Demonstraties in Europa: Griekenland. #2

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 12:54 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Nou, ga in discussie met het NRC of Centraal Planbureau.

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Europe holiday overview
Finland and France make provision for a statutory minimum of 30 days’ holiday a year for employees, closely followed by Lithuania and Russia (28), the UK (28), Poland (26) and Greece (25). The vast majority of countries have a statutory minimum of 20 days including Germany, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands. Cyprus and Slovakia (15 days) have the most bank holidays in Europe followed by Malta and Spain (14 days) and then Lithuania, Austria, Portugal and Slovenia (13 days). France, Poland, Finland, Germany and Belgium have 10, while Denmark, Romania and Ireland have 9. With 8 bank holidays a year, the UK and Netherlands have the least in Europe. However, in some European states such as Norway and Switzerland, public holidays can be nullified if they fall on a weekend.

Overall, including the statutory minimum and public holidays, employees in Lithuania are potentially entitled to the greatest amount of paid leave in Europe with 41 days’ holiday per year. France, Finland and Russia rank second with 40 days, followed by Austria and Malta (38), Greece (37) and Sweden, Spain and the UK (36). Employees in Italy have 31 while those in Germany, Romania and Belgium have 30. Employees in Ireland and the Netherlands have the least amount of holiday at 29 and 28 days, respectively. If employers provide 8 bank holidays on top of the statutory minimum, UK employees would receive 36 days’ paid holiday a year, one of the most generous in Europe.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 12:51 schreef betyar het volgende:

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In dat onderzoekje met gemiddeld 31 vakantiedagen is ook bullshit, Nederland telt gemiddeld 25 vakantiedagen.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:01 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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NRC heeft het over verlof-dagen, leugenaar.
Bijzonder verlof, ziekte verlof,....

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Het aantal verlofdagen voor de Nederlandse werknemer (31 vakantiedagen en 8 feestdagen) ligt boven het Europees gemiddelde van circa 34 dagen.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:06 schreef betyar het volgende:

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Waar lees jij die?

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Het wettelijke aantal vakantiedagen per jaar is 4 keer uw aantal werkdagen per week. Bij een volledige baan heeft u dus minimaal recht op 20 vakantiedagen per jaar

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:10 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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http://www.rijksoverheid.(...)en-heb-ik-recht.html

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:12 schreef betyar het volgende:

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Hoe komt NRC dan aan 31 vakantiedagen?

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 12:54 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Nou, ga in discussie met het NRC of Centraal Planbureau.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:13 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ik zei toch:

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:14 schreef betyar het volgende:

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Publiceer die onzin dan niet als jezelf al twijfelt.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:21 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ik twijfelde niet, dat deed jij.

Er staat misschien een foutje in de tekst, maar de conclusie blijft hetzelfde.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:26 schreef betyar het volgende:

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Nee, er klopt geen hol van.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 12:54 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Nou, ga in discussie met het NRC of Centraal Planbureau.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:14 schreef betyar het volgende:

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Publiceer die onzin dan niet als jezelf al twijfelt.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:39 schreef Ronnie_bravo het volgende:

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Jij bent toch de knip en plaksmurf.....

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:46 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Overigens is 20 het wettelijk minimum aantal vakantiedagen, en zou 31 het gemiddelde kunnen zijn.

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In Denemarken en Groot-Brittannië hebben vaders twee weken vaderverlof, in Finland achttien dagen en in Portugal twintig

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In Noorwegen en Denemarken en Duitsland krijg je een jaar lang de tijd doorbetaald om te kunnen ontzwangeren Zelfs de Britse moeders krijgen een half jaar de tijd. In Nederland zullen wij het echter moeten doen met een kortere periode, ouderschapsverlof en vakantiedagen.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:57 schreef betyar het volgende:
Maar goed, ik denk dat mijn punt wel duidelijk is.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 14:05 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ja, je blijft volhouden dat Grieken lui zijn.

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 14:05 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Ja, je blijft volhouden dat Grieken lui zijn.

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Greece's cut-price potato movement shows Greeks chipping in

Greeks are pulling together and forging innovative new social and economic models to help those hit hardest by the debt crisis

Spyros Gkelis, a smart and hard-working biology lecturer from Thessaloniki, saw it like this. "If someone shoves you," he said, "you know, like really pushes you, hard, in the street, so it hurts, your first reaction is to lash out. Strike back. But if that doesn't achieve anything, if they keep pushing, and it keeps hurting, you think again. Try something else. Work out some way of dealing with it."

In their fifth year of recession, with 21% of the workforce jobless, salaries slashed, one in 11 people in greater Athens using soup kitchens and half the country's most prescribed medicines now in short supply, that is what more and more Greeks are doing. Faced with a half-broken state, and systems and structures only making things worse, people are doing things differently.

In a clearing on a hillside above the second city, Elisabet Tsitsopoulou found herself buying five 25kg sacks of potatoes, for herself and her neighbours, from the back of a lorry. She paid ¤0.25 a kilo, against the 60-70 cents she would pay in the shops. The farmer she bought from, Apostolos Kasapis, was equally happy: he got his money straight away, rather than having to wait up to a year – or forever – for a middleman's cheque.

"It benefits everyone," said Christos Kamenides, professor of agricultural marketing at Thessaloniki University, of the producer-to-consumer system he has helped perfect. The potato movement was launched last month and is spreading across Greece, incorporating other staples such as onions, rice, flour, olives and – at the last count – more than 4,000 Easter lambs. Town halls announce a sale; locals say how much they'll buy; farmers show up with it in 25-tonne trucks. Everyone's happy.

With many Greeks now taking home 30% less than before the crisis, but prices of plenty of products still impossibly high, the movement is a clever and, for many, vital way to cut costs that is of practical help to both parties to the transaction. There is anecdotal evidence, too, that supermarket prices are starting to fall, certainly on direct sale days, in response to it.

In several parts of the country, small volunteer shops are setting up, often on the initiative of local councils, selling produce at barely more than cost price – the margin is marked on the pack – in member-only schemes, to avoid tax and legal problems. Kamenides is developing a broader scheme along these lines. His "unified co-operative" will unite producers and consumers and may eventually serve as an economic model for buying and selling essential foodstuffs.

A couple of hours south, in the port of Volos, an alternative economic model is already up and running. More than 800 townsfolk have signed up for a local currency scheme called TEMs. Teachers, doctors, babysitters, a bookkeeper, farmers and smallholders, a decorator, hairdresser, seamstress and a lawyer are among the members. In the past couple of weeks Theodoros Mavridis, a local electrician, has not had to pay a euro for his eggs, tsipourou (the local brandy), fruit, olives, olive oil, jam, soap, and help in filling out his tax return.

Maria Choupis, a founder member, said up to 15 such networks are active. Members transfer units into and out of each others' accounts online. To ensure the currency works hard, these can hold a limit of 1,200 TEMs, and cannot be more than ¤300 overdrawn. For Bernhardt Koppold, an alternative therapist, the scheme is easier and more direct but also "a way of showing practical solidarity". Choupis agrees it's "as much social as economic". That's a point that recurs frequently. There is, among many Greeks, still intense anger at what they are living through, as well as almost complete disillusionment with politicians, not to say politics. But in Choupis's words, many are "moving beyond anger": instead of lashing out, coming together.

In Volos, a waiter in the taverna by the ferry terminal, told me that "in the years of cheap money and easy credit, we just lost sight of what matters, you know? It's sad that it's taken a crisis to do it, but we're rediscovering our values."

People are helping each other in small, informal ways. Teachers and parents' associations "come together, gather food and discreetly arrange to allocate it to families in the school who are suffering", said Victoria Pakrete, an Athens teacher who herself volunteers in a soup kitchen. Marie Le Du said that in the northern Athens suburb where her mother lives, women from the local Orthodox church "work in pairs. They visit two or three families that are 'their' families, drop in for a coffee and a chat to catch up – and discreetly hand over a parcel of donated food, as part of the visit, to preserve the family's dignity."

Others are more organised. Reveka Papadopoulos, head of Médecins Sans Frontières Greece, said that in the past year she had seen "some really encouraging, exciting things. People are seeing the power of organising themselves, of helping themselves, and each other. It's wonderful to see … it keeps you going."

So in Thessaloniki, the National Theatre of Northern Greece is about to launch a season of plays by Genet, Pinter, Albee and Greek authors under the banner Social Theatreshop.

Theatregoers will pay for their tickets with food, which the theatre's 300 staff – actors, technicians, administrators, all working on the project for free – are distributing among charities and welfare groups in the city.

"We are, everyone knows it, in a very bad situation," said the deputy artistic director, Giannis Rigas. "We thought, we have to do something for people who now have so little money that they are going hungry. But this isn't charity, it's a fair exchange: food for theatre. A couple of tins of soup, or a packet of pasta, for a ticket. And it's also a way to put the theatre back where it belongs, in the community."

Across town, on the redecorated first floor of a battered building owned by a trades union association, more than 80 doctors and dentists volunteer their time at the social medical centre, opened late last year to treat illegal immigrants with no access to free healthcare.

In fact, 70% of the patients seen by the GPs and specialists at the centre until 9pm each night are Greek citizens who can no longer afford health insurance.

"If you're not earning, you no longer have easy access to care," said Sofie Georgiadou, a dentist who volunteers one evening a fortnight. "I never imagined I would one day find myself working somewhere like this, in Greece."

It doesn't, in some instances, take much to change things. In Athens, Xenia Papastavrou, fed up with the quantities of perfectly good bread going to waste in restaurants and bakeries when welfare groups were spending money elsewhere to buy it, has founded a network called Boroume that, via its website, now puts 70 commercial food donors – including Greece's largest bakery chain and 25 Athens hotels – in contact with 400 welfare groups, from elderly people's homes and orphanages to drop-in centres for the homeless and municipal soup kitchens. Similarly Silia Vitoratou, a statistician, joined with friends in December to set up Tutorpool, whose site now puts 500 volunteer tutors in contact with pupils who need their help. It is a fact of Greek life that most schoolchildren, especially those hoping to go to university, will at some stage need after-school tutoring; many parents can no longer afford the private tuition centres that for decades have met that demand.

Tutorpool is helping Vassilis Xanthopoulos, 11, who is dyslexic and has had extra private tuition since he was very young.

"Last year, we had to stop," said Harris, his father. "My business has practically collapsed, and my wife is earning half what she used to. It was ¤450 a month we no longer had. Vassilis started falling behind almost instantly. Tutorpool really saved us."

Warming as they are, though, such initiatives can't save everyone. Korina Hatzinikolaou is a developmental psychologist at the Athens Institute of Children's Health, which co-ordinates Greece's child healthcare provision.

Her salary has been cut by a third and hasn't been paid since December; she and her two small sons have had to move back in with her mother.

More alarmingly, the institute itself can no longer make ends meet and is threatened with closure; Greece's national neo-natal screening programme, among others the institute runs, is now at risk.

"There are limits to what ordinary people can do," Hatzinakolaou said.

"We can do much, but we cannot run a health system. At some point, a state has to say, 'You know what? This really matters. Let's all do it, together. Let's make it a priority.' But here in Greece, the social state is collapsing. I am really not sure how it will end."

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Greek crisis: precarious funding pushes health and social services to extremes

Use of volunteers and donations at state-funded refugee centre and psychiatric hospital reveal impact of low cash and high debts

As the volunteers unpack their shopping bags of rice, milk and cooking oil, Goman Badder retreats to the room he lives in with his wife and their one-year-old son. For the 28-year-old Syrian Kurd, the deliveries are a mixed blessing: he is relieved that his family will not go hungry, but humiliated that it has come to this. He had hoped for better things for his son, asleep on the neatly made bed.

"When I left Syria, I felt I didn't want him to be like me," he says. "But I never thought for him it would be like this: people bringing him Pampers and milk. If I'd known it would be like this I would never have brought him to this world."

His friend Salah Muhamed, a Kurdish teacher who fled the "hell" of Syria six months ago, did not mince his words. "In Syria, we will be killed by guns," he says. "Here, we will be killed by the economy."

For the past six months, this state-funded centre for asylum seekers has received no funding from the state. Its 25 staff members have not been paid since January. Due to its debts, the centre has "huge problems" with suppliers and the usual food deliveries stopped two weeks ago.

Some of the 225 residents thought the staff had gone on strike over pay but, as director Vasilis Lyritzis explains, they could simply not go on: "We just stopped cooking because we didn't have anything to cook. The moment that we have food, we cook again."

Even now, the inhabitants of the Lavrio centre, about 40 miles from Athens, are among the most fortunate of Greece's tens of thousands of asylum seekers, most of whom receive no support from the state and sleep rough in large, unsanitary slums in cities such as Athens.

But, as the debt crisis takes its toll on state services and the unpaid bills to suppliers mount up, Badder and Muhamed are being pushed to the extremes. And they are not the only ones. Across the country, some of Greece's most marginalised and vulnerable people who rely directly or indirectly on the state to feed them are now facing the possibility of having to turn to their neighbours for help.

On the island of Leros in the Dodeccanese, the governor of a psychiatric hospital has, in the past two weeks, like Lyritzis, found himself having to plead with suppliers to keep bringing food, despite an almost complete inability to pay them. Yiannis Antartis's suppliers stopped for a week, after which he found enough money to pay them each ¤15,000 (£12,000) – enough to encourage them to restart but far from enough to cover the hospital's total debts to them of ¤1.25m.

Antartis believes he has about a month to find money to pay the debts and protect the 400 patients, who have a range of mental illnesses, from depression to dementia and schizophrenia. Owed about ¤13m by its debt-ridden health insurance funds, the hospital, which is already sending samples to private labs for want of sufficient facilities, will soon be struggling for the basics, he said.

"If we don't receive money within three to five weeks we're going to have a real problem – for food, for medicines, for hospital supplies, bandages, even the basics," he says. "All levels of the hospital are going to start breaking down.

"My primary concern is to receive enough money to pay some outstanding bills in order to keep the hospital going, from the insurance funds, from the state, from wherever, just to be able to keep the hospital going. I am really worried about the fact that the hospital will not be able to function normally if we don't receive payment."

His position will be met with sympathy by the director of a state hospice in the Kypseli neighbourhood of Athens, who said last week that, as well as medicine shortages and an inability to pay energy bills, the institution had had no meat or chicken since 1 June.

Antartis has been the hospital's governor on and off since the 1980s, when it was revealed to be keeping patients naked and chained to their beds. He is adamant the institution bears no semblance to its former self. In 1988, he says, 1,600 patients were "piled up" in wards and looked after by fewer staff than today. Now, 120 of the 400 patients live relatively normal lives outside the hospital.

But, last week, Antartis was so concerned about supplies that he wrote to the health ministry and major political parties warning that patients were being poorly fed. Since then, he has managed to get the supplies coming in again and has met Greece's caretaker health minister, who, he says, showed understanding and promised a ¤150,000 payment by the end of June.

"But he [the minister] emphasised that the insurance funds do not have any money and that the hospitals have to keep every penny in order to keep going," Antartis says. Given the size of the debts and the interest rates on them, ¤150,000 "doesn't cover anything".

The inability of health insurance funds to pay their debts has caused chaos in the healthcare system, contributing to a shortage of medicines and the closure of dozens of commercial pharmacies.

Antartis is relieved the hospital managed to resolve – albeit temporarily – the problem with food supplies without the patients realising anything was wrong. But he remains concerned, particularly about medical supplies, as that is one area in which Leros's community, as active and kind as it is, will not be able to help. "I think the local people will help with food," he says. "But even that is going to be a problem at some point because for how long are they going to be able to help?"

One place where Greeks have reportedly already stepped in to fill the gap left by the state is Corinth, where the prison has had food shortages and people have started collecting goods for the inmates. Another is Lavrio, where donations have been keeping food on the table for the asylum seekers and refugees, among whom Lyritzis estimates there are 75-80 children. Some of the volunteers are hardly well-off themselves: Nadia, one of the members of a people's assembly from Athens which dropped off food at the weekend, is on Greece's new unemployment benefit of ¤360 a month and has had to go back to live with her mother.

"¤40 or ¤50 just means I won't go out for a couple of days," she shrugs, loading bags of groceries into a waiting car.

Lyritzis, an employee of the Hellenic Red Cross which runs the centre, says the finance ministry has been unable to tell him when, or if, its funding might come. He says the centre had an estimated five days of food supplies left and he is in a very bad psychological state.

For Badder, who came to Greece in 2010 after alleged persecution due to his Kurdish ethnicity, that would be good news.

But if the situation is not alleviated, he would like to see the responsibility for his centre fall to a power outside Greece. He says: "The Greek people are very, very good. They look after us. But the Greeks have no money. Why must the Greeks bring us food? We are in Europe, not just Greece."

As the volunteers busied themselves in the courtyard, unpacking tins, toiletries and cartons of milk, he says: "The people here are so nice. We can't tell them: 'Don't bring food because we are ashamed'. We must say 'Thank you'. But we feel bad."

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Grieken plunderen massaal bankrekeningen

Grieken hebben in de afgelopen dagen massaal geld van hun bankrekeningen gehaald. Ze zijn bang dat de financiële instellingen omvallen als anti-Europese partijen zondag de verkiezingen winnen en Griekenland terugtrekken uit de euro.


Volgens bankiers zagen de grote banken dagelijks 500 tot 800 miljoen euro aan tegoeden verdwijnen. Bij kleine banken werd 10 tot 30 miljoen euro weggehaald.

Dat geld werd deels contant opgenomen, overgeboekt of doorgesluisd naar valutabeleggingen. Ook werd het geld gestoken in Duitse en Amerikaanse staatsobligaties en obligaties van de Europese Investeringsbank.

Winkeliers signaleerden hamstergedrag bij de Griekse bevolking. Vooral pasta en ingeblikte etenswaar vonden gretig aftrek.

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Greek police block riot police in anti-austerity protest

(Reuters) - Greek police protesting against austerity cuts blocked the entrance to the riot police headquarters on Thursday, preventing buses carrying riot police from leaving for the site of major demonstrations this weekend.


Scuffles broke out as riot police tried to clear the entrance of several dozen police union members - many in uniform - chanting anti-austerity slogans and holding banners.

"They would not let riot police buses depart for Thessaloniki," a police official said, referring to the northern city hosting a weekend trade fair where anti-austerity demonstrations are planned.

Some riot police appeared reluctant to tackle uniformed officers. "They make us fight against our own brothers," said one riot policeman who declined to be named.

The government plans to slash police pay in a new round of spending cuts worth nearly 12 billion euros over the next two years. The savings plan is expected to provoke new street protests in the coming weeks by austerity-weary Greeks fed up with repeated wage and pension cuts.

Police, firefighters and coast guard officers plan to hold a separate protest later on Thursday in central Athens.

^{(Reporting by Yannis Behrakis and Tatiana Fragou, writing by Deepa Babington, editing by Tim Pearce)}

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Op dinsdag 6 maart 2012 13:56 schreef betyar het volgende:

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En dan heb je gemiddeld 11 bovenwettelijke? Heb je de verlofdagen in andere landen meegenomen? Nemen we voor de aardigheid even het vaderverlof Nederland telt daar wel twee hele dagen vooruit los van de geboortedag (maar ja je bent veelal aan het werk) en de dag om je kind aan te geven. Nemen we even wat andere landen:

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Zwangerschapsverlof voor mama is hier 16 weken,

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Wat nu bijzonder verlof?

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Primary Greek tax evaders are the professional classes

Greece is riddled with corruption, but a study shows that banks, politicians and professional workers are largely to blame

There is one good reason for Greece to stay in the euro: to combat corruption. It is a sad fact that the country is riddled with it and needs outside pressure and support to sort things out. Athens is not the only place in Europe wrestling with corruption, but we'll come to that later.

Even if Greece and its prime minister, Antonis Samaras, could overcome the huge loss of pride and reap some of the economic benefits of quitting the single currency, they would still be left with a corrupt economy, much of which strengthens the power of unions and trade associations.

City economists tend to ignore the problem when they assess the pros and cons of euro membership. They have arrived at the collective opinion that leaving the eurozone is the best, if not the only, option for Athens. Central to the argument is that an independent drachma would immediately be devalued, making Greek exports more competitive and at a stroke wiping out many, if not all, of the country's debts.

There is also a political dimension that is centre stage at the moment, following proposals for closer union and control from Brussels and, in Greece's case, by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Yet these economists ignore the challenges that beset a nation where very few people pay their taxes, where public-sector jobs are secured through family ties and where contracts for work, public or private, are rarely signed without someone in a position of power asking for a backhander.

Greek banks are at the centre of the problem, as in Italy and Spain, where bankers perpetuate all the worst corrupt practices.

Martin Sandbu, chief leader writer on economics at the Financial Times, recently chided the southern Europeans for not jumping at the chance to join a European banking union. He argued that the loss of control over a crucial pillar of the economy to a higher EU authority was worth it when set against the chance to end the insidious and corrupt relationship between bankers, politicians and the professional classes, which had so far proved impossible to break.

It may seem conspiratorial to argue that corruption is at the heart of the Greek malaise, but it is one of the main reasons Berlin is adamant Athens has had all the help it is going to get, without some evidence the cuts are going through. For German politicians, cuts to sacred state subsidies and increases in tax revenues are a crude indicator that corruption is being tackled, however tentatively.

Supporting the view that Greece is beyond helping itself, an in-depth study of how Greek banks, politicians and professional workers behave was published last week by two economists from the Booth school of business at the University of Chicago and a Greek academic based at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Interestingly, their report, Tax Evasion Across Industries: Soft Credit Evidence From Greece, which documents the hidden, non-taxed economy, blames the current malaise not on dodgy taxi drivers or moonlighting refuse collectors, but on the professional classes.

They found that ¤28bn (£22.4bn) of tax was evaded in 2009 by self-employed people alone.

As GDP that year was ¤235bn and the total tax base was just ¤98bn, it is clear that this was a significant sum. At a tax rate of 40%, it amounted to almost half the country's budget deficit in 2008, and 31% in 2009.

The chief offenders are professionals in medicine, engineering, education, accounting, financial services and law. Among the self-employed documented in the report are accountants, dentists, lawyers, doctors, personal tutors and independent financial advisers.

The authors, Adair Morse and Margarita Tsoutsoura from the Booth school of business and Nikolaos Artavanis from Virginia Tech, were given unprecedented access to the records of one of the top 10 Greek banks. They found that, when professionals approached the bank for a loan or mortgage, their tax returns showed their debts almost exceeded their incomes ( debt payments ate up 82% of their incomes). For the beleaguered tax authority, this meant their income was too low to qualify for income tax.

On average, they found the true income of self-employed people to be 1.92 times their reported income. Under generally accepted loan criteria, home ownership figure than the UK (80% versus 68%).

customers would need to show that their debts, after their mortgage payments were taken into consideration, were less than 30% of their income.

Of course, several countries lost control of banking regulation in the runup to the financial crash, including the UK, Ireland and Spain. But it is noticeable that the two countries that have so far done the least about the corrupt relationship between banks and their customers – Greece and Spain – are the two countries in the worst trouble.

Unlike Ireland, which has exposed a wealth of corrupt practices, Spain continues to hide the extent of its bad loans, especially to property developers who are friends of the bank chiefs who sanctioned their loans.

To emphasise the global scale of the problem, the authors point out that World Bank studies show that 52% of corporations worldwide hide some of their income from the tax authorities, and 36% of European companies do so. Corruption is everywhere as companies and individuals seek to preserve their status, incomes and standard of living.

Brussels, while enforcing strict rules on Athens, has struggled to contain the rampant corruption that infects its own business and farming subsidies. With that in mind, it may seem a bit rich to lecture the Greeks, but an appreciation of paradox has never been the eurocracy's strong point.

The Greeks have begun to crack down on tax evasion. Only this weekend, raids on 11 people found tens of millions of euros' worth of undeclared property and assets in New York, London and various offshore tax havens.

The Greek finance ministry's financial crimes unit conducted the raids, and says it has many other groups in its sights.

However, broader attempts to crack down on the professions were blocked last year by the Greek parliament. MPs voted against a bill mandating tax audits on people who had incomes below a minimum threshold. The bill targeted 11 professions, including vets, architects, engineers, economists, doctors, lawyers and accountants.

The authors found, almost as an aside to their central examination of tax evasion, that the occupations represented in parliament "are very much those that evade tax, even beyond lawyers".

They said: "Half of non-lawyer parliamentarians are in the top three tax-evading industries, and nearly a super-majority in the top four evading industries."

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Voorstel trojka: Griekse werkweek van 13 uur per dag, 6 dagen per week

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Deskundigen van de missie die in Athene moet toezien op het Griekse financiële beleid, de trojka van Europese Unie, de Europese Centrale Bank en het IMF, willen dat de Grieken die een baan hebben, meer kunnen werken.

Daarbij denken ze aan 6 dagen per week en 13 uur per dag. Ze dringen aan op liberalisering van de arbeidsmarkt, onder meer met de mogelijkheid 78 uur per week te werken in plaats van 40 uur in de huidige officiële werkweek.

The Matrix: Prison for your Mind - The Rabbit Hole

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Arbeiders bestormen ministerie van Defensie in Athene

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De arbeiders wisten door de omheining te breken, maar kwamen het gebouw niet binnen. Ze scandeerden leuzen als 'dieven, dieven!' De oproerpolitie probeerde met wapenstok en traangas de menigte uiteen te drijven en ging later tot massale arrestaties over. Door de chaotische confrontatie raakte het verkeer rond het ministerie ontregeld.

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Greek anti-fascist protesters 'tortured by police' after Golden Dawn clash

Fifteen people arrested in Athens says they were subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation

Fifteen anti-fascist protesters arrested in Athens during a clash with supporters of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn have said they were tortured in the Attica General Police Directorate (GADA) – the Athens equivalent of Scotland Yard – and subjected to what their lawyer describes as an Abu Ghraib-style humiliation.

Members of a second group of 25 who were arrested after demonstrating in support of their fellow anti-fascists the next day said they were beaten and made to strip naked and bend over in front of officers and other protesters inside the same police station.

Several of the protesters arrested after the first demonstration on Sunday 30 September told the Guardian they were slapped and hit by a police officer while five or six others watched, were spat on and "used as ashtrays" because they "stank", and were kept awake all night with torches and lasers being shone in their eyes.

Some said they were burned on the arms with a cigarette lighter, and they said police officers videoed them on their mobile phones and threatened to post the pictures on the internet and give their home addresses to Golden Dawn, which has a track record of political violence.

Golden Dawn's popularity has surged since the June election, when it won 18 seats in parliament; it recently came third in several opinion polls, behind the conservative New Democracy and the leftwing party Syriza.

Last month the Guardian reported that victims of crime have been told by police officers to seek help from Golden Dawn, who then felt obliged to make donations to the group.

One of the two women among them said the officers used crude sexual insults and pulled her head back by the hair when she tried to avoid being filmed. The protesters said they were denied drinking water and access to lawyers for 19 hours. "We were so thirsty we drank water from the toilets," she said.

One man with a bleeding head wound and a broken arm that he said had been sustained during his arrest alleged the police continued to beat him in GADA and refused him medical treatment until the next morning. Another said the police forced his legs apart and kicked him in the testicles during the arrest.

"They spat on me and said we would die like our grandfathers in the civil war," he said.

A third said he was hit on the spine with a Taser as he tried to run away; the burn mark is still visible. "It's like an electric shock," he said. "My legs were paralysed for a few minutes and I fell. They handcuffed me behind my back and started hitting and kicking me in the ribs and the head. Then they told me to stand up, but I couldn't, so they pulled me up by the chain while standing on my shin. They kept kicking and punching me for five blocks to the patrol car."

The protesters asked that their names not be published, for fear of reprisals from the police or Golden Dawn.

A second group of protesters also said they were "tortured" at GADA. "We all had to go past an officer who made us strip naked in the corridor, bend over and open our back passage in front of everyone else who was there," one of them told the Guardian. "He did whatever he wanted with us – slapped us, hit us, told us not to look at him, not to sit cross-legged. Other officers who came by did nothing.

"All we could do was look at each other out of the corners of our eyes to give each other courage. He had us there for more than two hours. He would take phone calls on his mobile and say, 'I'm at work and I'm fucking them, I'm fucking them up well'. In the end only four of us were charged, with resisting arrest. It was a day out of the past, out of the colonels' junta."

In response to the allegations, Christos Manouras, press spokesman for the Hellenic police, said: "There was no use of force by police officers against anyone in GADA. The Greek police examine and investigate in depth every single report regarding the use of violence by police officers; if there are any responsibilities arising, the police take the imposed disciplinary action against the officers responsible. There is no doubt that the Greek police always respect human rights and don't use violence."

Sunday's protest was called after a Tanzanian community centre was vandalised by a group of 80-100 people in a central Athens neighbourhood near Aghios Panteleimon, a stronghold of Golden Dawn where there have been many violent attacks on immigrants.

According to protesters, about 150 people rode through the neighbourhood on motorcycles handing out leaflets. They said the front of the parade encountered two or three men in black Golden Dawn T-shirts, and a fight broke out. A large number of police immediately swooped on them from the surrounding streets.

According to Manouras: "During the motorcycle protest there were clashes between demonstrators and local residents. The police intervened to prevent the situation from deteriorating and restore public order. There might have been some minor injuries, during the clashes between residents, protesters and police."

Marina Daliani, a lawyer for one of the Athens 15, said they had been charged with "disturbing the peace with covered faces" (because they were wearing motorcycle helmets), and with grievous bodily harm against two people. But, she said, no evidence of such harm had so far been submitted. They have now been released on bail of ¤3,000 (£2,400) each.

According to Charis Ladis, a lawyer for another of the protesters, the sustained mistreatment of Greeks in police custody has been rare until this year: "This case shows that a page has been turned. Until now there was an assumption that someone who was arrested, even violently, would be safe in custody. But these young people have all said they lived through an interminable dark night.

Dimitris Katsaris, a lawyer for four of the protesters, said his clients had suffered Abu Ghraib-style humiliation, referring to the detention centre where Iraqi detainees were tortured by US soldiers during the Iraq war. "This is not just a case of police brutality of the kind you hear about now and then in every European country. This is happening daily. We have the pictures, we have the evidence of what happens to people getting arrested protesting against the rise of the neo-Nazi party in Greece. This is the new face of the police, with the collaboration of the justice system."

One of the arrested protesters, a quiet man in his 30s standing by himself, said: "Journalists here don't report these things. You have to tell them what's happening here, in this country that suffered so much from Nazism. No one will pay attention unless you report these things abroad."

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Golden Dawn has infiltrated Greek police, claims officer

Officer says government has turned blind eye to fascists and far right may be being used to provoke clashes with demonstrators

A senior Greek police officer has claimed that the far-right Golden Dawn party has infiltrated the police at various levels. He has laid the blame on consecutive governments and the leadership of the police force for turning a blind eye to what he describes as "pockets of fascism".

Speaking to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, the officer said the Greek state had been fully aware of the activities of Golden Dawn for several years, with the National Intelligence Service and other security agencies monitoring it closely. The officer claimed police chiefs had had the opportunity to isolate and remove these small "pockets of fascism" in the force but decided not to. The state, he said, wanted to keep the fascist elements "in reserve" and use them for its own purposes.

The officer said he believed that Golden Dawn members could be used against the Greek left, which has led popular street protests against the government and austerity measures imposed by the EU. He expressed his belief that neo-fascist groups may already have acted as agents provocateurs during demonstrations across the country, to provoke clashes between demonstrators and the police or even between demonstrators themselves.

A spokesman for the Greek police, Christos Manouras, denied the police were using or being used by "any political formation against any other". Manouras rejected the existence of "pockets of fascism" within the force and said no unlawful behaviour would be tolerated.

He conceded that "individual cases can be found everywhere and at any workplace". But he added: "It is unfair for the Greek police force to be accused with no evidence that they tolerate or support specific actions or to be identified with certain [political] beliefs … You should note that – in accordance with the constitution and laws of the Greek republic – only illegal acts can be prosecuted and punished. The same does not apply for political positions, even if characterised as 'extreme' by the other parties and the overwhelming majority of public opinion."

Golden Dawn won 6.9% of the vote in elections in June, taking 18 seats in parliament, but a recent opinion poll conducted by research company VPRC suggested the party had doubled its support since then.

Human rights groups have accused the Greek police of being sympathetic to, or acting in collusion with, the group, and earlier this week a report of the Racist Violence Recording Network, a group consisting of 23 NGOs and the UN high commissioner for refugees, highlighted violent incidents in which police and racist violence overlapped.

"These incidents concern duty officers who resort to illegal acts and violent practices while carrying out routine checks," says the report. "There are also instances where people were brought to police stations, were detained and maltreated for a few hours, as well as cases where legal documents were destroyed during these operations."

Kostis Papaioannou, former head of the Greek national commission for human rights, said: "On some occasions there is a blurred line between Golden Dawn and the police." Allegations of collusion resurfaced after anti-fascist protesters told the Guardian they had been "tortured by police" after clashes with Golden Dawn supporters. The minister of public order, Nikos Dendias, has denied the allegations.

The officer who spoke to the Guardian accused the government of abandoning Greek police officers and thus creating the conditions for Golden Dawn to infiltrate the force. "These policemen feel unappreciated and isolated. They are badly paid, they work under the worst conditions and they look for support," he said, adding that they found it among the neo-Nazi community.

He also called on the ministry of public order to disclose reports of the internal affairs division, which he said showed cases of police brutality. "We should never accept policemen who attack journalists from behind," he said, referring to an attack on the president of the Greek photojournalists' union, who was taken to hospital with a brain injury last May.

The press officer of the Hellenic police restated the ministry's commitment to establishing a special response team to combat racist violence.

Several cases of violent attacks carried out in the presence of Golden Dawn MPs have been reported recently, including the storming of flea markets and an incident in which stones were thrown, and racist abuse hurled, at audience members during the Athens premiere of Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi.

Earlier this year, Liana Kanelli, an outspoken Communist party MP, was assaulted during a live TV talkshow by Ilias Kasidiaris, Golden Dawn's spokesman, in an incident that made headlines around the world.

This week the Greek parliament voted in favour of lifting the immunity of three Golden Dawn MPs who could now face trial for suspected violent attacks and allegedly assisting in a robbery. Among them is Kasidiaris, who has claimed he is the victim of political persecution.

Kanelli characterised Golden Dawn as an "ideological and political pimp" serving "a mission that the system assigned to it". According to Kanelli, immigrants were just the first victims of the party, which also threatens workers and has attempted to infiltrate unions.

"If an employer wants to blackmail you, he threatens to call Golden Dawn," said Javed Aslam, a leader of the Pakistani community in Greece.

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Griekse journalist gearresteerd wegens publicatie ‘Lagarde-lijst’

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Een Griekse journalist,Costas Vaxevanis, is vandaag gearresteerd omdat hij een lijst heeft gepubliceerd met tweeduizend namen van Grieken die belasting zouden ontduiken. De Griekse regering heeft de lijst naar verluidt in 2010 gekregen van Christine Lagarde, destijds Franse minister van financiën, nu directeur van het Internationaal Monetair Fonds.

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“Ik heb niets anders gedaan dan wat een journalist behoort te doen. Ik heb de waarheid blootgelegd die zij (de regering, red.) verborgen hielden. Als iemand verantwoordelijk is voor de wet, dan zijn het de ministers die de lijst verborgen hielden, verloren en vervolgens zeiden dat hij niet bestaat. Ik heb alleen mijn werk gedaan.”

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Greek journalists warn over press freedom

Tension rises between Greek government and media after TV presenters are suspended over criticism of public order minister

Greek journalists have warned that press freedom was under unprecedented attack, with critics being suspended or put on trial by a precarious coalition government struggling to push through an economic austerity programme as a way of attracting foreign funds.

The clash between the government and the press appeared to be nearing a crisis with a strike due to start on Tuesday on state television (ERT) over the suspension of two popular presenters for mild criticism of a minister. Meanwhile, the editor of an investigative magazine went on trial on Monday for publishing a list of some 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts who the government has yet to investigate for possible tax evasion.

Dimitris Trimis, the head of the Athens Newspaper Editors Union said the current pressure on press freedom was the most intense of his career. "This is a matter of democracy," Trimis said. "The government feels insecure. The only way it feels it can convince society of its policies is to try to manipulate the media through coercion.

"This is true of both state television and in the private sector of the media where there has been a large number of lost jobs and wage cuts and so it has become easier to manipulate in the interests of the government and the economic elite."

Marilena Katsimi and Kostas Arvanitis were summarily dropped from their morning magazine programme on ERT after discussing the reaction of the public order minister, Nikos Dendias to a Guardian report on claims by anti-fascist demonstrators that they had been tortured by the police. Katsimi said on air that Dendias had not carried out his threat to sue the Guardian over the article because the medical examiners report "shows that there was indeed a crime." She described Dendias's actions as "strange" but did not think he would resign.

"About an hour after the programme ended, the director of information called for a transcript. He didn't ask to talk to us. And it was then announced that two other journalists would present tomorrow's show. We were cut," Katsimi told the Guardian.

"The style of the programme is very informal. It is a morning conversation over a cup of coffee and it is very popular with high ratings. We have been critical of ministers in the past from all parties, and there have been complaints to the management before but this is new. This is threat to public and private media."

Katsimi said the journalists' suspension was one of several "peculiar things" to have happened at ERT recently. "Everywhere in media people are being fired, but at ERT they are hiring. The government want people who agree with their position and they want to hire their friends."

ERT journalists are planning an initial two-hour strike from 6am on Tuesday, to be followed by 24-hour strikes until the suspension of Katsimi and Arvanitis is revoked.

Aimilios Liatsos, ERT's general director for news issued a statement on Monday claiming that the two journalists had "violated the basic rules of journalistic practice". He added that they had made "unacceptable insinuations" against Dendias without giving him an opportunity to express his view, "while their comments appeared to anticipate the results of a court decision".

Another prominent journalist, Kostas Vaxevanis, went on trial on Monday for publishing a leaked list of about 2,000 wealthy Greeks with Swiss bank accounts, who may face investigation for tax evasion.

The list was seized from a computer technician at HSBC bank in Geneva, who was suspected of trying to sell it, and was originally supplied to the Greek government in 2010 by the then French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, now head of the International Monetary Fund. However, the Greek finance ministry failed to act on the list for two years before it was leaked to Vaxevanis's Hot Doc magazine.

The case has triggered an uproar in Athens, where the speed of Vaxevanis arrest and trial – within three days of charges being pressed – has been contrasted with the many years it has taken the government to pursue rich Greek tax evaders.

On emerging from court where the trial was adjourned, Vaxevanis was greeted by cheers from a crowd of about 250, mostly journalists.

"I was doing my job in the name of the public interest," the journalist said. "Journalism is revealing the truth when everyone else is trying to hide it."

The Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe expressed concern about the Vaxevanis's brief arrest on Sunday. "I am relieved that Vaxevanis was released from custody after a brief detention, and trust that he will now be tried in a transparent manner considering the acute public interest in the case," OSCE media freedom representative Dunja Mijatovic said.

"It is the responsibility of media as the watchdog of democracy to disclose information in the public interest, even if it is considered sensitive by some."

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Greek Lagarde list publisher accused without reason, court told

Journalists and other supporters pack courtroom in Athens as lawyers for Kostas Vaxevanis open defence case

Lawyers for a journalist who published the names of more than 2,000 wealthy Greeks believed to be holding Swiss bank accounts have argued he should not be on trial.

Kostas Vaxevanis, editor of Hot Doc, a weekly magazine, was surrounded by fellow journalists and other supporters who packed the courtroom in Athens as his lawyers began their defence.

They said he had been charged without any of those on the so-called Lagarde list having filed a complaint about privacy violation, a rare occurrence in a freedom of speech or defamation case in Greece.

"He's been accused without reason," said Nicos Constantopoulous, Vaxevanis's lawyer and a former leftist politician. "The principles of a fair trial are not being followed."

Vaxevanis's arrest and trial following publication at the weekend has enraged many people already furious over consecutive governments' failure to crack down on a rich elite whom they blame for years of recession.

Under Greek laws covering sensitive data, a defendant must stand trial within 48 hours if arrested within a day of charges being filed in absentia. Vaxevanis could face up to two years in prison if convicted.

He has said he received the list – named after the International Monetary Fund head, Christine Lagarde, who gave it to authorities in several EU countries in 2010 when she was French finance minister – from an anonymous source.

The daily Ta Nea newspaper also published the 2,059 names, which include those of several politicians as well as many businessmen, shipping magnates, doctors and lawyers. It said the accounts had held about ¤2bn until 2007, but also made clear there was no evidence that any of the account holders had broken tax evasion laws.

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Griekse journalist vrijgesproken na publicatie lijst belastingontduikers

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De rechtbank in Athene gaf geen uitleg bij het vonnis. De uitspraak werd door velen op de voet gevolgd. Aanhangers van Vaxevenis schilerden het proces af als een test voor de Griekse persvrijheid. Bij de Griekse publieke omroep ERT is dinsdag gestaakt voor persvrijheid.

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Greece is governed by a corrupt clique, says Kostas Vaxevanis

Acquitted Greek editor adds that only foreign media stopped news of arrest over publication of 'Lagarde list' being buried

Greece is undergoing a crisis of democracy with press censorship at its centre, says the magazine editor in the middle of the media storm that has engulfed Athens. Speaking to the Guardian a day after being cleared of breaching privacy laws, Kostas Vaxevanis said Greece was ruled by a clique of corrupt politicians in thrall to businessmen who owned – and gagged – the media.

"There's a huge problem in Greece, a problem of democracy and essence," he said in his fifth-floor office, surrounded by copies of Hot Doc, the investigative magazine that last week published the names of more than 2,000 high-earning Greeks with bank accounts in Switzerland. "The country is governed by a poisonous combination of politicians, businessmen and journalists who cover one another's backs. Every day laws are changed, or new laws are voted in, to legitimise illegal deeds."

With a substantial chunk of the Greek media owned by magnates or financed by banks, journalists were in effect silenced. "It's tragic. Greeks only ever learn half the truth and that is worse than lies because it has the effect of creating impressions," he said.

"Had it not been for the foreign media taking such an interest in my own story, it would have been buried. With few exceptions, hardly any of the Greek media bothered to report that I was acquitted, when CNN and the BBC were breaking into their news broadcasts to do so. The international media is playing the role it played during the [1967-74] dictatorship, when Greeks would listen to foreign outlets to find out what was really going on in this country."

The 46-year-old, who set up Hot Doc with ¤5,000 of his own money six months ago, said that while independent journalism was difficult in Greece, his vindication had been a victory for freedom of the press and a justice system also besmirched by accusations of corruption.

Politicians had had more than two years to act on the list, handed to Greek authorities by the IMF head, Christine Lagarde, who was then French finance minister, but had not investigated it.

"Lagarde gave similar lists to Germany, France, Spain and Italy, and in each of those countries it was acted on and revenues in turn were accrued. Here, they are constantly saying they will deal with tax evasion, because it is the root of our country's economic problems, and they did absolutely nothing because there are people on the list who are friends of those in power," he said.

Vowing to tackle the establishment "because that is what Greeks want," Vaxevanis insisted Hot Doc would continue unearthing scandals. "The political elite have got used to the mainstream press not annoying them, but investigation is what we do," he said, looking tired, if relieved, after several sleepless nights.

"I don't think the decision to bring me before the court was the work of an overzealous prosecutor. I think it was very deliberate and very vindictive.

"No one knew my whereabouts the day I was arrested and suddenly there were 50 state security operatives surrounding the house, which would suggest my phone was being monitored. When the prosecutor came, he didn't even have a proper arrest warrant. But what I will never forget is how so many of the police who were present that day actually congratulated me for doing what I had done."

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Eurozone crisis live: Thousands protest peacefully during Greek general strike - as it happened

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Alas, it appears that Athens hasn't been quite as peaceful as we'd hoped.

Not only was a car set alight in the Athens district of Exarchia, but the fire engine that went to its aid was then attacked with molotov cocktails.

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While today's demonstrations were taking place in Greece, the European Union was being criticised by its auditors for failing to run its accounts properly.

For the 18th year in a row, the EU's auditors refused to sign off its accounts. It said that almost 4% of funds were wasted in the last financial year.

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Rellen in Athene terwijl parlement stemt over bezuinigingen

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Terwijl het Griekse parlement binnen debatteert over de recente bezuinigingsmaatregelen, raakten demonstreren Grieken vanavond opnieuw slaags met de met de oproerpolitie. Er werden benzinebommen en stenen naar de politie gegooid, die dat beantwoordde met ‘schokgranaten’ en traangas.

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Op woensdag 7 november 2012 21:21 schreef Paper_Tiger het volgende:
De Grieken zijn slachtoffer van de graaiers. Onze beurt komt nog....

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 14:51 schreef betyar het volgende:

[..]

Fixed.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 14:52 schreef Paper_Tiger het volgende:

[..]

Dat zei ik ook al.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 16:10 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

[..]

Precies, de banken en buitenlandse regeringen hebben eerlijk gestemd dat het deze regering moest worden.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 16:23 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

[..]

Zoals jij en ik voor Barroso en Van Rompuy hebben gestemd.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 16:53 schreef Weltschmerz het volgende:

[..]



Rust zacht democratie, het volk snapt het niet en wil het niet snappen. Geef ze een hokje en een potlood en dan zijn ze helemaal gelukkig want dan kunnen ze 'hun mening geven' en daar kun je dan vervolgens je kont mee afvegen zoals met elke mening.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 15:43 schreef betyar het volgende:

[..]

Graaiers hoeven niet alleen tot de overheid te horen.

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 18:57 schreef Paper_Tiger het volgende:

[..]

Nee bij de semi overheid vind je ze ook...

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Op vrijdag 9 november 2012 18:57 schreef Paper_Tiger het volgende:

[..]

Nee bij de semi overheid vind je ze ook...

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Griekse oud-minister in opspraak

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De Griekse regering steunt een verzoek voor een parlementair onderzoek naar oud-minister van Financiën George Papaconstantinou. Aanklagers ontdekten dat de namen van zijn familieleden van een lijst met mogelijke belastingfraudeurs waren geschrapt, toen Papaconstantinou minister was.

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De zogeheten 'Lagarde-lijst' is een elektronisch bestand met de namen van zo'n 2000 Grieken met Zwitserse bankrekeningen. De lijst is in 2010 door de toenmalige Franse minister van Financiën Christine Lagarde aan Griekenland overhandigd.

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Hevigheid politiek geweld Griekenland neemt toe

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Het politieke geweld in Griekenland wordt erger. In de nacht van zondag op maandag hebben onbekenden het hoofdkantoor van de regerende partij Nieuwe Democratie met kalasjnikovs beschoten. Een van de kogels kwam terecht in de werkkamer van premier Antonis Samaras, die hij nog wel aanhoudt, maar niet meer gebruikt. 'Dit is een nieuwe, zorgwekkende uitbreiding van de inspanning om de samenleving angst aan te jagen', aldus een regeringswoordvoerder.

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Bomaanslag in Griekse hoofdstad Athene – ‘twee gewonden’

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In een winkelcentrum Athene is vanochtend om elf uur een bom ontploft. Griekse media kregen vijftig minuten van tevoren anonieme telefoontjes over de aanslag. Twee beveiligingsmensen raakten gewond.

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Entrepreneurship and the "Sharing Economy" In Greece

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As the state and other large institutions continue to crumble in Greece, ordinary citizens have established all kinds of informal enterprises to scrape by. This mix of mutual aid and small-scale entrepreneurship has caught the eye of the BBC, which this week published an interesting account of one facet of that grassroots creativity: micro-cookeries.