According to the Finnish Finance Minister Jutta Urpilainen, “it was the Greeks who wanted to keep it secret”. However, the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court decided otherwise, and on May 14, the Government was forced to publish the terms of the contract it signed with Greece in 2012.

Under the agreement Athens pledged to provide financial collateral in exchange for a loan which formed part of the international bailout for the country.

The documents reveal that Finland and the Greece set up three bank accounts into which the money and financial securities used as collateral have since been deposited.

The matter had been referred to the court by the True Finns party and several media outlets, including Helsingin Sanomat. The daily is pleased with this “important and expected” decision —

It will strengthen the principle of the broadest possible implementation of transparency and publicity by government. The public has a right to be informed of all relevant official documents. [...] Helping the weak countries of the eurozone is a naturally difficult and controversial issue in Finland. Confidential documents will only serve to undermine confidence in decisions politicians have taken in the eurocrisis.

In the course of the eurozone crisis, Finland has stood out from among the eurozone states by demanding collateral from countries in difficulty as a condition for financial aid. The deal with Greece served as model for another deal concluded with Spain in July 2012.

“Eurozone finance ministers agreed to authorise the payment of a double tranche of aid to Greece worth €7.5bn at a meeting held in Brussels on May 13,” reports I Kathimerini.

“The first tranche of €4.2bn will be transferred on May 17, and the second is to follow in June,” notes the daily, which points out this payment will be conditional on an overhaul of Greece’s tax system, the liberalisation of certain professions and the reform of the country’s civil service.

The daily adds that “the European Commission reckons deficit targets for 2013 and 2014 will be met. However, it also believes that further efforts to the tune of €7.6bn will be required for 2015-2016.”

“British and American speculative funds are gambling on the recovery of Greek banks,” explains Der Standard, which points out that —

Hedge funds are once again buying bank shares and corporate bonds to take advantage of the high yields they offer.

Since June 2012, speculation on government bonds has netted them hundreds of millions of euros, adds the daily.

“Wall Street’s renewed health is spreading to other markets, and in particular to Europe, which is a poor relation in terms of economic growth,” writes Les Echos.

In Frankfurt, the DAX “has gained 124 per cent since March 2009,” while the FTSE in London “has reached its highest level since November 1, 2007”.

For the business daily, “the markets have benefited from a number of favourable elements,” notably encouraging figures for industrial production in the United Kingdom and Germany, positive corporate results, and a calming of tensions on the issue of sovereign debt.

The stabilisation of the debt crisis —

has reassured investors, who did not fail to take advantage of Portugal’s return to financial markets [an encouraging sign for Greece which is hoping to resume bond sales before 2014].

The Mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, on May 2 banned a food distribution operation organised by the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which offers help exclusively for Greeks.

Furious at the decision, Golden Dawn MP Yorgos Germenis "brandished a firearm", reports the daily, adding that the politician attempted to strike the mayor but instead injured a child. Police used teargas to disperse neo-Nazi activists.

It is the first time that authorities have outlawed what the newspaper describes as the “soup kitchen of hatred.” The daily wonders if the move represents a real change in the government’s attitude or if the power struggle with Golden Dawn has been motivated by the prospect of 2014 municipal elections.

“Greek democracy is in danger,” says the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, who has published a report following his visit to Greece earlier this year.

Muiznieks, who travelled to the country at the end of January, “was shocked by the spread of fascist ideas, as well as attacks on migrants, homosexuals and anyone who thinks differently,” writes the daily.

He has called for police and justice measures to ensure respect for the rule of law and human rights, and suggested that the Greek government examine the possibility of banning Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi political party which has been present in the Greek parliament since May 2012.

The Greek government and the delegation from the EU-ECB-IMF troika have agreed a series of reforms after two weeks of negotiations.

The main point is the lay-off of 15,000 civil servants by the end of 2014, with 4,000 going this year. They will be replaced “by young, capable people,” according to Poul Thomsen, the head of the International Monetary Fund’s mission to Greece.

As a result, adds the daily, “the release of a loan tranche of €2.8bn that had been due in March could be agreed soon by the Eurozone member states.”

The issue of German reparations to Greece for the Nazi occupation during World War II is creating new tensions between the two countries.

While German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has said that the matter "was settled long ago" and it is "out of the question to pay reparations," Greek Foreign Affairs Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos has said that "whether the problem is resolved or not is a matter for international law."

For its part, the left-of-centre Syriza coalition is calling for the release of a confidential report on reparations, the existance of which was revealed by the To Vima weekly. Athens is seeking compensation totalling €108bn for infrastructure destroyed during the war, plus €54bn related to a loan Greece provided to Germany in 1942.

Authorities have begun responding to the leaked tax haven data: “The European Commission and the European Parliament have urged member states to take up the issue [of tax evasion],” writes Ta Nea.

“For the European Union alone, [revenue lost from] tax evasion has been estimated at a trillion euros per year,” adds the daily. The newspaper, which took charge of the Greek part of the “Offshore Leaks” investigation, also publishes the names of

key figures who provide Greek citizens with offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands. [...] For the Greeks, a large number of operations are conducted via Cyprus.

Intense negotiations are continuing, following the Cypriot parliament’s March 19 rejection of the haircut for bank deposits, which was one of the conditions imposed for the country’s bailout.

“President Nicos Anastasiades will meet representatives of the island’s creditors,” the Church of Cyprus, and the Russian government.

“The measures taken by European governments to save the single currency when it was on the brink may be all well and good, but they came at a very high cost when you consider the growing discontent with the European Union,” remarks the daily.

According to a recent Eurobarometer poll, citizens’ trust in the EU is in freefall in all member states, and not just the southern countries worst affected by the crisis.

“But there is one important caveat,” notes Ta Nea: “When they are asked if they would like their country to leave the Union or to give up the euro, the answer is negative.”

The meeting planned for March 6 between Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and representatives of the EU-ECB-IMF troika, who are currently in the country on an inspection mission, has been postponed until next week.

Athens and its creditors are still at odds on several points, in particular on civil service staff cuts, a payment plan for companies and individuals that owe social security contributions and a programme giving bank customers longer to repay their loans.

A positive report from the troika would result in the release of a tranche of financial aid worth €2.8bn, points out the daily.

“Win-win” announces Ta Nea in Turkish in its report on the Greek prime minister's visit to Istanbul on March 4, describing the atmosphere between the two leaders as friendly.

Antonis Samaras and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, signed 25 agreements in the fields of trade, tourism and mutual aid in the event of natural disasters.

Turkey secured Athens' support for its bid to hold 2020 Olympic Games in Istanbul. However, there was no progress on the thorny issue of hydrocarbon exploration in the Aegean Sea.

"Goods train to Europe sees the light of day," announces I Kathimerini, in its report on the February 28 inauguration of a 17km railway connecting the port of Piraeus to the Thriasio logistics platform close to Athens. The new link will boost transport links to central and south-east Europe.

The opening of the line has been eagerly awaited by Chinese firm Cosco, which has operated half the port since 2010 and is seeking to develop its business. “All of the conditions were fulfilled for the signature [on March 1] of an agreement between Cosco and Hewlett Packard, which is planning to make Piraeus a transport hub for its products on their way to Europe,” reports the daily.

The deal, adds I Kathimerini, will help Prime Minister Antonis Samaras convince the troika, which sent a delegation to Athens on the day of the inauguration, that reforms and the government’s privatisation programme are moving forward. Since the start of this week, his coalition government has had multiple meetings with industrial groups like Philip Morris and major banks in its bid to fulfill the objectives assigned by Greece’s creditors: the privatisation of water, power generation, trains, certain airports, race tracks etc.

Le Monde reports on another story of a multinational returning to Greece, the Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever, which is keen to develop its business in the country —

The company has decided to transfer production of 110 consumer products, which until now have been imported from central and eastern Europe, to Greece. The products will be manufactured under licence by Greek partner companies.

The government, reports the French daily, “is counting on privatisations to accelerate investment in Greece, the sale of the sports betting business Opap, and the Depa gas company, which have attracted interest from Russian companies.”

However, Le Monde remains cautious about a “timid recovery that is still fragile” —

Within the country, the government is still unable to collect revenue and combat tax evasion. [...] Then there is the external context of uncertainty over Italy, which is threatening to have repercussions on Greece.

On a visit to Doha, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras obtained assurances from his Qatari counterpart, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, that the emirate will invest in a fund for small and medium-sized Greek companies.

“Sheikh Hamad said that Qatar would invest €1bn into a joint fund for Greek SMEs as long as Greece did the same,” explains the daily, which points out that the emirate concluded a similar agreement with Italy last November.

“Will austerity lead to the death of Europe?” The question posed by the Frankfurter Rundschau has been raging within the troika of the international donors (EU-ECB-IMF) and provoking a heated battle of appraisals and counter-appraisals among the experts of the European Commission and the economists of the International Monetary Fund.

The key to the dispute, explains Rundschau, is the “multiplier", the figure that reveals the point at which an austerity policy begins to weigh down the economy of a country. If a reduction in public spending of €1 leads to a decrease of GDP of €1, then the multiplier is estimated at one. If the figure is two, the budgetary cuts are asphyxiating the economy and widening the deficit because they are reducing tax revenues. If it's 0.5, they have little influence on economic health, and austerity works out to be a good deal for the state.

Except that two IMF economists have found that expert opinions on European countries in crisis have consistently underestimated the famous multiplier, especially in the case of Greece.

The European Commission was quick to respond with a counter-appraisal that austerity is all for the good.

Can peace in the troika be restored? That will have to wait until the current recession ends and the numbers get back into some shape and order, Rundschau believes.

It will then be up to the politicians to pick and choose the theory that suits them.

On Thursday night, at the conclusion of a debate marked by clashes between socialists and the far left, Greek MPs voted to create a parliamentary commission of inquiry to determine if the former minister for finance Giorgos Papakonstantinou deleted the names of close associates from the “Lagarde list” of people suspected of tax evasion.

Masked individuals who opened fire with automatic weapons on the headquarters of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ party in Athens left a rocket behind. The offices of New Democracy and PASOK, the Greek socialist party that is a member of the ruling coalition, had already been targeted by attacks last weekend.

“War over the list” headlines To Ethnos. Former finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, who is accused of excising the names of his close family from the "Lagarde List" of Swiss bank account holders, will shortly face a parliamentary inquiry. However, the investigation will not be enough to satisfy the members of the radical left coalition Syriza, which is publicly accusing another former finance minister and the current leader of the Pasok socialist party, Evangelos Venizelos, of attempting to hide the list.

For Ta Nea, the “polarisation of the parties” could blow apart a number of political movements: in particular Pasok, which has been extensively implicated in the scandal, and whose approval rating plunged from 49 per cent to 7 per cent between the 2009 and 2012 elections. “The party which supports the government is waiting for backing from the prime minister,” notes the daily.

However, the rules of “political procedures will require investigation of political figures” implicated by the list. To Vima remarks —

The affair has highlighted the mores of those in power and revealed the attitudes that prevail in the management of scandals. For many observers, the affair has drawn attention to the basic political problem of this country, which is the arbitrary status of politicians and the protection of the powerful. Having said that, it is extremely important that criminal or civil cases be conducted without paralysing the government or diverting it from its principal mission, which is the stabilisation of the economy and the resumption of development. The government and all of the political parties must protect the climate of economic stabilisation. However, this does not mean they should not be extensively questioned on all aspects of the political scandal that has been prompted by the Lagarde List.

The NGO Transparency International, on December 5, published its 2012 Corruption Perception Index, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption worldwide. Unsurprisingly, Finland and Denmark share the top rank. Also unsurprisingly, Somalia and North Korea share the lowest. Among the countries of the European Union, Greece is the lowest ranked at 94 (out of 176) at the same level as Djibouti and Columbia. It is 19 slots below the second lowest ranked EU country, Bulgaria.

This ranking is "totally wrong" and "unconvincing", argues Greek daily To Vima because "Transparency International doesn't investigate the problem but collects the impressions of citizens." Thererfore, the paper notes –

In this time of crisis, of the agreement [on debt reduction signed with the IMF, the EU and the ECB] and of an unprecedented recession, in which public opinion is bombarded with bad news and endless references to economic scandals, what else could the citizens say? That doesn't mean that corruption has increased or become more entrenched. How could there be more corruption in a country in which the economy is in disarray, in which the recession is at 7 per cent, in which the banks are paralysed and in which public works are on hold? This report does not hold water, that is clear. It is time to end this luxurious nonsense, hiding behind erudite titles such as the NGO Transparency. They are not telling the truth. The government must react quickly.

This view is questioned by Costas Bakouris, president of Transparency's Greek office. In a comment piece in The Guardian, he explains that no later than last week, the European Commission and Transparency International Greece,

presented a plan for tackling corruption in the country. Looking at today's Corruption Perceptions Index, it becomes imperative that the anti-corruption initiatives presented at the conference are implemented promptly.

The EU’s 27 finance ministers yesterday failed to hammer out a deal and overcome their divisions to agree a banking union deal by the end of the year, seen as a crucial step to solving the debt crisis, explains Público.

According to the Lisbon daily –

The expectation of countries like Portugal, Spain, France and Italy is to ensure that the new surveillance mechanism becomes operational in January 2013, at least for 'systemic' banks [those that can endanger, by contagion, the whole European sector], and will be extended to all 6,000 eurozone banks during the course of the year.

Despite hours of talks, no agreement was found over the single European bank supervision mechanism, which would be overseen by the European Central Bank. A further meeting is set for December 12. The urgency resides in that –

The […] creation of the new system of supervision as a condition for the European Stability Mechanism [the new euro rescue fund] to be able to directly recapitalise the distressed banks without increasing the public debt of the respective countries.

The compromise proposal that is being discussed

creates a new oversight board within the ECB […] in which all the EU countries that participate in the system will have a seat and the right to vote.

But France and Germany have placed barriers to this new proposal, the Lisbon daily adds –

The hesitations of Berlin have, however, mainly to do with a non assumed reluctance of losing control over the supervision of small regional savings banks (Landesbanken), whose fragility is a poorly kept secret. […] The French fear that banks under the jurisdiction of national supervisors raise suspicions about its solidity and thus lose access to the interbank lending market, crucial to enable them to finance the economy.

In its editorial, Le Monde summed up the case of the banking union as "a battle between the City and Paris" and reminds everyone of both postitions: "The French want to go fast. The Germans intend to take their time. The United Kingdom wants to protect the City. Regulation must be left [...] to the ECB. It is, after all, one of the institutions of the eurozone – of which Britain is not a member – which is going to start busying itself with the City's business! Said bluntly: They don't like that in London! [...] But the truth is that this battle masks a deeper question: do the British – more Eurosceptic than ever – want to stay in Europe or not?