Video | Riots rage in Athens as parliament approves more austerity

briffy@maltanet your name also says it all. brrrr iffy.

Greece will recover by selling off its para statal assets. . And well in our case - we have already sold off all our assets. . We are now suffering from indirect austerity measures and the worst has still to come. . -Less leave -Pensions at 65 and on the increase -higher VAT 15% to 18% -etc...... the list goes on and on .

@CJohn Zammit...the money comes from German Taxpayers and the printing machines of the IMF and the Central European Bank!

@ C john zammit..the money comes from other member states ...by way of their annual contributions, which in turn come from the member states coffers, which in turn come from people's taxes. The bail-out does not come as a blank cheque without strings attached. Indeed it is replete with conditions; trimming of budget deficits, reducing the national debt, reining in of expenditure, raising more revenue, through the introduction of more taxes and selling of state assets. privatisation of state enterprises which are not run commercially etc. Indeed the bail-outs come at a price which has to be paid by the recipients. There will be close monnitoring of the performance of the recipient's economy and corrective measures have to be taken to ensure that the aims are achieved.

Haha...yr name says it all. Stalin used to write ha-ha in the margins of memos submitted ti him by his cronies

Briffy u Alex, dak li qed jiġri fil-Greċja huwa kollu tort ta' dak li għamlu l-KONservattivi qabel u issa belaw kollox is-Soċjalisti bħal ma kien ġara hawn Malta fl-1996 u bħal ma se jsib il-Gvern laburista li jmiss. Issa nistenna li l-Gvern Laburista li jmiss mhux jagħmel bħal ma għamel il-Gvern Grieg, imma jibgħat lill-barranin u lill-ue jsaqqu l-ħass ta' Brussell u jerġa' jinnazzjonaizza kollox bla ebda kumpens ħalli dak li kien tal-Maltin jerġa' jkun tal-Maltin.

briffy and Alex   It is good to see not one, but two, knowledgeable individuals explaining the problem and its cause.   So, I ask you ... where does the EU gets its money to bail out Greece?   Now, that might be a too-complex question to answer, so, I will simplify it: Where does money come from?

@Alex @briffy: You cannot just import lock, stock and barrel an economic model that applies for very large countries into a small island state like Malta with particular geo-political characteristics and with a very particular social contract. The case of Greece is not the case of Greece in many respects but it is a multi-faceted problem: e.g. the common currency applied across the board and the double recession which very few one to talk about. Indeed, the first recession came about because of the greed of private (!) banks...and governments thought they were secure because of these privatized banks...they ended up not being able to pay up their debts and hence the domino effect. We were lucky that Maltese banks have always been less prone to high risks (albeit the case of BoV now) even though this Euro crisis may hit us hard. Indeed, we are quite helpless in this situation given our size and our impact factor in the international market. But there is always a price to pay. Governments always have a role to play in a country's economy...you cannot have full liberalization; governments are the democratically elected institutions to oversee and act as guardians of social and economic justice by implementing policies that change with the times...meaning that governments should read the signs of the times. Once governments abdicate their role (as is happening now)...you get this result! May this situation improve...for our benefit!!!

spot on briffy! the privatization together with the liberalistion of all markets is a process we need to speed up in order for our economy to relaunch its self! but before that, we need to shrink our government size, which is getting ridiculously over sized especially in a small country like malta! and part of this process, we need massive spending cuts in eduction, health and the welfare state. if we see no spending cuts, then the talk for tax-cuts is only cheap political propaganda with no bases at all!

Tant għandhan qalbha taħraqha l-UE għall-poplu Griek li mhuc se tieħu8 sehemha mit-taxxi u sehem il-Greċja li tħallas tas-sħubija tagħha. Daqs li kieku!!!!!!!!!

This is what happens when the means of production are in the hands of the state. State entities are never run on purely commercial lines. They are continuously propped up by state banks and they just plod on for years. If they were privately owned they would go into receivership soon after they make a loss. But in the interest of jobs, the state keeps propping them up. Parastatal bodies are milked by everybody; they have to absorb workers whether they are required or not; they cannot restructure themselves and shed labour as the unions would be up in arms and go on strikes, which makes the position worse: in short it's a vicious circle. In Greece, some ports, airports, banks, railways, energy entities, the postal service are state-owned. Greece will have to privatise these entities, otherwise they will not save themselves. The EU always advised governments to privatise state-owned companies, and scale down government's stake in parastatal bodies. These entities are never run on commercial lines; everybody knows this but socialism has always wanted the nationalisation of the means of production, so workers are made to eat out of government's hand. If one doesn't toe the line, one dies of hunger or is annihilated. There is no incentive to work hard in state-owned enterprises. In the times of the USSR and the East European block, where everything belonged to the state (in the name of the people!), losses in enterprises were made good by the profits in others which reminds one of the famous last words 'Min m'ghandux jghix ma' min ghandu. This inevitably leads to the laissez faire attitudes by workers who are guaranteed their jobs even if their company makes a loss for years on end. Unlike in Greece, somebody in Malta had the good sense to privatise a number of state-owned or partially-owned entities, including Midmed bank - sold to HSBC, the postal service, Seamalta, Telemalta,Tugmalta, MIA, to finally close down the Drydocks which was bleeding the taxpayers, and to scale down government's shareholding in BOV and in other parastatal bodies. Pity that Enemalta hasn't yet been privatised yet; just look at the state it is in, and all its borrowing has to be guaranteed by the government. I guess, however, that we will have to put up with this situation; otherwise we would all be dependent on a private company for our energy. Malta is too small to have more than one energy producer, so there cannot be any competition. AirrMalta is another case in point. BOV has been propping it up for years, from its inception. Everbody has been milking it, overmanning it and abusing it. It would not have been the case if it were a private enterprise.

Jiena NISKANTA kif isiry certi affarijiet (1)Min jahti li il poplu Grieg jinsab fiex jinsab mela ghallur IHALLAS min gab lil pajjiz fdin lin STABILITA mela jigi il gvern gdid jaghmel AWSTERITA min fuq in nies il POPLU li ma JAHTI XEJN (2) Sewwa mela il poplu ser jibqa IBATI fil waqt il membri parlamentari mil LUSSU li ghandhom ma JNAQSU XEJN HEKK mhux sewwa Papandreoui ghandu JARA min gab il pajjiz fdin is SITWAZJONI u IHALLSU HUMA Jien ma nafx kif il GRECJA sejra THALLAS dan IS SELF lli UE qed jghatuha barra min hekk kif SPANJA ITALJA PORTUGALL U L_IRLANDA JISTAW JISILFU IL FLUS :LIL GRCJA META HUMA GHANDHOM IL PROBLEMI FINANZJARJI TAGHHOM ghax dawn 4 pajjizi ukoll IRIDU JISELFU MIL UE DAN GENN !!!!! Qed tara fejn DAHHALTNA HUX GO L-UE Dr Eddie Fenech Adami

Before the Euro all Greece would have had to do was to devalue it's currency but that is not possible in today's world. . These days if governments want to raise cash they issue bonds whichnare mostly bought by China.

my sympathy to the Greek works.An eu revolution is under way we will soon see the end of the union in a few years time history repeats it's self. Power to the people.

This scenario is one that PN is seriously consider for Malta - did they not show slides of street fighting in greece at their annual conference only the other week. All the while we are pretending that its all rainbow and flowers under GonziPN, the country is tethering on the verge of collapse. Managers from BOV have advised their clients to take the money before there is a run on the bank and everyone wants to withdraw their funds. In the meantime Millions are being spend on the Valletta to turn in to a place fit for Gonzi to go to work to! My question is: How much money has the government spend on riot gear to fight us Maltese in the streets when the shit hits the fan? I repeat the question and I hope a journalist from MT takes up this story. How much money has the government spent on riot gear over say the last 24 months?

This is what the eu petty dictators are imposing upon the Greeks. This is the harbinger of what is going to happen in other eu countries including MALTA if we do not leave the eu and the euro.