension contributions and income, streamline benefits, strengthen incentives to declare paid work, and provide targeted assistance to employees between 50 and 65, including through a Guaranteed Basic Income scheme, so as to eliminate the social and political pressure for early retirement which over-burdens the pension funds.

Title: Eurogroup agrees to Reform Plans; Lucky Greece

V:  Good that our letter was accepted.
Tsipras: And, old man, it was our last stamp.

Perhaps its because i still can't pay my electric bill, with the power going off tomorrow unless the Goldman Sachs project payment comes quickly. (the lovely mafia utility SWB has already given me 3 weeks past the 1st shutoff date, and today they said no further. I reminded them what happens to medicine and remaining food, but they said that no longer mattered. I did tell them that's what Schäuble has done to Greece, which went over like a lead balloon. lead balloon, get it?)


"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

To understand the issues actually at stake between Greece and Europe, you have to dig a little into the infamous "Memorandum of Understanding" signed by the previous Greek governments. A first point: not everything in that paper is unreasonable. Much merely reflects EU laws and regulations. Provisions relating to tax administration, tax evasion, corruption, and modernization of public administration are, broadly, good policy and supported by SYRIZA. So it was not difficult for the new Greek government to state adherence to "seventy percent" of the memorandum.

The remaining "thirty percent" fell mainly into three areas: fiscal targets, fire-sale privatizations and labor-law changes. The fiscal target of a 4.5 percent "primary surplus" was a dog as everyone would admit in private. The new government does not oppose privatizations per se; it opposes those that set up price-gouging private monopolies and it opposes fire sales that fail to bring in much money. Labor law reform is a more basic disagreement - but the position of the Greek government is in line with ILO standards, and that of the "programme" was not. These matters will now be discussed. The fiscal target is now history, and the Greeks agreed to refrain from "unilateral" measures only for the four-month period during which they will be seeking agreement.

Cassidy acknowledges some of this, but then minimizes it, with the comment that the deal "seems to rule out any large-scale embrace of Keynesian stimulus policies." In what document does any such promise exist? There is no money in Greece; the government is bankrupt. Large-scale Keynesian policies were never on the table as they would necessarily imply exit - an expansionary policy in a new currency, with all the usual dangers. Inside the Euro, investment funds have to come from better tax collection, or from the outside, including private investors and the European Investment Bank. Cassidy's comment seems to have been pulled from the air.

Tidy job deconstructing the MSM narrative.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

hange is in the air in Athens. We have felt it. This past November we were guests at a workshop attended by Greek and foreign academics and politicians, police union representatives, current and retired Hellenic Police officers (including high-ranking ones), and Syriza's members of parliament and central committee representatives. A meeting of the radical left and the police: it was unprecedented.

The discussions were remarkably candid. Reform -- radical reform -- of the police and the judiciary was on everyone's mind. The energy inside the workshop was matched only by the mood on the street. Hope abounded. Change seemed imminent.

Yet despite this momentum, a dark cloud hung over Athens. The police, of course, remained a conservative enclave. They harbored xenophobic attitudes and, in far too many cases, openly aligned with the far right. Last month, as Syriza was being propelled to power, the police once again voted heavily in favor of the fascist Golden Dawn party.

Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has pledged to "smash" the country's oligarchs. But can Syriza do so without taming the police?

Varoufakis knows firsthand how difficult this task will be. After he assisted journalists investigating various banking scandals in his previous position as economics professor at the University of Athens, he received an ominous phone call. "A stranger asked me whether my son had already come home," he recently told the German newspaper Stern. "The caller then described the route my son had taken and said: if you want him to come home safely in the future, then stop investigating the banking business."

Former Greek finance minister George Papaconstantinou went on trial on Wednesday charged with removing relatives from a list of Greeks allegedly holding accounts at HSBC's Swiss private bank.

Mr Papaconstantinou denies that in 2010, while finance minister, he tampered with a USB memory stick containing a list of 2,000 HSBC accounts held by alleged tax evaders.

Spiegel Hier

He says (on medicine in the Middle Ages): ""At that time venesection (bleeding) was prescribed, which made the sick often more ill, after which they were again allowed to bleed."

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

It blackmailed ministers, fashioned itself as a legislator, and conspired with the elites. This is how the Troika knowingly pushed the crisis states into recession.

... Later on, the controllers of the IMF said that the effects of the austerity program had been underestimated because Thomsen and his EU colleagues had used wrong assumptions. But that wasn't quite true. They knew what they were doing. In March 2010 the IWF's representative in Athens wrote in a "secret" report: if the EU's austerity program were to be implemented, "it would cause a sharp contraction of internal demand and a deep recession that would put the social compact under heavy strain." And that's exactly what happened.

I found this comment by dsquared in a thread at  Crooked Timber very interesting:

I don't agree with much of this, as you'd expect, but I'm on a mobile device at the moment so everyone is spared my grumbling and moidering. Just one point though ; the IMF and ECB have both put out statements saying that the Greek proposal doesn't go far enough in terms of reforms. So the compromising was definitely done within the allegedly recalcitrant Eurogroup, rather than under pressure from other troika members. The "€group bad austerians / IMF good Keynsians" framing never convinced me but now it's provably wrong. Either Schaeuble gave ground under pressure from the rest of the €group, or he's never been as inflexible as he's been painted.

Also, the people saying that Greece has a lot of freedom within the fiscal targets are wrong, or at least taking a very optimistic reading. The actual agreement (this wasn't emphasised at the press conference) was that they wouldn't take any unilateral measures which jeopardised 1) the fiscal targets 2) the economic recovery or 3) financial stability. To me, that gives the troika a heck of a lot of leeway to reject Greek policies.

But in general I don't think it's productive to do the "who blinked" bit. It was a sensible compromise. Both sides gave up some real red lines.

What says @yanisvaroufakis to his countrymen? Translation of radio interview, thanks a million to @GreekAnalyst https://t.co/dW7NbXpTcS

— Sigrun Davidsdottir (@sigrunda) febrero 26, 2015

Really great stuff from @ErikSchatzker in his @yanisvaroufakis interview http://t.co/Ot073Cy8tm http://t.co/kJiN7fWamS

— Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) febrero 26, 2015

"He's the lost son of Zeus with a heart made of stone!"... he "smells of sex"... "his leather jacket is made of skin from German shepherd puppies"... "He doesn't negotiate, he simply kicks ass". These are just some of the lyrics to the awfully catchy metal tune about Yanis Varoufakis that is taking YouTube by storm, with 6,300 views in just four hours.

The video, courtesy of Now Magazine Royale, proudly, and in an almost mock-Germanic tone, lists the Germany's achievements - the positive (like the economy, the large gold reserves etc.) and the negative ones (like starting two world wars and "almost" winning).

...

"Dear Greek Folks, the time has come: we surrender! Take all our money, you may also take Helene Fischer, but please, keep this financial Hercules off us. We could only just bear with Costa Cordalis [a German singer of Greek origin], so this is clearly way too much!" the description to the video reads.

Syriza wants to do the impossible, which is to get rid of the austerity that comes with the euro, and yet keep the euro. They want to cure themselves of leprosy, but they don't want to leave the leper colony, and that's impossible.

Let's talk about the history of the euro. You've mentioned in past interviews and articles that you knew the founder of the euro, economist Robert Mundell. Tell us about the economic worldview of Mundell and what his views were in giving birth to the idea of the European common currency.

Mundell, who taught at Columbia University, won the Nobel Prize for his writings on currency, and what's interesting is that he won the Nobel Prize for the theory of optimum currency areas, the theory that nations should join currency unions when they have similar economies. Therefore, agriculture economies should have a joint currency; he thought the US and Canada [should] have two different currencies, east-west, not Canadian-American, but the western US should have one currency with Canada, and eastern Canada and the eastern US should have one currency. In other words, he believed that a combination, like putting Germany in the same currency zone as France and Spain, would be ridiculous; it's a violation of his core theory through which he won the Nobel Prize.

Why is this important? This is the very same guy who is the inventor, you could say, of the euro, which he called the "europa" - that there should be one single common currency for all of Europe, damn the optimum currency theory. Now why would someone suggest a currency that is exactly the opposite of everything he's taught? I spoke to him about this, and he said that it has nothing to do with creating a good currency. It has everything to do with changing the politics of Europe. He was very, very right-wing. He is the creator of another economic theory, which wouldn't get him the Nobel Prize; in fact, it's called "voodoo economics," supply-side economics. That is, the more you cut taxes, the more tax revenue you get. The more deregulation of business you get, the better your economy - and if you deregulated the banks, there would be less risk in the banking system. All of those supply-side systems, which we call "Thatcher economics," "Reaganomics," after Ronald Reagan, it's all been discredited; it's all called "voodoo economics," and yet, that's what the euro is. It's an instrument of voodoo economics. "This was not a mistake; this was not something that they tried to avoid. It is what they wanted to happen, a crisis that would cause a realignment of political power and the end of the European welfare state."

The first sophism: "Syriza has no mandate to quit the eurozone." If it had adopted such a position, it wouldn't have won the elections. Putting it that way, we see how absurd this reasoning is. Yes, of course it had no mandate to quit the eurozone. But it certainly didn't have a mandate to abandon the core of its program in order to hang onto the euro, either!

And, without doubt, if it had presented itself to the electorate saying, "here's our program, but if we find that its implementation is incompatible with keeping the euro, then we'll forget about it," then it wouldn't have achieved much success at the polls. For good reason: keeping the euro at any cost is exactly the same fundamental argument as the pro-memorandum parties who've ruled Greece all these years put forward.

And even if Syriza never fully clarified its position on the euro, it did always reject the logic of "the euro at any price." On that note, let's remember that contrary to what most commentators think, Syriza's programmatic texts do not rule out leaving the eurozone if forced to by the Europeans' intransigence, or defaulting on the debt payments. Though it is true that recently these texts seem to have been rather hidden away.

A second variant of this first sophism: Syriza had a dual mandate of breaking with austerity and staying in the euro. This sounds more rational than the first version, but nonetheless it is still sophistry. It's as if the two sides of this mandate were equally important and thus it would be politically legitimate, if we had to choose (and indeed we do have to choose -- that's precisely the problem), to sacrifice the break with austerity on the altar of keeping the euro. Without having even abandoned its mandate!

But then why not turn that reasoning around and say, "since I realize the two objectives are incompatible, I choose to stick to the break with austerity, since essentially that is the reason why Greeks voted for a party of the radical left?" That is, to opt for the rupture and not stability within the existing framework. We might at least think that this choice is more befitting of a radical left party that sets socialism as its strategic goal (even if that clearly wasn't the agenda on which it won the elections).

While the four-month extension passed with a comfortable majority of 542 out of 587 lawmakers in the Bundestag who voted, there was a substantial rebellion within Ms Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and sister party the Christian Social Union. There were 13 abstentions.

...

Invoking the second world war, Wolfgang Schäuble, finance minister, told the Bundestag: "In the 70 years since this catastrophe, the German catastrophe, we Germans should do everything we can to ensure that we hold Europe together."

If the worst happens and Greece is forced out, one of the biggest worries is the legitimacy of contracts and their redenomination. As Varoufakis has pointed out on many occasions, this would be an absolute nightmare, since any seller would be expecting hard currency.

My question is this: given Greece's lack of functioning state apparatus, has there been any talk about a possible reset of the Constitution? When basic contracts go haywire, this would seem to be an optimal point to start from scratch at ground level zero--as if just after a war.

My real concern is the land registry. This is a really good way for the elite to hide money in Greece. The land registry needs to be locked in.