Greece

Greece's fragile governing coalition failed to reach a compromise Wednesday about the closure of the state-run ERT broadcaster. That left the government in a crisis that could lead to early elections, just a year after it was formed to save the country from bankruptcy, the Associated Press reported. The three-party government yanked ERT off the air late Tuesday, axing all 2,656 jobs as part of its cost-cutting drive demanded by international creditors.

Greek state TV and radio were gradually pulled off the air late Tuesday, hours after the government said it would temporarily close all state-run broadcasts and lay off about 2,500 workers as part of a cost-cutting drive demanded by the bailed-out country's international creditors, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on an Associated Press story. The conservative-led government said the Hellenic Broadcasting Corp., or ERT, will reopen "as soon as possible" with a new, smaller workforce. It wasn't immediately clear how long that would take, and whether all stations would reopen.

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.