Greece’s creditors on Thursday issued their starkest warnings to Athens since the start of a five-month stand-off over the country’s soon-to-expire €172bn bailout,  with the International Monetary Fund withdrawing its negotiating team and European leaders saying the time for compromise had ended.   In a series of meeting in Brussels, Mr Tsipras was told his cash-strapped government must quickly decide whether to accede to more economic reforms or face bankruptcy. “We need decisions, not negotiations, now. It’s my opinion that the Greek government has to be, I think, a little more realistic,” said Donald Tusk, the European Council president, who met Mr Tsipras privately on Wednesday.  “There’s no more space for gambling, there’s no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I’m afraid, where someone says the game is over.”

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b913...

So it appears things are far more serious than the Telegraph is reporting, they are almost at a time when they will be offered a simple take it or leave it situation, with the ECB printing press already fired up I believe enough has already been done to minimise any damage a Grexit may have caused in the past...Varoufakis understands very well the type of individuals he is having to deal with from IMF, and I can assure you he will not give them an inch.  He understands 'precisely' how nations such as Greece have ended up as heavily endebted as they have. I mean, it is not as if they are on their own for gods sake.  Almost every nation on the face of planet earth is now in the same boat, so you cannot say that it has occurred by chance.  In fact, going by the terrible state of the entire global financial system, one can only come to the inevitable conclusion that the situation we now find ourselves in was created on purpose.  A system designed to benefit 'the few', at the expense of the many. I say "go on Greece, blow this stinking ship clean out of the water".  Financially cripple the elites, do us all a big favor.

Finland and Russia. Well Finland is the only EU member nation to border Russia and not be a NATO member. I suspect they are wary of Russia but have a greater understanding of Russia's somewhat justified paranoia and anger with broken ' influence space' NATO invasions since the 1990's. They seek the old USSR relationship probably which worked well for Finland. Your last sentence captures this.  BTW by many polls the most pro-EU Nordic - not members yet (and they were in the list with Denmark, UK and Ireland in the 1960's - is Norway. Following April's elections, Juha Sipila, the prime minister, Timo Soini, the eurosceptic foreign minister and Alexander Stubb, the finance minister, have pledged to create more jobs, to get the economy moving and avoid a "lost decade" from a lack of reforms.  Finland is out on its own compared to the other Nordic countries in joining the Euro. Norway isn't even in the EU, Sweden has done well keeping the Krona and Denmark has kept their Krona but ties it to the Euro, a tie that could easily be broken if the proverbial hits the fan. Finland is looking rather isolated. Of course the Baltic states are in the Euro but they have all paid a heavy price for membership.  Would I be right in thinking that Finland is being hurt by Russian retaliatory sanctions rather more than other countries? Whilst they must have an historical healthy fear of Russia, I would imagine they are far more scared about the West restarting the Cold war in extreme earnest because of western interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine.

I don't understand the Finns. Why face up to reality, take responsibility for themselves and work out a sustainable way forward? That's no fun. Why not just falsify the accounts and then borrow lots of money from other people with no intention of ever paying it back? As we can see, the latter approach is working well for Greece...Finland is in trouble, and in the words of the central bank this week, the situation is "grave". While France has often been branded Europe's "sick man" and Greece's problems are well known, Finland's economy is still 5pc smaller than before the financial crisis. The country will barely crawl out of a three-year recession this year, while unemployment is forecast by the OECD to grow in 2015. Faced with a bloated state, below-par growth, and prices and costs that have risen at a much faster pace than the rest of the eurozone, the medicine is a familiar one.  "The key to resolving the serious problems in the economy lies in structural reforms, fiscal consolidation and improved cost competitiveness," the Bank of Finland's latest health check of the economy said last week. The phrase could have been taken from Greece's own long austerity prescription, but with an ageing population, state spending approaching 60pc of gross domestic product (GDP) and tax revenues far short of this, something has to change, and quickly. Finland, which has become known as one of the eurozone's lead preachers of fiscal prudence, will embark on a €10bn (£7.2bn) round of belt tightening over five years. Well, Finland and Estonia are economically (and culturally) closely wed, Greece and Cyprus like.  Finland and Russia. Well Finland is the only EU member nation to border Russia and not be a NATO member. I suspect they are wary of Russia but have a greater understanding of Russia's somewhat justified paranoia and anger with broken ' influence space' NATO invasions since the 1990's. They seek the old USSR relationship probably which worked well for Finland. Your last sentence captures this. BTW by many polls the most pro-EU Nordic - not members yet (and they were in the list with Denmark, UK and Ireland in the 1960's - is Norway.

The EU is increasingly weaker and it is becoming impossible to control the processes that are taking place on its territory, informs Sputnik International, which states that Europe will become a playground for the US and Russia, which are trying to expand their influence. According to the publication Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, the EU is no longer capable of controlling the processes that are happening on the European continent because the policy is dictated by NATO, led by the US, and the European governments are mere members of the audience.  According to the German newspaper, the government led by Angela Merkel is weakened by the espionage scandal, while the EU is no longer a community of values, just a purely economic community, in which every party is trying to balance its selfishness. The EU is helpless when its conflicts appear on the European territory, Sputnik International further shows, and it says: "Whether it's Greece, Ukraine or Macedonia, the EU governments have proven incapable of making efficient decisions and are only acting as observers.   For example, this is valid for the conflict in Ukraine, where the United States have forced the European governments to impose economic sanctions on Russia, one of the most important trade partners of the EU, Sputnik International also says, which adds that now, the EU has to pay twice: first of all the business sector is suffering significant losses because of Russia's sanctions, and second of all, European taxpayers have to finance new loans to keep Ukraine's economy afloat.  According to the German newspaper, the EU is becoming a playground for Russia and the US, which are trying to extend their areas of influence in the region: "Europe is a major energy market if the US decides to export the technology of hydraulic fracking and Russia is trying to secure its exports of natural gas".  "It is highly unlikely that the two opponents will have a monopoly, but even without it, both of them can earn a lot of money", the article further states. Thus, the outrageous statement of American official Victoria Nuland - "Fuck the EU"- seems to have become a reality, the EU states.  According to Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, this negative trend is the logical consequence of the contradictory development of the EU, which is derived from the paradox of arrogance and of the strife within the EU.

It sounds like something out of a dystopian novel: across Europe, hundreds of fake companies have been set up. They function just like a normal corporation would - employees send out invoices, pay bills, even apply for loans - but they don't actually produce anything.  The sham corporations exist for the benefit of the jobless across Europe, desperate to be retrained and put to work. It is "an elaborate training network that effectively operates as a parallel economic universe," according to the New York Times. It's not just about training. It also does something else: gives purpose to the unemployed.  Work gives us a sense of self, to some extent, and most definitely a sense of purpose. It's the bedrock of the structure of most people's lives. Family, vacation, leisure, they all fit around that huge chunk of time during the week known as the workday. Even leaving aside financial concerns, removing that structure and purpose from a person's life often causes depression.

For the most part, people really want to work. A woman the New York Times interviewed, Sabine de Buyzer, told the reporter: "Since I've been coming here, I have had a lot more confidence. I just want to work."  But Europe's economy is still terrible. A lot of people just aren't going to find a job no matter how hard they try. In many countries, more than half of the unemployed population has been out of work for more than a year. That figure is almost 75% in Greece.

Eurostat

In the absence of finding an actual economic policy solution to the jobs crisis in Europe, fake work for people who are having a hard time finding a job is a pretty good solution. It retrains people in a proactive way. Everybody loves roleplaying; school, not so much. LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) a job keeps people's spirits up while teaching them something. That's effective, even in France's still-struggling economy. From the New York Times:  The success rate of the training centers is high. About 60 to 70 percent of those who go through France's practice firms find jobs, often administrative positions, Mr. Troton said. But in a reflection of the shifting nature of the European workplace, most are low-paying and last for short stints, sometimes just three to six months. Today, more than half of all new jobs in the European Union are temporary contracts, according to Eurostat.  Of course, the question remains: if the French government can afford these fake work training centers, which operate almost completely like normal businesses to the extent of holding fake strikes - a necessary skill for a French employee to have - why not put that money towards actually putting people to work?

The IMF is being lined up to be the bad guys which suits the EZ politicians immensely.

The IMF decision to pull back their team to Washington will have acted as an ice-cold shower to Tsipras, EU officials and politicians who keep feeding us pie-in-the-sky nonsense about the umpteenth imminent deal, causing the Athens bourse to go up and down like the proverbial piece of 'ladies'' underwear.  Greece's highest court today decided that the 2012 agreement to cut pensions has been illegal. Any new promise on pension reforms is likely to suffer the same fate in the future, so isn't worth the paper they are written on.  I hope that the drastic IMF action will either lead to a complete capitulation by Greece or even better an imminent exit from the Eurozone and the EU.

PS: The artificial bonhomie of these contestants is nauseating. I'd rather have sour-faced, business-like Schaeuble than the conglomeration of grinning fauns.

Debt-management issues seen solely through economist eyes, and dealt with, solely in the economic realm, empowers finance [Schaubles] ministers to influence policy...that's all.

Political [Merkel] leaders are there to heed that advice or snub it - depends entirely on which way the political winds blow.  So Schaubles is being snubbed, sidelined, shoved up a siding - political wind shifted.

David Cameron has been accused by former Tory cabinet ministers of "rigging" the EU referendum over plans to spend taxpayers' money keeping Britain in Europe.  Owen Paterson and Dominic Grieve, who both served under Mr Cameron, warned him against “loading the dice" by spending public money campaigning for a Yes vote.  The Prime Minister was told that the referendum result could be deemed "illegitimate" if the public felt it was not run fairly.  The criticism came as Philip Hammond confirmed there would be no 'purdah' period limiting government spending in the final weeks before the EU referendum.  It means taxpayers' money could be spent explaining to voters why they should back staying in the EU, if the government takes that position as widely expected.

The announcement came as the Foreign Secretary introduced the EU Referendum Bill for its second reading in the House of Commons. Mr. Hammond justified the lack of restraints on government involvement by saying it would be “unworkable and inappropriate” to block ministers from commenting on European issues.  He promised the government would show “proper restraint” over the issue and would not be delivering leaflets to voters just before the referendum.

However the move triggered claims the government was undermining democracy and attempting to use the mechanics of Whitehall to rig the vote. Mr. Paterson, who served as environment secretary under Mr. Cameron, called the Foreign Secretary’s argument on purdah “nonsense” and urged him to backtrack. "This is an absolutely fundamental issue. If the public have a sense ... that this was rigged, the result will not be legitimate,” he warned. Mr. Grieve, the former attorney general, said it was essential the referendum was held on a “level playing field” and not “abused” by ministers.

He said the lack of purdah could “convey an impression that the Government will come in and try to load the dice, and that must be avoided”.