Greece

Greek business is awakening from a coma; the long-forgotten sound of drills and hammers can be heard on Athens construction sites again while customers queue calmly at banks to deposit cash rather than to withdraw it in panic, Reuters reported. Nevertheless, the government's declaration that an economic recovery is underway seems premature, with the hard numbers signalling stagnation rather than the robust growth needed to meet ambitious debt targets and reduce towering unemployment.

Greece’s privatisation programme suffered a severe setback when Gazprom failed to bid for Depa, the state-controlled natural gas supplier, as a deadline for binding offers expired on Monday, while only one offer was received for Desfa, which operates the country’s gas distribution network, the Financial Times reported. Gazprom, the only bidder, had been expected to offer about €800m for a controlling stake in Depa following months of negotiations with the Greek government on the terms of sale, said a person with knowledge of the process.

The European Commission on Thursday rejected the International Monetary Fund’s view that lenders mishandled the first Greek bailout in 2010 by allowing Athens to delay a debt restructuring to 2012, The Globe and Mail reported. The Commission – which together with the IMF and the European Central Bank forms the troika that prepared the bailouts of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus – said tackling a restructuring in 2010 would have been wrong. “The (IMF) report argues that an upfront debt restructuring in 2010 would have been desirable.

The International Monetary Fund has admitted to major missteps over the past three years in its handling of the bailout of Greece, the first spark in a debt crisis that spread across Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported. In an internal document marked "strictly confidential," the IMF said it badly underestimated the damage that its prescriptions of austerity would do to Greece's economy, which has been mired in recession for the last six years.

Tax evasion lies at the heart of the Greek financial collapse, which has resulted in international bailout loans exceeding 205 billion euros, or $266 billion, the size of Greece’s depressed economy. In fact, Greece’s international creditors have made revamping its notoriously lax tax system a primary condition for any additional bailout financing, the International Herald Tribune reported.

Greece's crisis-ravaged economy is beginning to turn the corner in its sixth year of recession, while the country's efforts to mend its public finances could allow it to return to financial markets as early as next year, the country's finance minister said. In weekend newspaper interviews, Yannis Stournaras said "The worst is over" for Greece, The Wall Street Journal reported. He added that the country has pushed through two-thirds of the overhaul measures needed to narrow chronic gaps in the government budget.

Greece's government on Wednesday accepted a €652 million ($858.6 million) bid for state gambling company OPAP, marking the first significant asset sale in the country's long-delayed privatization program, The Wall Street Journal reported. Czech-led private-equity consortium Emma Delta won the bid for the acquisition of a 33% stake in OPAP, Greece's privatization agency said, after improving its earlier bid by €30 million to meet the government's minimum target price.

Greek lawmakers on Sunday approved a reform law to unlock about 8.8 billion euros ($8.9 billion) of rescue loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, Reuters reported. The law, which was a condition for further aid installments, passed easily with the solid backing of the three parties comprising Greece's ruling coalition, by 168 to 123 votes. Following parliament's approval, senior euro zone officials will meet on Monday to approve overdue payment of 2.8 billion euros ($3.65 billion) in rescue loans, finance minister Yannis Stournaras said.

Greece's Eurobank said Monday it will turn exclusively to government aid to boost its capital, making it the first domestic bank to fall under state control, Dow Jones reported. The lender eschewed plans to raise money from investors that would have secured management control of the lender. Like other banks in Greece, Eurobank got into financial difficulties after it incurred steep losses last year from Greece's debt restructuring and was also hit with rising non-performing loans.

Greece has identified some 15,000 public-sector workers to be let go over two years as part of a tentative agreement sealed Monday with its international lenders to unlock the next payments from its €173 billion ($226 billion) bailout, The Wall Street Journal reported. After weeks of negotiations, representatives of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank that the review had been completed and a "staff-level agreement" reached with the Greek government.