Greek government-debt crisis

By Simon Kennedy

Mario Draghi?s July 2012 pledge to do ?whatever it takes? to keep the euro intact has kept speculators at bay for almost three years. Bond yields fell from Dublin to Athens, giving governments room to cut budgets and start revamping their economies.

By Kate Linsell

Greek corporate bonds fell amid concern the nation could exit the euro area after elections this month, raising the risk of default.

The European Commission warned on Monday there was no legal mechanism which Greece could use to leave the Eurozone, a hypothetical event commonly dubbed "Grexit".

Remarks of Brussels officials followed a report by German news weekly Der Spiegel which claimed Berlin was inclined to accept a Grexit scenario after having put forth much effort to avoid it in the last years.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday that her government had not changed its position on the desirability of a Greek exit from the euro zone, saying the policy had always been to stabilize the bloc without losing any of its members.

Greece’s notes fell, resuming a slide that pushed three-year yields up to the most since 2012 last week, as the nation began an election campaign that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said will determine its euro membership.
German securities were little ch... ...

French President Francois Hollande said on Jan. 5 countries including Spain and Greece had paid a heavy price to stay in the euro and it was "up to the Greeks" to decide whether to now remain a part of the single currency.
   

French President Francois Hollande on Monday urged Greece to abide by its European commitments, as the spectre of a Greek exit from the eurozone rears its head again.

"The Greeks are free to choose their own destiny. But, having said that, there are certain engagements that have been made and all those must be of course respected,» Hollande told French radio.

By Leon Mangasarian

Greece?s political parties embarked on a flash campaign for elections in less than three weeks that Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said will determine the fate of the country?s membership in the euro currency area.

Greece's radical leftist SYRIZA party led the ruling conservatives by 3.1 percentage points in an opinion poll conducted after it became clear that a snap election would be called, the pollster Rass said on Saturday.

The last time I saw George Papandreou was here in Istanbul exactly two years ago. He had come to Turkey to be a guest speaker at the annual meeting of the Global Relations Forum (GRF) and delivered a speech in the offices of Rumvader, the association of Greek-Orthodox foundations, in the vicinity of Aghia Triada Church in Taksim.