ATHENS, June 28 (Reuters) - Greece's bank rescue fund has hired Rothschild and Goldman Sachs as advisers on the sale of lenders Proton and Hellenic Postbank (TT), which are most likely to be bought by bigger Greek banks, officials told Reuters on Friday. ...

(Reuters) - Throughout Europe's debt crisis, northern European leaders have often said they will not stand for taxpayers having to fork out for other countries' problems, and the notion of "taxpayer-funded bailouts" has taken root. Yet despite three-and-a-half years of debt and banking turmoil, with bailouts totaling more than 400 billion euros, northern euro zone taxpayers have not actually lost a cent. ...

Repost from  FT Alphaville Raise your hand if you didn’t first hear about the way in which the Dutch government took over ailing SNS Reaal on February 1st and think ‘oh, really now?’ along with an arched eyebrow. The mechanics of the takeover are interesting indeed, but given that two of the four largest Dutch banks have been nationalised, we have a bigger picture question: How much warning was there that S ...

The Cypriot parliament has thrown out a controversial plan to skim €5.8bn from savers' bank accounts, in a move that risks plunging the eurozone into a fresh crisis and heightens expectations that the cash-strapped nation will seek a funding lifeline from Russia. Cyprus has just 24 hours to find a solution to its funding gap before its banks are due to reopen following the dramatic no vote on Tuesday night, ...

Angry Cypriots try in vain to withdraw savings as eurozone bailout terms break taboo of hitting bank depositors. European finance ministers have agreed an £8.7bn bailout for Cypruswhich includes all Cypriot bank customers handing over up to 10% of their savings. Cyprus becomes the fifth country after Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain to turn to the eurozone for financial help amid the region's debt crisis ...

 The New York times LONDON — Last month, the European Commission’s top economic official in Brussels, Olli Rehn, received an intriguing e-mail. Greece, under pressure from its European creditors, wanted to retire some of its debt by buying back its bonds at a deep discount to their face value. A senior executive at Deutsche Bank proposed that Europe take a tough negotiating stance toward private hedge funds ...

PARIS — Its membership in the euro currency union hanging in the balance, Greece continues to receive billions of euros in emergency assistance from a so-called troika of lenders overseeing its bailout. But almost none of the money is going to the Greek government to pay for vital public services. Instead, it is flowing directly back into the troika’s pockets. The European bailout of 130 billion euros ($163 ...

The Greek government has secured enough votes to pass deeply unpopular austerity measures essential to unlocking further aid from foreign lenders. The fragile three-party coalition managed to secure 153 votes. 151 votes were needed to win approval for the package of spending cuts, tax hikes and labour reforms despite the junior-ruling Democratic Left party's refusal to back it. Outside parliament buildings ...

A new letter was sent today signed by more than 20 organizations that belong to the European Water Movement to Commissioner Olli Rehn and the European Commission after the very late response of his directorate (over a year!) on their first letter. Our concerns are shamelessly confirmed since in this text, it is clearly stated that the Commission policy is indeed to impose the privatization of water services ...

by Ingeborg Beugel on September 11, 2012   Dutch and German politicians like to blame Greece for refusing to stick to the agreements — but, in truth, the Greeks are doing more than they should.   Everyone who talks about Greece these days — even well-intentioned liberals — seems to assume a priori that Greece is somehow “opposing the reforms” and “refusing to stick to the agreements”. With Dutch P ...