The European governments have made arrangement to have a principal financial assistance to Greece and considering various options, including bilateral aid, said on CNBC senior representative of the ruling coalition in Germany. “The decision has been taken in principle and in the euro area,” said the source. Germanic lawmakers are considering financial aid to Greece, said earlier before Bloomberg Michael Meister, a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Whatever assistance, either bilaterally or by the entire European region will be accompanied by strict conditions, is complemented Meister. It is quite important for the government of Greece to get such support from Europe.
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The European stocks started the week with a fall, as Pan-European index Dow Jones Stoxx 600 lost 0,5 per cent to 247.88 points. National Bank of Greece SA – the largest Greek bank, slid 5.6 percent during trade in Athens. Prime Minister George Papandreou will have to convince investors that it can cope with the worst fiscal crisis in the country for 15 years. The government will submit to the new EU plan to tackle the deficit in January. Greece is facing a “very difficult” situation and should take “bold” decision to fix its budget deficit, said today the President of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet. By Standard and Poor’s today identified a “negative” outlook to the country’s credit rating, which means that it can be reduced to two months. Second largest bank in the country – EFG Eurobank Ergasias SA, lost 6 percent today, and Piraeus Bank SA – 4 per cent. Shares of Royal Bank of Scotland lost 4.7 percent and those of Lloyds – 4,1 per cent after British finance minister Alistair Darling refused to repeal the tax on very high bonuses. Shares of Siemens AG retreated by 1,6 percent as Morgan Stanley cut its recommendation on them.
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Foreign tourists in neighboring Greece will be less by 10 percent compared with last year because of the economic crisis this year, said Journal Imersiya. According to the edition number of tourists visited Greece this year will be 1.5 million less. The number of tourists to the Greek capital Athens fell by 40 percent, reported the publication cited by BGNES. In most resorts registered a fall of 30-40 per cent. During the first 6 months of the year almost 20 000 people who worked in the field of tourism, are left without work. Due to the economic crisis most Greek hotels are reducing prices by 50-80 percent, even in August, which is considered one of the strongest. Tourism forms 18 percent of the GDP of Greece.
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Unemployment in Greece in May fell to 8.5 percent from 9.4 percent in April, said the electronic edition of Greek newspaper “Navtemboriki, according to data of the national statistical office informed agency” Focus “. For comparison, in May 2008 unemployment rate was 6.6 percent. The total number of employed in May this year was 4 553 998 people unemployed were 420 401 people and economically inactive population – 4 287 961 people. In women, the level of unemployment was 11.5 percent from 10 percent before one years and for men – 6.3 percent from 4.2 percent in May 2008.
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With threatening pace with rising unemployment immigrants in Greece, forward agency Focus. Currently the rate is highest in the last five years. In recent years, waves of aliens entering Greece in search of work and poses a serious risk of a new social tensions in the coming months. Data show that during the first three months of the year, unemployment among foreigners was 11 percent. For the first time it is higher than the national average. In practice, however, unemployment among immigrants is even higher, indicating the issue. In April the unemployment rate nationwide was 9.4 percent, marking its highest increase on an annual basis.
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The tactics of successful elections in Bulgaria Party Emblem to freeze the country’s participation in energy projects aim to Sofia markets benefit more from Russia, wrote the Greek Journal, forward agency Focus. Greece attaches to the games, which are hiding behind policy objectives, statements of personnel of the Emblem on the frustration of the project for the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline. Some representatives of the Greek government should not be taken literally everything published Bulgarian media. There are views that the statements have been focused on the winners of the elections. If the position of Sofia did not change, and ultimately she chooses Nabucco instead of another Russian project – “South stream” under the pretext to reduce its dependence on Russian gas, it is not excluded that the first project to be implemented more quickly, the newspaper said.
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The Court of Justice imposed a fine of 2 million euros of Greek government that the state can not recover the unlawful aid for airline Olympic Airways. The court imposed an additional fine of 16 thousand euros a day to Greece, if not able to recover the funds within one months. The case dates from 2002 when the European Commission states that the proportion of public funding granted to Olympic Airways, contrary to the rules of the European Union for fair competition and the money must be returned by the company. After the Greek state was unable to receive allocations, the Commission refer the case to the First European Court in Luxembourg, who in 2005 decided that Greece had failed to fulfill its obligations.
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