Greece

The EU and the IMF have agreed a second bailout of €130BN for struggling Greece. However, as German MPs voted in the Bundestag on 27th February to back the bailout, Angela Merkel admitted that there was no guarantee that it would it work and save Greece from bankruptcy.

In order to secure the deal, Greece has had to agree to a series of conditions, including reducing its debt from 160% of GDP to 120% by 2020. Certainly tough times lie ahead for the Greek people, who have already been demonstrating their unhappiness and anger. February saw the worst, most violent riots in Athens yet, as Greeks took to the streets to protest the austerity measures being passed in the Greek parliament. Greek unions have said the measures will “intensify the cycle of recession and drive Greek society to despair".

Some believe that the best solution would be for Greece to leave the Eurozone. Martin Hutchison of Money Morning believes that “to recover, Greece needs to leave the euro, devalue its new drachma by about two-thirds, and recover an export and tourism sector that would quickly re-employ its people, albeit at much lower living standards than they enjoyed in the fat years.” Nigel Farage, the Briitsh MEP and UK Independence Party leader, expressed similar views to these in his recent interview with The Euros. However, Merkel disagrees, claiming that to abandon Greece would be “irresponsible”.

Image source: Yashima on Flickr

The snap election, which was announced in early September and held on Monday 5 October came just two years into Former PM Costas Karamanlis took power. Accused of corruption, Karamanlis was seeking a renewed mandate to address economic problems in the country. Instead, Greek voters gave power to the opposition party, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement led by George Papandreou, who gained enough votes to have a majority in the 300-member parliament.

Image: www.flickr.com/ Parti socialiste

Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia has for several years been engaged in a dispute over the right to the name Macedonia. A consequence of the dispute is exactly the rather clumsy name FYROM, which is used by the international community, whereas the former Yugoslav Republic’s constitutional name is the Republic of Macedonia. Thursday the name quarrel led Greece to state that while the Hellenic state would support Albania and Croatia’s bid to join NATO, Greece would block FYROM’s NATO bid as long as the name dispute remains unresolved. In the same way Greece insinuated that the dispute could have damaging consequences for FYROM’s hopes to launch EU-membership negotiations later this year.