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Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 15-06-17
CONTENTS
[01] Debt Truth Committee: Greece's debt 'illegal, illegitimate and
odious'
[02] The ball is in the Greek court, says eurozone top official
[01] Debt Truth Committee: Greece's debt 'illegal, illegitimate and
odious'
ANA-MPA -- The debt imposed on Greece and its residents by its creditors
directly infringes on the human rights of Greeks and is "illegal,
illegitimate and odious," according to the preliminary report issued
on Wednesday by the Truth Committee on Public Debt.
The Hellenic Parliament earlier released a six-page summary of the debt
truth committee's preliminary findings during hearings conducted since
April, when it was convened by Parliament President Zoi Konstantopoulou.
This stresses that the entire adjustment programme imposed on Greece
"was and remains a politically orientated programme," while challenging
arguments that the policies imposed on Greece aim to improve its capacity
to pay back the debt. It concluded that Greece was the victim of an
"premeditated and organised" attack and of a "violent, illegal, and
immoral mission" to shift private debt onto the public sector. "All the
evidence we present in this report shows that Greece not only does not
have the ability to pay this debt, but also should not pay this debt first
and foremost because the debt emerging from the Troika's arrangements is
a direct infringement on the fundamental human rights of the residents of
Greece. Hence, we came to the conclusion that Greece should not pay this
debt because it is illegal, illegitimate, and odious," the report said.
Among others, the report notes that the unsustainability of Greece's debt
was evident to all involved from the outset, yet Greek authorities and
other EU governments, with the assistance of the media, had "conspired
against the restructuring of public debt in 2010 in order to protect
financial institutions." The report is divided into nine chapters,
the first of which analyses the growth of Greek debt prior to the advent
of the troika, after the 1980s. This asserts that the increase in public
debt was not due to excessive public spending but "extremely high rates of
interest to creditors, excessive and unjustified military spending, loss
of tax revenues due to illicit capital outflows, state recapitalisation of
private banks, and the international imbalances created via the flaws in
the design of the Monetary Union itself." Chapters 2 and 3 look at Greek
public debt during 2010-2015, concluding that the first loan agreement of
2010 aimed primarily to rescue Greek and other European private banks. The
4th chapter looks at what it calls a "Debt System Mechanism" set up by
the agreements implemented since May 2010, claiming that they created
"a substantial amount of new debt" and generated "abusive costs" that
deepened the crisis further. Chapter 5 examines the conditionalities
attached to the loan agreements, claiming these "led directly to the
economic unviability and unsustainability of debt." The following chapter
then looks at the human rights impact of the programmes, finding that
the measures directly violated rights that Greece and its partners are
"obliged to respect, protect and promote under domestic, regional and
international law." The legal issues associated with such violations,
as well as violation of the Greek Constitution, are examined in the next
chapter, which concludes that "The agreements contain abusive clauses,
effectively coercing Greece to surrender significant aspects of its
sovereignty," and cites a series of reasons why these agreements are
rendered invalid. The next chapter assesses the debts in terms of whether
they are odious, illegitimate, illegal and unsustainable, finding them
guilty on all counts. Among others, it says the debt to the IMF is illegal
"since its concession breached the IMF's own statutes," while those to
the ECB were similarly suspect because it "over-stepped its mandate by
imposing the application of macroeconomic adjustment programs via its
participation in the troika." "Debts to the ECB are also illegitimate
and odious, since the principal raison d'etre of the Securities Market
Programme (SMP) was to serve the interests of the financial institutions,
allowing the major European and Greek private banks to dispose of their
Greek bonds," the report said. Debts to the EFSF are judged illegal on
the grounds that they violate treaties on the functioning of the European
Union, while bilateral loans are seen as illegal because "they violate
the procedure provided by the Greek constitution," and illegitimate
"since they were not used for the benefit of the population, but merely
enabled the private creditors of Greece to be bailed out." "The debt
to private creditors should be considered illegal because private banks
conducted themselves irresponsibly before the Troika came into being,
failing to observe due diligence, while some private creditors such as
hedge funds also acted in bad faith," the report said. The final and
9th chapter deals with "legal foundations for repudiation and suspension
of the Greek sovereign debt" presenting options for its cancellation.
[02] The ball is in the Greek court, says eurozone top official
EU Finance Ministers are expected to come to the conclusion at Thursday's
Eurogroup that "the ball is in Greece's court," a senior eurozone
official said on Wednesday.
According to the same official, the discussion on Greece will be short
at the Eurogroup and the Finance Ministers will make an evaluation of
the situation based on the Greek Finance Minister's estimates.
"Let's be realistic, the Greek programme ends in 14 days," eurozone's top
official said, noting that after a possible agreement on technical basis,
the procedures that must be followed in a number of national parliaments
will need one week at least.
The same sources underlined that the institutions have made huge
concessions since February 20 not only on the issue of revenues and
expenses but also as regards markets reform.
He also said that the differences between the Greek government and the
institutions are not only fiscal but they have to do with the tax system,
the pensions and other matters. "We are interested in the sustainability
of the state finances in the long-term," he added.
Finally, he noted that a very strong convergence of views exists among
the institutions and their proposals are stable and solid.
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