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How Trump’s tariffs will impact Greece

The Greek Herald
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How Trump’s tariffs will impact Greece

US President Trump has implemented worldwide tariffs – higher taxes on imports and exports – leaving the world concerned for the possibility of a trade war.

Trump’s tariffs will target a range of goods, including Scotch whiskey, Italian cheeses, French wines and Greek peaches.

Greece is the world’s biggest exporter of tinned peaches, with 20% of their annual production being sent to the United States.

The import levy was historically 18%, but after the EU subsidised the manufacturing of ‘Airbus’ airplanes (the competitor of US’ Boeing), Trump responded by increasing the US import tax to 43%.

“Trump would do well to behave himself and let us get to work so we can have a livelihood,” said peach farmer Tasos Halkidis. “We don’t want this tariff business,” he told Reuters.

Kostas Apostolou, head of the Greek Canners Association, said the dispute is threatening their livelihood and will potentially shut them out of their biggest market.

“Why are they punishing us?” Apostolou told Reuters.

The increase in tariffs came into effect on October 18, just as Greece prepared to ship 50 million tins to the United States.

The US is dependent on Greece’s tinned peaces in their supermarkets, hospitals, schools, and military. Many of these companies have stated they are not prepared to pay for any tariff increases, which would result in order cancellations of peaches from Greece.

“Suddenly there was this (trade) war … We could never imagine that this could affect our jobs here in this small area,” Apostolou said.

Greece have tailored their tinned products to suit their US’ packaging requirements, which means they cannot be sold in Europe, Asia or Latin America.

Industry experts predict the impact of Trump’s tariffs on Greece will be roughly $50 million.

These tariffs will directly impact Greece’s farmers, who harvest millions of peaches on 50,000 acres, housing 10,000 small farms and supporting around 10,000 workers.

Vasili’s Taxidi: Athena Cakes – Marrickville’s longest running cake shop

The Greek Herald
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Vasili’s Taxidi: Athena Cakes – Marrickville’s longest running cake shop

By Vasilios Vasilas

What is interesting about shops and businesses that have been located at the same spot for decades is these shop and business owners have witnessed all the changes in their local area. They have seen shops and businesses come and go, the demographics change, and people’s attitudes and values change too. In the last fifty years, Marrickville has seen great developments and changes, and will continue to do so.

Just across the road from Danas Deli Café is Marrickville’s longest running cake shop, Athena Cake Shop, and talking to Efy Ahtypis (nee: Spyropoulos) of Athena Cake Shop, it is so fascinating to listen to her knowledge of the local area and its contemporary history.

Her father, Aristomenis Spyropoulos, had worked in Nikolaos Karavitis’ cake shop in Patra from the age of twelve; years later, Aristomenis and his wife, Athina, established their own cake shop, Astoria, in Nafpaktos.

As a young child, Efy migrated to Australia with her parents, Aristomenis and Athina, and brother, Kosmas, in 1969. Aristomenis’ first job was in the ‘Glass Factory’ and he also worked in an oil factory as well as the Hellenic Bakery (called Artos Bakery at the time).

Within two years, the Spyropoulos family bought their first home; within four years, they bought the premises, on Illawarra Road, Marrickville, to establish a cake shop. Aristomenis decided to call the cake shop, Athena Cakes, after his wife, Athina. When Kosmas and Efy became teenagers, they also helped their parents in this family buinsess.

Over forty- five years, Athena Cake Shop has been through a few renovations; Aristomenis and Athina retired; and, Efy and her husband, Christos, have been running the business since 1995.

But what has been truly amazing is the changes to Marrickville Efy and her family have experienced over the years, as she recounts the story of when Athena Cake Shop, local Australians at the time would pass the shop and ask Aristomenis if he had anything Australian so he would also make up ‘slabs’ of jam and cream and lamingtons to cater for their requests and tastes.

As Efy points out, ‘Nowadays, so many Australians come into the shop and they love the Greek sweets and savouries! It is rather amusing to hear them order a ‘baklava with custard’ (‘galaktobouriko’) and a ‘tiropita with spinach’ (spanakopita). And they love eating our mousaka! These days, people really want good quality food and our shop caters for this. Gone are the days (1980s) when people were rushing for cheap fast food… Our customers are looking for freshly baked food, with no preservatives…’

As I have been emphasising for some time now, it is shops and businesses such as Athena Cake Shop that has played an important role in maintaining our Greek identity and culture- through their vast array of sweets, biscuits and cakes; equally important is how Efy and her family have broadened the appeal of their recipes and products to influence Australian tastes and likes.

It is so important to highlight how so many Greek foods are now part of the Australian cuisine and it is fitting to pay tribute to shops such as Athena Cakes and its contribution towards this process and acceptance.

Greek-American shop owner uses Greek heritage as defence for tax fraud

The Greek Herald
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Greek-American shop owner uses Greek heritage as defence for tax fraud

Emanuel Panousos aka Mike Panousos, a shop owner in Boston, USA, pleaded for leniency at his tax fraud sentencing at the US District Court because it “was simply his Greek way of doing business,” the Boston Herald reported.

Mr Panousos, 43, is the manager of Mike’s Famous Roast Beef and Pizza in Boston, USA.

During his sentencing, on November 5th, US District Judge Woodlock, rhetorically asked, “Is there a Greek family exception to income tax laws?”

Panousos reportedly “diverted cash receipts to himself and paid for his company’s supplies and portions of his employees’ wages with cash between 2013 and 2016, for an amount totaling approximately $1.9 million,” the Boston Herald reported, adding that “he pleaded guilty in May to two false tax return charges for avoiding $387,180 in taxes.”

His case included a mitigating letter from psychologist, Daniel Kriegman, which blamed Panousos’ behaviour on “his parents and brother, who were sentenced to probation last year for their own tax evasion scheme at their Peabody pizza restaurant,” the Boston Herald reported.

The letter wrote, “Did [Emanuel] know he was cheating on his taxes? Without question, but that was simply his Greek immigrant family’s way of doing business,” and citing a news article, wrote that the behaviour was “probably brought overseas from Greece, ‘a country where everyone knows a thousand ways around the rules.”

Judge Woodlock responded that the “inappropriate conclusions undermined the value of his letter,” the Boston Herald reported.

“I did not consider stereotypes of Greek families in fashioning [a] sentence,” the judge said.

Woodlock issued a lower end sentence of 21 to 27 month prosecutor recommendation, and ordered Panousos to pay a $7500 fine as well as the amount of owed taxes.

Greek migrant hotspot now EU’s ‘worst rights issue’

The Greek Herald
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Greek migrant hotspot now EU’s ‘worst rights issue’

Almost four years after its launch with great fanfare, the EU’s so-called ‘hotspots’ in Greece have morphed into its worst fundamental rights issue.

The head of the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency, Michael O’Flaherty, told MEPs on Wednesday (6 November) that the plight of trapped migrants on the islands “is the single most worrying fundamental rights issue that we are confronting anywhere in the European Union.”

His comment, qualified as personal, follow a complete breakdown of the EU and Greek efforts to help some 14,000 people stuck at the Moria camp in Lesbos island, designed to house just 3,000.

The hotspot, a term coined by the EU to obfuscate the mention of camps given Europe’s Nazi past, was meant to rapidly and humanely deal with people arriving from Turkey seeking international protection.

But in reality, people (of which around half are children) are forced to live in conditions so bad that some have tried to kill themselves given the misery, traumas, and utter lack of hope.

“Some [suicide attempts] were younger than 10 years old,” said Inma Vazquez from NGO Doctors Without Borders, noting that around a quarter of their child mental health patients in Lesbos also commit self-harm.

Some of those stuck on the islands have been there for well over a year. In Lesbos, there is a toilet for every 200 people. In Samos, another Greek island, it is one for every 300.

Teenagers are now reportedly turning to prostitution to make ends meet as many are forced to live under tarpaulin sheets, sleep out in the open, and struggle to fight away hunger.
Many of these conditions have persisted for years amid repeated promises by the European Commission and the Greek authorities that everything is being done to improve the conditions.

The commission has since offloaded the blame onto the Greek government, while Athens attacks other EU states for not doing more to help.

Both appear increasingly trapped by the EU-Turkey deal – with an assertive Ankara using it as leverage against an EU that is bent on preventing any repeat of the one million plus migrant arrivals in 2015.

That deal included the EU spending €6bn to help some 3.6 million refugees in Turkey, funds which are mostly shuffled through big NGOs like the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

The plan was also supposed to send back rejected arrivals from the Greek islands but backfired given Turkey’s patchy application of the 1951 Refugee Convention and Greece’s slow asylum process and appeals system.

At the time, the European Commission had also given its legal okay on the non-binding pact, amid claims Turkey would extend protection rights to all non-Syrians such as Afghans and Iraqis.

Turkey’s recent invasion into north-east Syria has since displaced some 130,000 people but the vast majority currently heading to the Greek islands are from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Close to 54,000 people have reached the islands from Turkey since the start of 2019, compared to just over 42,000 last year.

The new centre-right Greek government now says it is doing everything possible to ease the overcrowding on the islands, which totals some 35,000, but is unable to manage despite receiving €2bn of EU funds in aid.

“We can’t manage so many people when they arrive at the same time. We cannot do it. We can’t help everyone, we can’t guarantee everything all the time. We are not providing enough protection,” said Michalis Chrisochoidis, Greece’s minister for citizens’ protection.

Part of Chrisochoidis response to the overcrowding, however, has only sharpened further criticism from human rights groups.

The Greek government recently passed a new asylum law it says aims to ease a backlog of 68,000 asylum demands and speed-up new requests.

But some of those provisions are controversial and described by Human Rights Watch as an effort to lock access to protection and increase deportations.

Chrisochoidis also appealed for EU states to help take in some 4,000 unaccompanied minors – but was then broadly ignored.

“I have asked for each country to take in voluntarily a small number of these unaccompanied minors. Unfortunately, I received only one response to that letter,” he said.

Sourced from EU Observer.

Chief of the Greek armed forces says Greece needs to change its “tactics” on migration

The Greek Herald
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Chief of the Greek armed forces says Greece needs to change its “tactics” on migration

Greece is facing an “asymmetrical threat” from Turkey vis-a-vis the refugee and migration crisis, and the European union is “incapable and unwilling” to deal with the issue, except “superficially, putting money into it,” the honorary chief of the Greek armed forces, Konstantinos Ginis, told SKAI on Tuesday.

The retired admiral said that Greece needs to change its “tactics” towards Turkey on the issue, suggesting that Athens could denounce the EU-Turkey agreement on migration and seek a new deal that would compel all the countries in the bloc to share the burden more equally.

Greece must also stress to Turkey that its failure to staunch refugee and migrant flows across the Aegean is an “act of aggression,” Ginis said, adding that Athens needs to treat it as such.

Ginis dismissed efforts by the government to speed up the asylum procedure as a “tertiary issue,” saying that the focus needs to be on “why all these people are coming and how.”

“Do we have a strategy for preventing their arrival?” Ginis asked, saying that Greece needs to strengthen its presence along its border with Turkey.

He also slammed an ongoing scheme for transferring thousands of refugees from overcrowded island camps to the mainland, saying that it “sends the wrong message” when photographs of buses taking refugees and migrants to hotels are publicly broadcast. “It’s like we’re telling them: ‘Come over’,” he said.

Sourced via Ekathimerini.

Mitsotakis visit to China: successful outcomes for Greek investments

The Greek Herald
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Mitsotakis visit to China: successful outcomes for Greek investments

“Greece offers major comparative advantages as a trade hub and tourism destination, both through its geostrategic position and through its cultural heritage and natural beauty,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis noted in an interview with the Chinese network CGTN on Tuesday.

“Greece is ‘open for business’. We are attracting Chinese, European, American and Japanese investments,” said the PM.

“I would like, however, to point out that the Chinese invested in the port of Piraeus when few other countries were considering direct investments in Greece’s infrastructure. This is, therefore, a project that will move forward. This is a commitment that we have made and I sincerely believe it is a win-win project for all involved.”

The Greek Prime Minister pointed out that ships carrying goods from Asia to Europe could save between 7 to 10 days in travel, if they sailed to the port of Piraeus instead of the ports of northern Europe.

He also stressed that Greece’s ultimate goal is to make Piraeus the biggest port in Europe, and that the Greek government has approved a new cycle of investments in two months that will significantly upgrade the port.

Mitsotakis noted the government’s determination to make the maximum use of actions to open up the massive Chinese market to Greek goods, in a bid to boost growth through exports.

He said that Greece wants to increase its footprint in the agri-food products market, through its high-quality wines, cheeses and olive oil, at a time when a growing Chinese middle class is exploring new gastronomic sensations.

“It is our intention to make our presence felt in China,” Mitsotakis said, noting that Greek products could benefit from the EU-China agreement for protecting geographic origin indication products, such as feta cheese.

With respect to tourism, the Greek premier repeated that Greece’s goal was to attract 500,000 Chinese tourists by 2021. He pointed out that Greece was the first country on the route from China to Europe, while its rich history offered a unique experience for visitors.

“If you are Chinese and come to Europe, you must come to Greece,” Mitsotakis said, while highlighting the “cultural connection” between two ancient civilisations that had both had a profound impact on the world, like those of Greece and China.

He said that Greece has a strategy for boosting cultural exchanges and tourism, with 2021 to be a Year of Culture and Tourism.

Referring to the introduction of a second direct flight between Greece and China, from Shanghai to Athens, Mitsotakis said the Greek side hoped to see even more direct air connections and greater promotion of Greek services in major electronic travel platforms, as well as referring to Greece’s desire to attract Chinese audiovisual productions to Greece, to help the broader Chinese public understand “what Greece means.”

Sourced via ANA.

President Pavlopoulos calls on Turkey to recognise Armenian Genocide

The Greek Herald
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President Pavlopoulos calls on Turkey to recognise Armenian Genocide

President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, called on Turkey to recognise the historical crimes against the Armenians and the Greeks, following his meeting in Yerevan with President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian, on Tuesday.

“Greece would like to convey to Turkey, our friend and neighbour, that it would be in its own interest and it would raise its international standing if it issued a courageous expression of apology for crimes against humanity that its past leaders foolishly committed against the Armenians and the Greeks,” Pavlopoulos said.

He also added that “we Greeks welcome the fact that the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide is spreading significantly, culminating in the very recent resolution of the US House of Representatives in the United States.”

He also noted that Greece recognised the genocide in 1996 and established April 24 as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, while in 2014 it outlawed Armenian genocide deniers.

Conversely, he said, in 2015 the Republic of Armenia’s plenary recognised the Genocide of Greeks of Pontus.

The Greek president reiterated that Greece seeks friendship and friendly neighbourly relations with Turkey.

He said Greece supports its accession to the EU, but this implies respecting international law and European legality. He condemned Turkey’s intervention in Syria and reiterated that the Cyprus issue is an international and EU issue.

In an interview earlier to Armenpress, Armenia’s news agency, Pavlopoulos again stressed that Greek-Armenian relations are based on a lasting friendship, mutual understanding and similar histories of suffering.

Sourced from ANA.

Greece’s population expected to shrink by one million in 20 years

The Greek Herald
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Greece’s population expected to shrink by one million in 20 years

Population figures released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT), on Tuesday, expressed some concerns for the future of the Greek population.

“Today 21 percent of Greeks are over 65. Twenty years from now, one in three, or 30 percent, will be over 65 and young people, that are today at roughly 15 percent, will drop to about 11 percent, so the structure of our population is radically changing,” said Professor Kotzamanis.

Pr. Vyron Kotzamanis, is a Professor of Demography in the Department of Planning, Urban Planning and Regional Development, at the University of Thessaly.

Kotzamanis pointed out that the most worrying thing is that the country’s population decline is due to two factors.

On the one hand, as the professor pointed out, we have “an increase in the elderly” and on the other there is a decline in the number of young people combined with a gradual decline in the intermediate population groups, i.e. “the population under 15, but also the Greeks aged 15-64.”

He highlighted that this will have a significant impact on Greece’s population in areas like health, education, the insurance system and more.

Kotzamanis said that two measures can be taken to limit the phenomenon.

The first is to restrict the number of people leaving the country, as many young Greek students and workers are actively seeking employment in other countries.

The second is to create a more favourable environment for having children.

Greece amongst top countries in the world for 2019

The Greek Herald
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Greece amongst top countries in the world for 2019

Condé Nast Traveller has announced the winners of the ‘Top 20 Countries in the World: Readers’ Choice Awards 2019′.

Greece was awarded a very high ranking, coming in at number 7, with a score of 91.18.

Indonesia was ranked first with a score of 92.78, followed by Thailand, Portugal, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Peru.

The Philippines, Italy and Vietnam also made it into the Top 10, making Portugal, Greece and Italy the top rated countries in Europe.

You can view the full list HERE.

Greek Pro wins 2019 World Series of Poker Europe

The Greek Herald
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Greek Pro wins 2019 World Series of Poker Europe

Greek player, 32-year-old Alexandros Kolonias, made a name for himself by winning the 2019 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) Main Event.

The 32-year-old beat 541 entries to win a whopping €1,133,678 in top prize, alongside his first-ever World Series of Poker (WSOP) gold bracelet.

A WSOP gold bracelet is considered the most prestigious non-monetary prize in poker.

Kolonias’ victory is the third gold bracelet for Greece in 2019.

The poker pro’s live earnings now sit at over $3.7 million, which tops Greece’s all-time money list.

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