Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

What almost no one talks about is that another successful bailout plan effectively took place at that time in 2010, although not for Greece, but in benefit of the private banks. Behind the Greek crisis there is a huge illegal bailout plan for the private banks. And the way it is being done represents an immense risk for Europe.

After five years, the banks got everything they wanted. Greece, instead, got into a real tragedy: the country has far deepened its debt problem, lost State assets as the privatization process was accelerated, as well as shrunk its economy drastically. Most of all, it has had an immeasurable social cost represented by the lives of thousands of desperate people who had their livelihood and their dreams impacted by the severe austerity measures enforced since 2010. Health, education, labor, assistance, pensions, salaries and all other social services have all been destructively affected.

The distribution of the Greek National Budget shows that debt expenses prevail over all other State expenses. In fact, the loans, other debt obligations, interests and other costs cover 56% of the budget:

In May 2010, at the same time all attentions were focused on the abundant announcements about the interference of the Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and European Central Bank, which together impose austerity measures through the conditions tied to loans to countries in difficulty.

IMF : https://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html in Greece, with its peculiar “bailout” plan, another effective bailout plan and a set of illegal measures to rescue the private banks was also being approved, but no attention was being paid on these ones.

In one shot, justified by the necessity to “preserve financial stability in Europe”, illegal measures were taken in May 2010, in order to provide the apparatuses that would allow the private banks to get rid of the dangerous “bubble”, i.e., the great amount of toxic assets Toxic assets An asset that becomes illiquid when its secondary market disappears. Toxic assets cannot be sold, as they are often guaranteed to lose money. The term “toxic asset” was coined in the financial crisis of 2008/09, in regards to mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps, all of which could not be sold after they exposed their holders to massive losses. – mostly dematerialized and non marketable assets – that loaded their off-balance Balance End of year statement of a company’s assets (what the company possesses) and liabilities (what it owes). In other words, the assets provide information about how the funds collected by the company have been used; and the liabilities, about the origins of those funds. sheets [1] accounts. The main objective was to help the private banks to transfer such problematic assets to the European countries.

One of the measures adopted to accelerate the exchange of assets from private banks and settle the bank crisis was the SMP program [2], which allowed the European Central Bank Central Bank The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.

ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx (ECB ECB
European Central Bank The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html ) to do direct purchases of public and private debt securities on primary and secondary markets. The operation related to public debt securities is illegal under Article 123 of the EU Treaty [3]]. This program is one among several “non-standard measures” then taken by the ECB.

The creation of a “Special Purpose Vehicle” company based in Luxembourg was another very important measure to help transfer dematerialized toxic assets from the private banks into the public sector. Believe it or not, the European countries [4] became “partners” of this private company, a “société anonyme” called European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) [5]. The countries committed with billionaire guarantees Guarantees Acts that provide a creditor with security in complement to the debtor’s commitment. A distinction is made between real guarantees (lien, pledge, mortgage, prior charge) and personal guarantees (surety, aval, letter of intent, independent guarantee). , which was initially set on the amount of EUR 440.00 billion [6] and then, in 2011, was raised to EUR 779.78 billion [7] . The real purpose of this company has been shadowed by the announcements that it would provide “loans” to countries, based on “funding instruments”, not real money. Utterly, the creation of EFSF was an imposition from IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org  [8], which gave it a support of EUR 250 billion [9].

Together, the SMP and the EFSF represent a crucial complementary asset Asset Something belonging to an individual or a business that has value or the power to earn money (FT). The opposite of assets are liabilities, that is the part of the balance sheet reflecting a company’s resources (the capital contributed by the partners, provisions for contingencies and charges, as well as the outstanding debts). relief scheme [10] the private banks needed to conclude the public support that had been initiated in the beginning of the 2008 bank crisis in the United States and also in Europe. Since early 2009 they had been applying for more public support to discharge the excessive amount of toxic assets loading their off-balance items. The solutions could be either the direct government purchases, or the transference of assets to independent asset management companies. Both tools were provided by the SMP and the EFSF, and the losses related to the toxic assets are being shared amongst the European citizens.

The exchange of toxic assets from private banks to a company through simple transference, without payment and a proper buy/sell operation would be illegal according to the accountability rules. EUROSTAT changed these rules [11] and allowed, “liquidity Liquidity The facility with which a financial instrument can be bought or sold without a significant change in price. operations conducted through exchange of assets”, justifying it by the “specific circumstances of the financial turmoil”.

The main reason the EFSF was based in Luxembourg was to escape from being submitted to international laws. Besides, the EFSF is also financed by the IMF, whose collaboration would be illegal, according to its own statutes. Although, the IMF also changed its rules in order to provide the EUR 250 billion collaboration to EFSF [12]].

According to the Act [13] that authorized its creation, the EFSF Luxembourg company could delegate the management of all funding activities; its board of directors could delegate their functions, and its associates Member States could delegate the decision-making related to guarantors to the Eurogroup Working Group (EWG). At that time, the EWG not even had a full-time President [14]. The German Debt Management Office [15] is the one who actually operates EFSF, and, together with the European Investment Bank, provide support to the operational functioning of EFSF. Its lack of legitimacy is evident, as it is actually operated by a diverse body. EFSF is now the major Greece creditor.

The funding instruments EFSF operates are the most risky and restricted ones, dematerialized, not marketable, such as Floating Rate Notes settled as Pass-trough, currency and hedge arrangements, and other co-financing activities that involve the British Trustee Wilmington Trust (London) Limited [16] as the instructor for issuing restricted type of not-certified bonds, which cannot be commercialized in any legitimate stock market, because they don’t obey the rules for sovereign debt Sovereign debt Government debts or debts guaranteed by the government. bonds. This set of toxic funding instruments represent a risk to the Member States whose guarantees can be called to pay for all Luxembourg company financial products.

A large proportion scandal would have taken place in 2010 if these illegal schemes had been revealed: the violation of the EU Treaty, the arbitrary changes in the procedural rules by the ECB, EUROSTAT and IMF, as well as the association of Member States to the Luxembourg private special purpose company. All of that just to bailout private banks, at the expense of a systemic risk for the whole Europe, due the States commitment with billionaire guarantees that would cover problematic not marketable dematerialized toxic assets.

This scandal never took place, because the same EU Economic and Social Affairs Extraordinary Meeting [17] that discussed the creation of the “Special Purpose Vehicle” EFSF company in May 2010 gave a special importance to the “support package for Greece”, making it appear that the creation of this scheme was for Greece and that by doing so, it would ensure fiscal stability in the region. Since then, Greece has been the center of all attentions, persistently occupying the headlines of the main media vehicles all over the world, while the illegal scheme that has effectively supported and benefited the private banks remains on the shadows, and almost nobody talks about it.

The Bank of Greece annual report shows an immense increase of the “off-balance” accounts related to securities in 2009 and 2010, on amounts much greater them the total assets of the Bank, and this pattern continues on the following years. For example, on the Bank of Greece 2010 Balance Sheet [18], the total of assets in 31/12/2010 was EUR 138.64 billion. The off-balance accounts on that year reached EUR 204.88 billion. In 31/12/2011 [19], as the total balance assets summed EUR 168.44 billion; the off-balance accounts hit EUR 279.58 billion.

Thus, the transference of toxic assets from the private banks into the public sector has been a great success: for the private banks. And the Debt System [20] is being the tool to hide that.

Greece was brought into this scenario after several months of persistent pressure from the UE Commission about allegations of inconsistencies on the statistics data and the existence of an excessive deficit [21]. Step by step a big deal was created over those issues, until May 2010, when the Economic and Financial Affairs Council stated: “in the wake of the crisis in Greece, the situation in financial markets is fragile and there was a risk of contagion”  [22]. And so Greece was submitted to the package that included the interference of the Troika with its severe measures under annual adjustment plans, an odd bilateral agreement, followed by EFSF “loans” backed on risky funding instruments.

Greek economists, political leaders, and even some IMF authorities had proposed that restructuring the Greek debt would provide much better results than that package. This was ignored.

Critical denounces about the super estimation of the Greek deficit – which had been the justification for the creation of the big deal around Greece and the imposition of the package in 2010 - were likewise ignored.

The serious denunciations made by Greek specialists [23] about the falsification of statistics were also disregarded. These studies showed that the amount of EUR 27.99 billion loaded the public debt statistics in 2009 [24], because of untrue augmentation on certain categories (such as DEKO, Hospital arrears and SWAP Goldman Sachs). Previous years statistics had also being affected by EUR 21 billion of Goldman Sacks swaps distributed ad hoc in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Despite all this, under an atmosphere of urgency and threat of “contagion”, peculiar agreements have been implemented since 2010 in Greece; not as a Greek initiative, but as conformed by the EU authorities and the IMF, attached to the accomplishment of a complete set of prejudicial economic, social and political measures imposed by the Memorandums.

The analysis of the mechanisms [25] inserted on those agreements show they didn’t benefit Greece at all, but served the interests of the private banks, in perfect accordance to the set of illegal bailout measures approved on May 2010.

First, the bilateral loan used a special account in the ECB by which the loans disbursed by the countries and KfW, the lenders, would go straight to private banks that held far-below par value existing debt securities. So, that peculiar bilateral agreement was arranged to allow full payment for those bondholders while Greece didn’t get any benefit. Instead, the Greeks will have to pay back the capital, high interest rates Interest rates When A lends money to B, B repays the amount lent by A (the capital) as well as a supplementary sum known as interest, so that A has an interest in agreeing to this financial operation. The interest is determined by the interest rate, which may be high or low. To take a very simple example: if A borrows 100 million dollars for 10 years at a fixed interest rate of 5%, the first year he will repay a tenth of the capital initially borrowed (10 million dollars) plus 5% of the capital owed, i.e. 5 million dollars, that is a total of 15 million dollars. In the second year, he will again repay 10% of the capital borrowed, but the 5% now only applies to the remaining 90 million dollars still due, i.e. 4.5 million dollars, or a total of 14.5 million dollars. And so on, until the tenth year when he will repay the last 10 million dollars, plus 5% of that remaining 10 million dollars, i.e. 0.5 million dollars, giving a total of 10.5 million dollars. Over 10 years, the total amount repaid will come to 127.5 million dollars. The repayment of the capital is not usually made in equal instalments. In the initial years, the repayment concerns mainly the interest, and the proportion of capital repaid increases over the years. In this case, if repayments are stopped, the capital still due is higher…

The nominal interest rate is the rate at which the loan is contracted. The real interest rate is the nominal rate reduced by the rate of inflation. and all costs.

Second, the EFSF “loans” resulted in the recapitalization Recapitalization Reconstituting or increasing a company’s share capital to reinforce its equity after losses. When the banks were bailed out by the European States, they were most often recapitalized with no conditions attached and without the States having the decision-making power their participation in the banks’ capital should have given them. of Greek private banks and the exchanging and recycling of debt instruments. Greece has not received any real loan or support from EFSF. Through the mechanisms inserted on the EFSF agreements, real money never arrived in Greece, but only toxic dematerialized assets that fill the off-balance section of the Bank of Greece balance sheet. On the other hand, the country was forced to cut essential social expenses to pay back, in cash, the high interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. rates and all abusive costs, and also will have to repay the capital it has never received.

We must look for the reason why Greece has been chosen to be on the eye of the storm, submitted to illegal and illegitimate agreements and memorandums, serving as the scenery to cover the scandalous illegal bailout of the private banks since 2010.

Maybe this humiliation is related to the fact that Greece has been historically the worldwide reference for humanity, as it is the cradle of democracy, the symbol for ethics and human rights. The Debt System cannot admit those values, as it has no scruple to damage countries and peoples to obtain their profits.

The Greek Parliament has already installed the Truth Committee on Public Debt and gave us the chance to reveal those facts; so necessary to repudiate the Debt System that subjugates not only Greece, but also many other countries under the exploitation of the private financial sector. Only through transparency the countries will defeat those who want to put them on their knees.

It’s time for the truth to prevail, the time to place human rights, democracy and ethics over any lower interests. This is a task for Greece to take on right now.