It is unclear whether Syriza, or any Greek government, have the means to lead such a revolution. Perhaps a massive rupture is unavoidable.

perhaps the finance Ministers couldn't address, never mind resolve, the Greek crisis because at root it isn't a financial crisis, it is a political crisis which effects the whole European project

If this all goes horribly wrong, we will have Greece spinning, out of control, into the Russian orbit run by a military Junta and with politicians such as Varoufakis in exile, jail, or worse

Monetary Union cannot be pursued in isolation from fiscal Union

This is what I never understood about the EU from day one. It appears now that the reason I couldn't get it is that no one does.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. -- Dr Johnson

As it happens, Edmund Burke would have found the plans presented to the Eurogroup last night by finance minister Yanis Varoufakis to be rational, reasonable, fair, and proportionate.

Thanks for the reminder!

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

Yet, if a Grexit were to occur it wouldn't be the End of Europe.

A Grexit won't break up the European Union - Wolfgang J. Koschnick - Telepolis

Currency unions such as the Eurozone have been there quite often - they mostly dissolved without any ado or fuss.

... even in well-informed discussions about the Euro it is claimed that a failure of the common currency will mean a failure of European integration and the common market. But that is flat wrong. Even if the currency union were to be dissolved completely, the market union would be untouched. It worked long before the Euro and wouldn't need the Euro. ...

Even Greece has been a member since 1981 and would stay in the EU after a Grexit.

There have been currency unions like the ECU quite often. They disintegrated when the economic disparities between member states became too strong or members violated the rules. No tragedy. No damage.

There especially was no breakdown of states or communities between nation states. There was no war either, also no cold ones. Not even a period of cooled relations. A currency union like the Eurozone is just a technical institution no guarantee of freedom and peace even if almost all European politicians make such loudmouthed claims.

They still jubilate that there are no border barriers, that WW2 is over and there has been a long period of peace. They marinated the currency policy decision of introducing the Euro in a maudlin emotional sauce. And therefore totally misconstrued what was happening.

The irony of history is that there already had been a currency union in the heart of Europe. It was a precursor of sorts to the Euro. Greece also belonged to it at the time and was expelled over chicaneries. They currency union survived without problems.

Since 1830, when Greece became independent after 400 years of Osmanic rule, the Greek state finances were chronically dysfunctional. Every few years Greece had to declare bankruptcy. It was part of state folklore.

In 1865 four countries founded the "Latin Coin Union": France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland. ... The currencies could be traded without exchange - just like the Euro today.

The members of the union agreed on fixed exchange rates between their gold and silver coins. At the beginning there was great enthusiasm for the union. Travellers were happy not to have to exchange money at the borders - just like with the Euro.

... But like many currency unions the Latin Coin Union had several construction faults. There was a North-South divide between highly developed industrial economies and backwards agrarian countries. Every once in a while there were trade and financial crises. That should be familiar to today's observers.

The biggest mistake was that the issuance of paper money was not regulated. Italy, in a financial crisis, printed a lot of paper money and exchanged it for coins. That money flowed to other countries and caused inflations in France and Belgium too. The Banque de France suspended the paper to coin exchange.

In 1868 Greece joined the union. It hoped to profit from the stability of the currency union after being excluded from international capital markets for decades. ...

With the words "Unfortunately, we are bankrupt" prime minister Charilaos Trikoupis affirmed the oath of disclosure in 1893. Four years later the European powers came Greece's aid. They guaranteed a bond but demanded reforms and oversight over the repayments. An international commission monitored that. That should be familiar to today's observers.

In his history of the Latin coin union the American economist Henry Parker Willis described the membership of Greece .. as a fundamental mistake. ... "The membership in the union was attained by obscure political means but not out of economic and financial calculations."

Greece and Italy began to use tricks. They issued coins with lower gold and silver content ... The Swiss ambassador in Paris complained loudly about the "unhappy marriage with Greece". But unfortunately "it was done - we have to keep bearing the consequences."

In 1901 Willis wrote "as an experiment for an international currency the Latin union has failed. Its history throws light on the difficulties of an regulating a currency internationally. ... it has only damaged its members."

In 1908, 40 years after joining, Greece was thrown out ... 1910 Greece was allowed to rejoin. But with WW1 the currency union was practically finished.

The other countries started to ignore rules too. ... The member countries didn't terminate the treaty only because they balked at the high cost of dissolution. Some things just repeat themselves as a farce. After a long period of infirmity the Latin Coin Union was finally abrogated in 1926.

Because of similar reasons another currency union ended - the "Scandinavian Coin Union". Sweden and Denmark had founded it in 1872. Norway joined later on. ... National interests won out. The currency union went away but the strong bond between the Scandinavian countries remained.

Currency systems are instruments of economic exchange and development. No more no less. They are not instruments of keeping the peace. The fate of humanity and the christian occident is not decided by them. ...

The Western European nations had much more peaceful relations before the Euro than after. ...

[The politicans] obviously didn't know what they were doing. More precisely: they didn't want to know. They saw themselves as grand historical protagonists of Europe united in peace and prosperity while ruining their currencies and finances, and sending a large part of their youths to unemployment.

The European peoples are using old cliches with abandon. ... The harsh sounds are a battering for European peace. ... The veneer of friendship between peoples is wafer thin and already scratched. The old hatred breaks out fast. ...

An Orwellian newspeak has established itself in European politics. While the political class keeps repeating the mantra that peace and freedom is fixed to the wellbeing of the Euro there is as much discord and hatred as there hasn't been in a very long time.

At the apex of the Euro crisis the general mood of the populace has entered into a deep Euroskepticism. ... A few years ago many people saw themselves as Europeans first and nationals second. Only few people do that today. ... mostly indifferent towards Europe, if not even hostile.

Citizens should understand that the politics of this country is in the hands of a bunch of grandiloquently blathering cocks who don't understand the most primitive causal relationships...

The assessment of the French historian Emmanuel Todd is unambiguous: "The Euro will enter history as the master mistake of the ruling elites in Europe. They didn't know what they created - a zombie - and therefore cannot detach themselves from it." ... "The national currencies were an instrument of regulating the common market to counterbalance the differences in competitiveness. You don't need a Nobel price in economics to see that."

In a situation that needed a professional analysis of advantages and disadvantages of a fateful currency decision, and not romantic incantations of blooming landscapes, politicians revelled in emotional and banal Europe euphoria, invoked horror scenarios of WW2 and celebrated in overblown speeches the general hope for peace, joy and pancakes [a German phrase].

Wichtig sei, dass die EZB die Banken weiter finanziere, solange diese nicht insolvent sind.

Die Banken müssten liquide bleiben. Schelling verwies darauf, dass die Hellas-Banken beim EZB-Stresstest gut abgeschnitten hätten. Dass so viele Bankkunden gleichzeitig ihr Geld abheben, würde niemand aushalten, so Schelling.

Important is that the ECB keeps finacing the banks as long as they are solvent.

The banks need to stay liquid. Schelling notes that  the Hellas banks got good grades from the ECB stress test. No one could stand so many bank customers withdrawing their money, according to Schelling.

As far as I remember he has been hostile for the whole negotiation charade. Yet here he demands that the ECB keep doing its job and later in the interview he answers that he assumes that Athens will be fulfil all its commitments until there is a solution or non solution to a question whether they will be able to pay salaries in full in June.
Seems to me that some people noticed that Vienna lies quite be bit south of Frankfurt.

Greek crisis is political, with the potential to tear EU apart - Independent.ie

The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis laments the failure of the Eurogroup to listen to his proposals even whilst they themselves have been kept in the dark about what "the institutions" are proposing. Apparently, no substantive discussions took place on what either "the institutions" or Greece were suggesting as the way forward.

A majority of the Eurogroup ministers appear to have decided, in advance, that Varoufakis is not someone they can "do business with". But perhaps the ministers couldn't address, never mind resolve, the Greek crisis because at root it isn't a financial crisis, it is a political crisis which effects the whole European project. If this all goes horribly wrong, we will have Greece spinning, out of control, into the Russian orbit and with politicians such as Varoufakis in exile, jail, or worse.

The EU, meanwhile, will start to fall apart with nationalist governments, led by the UK, doing their best to break it apart.

We may not have a major European war any time soon, but the slippery slope will have begun. Meanwhile, we will have people starving in the streets and dying en masse for lack of proper medical care.

There is no doubt that Greece needs an internal social, economic and political revolution. For too long it has been run by an elite who pay very little by way of taxes and do not re-invest their profits to modernise the economy.

It has a massive and inefficient military and civil service which absorb huge resources and stifle all economic enterprise and growth. The underlying Greek economy is painfully underdeveloped, whilst social inequalities grow.

It is unclear whether Syriza, or any Greek government, has the means to lead such a revolution. Perhaps a massive rupture is unavoidable.

A default followed by ejection from the eurozone could well result in hyper-inflation of any new currency, mass impoverishment, and violence in the streets. Sound familiar?

The EU was founded to prevent such events and if it fails to prevent them, it will have failed in its most basic and sacred duty. It will have destroyed its most basic raison d'être and claim to legitimacy.

We need to decide whether the EU truly aspires to be a union or not.

There is no solution to the Greek crisis which does not involve at least a mini-revolution in the EU institutions as well.

Frank Schnittger

Eurogroup chief: It's an opportunity for a deal

Last question: Are these Greek credible's actually credible?

Moscovici sounds optimistic:

This is a solid basis, but work still needs to be done. We are currently looking for an agreement but we haven't reached one yet.

Dijsselbloem echoes him, calling the Greek proposals "a welcome step, in a positive direction."

It is also an opportunity to get that deal this week, and that is what we will work for.

The dramaturgy of today's Eurogroup meeting was intense, and, as far as I can see, staged by the Greeks to make fools of the EU finance ministers. They were all very bitter, going into the meeting, about getting the Greek proposals so late -- Schauble even insisted there was nothing new -- so they couldn't be briefed by their experts.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Larry Summers has written a scary column warning that Greece may be on the verge of becoming a "failed state". It's a useful corrective to the extraordinary complacency I'm hearing from too many European officials. But I do think it's worth pointing out that this need not happen, even if there is no deal.

What Summers seems to portray is a scenario in which Greek banks collapse and take down the economy with them. But what if Greece abandons the euro and issues its own currency to keep cash flowing?

For sure there would be a sharp devaluation, which would lead to a spike in inflation. But would hyperinflation follow? Remember that Greece is running a large cyclically adjusted primary surplus -- that is, given even a modest economic recovery it would not need to roll the printing presses to pay its bills. And a a devaluation would, other things equal, promote recovery.

French President Francois Hollande seems to blame Betty Batziana - 'Red Betty' - the life partner of Alexis Tsipras for the financial intransigence of Athens. Hollande said last week that the Greek Prime Minister and founder of Syriza was "henpecked" by his partner: the Greek politician had confided to Hollande that he "could not cave in" to EU austerity demands because if he did "Betty will leave me".

Batziana - she has retained her own family name and she and Tsipras have never married, on a point of secularist principle - is known to be more left wing than her partner, and, originally, was more political than he was. As a young man, and until he developed knee problems, Tsipras was more interested in sport than politics. It was she who was the political firebrand, and, according to reports, it was she who introduced Alexis to the Greek Communist Party, the KKE, which, back in the day, was especially supine to Moscow. It's perhaps surprising that it was Tsipras, rather than Batziana, who became the politician in the family. She took a PhD in electrical and computing engineering, and pursued an academic career, while her partner entered parliament in 2009, and found himself Prime Minister in January this year. (They have two sons - one, Orpheus Ernesto, was named after Che Guevara.)

University student Alex Retzis says he voted for Antonis Samaras's conservative New Democracy in the last election, but he has been impressed by Syriza's performance on the international stage in its first six months in office. He admits being concerned about the current standoff - his parents recently withdrew the €10,000 they had in the bank - but he is convinced the Greek government is playing its cards well. So impressed that, if an election were called tomorrow, he'd vote Syriza.

"I think [finance minister Yanis] Varoufakis is doing better than the last government," he says, sitting in the shade in a park in central Athens.

"At least now we know we are not the slaves of Europe . . . Now we say No sometimes. We don't do everything they say. He's a Greek hero, Varoufakis."

Greece has been granted a two-day reprieve in its campaign for new rescue loans as it comes under extraordinary pressure from euro zone leaders and the European Central Bank to comply with their conditions for aid

---snip---

Late last night, German chancellor Angela Merkel said time was running very short but she hoped the next summit would have nothing more to do but take note of an agreement with the ministers.

While it was clear that financial sustainability would have to be discussed, she noted that Greece did not have big debt repayments for many years.

European Commission chief Jean Claude Juncker said:"I simply wanted to say that the proposals that the Greek government was submitting to our mediation tonight and early this morning - although these proposals were coming in with some delay - are a major step taken by the Greek authorities."

---snip---

In light of this [Noonan's] intervention, and that of Mr Schäuble, ECB president Mario Draghi said his institution's support for Greek banks was not an issue for ministers to decide. The ECB governors would continue to review the situation on a daily basis, he said.

I would have thought it was the Lenders who had been given a reprieve form default...

Nevertheless, reading between the lines, it seems Merkel, Juncker etc al are getting ready to close the deal - almost regardless of the technical content - and Draghi has told Ministers in no uncertain terms that the provision of liquidity is none of their business...he will do what it takes... and starving the Greek banks of liquidity is not a bargaining chip in their armoury, whatever Noonan and Schauble may think.

Index of Frank's Diaries

ekathimerini.com | VAT hike in food service will be the `kiss of death' for the sector

A return of the value-added tax on food service to 23 percent from the current 13 percent would amount to a kiss of death for the sector, according to the head of the association of restaurant chains (SEPOA), Thanassis Papanikolaou.

The SEPOA chief told Kathimerini that the impact will be huge on restaurants, bars, cafeterias and tavernas, as besides the sector's VAT hike, the related sector of tourism will also see a rate increase.

"We have the experience from 2011 when the increase from 13 to 23 percent in food service brought the shutdown of 4,500 enterprises and the loss of 40,000 jobs,» he stated.

Here's where I wish Talos or others on the ground could report.

I wonder if Tsipras made the proposals knowing they wouldn't be accepted.

What a fuckin mess.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

Mr Noonan said he had great sympathy for the Greek people, which was a view he had expressed several occasions in the House.

He said he had also been quite helpful to the Greek authorities, adding he did not have the strong personal relationship which the Socialist Party and Sinn Fein had with the Greek government.

"I do not share the commitment to their economic policies that Sinn Fein and the socialist group seem to share," he added.

The Minister was replying in the to Socialist Party TD Ruth Coppinger who asked if it was true he had insisted emergency funding for Greece would be reduced until it retracted its demands to have any sustainable debt reduction.

Ms Coppinger said the most important thing for the Minister and the Government was to ensure Greece did not get any deal which Ireland could not secure. She said she did not think it was very helpful to ask for the noose to be tightened around the necks of the Greek people and government.

Greece's creditors handed the government revised terms for an agreement as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed incredulity that his own list of proposals to secure bailout funds had fallen short.

The overhauled set of measures was passed to the Greek government on Wednesday morning, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private.

The new terms come as Tsipras prepares for a Brussels meeting with the heads of the three creditor institutions -- European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. Finance Ministers will gather later on Wednesday to try and reach a deal before Greece's bailout expires and about 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) in payments come due to the IMF on June 30.

"There is still a lot of work to do," Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chairs meetings of his euro-area counterparts, told reporters in Brussels. "We are not there yet."

The latest exchanges underscore the febrile nature of the negotiations as they enter the final hours before the country's bailout -- and finances -- run out. Greek markets dropped on Wednesday as Tsipras took to Twitter to chide his country's creditors for not accepting a list of measures including tax increases and curbs on early retirement that he had submitted on Monday.

"The repeated rejection of equivalent measures by certain institutions never occurred before," Tsipras said on his Twitter account. "This odd stance seems to indicate that either there is no interest in an agreement or that special interests are being backed."

Leaked: Greece's creditors' demands.

The five-page counter-proposal made by Greece's creditors has just leaked - in several places.

And it confirms that Athens has been pushed to raise more from VAT and also make sweeping changes to its pensions system, including raising the retirement age faster and eliminating benefits for the poorest pensioners.

The red crossings out show items which are being rejected by creditors, and the underlined red sections show the new proposals.

If they are serious (and I don't mean Serious) then the negotiations are dead, because this is murder.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

Yiannis Βaboulias ‏@YiannisBab  18m18 minutes ago
And just like that, creditors restored Syriza's "heroic" status. Looks like their strategy will be massively backfiring in Greece.