Formative Work 1 Pablo Montero Llano

Germany rejects Greek request for loan extension

Shock announcement from Berlin came after Greece filed formal request to eurozone
partners

Germany has rejected Greeces proposal for an extension of its loans, saying that it fell short
of the conditions expected by the rest of the eurozone.

The shock announcement from Berlin came just hours after Greece filed a formal request to
its eurozone partners to extend its loan agreement, in the hope of averting a cash crisis.

Eurozone ministers are due to meet on Friday in an attempt to hammer out a deal. It will be
their third attempt in 10 days to resolve a standoff that has sent jitters across the continent at
the prospect of a messy Greek exit from the single currency.

The European commission had described the Greek proposal widely seen as a climbdown
on some of Greeces key demands as a positive sign that could pave the way for
compromise.

But Germany said the Greek plan failed to meet eurozone ministers demands that Greece
stick to its bailout programme a set of demands laid out on Monday at an acrimonious
meeting in Brussels that failed to end the deadlock.

The letter from Athens is not a proposal that leads to a substantial solution, finance
ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said in a statement.

In truth it goes in the direction of a bridge financing, without fulfilling the demands of the
programme. The letter does not meet the criteria agreed by the Eurogroup on Monday.

A Greek government official said its latest proposal included measures to deal with the
countrys humanitarian crisis and kickstart the economy. The request for a six-month loan
extension would give Greece room to negotiate a new deal for growth with its eurozone
partners, the official said.

But the request was seen as a climbdown by the Greek government to the demands of its
eurozone creditors.

In a letter to Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of the eurozone finance ministers group,

obtained by Reuters, Greeces finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, conceded that the Greek
authorities would refrain from unilateral action that would undermine the fiscal targets,
economic recovery and financial stability.

Crucially, he said Greece would remain under the supervision of the European commission,
the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund the unpopular troika that the
Syriza-led government had insisted it would throw off.

Aides to the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, insisted that the loan request respected the
popular will of the Greek people.
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Calling it an interim agreement, well-placed insiders said the request was significant in two
important domains: it raised the issue of debt restructuring and included a pledge from the
new government to keep to a balanced budget.

Its not very often that you get left-leaning governments making those sort of
commitments, said one Greek official.

Theyve clearly sought to strike a very fine balance between tackling the humanitarian
disaster and promising to be a government that will not only tackle corruption and tax
evasion, the malfunctions of Greek society, but take on all the invested interests that plague
political and business life.

The request from Greece for an extension of its loan agreement with the eurozone known as
the master financial assistance facility agreement was widely expected. Questions
remain, however, about whether Greece can convince the rest of the eurozone that it should
get further loans without signing up to more austerity.

Eurozone officials are meeting in Brussels on Thursday to assess the latest Greek proposal.

Raoul Ruparel, the head of economic research at Open Europe, thinks the Greek government
has little chance of getting the rest of the eurozone to back its plans on labour market reforms,
pensions or privatisation.

However, in a briefing paper, he wrote that the eurozone could give way on another one of
Greeces key demands, to allow the government to run a smaller budget surplus, so freeing
up money for social spending. The Greek election represented a tipping point, meaning that
the rest of the eurozone will have to consider some tradeoffs, he wrote.

A spokesperson for the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the letter
was a positive sign that could pave the way for a reasonable compromise.

Hopes of ending Greeces standoff with the eurozone pushed Greeces stock market up by
nearly 3% on Thursday. The mood of investors was also boosted by the decision of the
European Central Bank to allow Greece a further 3.3bn in emergency liquidity, bringing the
total ECB help to Greek banks to 68.3bn.

(the Guardian, 19/02/2014)

The overall realisation one is likely to get after reading the article comes of in favour
of the Greek government inasmuch as its attempts of making up for the debt are on
the cards. The so-called interim agreement, or in other words, six- month loan
extension is praised by several governmental figures such as Greeces Finance
Minister. On the other hand, Germany appears tyrannical on its impositions. The text
presumes Germany has rejected the Greek proposal under several reasons, even
when those are not clearly specified. Likewise, an attempt to rebuild Greeces national
economy is stated along the lines, so as to infer that the Hellenic country is the one
taking the first step (Greek elections are equally pointed out in that respect). In those
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lines, the piece of news highlights the accuracy of Greek official statements in contrast
to the indeterminacy of the criteria agreed by the Eurozone. The last idea contained
in the text is brought out by Raoul Ruparel, the head of economic research at Open
Europe, who points out how the euro group could give in regarding another smaller
extension of the budget loan. To sum up, the measures above mentioned are well
received by the European commission as opposite to Germany on behalf of the rest
of the Eurozone Ministers.

In reply to the question whether the article might be called hegemonic, it is

appropriate to point at the way in which language is handled in order to shape the
consent of the reader. Thence, from the very first words of the title instances of
personification appear (Germany rejects) so as to institutionalise the decisive authority
of that country. By using the expression to hammer out a deal in relation to the
measures the Eurozone ministers are to take, uncertainty and urgency are raised on
the reader. Other colloquialisms such as jitters, the allusion to morbid terms like
standoff or bailout, the implication of an acrimonious meeting and the assumption
of a messy Greek exit from the single currency determine the reader to reflect on the
seriousness of the matter all the while provide the writing with overdramatisation in
regards to Germanys role. These last instances of inflected panic decrease in
number toward the body of the article to eventually unveil the Greek perspective.

The letter sent by Greeces Finance Minister is shown as a positive starting point, an
idea that is repeated twice in the text. In accordance with the demands of the euro
group, it is stated along the paragraphs how the Greek are not willing to accept
measures that weaken their economy as a whole, meanwhile their subjugation to the
European institutions is more than present. Thanks to adverbs such as crucially
these statements show up conclusive ones. The detail regarding whether or not the
troika should be kept under the alleged power of Syriza turns out rather unnecessary
and can be signalled as a way to display the tabloids ideology. These concessions
to the recently born party are supported a few paragraphs later with the inclusion of
two of the main purposes of Syriza.

The article is halfway conferred a human glimpse, so to state how the measures
(backed by Prime Minister Tsipras as the leading voice) are supported by the people.
This human prospect can be accounted by the different instances of intertextuality
present in the text. Thus, within the statement The letter from Athens is not a proposal
that leads to a substantial solution, by finance ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger,
Germanys leading position is claimed, whereby in the periphrasis of minister Yanis
Varoufakis, Greeces standpoint is made obvious. In the end statistics can be found
giving the text an impression of factuality.

In those lines, it is inferred that Germany is the one force putting pressure on a
weakened Greece on the verge of suffocating. That is not to say that the writer is not
looking for a balance between the two forces, since the modal verbs underlined in
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the text do not confer an extra dose of alarmism. These features lead to consider the
article divisive inasmuch as it is likely to create different reactions on the reader.