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This article was published June 20, 2015 at 15:33.
The shadow of capital controls, as happened in Cyprus in 2013, hangs heavily over Athens. Four billion euro last week, of which 1.2 billion yesterday, according to Reuters, have been withdrawn from Greek bank accounts, without fanfare and with orderly queues before ATMs of major banks in the capital: Eurobank Ergasias, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank and Alpha Bank. Figures marking storm front 200-300 million euro a day of average withdrawals from current accounts in recent weeks.
So bank deposits fell (but be careful not an official declaration), its lowest for over 10 years in Greece to 125 billion euro is estimated from 133 billion euro in April, and 160 in December last from 239 billion in December 2009. Based on some reports gathered during the last meeting of the Eurogroup in Luxembourg, that Benoît Coeuré, French member of the Board of the ECB, would have speculated on the possibility that Greek banks could not open Mondays, in day extraordinary summit of European, many Greeks have questioned whether or not institutions Hellenic open the doors at the beginning of next week.
Hypothesis closing flatly denied by Yanis Varoufakis, Minister of Finance of the Athenian government and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said not to like the alarm on the need to hurry to reach an agreement, launched by Yannis Stournaras, greek governor and former finance minister in the previous conservative government of Samaras. Greek banks, as well as on deposits, can only rely on the funds Ela (Emergency liquidity assistance) administered by the Central Bank at the request of the Central Bank of Greece. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean country is more and more quiet operation at the counter for fear of a default later this month and a possible Grexit, the output of the euro Athens. It’s scary uncertainty about whether an agreement with international creditors for granting the last installment of a 7.2 billion euro second bailout whose extension expires at the end of June. But there are also fears for the future of the country stay in the euro and for the possibility of measures to “Cypriot” that might target their bank accounts, blocking as happened in March 2013 Cyprus capital movements.
The small investors fear is the capital controls is the gradual introduction of surreptitious forms of payment (the IOU, promissory notes issued by the state) that could lead to a possible devaluation of the drachma by 40% of the new currency if there It should be an agreement with the creditors. Many think even the possibility of an agreement-bridge, which will guide the country until next autumn and there finally find a permanent solution to the crisis. In April, according to data from the Bank of Greece, the total amount of deposits held by businesses and households had shrunk to 133.6, and, now speaks of 127 billion euro. This is the lowest level since December 2004. These figures show that capital flight, among others and downs, has never really stopped.
At the beginning of the crisis in 2009 the banks had EUR 240 billion of deposits. Now the banks are under pressure and rely only on the liquidity of the ECB through the Ela, an emergency channel continuously reviewed each week by the board of Frankfurt. The introduction of capital controls would be a blow to the heart for the promising tourist season that sees millions of visitors already on the launching pad for the Greek islands. Tourism, along with the sea freight is a key sector of the country, which accounts for almost 17% of the Greek GDP that has since lost 25% of its value because of the austerity cure.
In a climate increasingly incandescentead Athens, must be reported, the denial of the greek Minister for Reconstruction, Environment and Energy Panagiotis Lafazanis, leader of the left wing Syriza, of “scare stories” that he would charge the company Hellenic Petroleum (Elpe) to prepare an emergency plan to ensure oil supplies in the country for nine months if Greece were forced to leave the euro. Lafazanis argued that the Elpe has a policy of planning and maintenance for oil reserves as required by the EU. Everything else, he added, is “intended to terrorize the people greek” and serves only “intentions unacceptable.”
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