Greece hammers out austerity cuts as lenders pore over books

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Greece has scraped together a plan to save nearly 12 billion euros over the next two years in an increasingly desperate effort to convince visiting EU and IMF inspectors it deserves to be saved rather than pushed out of the euro zone.

After days of wrangling, the new conservative-led government hammered out the austerity cuts hours before top officials from its foreign lenders began a series of meetings on Thursday to assess Greece's compliance with the terms of its latest bailout.

"The government has finalised the plan and will present it later today to political leaders," a senior finance ministry official told Reuters.

The 11.7 billion euros in savings for 2013 and 2014 will be submitted for approval to the troika of EU, IMF and ECB lenders after the three parties in Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' government sign off on it on Thursday, a Greek official said.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/26/uk-eurozone-greece-idUKBRE86P0QU20120726

[xtraxritical]

1. The world stock markets are way up today on news that the European Central Bank

will do "whatever" it takes. In other words an end to "austerity". I think this will be very good news for Greece.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443477104577550492827673770.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs

BTW too much republiCON austerity and not enough stimulus is killing us in the USA.

[LoisB]

2. Austerity does not work

[dipsydoodle]

3. Greece PM Antonis Samaras in tough bailout talks

Greek PM Antonis Samaras is set to meet international creditors to try to persuade them that Athens deserves its final instalment of bailout money.

The EU, IMF and European Central Bank are due to examine Greece's finances before deciding whether to hand over 31.5bn euros ($38bn; £24.5bn).

Without the funds, Greece would face bankruptcy and probably leave the euro.

Mr Samaras said on Thursday that the government would do all it could to get Greece back on track.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19006542