Greece

A wave of protests against home repossessions has swept Greece in recent weeks, prompting fears for the safety of workers carrying out the forced transfers and threatening plans to clean up the country’s banking system, The Wall Street Journal reported. The rise in sometimes-violent activism by leftist groups comes as banks in Europe’s most depressed economy push to resume seizures and auctions of properties, especially commercial real estate, to pare their books of bad loans.

Greece and its creditors start a fresh round of talks this week on reforming its labour market, a tricky task for a leftist government sliding in opinion polls but needed if the recession-hit state can ever win debt relief, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was re-elected a year ago promising to fight to revive collective bargaining and resist reforms that may lower the minimum wage.

The consensus from countless currency trades is that the harder the Brexit, the poorer the British and the weaker their currency. At least this is easier than having to drive down wages. Greece, another country revealed blow by punishing blow to be poorer than it thought, might envy the stabilising influence of the UK’s falling pound. Perhaps — but Greece’s problems run far deeper than having too rigid a currency, the Financial Times reported. Harder to believe is that underneath all this bargaining is an economy in any shape to grow rapidly any time soon.

Good news coming out of the dismal mess of the Greek economy and its international bailout has been a rare commodity over the past six years, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. So it is tempting to celebrate the decision of the eurogroup of finance ministers that Athens has done enough structural reform to receive the latest €2.8bn tranche of its bailout. In practice, a quiet measure of relief would be more appropriate than unbridled joy.

Greece has completed a set of key economic overhauls, eurozone finance ministers agreed Monday, marking the end of the first review of its fiscal bailout and clearing the way for disbursement of new loans to Athens, The Wall Street Journal reported. The ministers, who were here for their monthly meeting, gave their blessing to €2.8 billion ($3.12 billion) in the next stage of financial aid, but they stopped short of signing off on it immediately.

The Greek government is at war with itself, and that is threatening to derail a key plank of Greece’s bailout, which consists of selling state assets to pay down debt and bring in foreign investment. Leaders in the ruling left-wing Syriza party are touring the world, from New York to Shanghai, lobbying investors to come to Greece and help kick-start its depressed economy. But Syriza’s roots in the Marxist, anti-globalization left make privatization a bitter pill, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Greek lawmakers yesterday approved a bill aimed at unlocking €2.8 billion ($3.15 billion) in aid for the country that includes deeply unpopular plans to transfer state-controlled water companies to a privatization fund, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Greece is hoping to meet conditions needed to be paid the next tranche of aid from its third bailout worth up to €86 billion this week, ahead of an Oct. 10 meeting of eurozone finance ministers who can sign off on the payment.

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras pledged to seek lower primary budget-surplus targets after the country’s current bailout program expires in 2018, which he said will lead to lower tax burdens for the Greeks, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Our goal is to de-escalate the primary surplus to 2.5% in 2019 and 2% in 2020,” the Greek Prime Minister said during his speech at the annual international trade fair in Thessaloniki, Greece, late Saturday.

Greece’s Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said the country won't be able to reach its primary surplus budget target after its current bailout program expires in 2018 and called on the creditors to renegotiate for lower goals, The Wall Street Journal reported. “We guarantee that we are going to reach the [3.5% primary] surplus, even if we have to use the fiscal brake, but only once in 2018,” Mr. Tsipras said late Wednesday during a briefing to journalists on the plane while traveling from China to Athens.

The three top executives at Greece’s bank rescue fund resigned on Wednesday as the country’s Syriza-led government buckled under pressure from the international creditors eager to accelerate a clean-up of the financial sector, the Financial Times reported. Aris Xenofos, chief executive of the Hellenic Financial Stability Fund, his deputy, Giorgos Koutsos, and a third team member, Anastasios Gagalis, were appointed less than a year ago by the leftwing Syriza-led government.