Twelve big lenders have confirmed their participation in the Greek debt swap, according to the catchily-titled Steering Committee of the Private Creditor-Investor Committee for Greece (PCIC). They are: Allianz, Alpha Bank, Axa, BNP Paribas, CNP Assurances, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Eurobank EFG, Greylock Capital Management, ING Bank, Intesa San Paolo and National Bank of Greece. Following reports that German investor representative Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz has recommended that some holders of Greek debt should reject the proposed debt swap .... Reuters are reporting that most German lenders will accept the proposed haircut of 53.5pc. More from Reuters: While Greek sovereign debt owned by German lenders has a face value of roughly 15 billion euros ($20 billion), in most cases they have already written down that value in their books by about three quarters. FMS Wertmanagement, the biggest creditor with an exposure of nominally more than 8 billion euros, will accept the deal, a person close to the lender said on Monday. FMS, the bad bank set up to hold the toxic assets of bailed-out former bluechip lender Hypo Real Estate, is to formally decide on accepting the debt cut later this week, the person said. Commerzbank, which had originally invested almost 3 billion euros in Greek sovereign bonds but has written down its exposure to 800 million, said last month it had little choice but to take part in the bond swap. At the time, chief executive Martin Blessing said: "The voluntariness (of the Greek debt swap) is about as voluntary as a confession at a Spanish inquisition trial." A true analisys of the private sector activity across the eurozone suggested business activity contracted in February after showing tentative signs of growth a month earlier. Markit's eurozone composite PMI fell to 49.3 – revised down from an initial reading of 49.7 – from 50.4 in January, where anything below 50 shows a contraction. The poor data, which suggest the region is slipping back into recession, pushed markets lower, with the Ibex in Spain down 1.3pc and Italian markets 0.7pc lower. The data also heightened concerns that the austerity measures pushed by European policymakers are merely serving to cut off growth in already hard-hit countries. Markit said its reading for Spain's services sector, which accounts for 70pc of the economy, fell from 46.1 to 41.9, against forecasts for a decline to 45.9. The services sector in Italy fell from 44.8 to 44.1, with employment shrinking at its fastest rate since July 2009, while the Bank of Italy predicted the country's economy was set to shrink by 1.5pc this year. That compares with the Italian government's forecast of a 0.4pc contraction....Ah yes - this morning, out of the ER room. Tonight, back in theatre. Why do hacks write nonsense about the EU being 'over the worst' when (even if it was) this wouldn't excuse its undemocratic approach to every problem....??????
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Ah yes - this morning, out of the ER room. Tonight, back in theatre. Why do hacks write nonsense about the EU being 'over the worst' ????
Twelve big lenders have confirmed their participation in the Greek debt swap, according to the catchily-titled Steering Committee of the Private Creditor-Investor Committee for Greece (PCIC). They are: Allianz, Alpha Bank, Axa, BNP Paribas, CNP Assurances, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Eurobank EFG, Greylock Capital Management, ING Bank, Intesa San Paolo and National Bank of Greece. Following reports that German investor representative Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz has recommended that some holders of Greek debt should reject the proposed debt swap .... Reuters are reporting that most German lenders will accept the proposed haircut of 53.5pc. More from Reuters: While Greek sovereign debt owned by German lenders has a face value of roughly 15 billion euros ($20 billion), in most cases they have already written down that value in their books by about three quarters. FMS Wertmanagement, the biggest creditor with an exposure of nominally more than 8 billion euros, will accept the deal, a person close to the lender said on Monday. FMS, the bad bank set up to hold the toxic assets of bailed-out former bluechip lender Hypo Real Estate, is to formally decide on accepting the debt cut later this week, the person said. Commerzbank, which had originally invested almost 3 billion euros in Greek sovereign bonds but has written down its exposure to 800 million, said last month it had little choice but to take part in the bond swap. At the time, chief executive Martin Blessing said: "The voluntariness (of the Greek debt swap) is about as voluntary as a confession at a Spanish inquisition trial." A true analisys of the private sector activity across the eurozone suggested business activity contracted in February after showing tentative signs of growth a month earlier. Markit's eurozone composite PMI fell to 49.3 – revised down from an initial reading of 49.7 – from 50.4 in January, where anything below 50 shows a contraction. The poor data, which suggest the region is slipping back into recession, pushed markets lower, with the Ibex in Spain down 1.3pc and Italian markets 0.7pc lower. The data also heightened concerns that the austerity measures pushed by European policymakers are merely serving to cut off growth in already hard-hit countries. Markit said its reading for Spain's services sector, which accounts for 70pc of the economy, fell from 46.1 to 41.9, against forecasts for a decline to 45.9. The services sector in Italy fell from 44.8 to 44.1, with employment shrinking at its fastest rate since July 2009, while the Bank of Italy predicted the country's economy was set to shrink by 1.5pc this year. That compares with the Italian government's forecast of a 0.4pc contraction....Ah yes - this morning, out of the ER room. Tonight, back in theatre. Why do hacks write nonsense about the EU being 'over the worst' when (even if it was) this wouldn't excuse its undemocratic approach to every problem....??????
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Across fascist Europe none of the political class are doing what they KNOW needs to be done.
Theses greedy, parasite fascists will continue tax raping those who work, redistributing our money to their fascist friends and eventually trickling down to their own, over filled, bank balances and investments.
Here in the UK the political parasites silence those who won't work with generous welfare payments.
Example of UK madness- we have businesses complaining they have workers refusing to do more than 16 hours work per week as this will effect their welfare payments, which pays more than working more hours. Commie Labour really forked this country up and the fascist regime continues where Labour left off.
As for this headline "Horsegate: PM David Cameron urged to investigate 12 month 'cover-up' by Downing Street"
Some advise to your journos at the DT pass this on to the FibLabCon and their fascist mates in Europe we don;t give a toss most people people running SME know we are being run by a bunch of usless tax raping FibLabCon fascist cretins who won't be getting a second term.
Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz just released a statement advising private creditors holding short-term debt that they should not swap their existing securities for new long-term Greek bonds.
DSW argued that investors would be better advised to sit tight. Why? Becuase if the overall take-up of the offer comes in above 90%, their debt would probably be paid off at face value, meaning they avoid the haircut.
If, though, the PSI take-up is between 75% and 90% then a mandatory exchange will be triggered (so investors would be no worse off than if they'd taken part voluntarily).
Here's the key parts of the DSW statement (which you can see in full, in German here):
Bondholders are to take losses on at least 53.5% of their holdings. But because the new bonds run for 30 years, losses will be "significantly greater" for those whose bonds mature in 2012, said Marc Tüngler, head of DSW.
"We advise therefore investors whose bonds have short maturities in particular not to accept the offer."
Should the Greek deal get 70% to 90% acceptances, there is likely to be a mandatory swap. Creditors who have previously rejected it will be treated as though they had accepted it and have therefore nothing to lose.
Only creditors whose holdings have bonds with longer maturities, who want to reduce risks, should consider taking part. (translation by my colleague Julia Kollewe).
DSW's analysis doesn't include the possibility that fewer than 75% of bond-holders take part.
ALDE SME CAMPAIGN LAUNCH
On the eve of the 2012 Spring summit on growth and competitiveness, the
ALDE group is launching a campaign to highlight the key role of SMEs in
generating growth and jobs. 22 measures have been identified to assist
SMEs, reduce their administrative burden and improve access to EU
assistance.
http://www.alde.eu/campaigns/smes/
The short annex to the treaty - given the go ahead at last week's European summit - is supposed to pre-empt any rather-you-than-me feet-shuffling when it comes to national governments taking legal action against their peers by depoliticising the process.
Under the agreement, if a country is considered not to have properly implemented the so-called 'golden rule' then it will be up to the trio of EU presidency countries - currently Poland, Denmark and Cyprus - that conduct the day-to-day business of the Union to take the offending member state to court.
If none of the trio countries can do so, either because they are in the same boat or due to "justifiable grounds of an over-arching nature", it will fall to the previous trio of presidency countries.
"The trio of presidencies was used because it wouldn't be appropriate to have, for example, the UK or the Czech Republic [both of which refused to sign up to the treaty] do it," said one contact.
The cumbersome procedure is due to it being an intergovernmental treaty. A normal EU treaty would see such rules enforced by the European Commission.
Germany pushed for a specific "mechanism" to make sure its core feature is legally enforceable. Asked recently about whether she believed it likely that member states would bring each other to court, German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that such was media scrutiny that capitals would be falling over one another to do it.
However, the Berlin-pushed treaty is largely seen as a political lever to allow the German government to justify to disgruntled parliamentarians and a sceptical public why it is paying the lion's share of eurozone bail-outs and funds.
It is still open what implementation of the balanced budget rule will actually mean in practice, with the article containing a get out clause in the form of "exceptional circumstances".
"Like in all rules there is some element of political appreciation," said the contact explaining the text. "The rule is arguably stricter than in the past. It restricts countries to a structural deficit of 0.5 percent [of GDP]. But since the structural deficit is measured after the economic cycle, there is inevitably an element of judgement about when the economic cycle finishes."
Meanwhile, getting from the point of bringing a country to court and imposing the ultimate sanction of a 0.1 percent of GDP is a two-step process requiring the court to find the country in breach of the treaty and then another court ruling to find that the original judgement had been ignored.
"It wouldn't surprise me if there a referral to the court but I don't think they will ever get to the actual sanctions part," said another source.
This is partly due to simple politics but also due to some continued legal uncertainty over whether the European Court of Justice is actually allowed to impose sanctions under this intergovernmental set-up.
"It may be challenged on this point," said the source, "you ask two lawyers, you get two completely different answers."
"The euro is not in the interests of the Dutch people," said Geert Wilders, the leader of the right-wing populist party with a sixth of the seats in the Dutch parliament. "We want to be the master of our own house and our own country, so we say yes to the guilder. Bring it on."
Mr Wilders made his decision after receiving a report by London-based Lombard Street Research concluding that the Netherlands is badly handicapped by euro membership, and that it could cost EMU’s creditor core more than €2.4 trillion to hold monetary union together over the next four years. "If the politicians in The Hague disagree with our report, let them show the guts to hold a referendum. Let the Dutch people decide," he said.
Mr Wilders is not part of the coalition. However, the minority government of Mark Rutte relies on the Freedom Party to pass legislation. The two men were in talks on Monday on €16bn of fresh austerity cuts needed stop the budget deficit jumping to 4.5pc of GDP.
The study said the eurozone cannot survive in its current form. The longer Europe’s politicians dither, the more costly it will become. "The euro can only survive if it becomes a fiscal transfer union with national sovereign debt subsumed in eurozone bonds," said co-author Charles Dumas.
All those with vested interests in the EU will not give up that easily. After all, who would willingly give up the chance to be a member of a ruling elite of a new federated state as wealthy as the EU?
But if the UK called for an ordered dissolution of the Euro it would finish it off quite quickly.
Spain is on a collision course with the European commission after Brussels fired a warning shot at the austerity wracked country for planning to overshoot its budget deficit targets.
In an early test for the EU's new fiscal regime, the commission said Madrid was engaged "in a serious deviation" from previous pledges after Mariano Rajoy, Spain's new conservative prime minister, confirmed the government would fail to meet a budget deficit target this year of 4.4% of gross domestic product agreed earlier with Brussels. Rajoy has set a new target of 5.8% for this year after revealing that last year's deficit was 8.5%.
The stand-off between the European authorities and Spain, a vulnerable party in the eurozone's debt crisis, came as Greece raced against the clock to sign up willing creditors for writing down half of its debt to private lenders.
Athens has until Thursday evening to conclude a debt swap with its private creditors, reducing its obligations by €100bn as a central element in its new €130bn bailout accord with the eurozone.
It remained unclear on Monday night whether some 90% of Greece's private creditors would volunteer for the deal by Thursday, casting uncertainty over the prospects for the bailout.
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