Obama Bullying the Eurozone?
Sadly, here’s an item that doesn’t shock:
The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November’s Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested.
Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts.
They are expected to report in time for an 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will decide on whether to disburse Greece’s next €31bn aid tranche, promised under the terms of the bailout for the country.
American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece’s exit from the eurozone weeks before the Presidential election on 6 November.
They are urging eurozone Governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then – fearing that the resulting market destabilisation could damage President Obama’s re-election prospects.
After the election, I presume Europe will have more “flexibility.” No word on whether the request has been transmitted to Vladimir.
€31bn, that’s about $40bn dollars. Chump change to the fed I’m sure something can be worked out.
Hey I could save everybody time and a waste of the commoners money. Greece needs to be on their own.
“Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts”.
Really, they need to go down their to assess the situation or party on the peoples dime?
Bully them? With what?
He will be as effective as he was getting the Olympics to Chicago, and eggs on his face.
He has no fangs.
Somehow I doubt that we’ll be hearing much about this from the NYT and other organs of the Lick Spittle Media – must not detract from the Narrative!
Hey, Europe, spend a bunch of billions to prop up Greece long enough to keep it from damaging my already poor re-election prospects. Because it’s all about me. Jerk.
I wonder, if they do this at his behest, does the bailout count as a campaign contribution? /s
I do wonder about the details. I mean, are US government officials simply obliquely getting the message across that such action would be duly appreciated, or are they rather forthrightly saying, “this is what we really need you to do for us”? In which case, is there a human alive in Europe that would not respond to such a request/demand with a rousing “Are you #&%*ing kidding me?!?! Seriously, are you?!?!”
For that matter, what is really in Europe’s interest, their collapsing socialist fantasies non-withstanding: A US president that at least has an idea that we are way off the reservation financially, and who might bring some real acumen to the issue, or one that has abjectly demonstrated that he hasn’t the foggiest clue how to run a lemonade stand, much less the world’s backbone economy?