FORBES/By Frances Coppola
The amount of misinformation about the new Greek government being spread by the world’s media beggars belief.
On Friday, Greek financial minister Yanis Varoufakis supposedly refused to cooperate with the “Troika” of IMF , ECB and European Commission. What he actually did was refuse to cooperate with the overseers put in place by those three institutions to enforce their austerity program, which is progressively destroying the Greek economy.
Also on Friday, the Greek government’s refusal to accept further bailout loans was widely interpreted as an intention to default on its debts. This is an unwarranted assumption. Greece does not want to accept more bailout loans, because they are counterproductive for an insolvent country. But it wants to renegotiate its debts, not default on them.
Now we are told that Syriza is backtracking on its “initial defiance”. In an exclusive, Bloomberg reported that Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, had sent an email in which he committed Greece to paying its debts to the IMF and ECB:
The amount of misinformation about the new Greek government being spread by the world’s media beggars belief.
On Friday, Greek financial minister Yanis Varoufakis supposedly refused to cooperate with the “Troika” of IMF , ECB and European Commission. What he actually did was refuse to cooperate with the overseers put in place by those three institutions to enforce their austerity program, which is progressively destroying the Greek economy.
Also on Friday, the Greek government’s refusal to accept further bailout loans was widely interpreted as an intention to default on its debts. This is an unwarranted assumption. Greece does not want to accept more bailout loans, because they are counterproductive for an insolvent country. But it wants to renegotiate its debts, not default on them.
Now we are told that Syriza is backtracking on its “initial defiance”. In an exclusive, Bloomberg reported that Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, had sent an email in which he committed Greece to paying its debts to the IMF and ECB:
Greece will repay its debts to the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund and reach a deal “soon” with the euro-area nations that funded most of the country’s financial rescue, Tsipras said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg News on Saturday.
“The deliberation with our European partners has just begun,” Tsipras said. “Despite the fact that there are differences in perspective, I am absolutely confident that we will soon manage to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, both for Greece and for Europe as a whole.”
The world breathed a
collective sigh of relief. Syriza had seen the error of its ways, the
Troika had regained the upper hand and all was well with the world.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2015/02/01/media-misinformation-on-greece-misleads-european-leaders/