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Troika admits failure

imfAs the final Troika representative Albert Jaeger leaves Portugal, quietly closing the door behind him, his parting comments addressed the failure of the bailout process to reduce the country’s debt, mainly because much of it was skillfully hidden and only came to light after the money had been advanced.

Jaeger, adopting the eurospeak beloved of his cadre, said rather delicately that there had been a ‘weaker adjustment than expected’ and that he was disappointed at Portugal’s economic growth.

In an exit interview with Diário Económico published today, the last official representative of the Troika rescue mission admitted that not everything had gone as expected in the bailout programme.

"The private and public sector debt levels have only been stabilised, not reduced significantly, and growth has fallen short," said Albert Jaeger, blaming some rather unpleasant surprises found in the State accounts,

“Too much debt that had been hidden, appeared. It was something that had not been anticipated."

September 1st is the official departure date for this last member of the Troika, much to the government's relief, but the trio of Portugal’s major lenders will be ‘keeping an eye on the accounts.’

 

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Comments  

+1 #7 dw 2015-09-02 11:05
That the Troika can get away with the line "disappointed at Portugal’s economic growth" is laughable. Anyone who knows anything about economics could have told them austerity wouldn't help. It didn't. But then it was never intended to help either Portugal or the tax payers of the EU.

Austerity reduces the likelihood of the debt ever being repaid by contracting the economy. What it does do is reduce Portugal to a point like Greece where the state is forced to sell off its assets cheap to foreign investors. It's called asset stripping and it's being done to whole countries in Europe now.
-2 #6 Daphne 2015-09-01 18:55
Some other southern EU country should have taken Portugal to one side years go and said ... "You are heading towards Perdition, guys. You have no idea what the EU is about."

"You Portuguese claim you support the Schengen Agreement which is all about the free movement of citizens around the EU to better them selves yet you have a mental block about 'effective occupation" and specifically the northerners doing it in your country. Yet this European Union is all about effective occupation in each others countries and you Portuguese have spread yourself all over Europe to take advantage of it. And tens of millions of new money gets shipped back to Portugal each year"

"Then you add to the confusion Portugal one of the most race aware countries on the planet claims it has long been 'officially race indifferent'. No government action to discriminate for or against any different race. No records kept or monitoring carried out. Yet this 'race blindness' is fundamentally the opposite of reality as both the history books and foreigners experiences in Portugal will testify!"
-1 #5 Maxwell 2015-09-01 17:11
It is not all doom and gloom. At least with Portugal the Troika - when called back - have already road tested the planned solutions on Greece. Putting together a disposal of assets fund for example.

One difference though is to short cut the learning process that just because your history tells you you were a heavyweight in some distant past - that is irrelevant today. The Greeks kept prattling that they first implemented democracy - but always fail to mention that the bulk of their society then was born and died in serfdom. Never voting.

And the Portuguese carry a more recent burden - the global Empire that never was. Or at least in nothing like its intended size or glory. Because the old Europe had pilfered so much of it over the years. By force or the threat of force.

The Portuguese then reinventing their history to screen out the context. So very little of the "We Portuguese did x because the more powerful country y was doing z to us." Now being mainly a list of 'trips and outings'. Who went where and came back with what. Shopping. But with a more secret history embedded in it, in code and in their language so kept well hidden from the beastly 'anglos'. So as to more easily dance on their wallets and purses today.

Next time round the Troika must insist that the Portuguese history is re-worked to show that shopping trips and outings never qualified as conquest and effective occupation.
+1 #4 Robby 2015-09-01 16:50
Time and again since this can of worms surfaced during the crisis 2008-2010 us citizens of the more advanced northern EU could no longer avoid the conclusion that the administrators of the 'southern states' were not sufficiently developed to be in the project.

And that the European Union, in becoming a construct largely of the northern states who were keen to make it work for the good of the Union began to distance themselves from the south who only wanted a result for themselves. We so often heard of the phrase 'peripheral country'. Southern states weak in influence. To the south the prestige of being in the club was all important - too hell with its dress code. The priority was to get your friends and families nose into the EU trough before some one else got theirs.

So often the southern states wanted a watering down of a new measure; a dilution in implementing a new action; a delay in introducing the legislation. And if they could not get it from Brussels then they made it happen back home. The 'latino driven notion' of an EU directive being a recommendation to formulate some act into your own law at your own time. With a deadline say 5 years ahead. Keeping clear so often of Regulations which enforced a new law from Brussels immediately.

And the latino's happy to play along with the notion of equality. Equality before the law and of opportunity. But not having the slightest intention or clue how to apply it. The Social Charter and such like are admirable but to the south unimplementable.
+4 #3 Peter Booker 2015-09-01 11:11
The more I think about this report, the more serious it seems to me. It begins to sound like the Greek case, which has brought the euro currency so near to collapse, in spite of Greece being such a tiny economy. Portugal´s economy is of similar size.

"Too much debt that had been hidden, appeared," says Jaeger (and where does he come from? ECB, IMF or where?). What can he mean?

Either
1 The Portuguese are such rotten accountants that they do not know how much debt is on their books; or
2 the Portuguese are such good accountants that they managed to pull the wool over our eyes for years.

Whichever case proves to be the true explanation, the outcome is that Portugal´s debt is greater than Troika believed; and that the corrective measures taken by this flabby government are too weak.

So where does Portugal go from here? I expect that the Greek extreme austerity treatment is just around the corner (ie after the election). That both the euro and the EU will continue to flounder. And that if they are not careful in Brussels, the bandits in Greece and Portugal (and Spain and Italy and France) will bring the whole rotten structure crashing.
+4 #2 liveaboard 2015-08-31 22:42
Well I'm shocked; I thought if taxes are raised to the stratosphere, all the money paid into foreign accounts until everyone's broke, that the economy would surge.

I know; how about more regulations and some new taxes?
That should do the trick.
+8 #1 mm 2015-08-31 20:54
article says "too much debt has been hidden" ie they have faked it

of course was it not last week that police arrested a whole load of Africans for selling fake stuff on the streets in portimao...so of course the police will soon be arresting loads in the govt for faking things too..or are you thinking what I'm thinking

or is the law applied to street sellers from africa???

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