Germany and France Warn Greece on Bailout Money
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: January 9, 2012

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France warned Greece on Monday that it needed to move forward with promised structural changes or risk losing the next installment of badly needed bailout money.

The leaders of the European Union’s two largest countries met in the German capital to discuss their next steps in combating the sovereign-debt crisis that has destabilized the Continent and threatened the common currency. Even as Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy promised quick action to stem the crisis, investors signaled the depth of their continuing concern over the instability that has spread from Greece to the very heart of the euro zone, by purchasing German debt at a negative interest rate for the first time ever.

Mr. Sarkozy, speaking at a news conference after the two leaders met at the chancellery building here, acknowledged the uncertainty in the markets, saying, “The situation is very tense, very tense.”

There are increasing signs that Greece will fail to make the structural changes to its economy that its leaders have promised. Greece’s prime minister, Lucas Papademos, warned last week that without deeper spending cuts a disorderly default was a possibility, and could result in Greece leaving the euro.

Mr. Sarkozy said that “our Greek friends must live up to their commitments,” while Mrs. Merkel said that if those commitments were not met by the Greek government, “it will not be possible to pay out the next tranche” of the bailout money.

The holidays may have created a lull in the action, but the new year promised to be just as hectic as the old for European leaders and Mrs. Merkel in particular. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, will arrive Tuesday evening for talks with the German chancellor. Italy’s prime minister, Mario Monti, is scheduled to come to Berlin on Wednesday.

Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy are scheduled to travel to Rome on Jan. 20 for negotiations with the Italian government ahead of the next European Union summit in Brussels on Jan. 30.

“Everyone would like a grand design rather than a series of small steps going forward, some going backwards,” said André Sapir, an economist and senior fellow at Bruegel, a research group based in Brussels. “Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a design at all, and that has been unnerving investors being asked to refinance debt both private and public.”

A drumbeat of bad economic news lately has led many economists to predict the imminent return to recession for many of the countries that use the euro. At the same time, European countries and financial institutions need to raise about $2.4 trillion in 2012.

Asked whether she feared that more European nations might be downgraded by ratings agencies, further spooking markets, Mrs. Merkel replied coolly, “Fear does not motivate my political actions.”

The gap between the countries with sound finances, and those like Italy and Spain that are forced to pay high rates, has widened to a chasm of five percentage points or more. Germany on Monday joined the likes of the Netherlands and Switzerland as perceived safe havens where buyers of short-term debt are willing to lose money in return for shelter from upheaval and the possibility of even greater losses.

Mrs. Merkel called the plan to stabilize the euro “an ambitious but attainable goal.” She hit several familiar themes, emphasizing that there were no quick solutions to the euro crisis and that Greece was an exception when it came to debt write-downs, often known as a “haircut,” for private investors.

“Our intention is that no country must withdraw from the euro area,” Mrs. Merkel said.

She and Mr. Sarkozy both voiced their determination to press ahead with a tax on financial transactions opposed by Britain, but they appeared to diverge on the timing. Mr. Sarkozy, facing a strong left-wing challenge in his bid for re-election in May, suggested France might go it alone and challenge other countries to follow suit.

The French prime minister, François Fillon, said Monday in Paris that France might present a bill on such a tax in February, hoping that other countries do the same. “Someone has to be the first to jump in the water,” Mr. Fillon said.

Mrs. Merkel expressed support for Mr. Sarkozy’s goal of moving quickly on the financial-transaction tax, saying that European Union finance ministers should make a formal proposal by March. Although an agreement between the 27 members of the union was preferable, one among the 17 members that use the euro was acceptable.

“If Sarkozy loses the election, which is entirely possible, the Socialists would certainly be a more difficult partner for Merkel,” said Frank Decker, a political scientist at the Institute for Political Sciences and Sociology at the University of Bonn. “As a result, she looks for ways that she can strengthen his position.”

Steven Erlanger in Paris contributed reporting.

Ha..looks like she's talking to toulouse-lautrec

I'd be willing to bet the Nazi bitch and the frog dwarf already have an informal understanding that the Buttfuckers are going overboard (soon).

This is a chart of the ECB's balance sheet,
Now you know why the market is going up despite, BestBuy's shit december sales despite the fact that the media gave us plenty of stories of idiots snapping up LED's, Alcoa puking all over itself and Unicredit losing 160% of its capitalization in a matter of days.




Its prohibited from lending directly to banks and the Fed is prohibited from lending money to European banks so Bukkake and Tax Cheat found a convenient way around that problem,

ECB prints by the container ship load, it sends them to Bukkake and he prints an equivalent amount, maybe a touch more and sends the dollars to the ECB in a swap arrangement.

In exchange for Euros as collateral, the ECB gets non-technically loaned Dollars which it then lends to European banks. The additional Dollars flowing to the EU banks enable the ECB not to release more Euros to the EU banks and into circulation. According to O'Driscoll, this "Byzantine financial arrangement" was designed perfectly to confuse people

www.econmatters.com . . .