PARADIGM SHIFT: Precursors To The End Of The Petrodollar, The United States Corporation And The White Supremacy Paradigm - Iran Abandons The U.S. Dollar, Wants Euro Payment For New And Outstanding Oil Sales!

A general view shows a unit of South Pars Gas field in Asalouyeh Seaport, north of Persian Gulf, Iran November 19, 2015.

Reuters/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA

February 7, 2016 - IRAN - Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month's sanctions relief.

A source at state-owned National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) told Reuters that Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia's Lukoil.

"In our invoices we mention a clause that buyers of our oil will have to pay in euros, considering the exchange rate versus the dollar around the time of delivery," the NIOC source said.

Lukoil and Total declined to comment, while Cepsa did not respond to a request for comment.

Iran has also told its trading partners who owe it billions of dollars that it wants to be paid in euros rather than U.S. dollars, said the person, who has direct knowledge of the matter.

Iran was allowed to recover some of the funds frozen under U.S.-led sanctions in currencies other than dollars, such as the Omani rial and UAE dhiram.

Switching oil sales to euros makes sense as Europe is now one of Iran's biggest trading partners.

"Many European companies are rushing to Iran for business opportunities, so it makes sense to have revenue in euros," said Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based Qamar Energy.

Iran has pushed for years to have the euro replace the dollar as the currency for international oil trade. In 2007, Tehran failed to persuade OPEC members to switch away from the dollar, which its then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called a "worthless piece of paper".

The NIOC source said Iran's central bank instituted a policy while the country was under sanctions over its disputed nuclear program to carry out foreign trade in euros.

"Iran shifted to the euro and canceled trade in dollars because of political reasons," the source said.

BOOST FOR EURO TRADE

Iran has the world's fourth-largest proved reserves of crude oil, and expects to quickly increase production, which could lead to tens of billions of euros worth of new oil trade.

Iran's insistence on being paid in euros rather than dollars is also a sign of an uneasy truce between Tehran and Washington even after last month's lifting of most sanctions.

U.S. officials estimate about $100 billion (69 billion pound) of Iranian assets were frozen abroad, around half of which Tehran could access as a result of sanctions relief.

It is not clear how much of those funds are oil dues that Iran would want back in euros.

India owes Tehran about $6 billion for oil delivered during the sanctions years.

Last month, NIOC's director general for international affairs told Reuters that Iran "would prefer to receive (oil money owed) in some foreign currency, which for the time being is going to be euro."

Indian government sources confirmed Iran is looking to be paid in euros.

Tehran has asked to be paid using the exchange rates at the time the oil was delivered, along with interest for those payment delays, Indian and Iranian sources said.

Indian officials are working on a mechanism that could involve local banks United Commercial Bank (UCO) and IDBI Bank for handling payments to Iran, one Indian government source said.

UCO CEO R.K. Takkar said the bank is involved in payments to Iran, but did not say if there were any plans to change the payment mechanism. IDBI CEO Kishor Kharat could not be reached for comment.

India could also try to resume payments through Turkey's Halkbank, a channel it stopped using in 2012, or by direct transfer to Iranian banks through the global SWIFT transaction network.

With Iran now again linking to international lenders through SWIFT, the NIOC source said it was easy for Tehran to be paid in any currency it wants, adding: "And we want euros." - Reuters.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN: Record Deflation In Euro-Zone - Alarm Grows Over Greek Bailout Brinkmanship!

Reuters/Dado Ruvic

February 2, 2015 - EUROPE - Consumer prices in the eurozone fell by 0.6 percent in January due to lower energy prices and global uncertainty. It’s the biggest fall since the currency zone was established.

Last month eurozone deflation was 0.2 percent, which is the first time since the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2009, according to the ‘flash estimate’ by Eurostat.

The current level of deflation in the eurozone is the largest since July 2009, when the prices also fell 0.6 percent which was the biggest fall since the euro was introduced in 1999. Analysts polled by Bloomberg say they expected an average of 0.5 percent in January.

Image from tradingeconomics.com

The biggest drop was in energy costs which fell 8.9 percent as a result of lower oil prices. The cost of food, alcohol and tobacco decreased 0.1 percent. At the same time the cost of various services rose by one percent.

The report comes a day after Germany announced deflation for the first time since 2009. Consumer prices in German declined by 0.3 percent in January year-on-year.

European financial institutions are making every effort to curb the economic downturn in the region and reach an inflation target of 2 percent. The ECB has taken the unprecedented step and started a €1.14 trillion program of ‘quantitative easing’ (QE) designed to bring down deflation and provide the banks with money. The program will run until September 2016 and involve buying bonds from EU member states.

Euro-Zone alarm grows over Greek bailout brinkmanship

Eurozone officials are increasingly worried that Greece’s brinkmanship over its bailout will plunge the country into financial chaos after its finance minister said on Sunday that it would take up to four months to agree a “new contract” with creditors.

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s newly appointed finance minister, said Athens would reject any further loans under its international rescue plan, despite Greece’s €172bn bailout expiring at the end of the month. He also said he expected the European Central Bank to prop up the country’s weakened banking system until a longer-term settlement could be reached.

Mr Varoufakis said Greece had been living for the next loan tranche for the past five years. “We have resembled drug addicts craving the next dose. What this government is all about is ending the addiction,” he said, noting it was time to go “cold turkey”.

His comments on Sunday underscored the fears of eurozone officials that the Greek government was unaware of the precariousness of its financial situation.

“Everybody [in the eurozone] wants a deal,” said one senior eurozone official. “But through their actions and their rhetoric, the new government is making a lot of people upset. They are putting themselves in an impossible situation.”

Mr Varoufakis was speaking in Paris on the first leg of a European tour intended to garner support for a renegotiation of its debt burden. Greece’s anti-austerity government roiled markets during a tumultuous first week in power with 40 per cent being wiped off the value of Greek banks following announcements to reverse spending cuts and privatisations.

Despite a more emollient tone from Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s radical leftwing prime minister, over the weekend, EU officials have been dismayed by Athens’ repeated rejection of a bailout extension — and refusal to co-operate with the troika of international creditors. German officials were also irritated at its refusal to engage with Berlin, although Mr Varoufakis said he had now been invited to the German capital.

The finance chief said Athens would make proposals within a month for a “new contract” with the eurozone, which would be in place by the end of May. “We are not going to ask for any loans during this period. It is perfectly possible to establish liquidity provisions with the ECB.”

However, it is unclear whether the ECB will agree to support Greek lenders under such conditions.

Officials familiar with the conversations between eurozone policy makers and Athens said they had little idea of the sort of international financial help Greece was seeking or how it intended to negotiate. Eurozone finance ministers want to discuss Greece’s needs at their next meeting on February 16 — if not sooner, by telephone.

Michel Sapin, French finance minister, urged Athens to come forward with its plans “calmly and quickly”.

The bailout programme is due to expire on February 28. If it is not renewed, Greece will for the first time in five years be left without an EU financial backstop. Because the International Monetary Fund is unlikely to distribute funds without the EU’s participation, Athens could lack access to emergency funding to repay billions of euros in debt due in the coming months.


WATCH: Greece set on action: New govt rejects austerity, cooperation with troika.

EU officials believe the country could eke out €4.3bn in payments owed to the IMF next month, but will run into a wall at the beginning of June when the first of two bonds worth more than €3bn must be paid. Without bailout funding, and an ongoing sell-off in the private bond markets, Athens would be forced to default.

Of more concern to many officials is the Greek banking system, which after massive outflows of deposits is relying on cheap ECB loans to fund day-to-day operations. ECB officials over the weekend made it clear that if the programme expires at the end of February, the central bank would be forced to cut off their liquidity loans.

But they have not clarified whether Greek banks could still access back-up central bank financing, known as emergency liquidity assistance. Although technically loaned by the Greek central bank, it must be approved by the ECB, which has been cagey on whether such lending would be allowed.

Since the outbreak of the eurozone crisis, Greece’s banking system has always been seen as the most likely route to an “accidental” Greek exit from the euro. Without ELA lending, Athens would probably have to print its own currency to keep its banking system running.

ECB president Mario Draghi has told colleagues he is planning to drive a hard bargain on bank liquidity — a similar strategy used with Cyprus in March 2013, which forced Nicosia to accept onerous bailout terms. But Mr Draghi is also wary of unelected central bankers taking a decision that would force Greece from the euro. - FT.

GLOBAL ECONOMIC MELTDOWN: The Euro-Zone Crisis - The Euro Dream Is Going Up In Flames As The Euro Hits 11-Year Low After "Anti-Bailout" Syriza Election Win In Greece!

January 26, 2015 - GREECE - The election result in Greece has pushed the euro to an 11yr low, falling below €1.11 to the dollar for the first time since 2003. Investors soured as anti-austerity party Syriza won a majority promising to renegotiate Greek debt and end austerity.

Shared by Greece and 18 other eurozone members, the euro fell 8.94 percent to €1.1105 per 1 USD on the opening of trading Monday as investors and creditors are worried the new government will fail to pay off the country’s €317 billion debt.


WATCH: Radical-leftist Syriza party wins elections in Greece.

The euro has lost 7.7 percent against the dollar this year, making it the worst performer of all the hard currencies.

After the immediate aftershock, it strengthened to €1.12 to the dollar.

Source: Bloomberg

“Syriza's victory is a European victory against austerity,” the leftist party’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, said after clinching victory Sunday.

The party, the first to win a national election on an anti-austerity platform since 2008, has campaigned on the promise to end austerity and renegotiate the terms of its bailout package with its Troika of lenders- the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Commission.

On Sunday, Syriza gained 36.5 percent of the popular vote in the parliamentary election, but is 2 seats short of winning an absolute majority, meaning it cannot act alone, and needs to seek support from other political parties.


WATCH: Syriza supporters celebrate, leader Tsipras addresses crowd as party leads in Greek election.

‘EU destroying own people’

So far, Greece has received €240 billion ($269 billion) in bailout funds, with the first big tranche paid out in 2010, and the second in 2014. Greece was the first EU country to seek financial assistance from European lenders to help the government pay its creditors, after the 2008 crisis exposed the country’s massive overspending and budget deficit.

The economic ‘haircut’ has meant major budget cuts and tax increases, which after six years of deep economic recession, have only just started to boost economic growth.

“The EU was destroying its people of one its member states with the idea of trying to save it. Nothing worked, the country is in a catastrophe,” Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, a former Greek diplomat, told RT.

#Euro Gold Surges As #ECB 1 Trillion ‘Bazooka’ and #Greece Has Election - http://hubs.ly/y0sNGb0 
Image: GoldCore

Syriza has promised to change all of that, pledging immediate relief to the poor, rolling back unpopular taxes and negotiating a debt write-down with the country’s creditors to free up spending on social programs. Proposed reforms include cutting taxes for the middle class and crack down on the rich, as well as raising the minimum monthly wage by 29 percent. Tsipras also guaranteed to provide free electricity and food subsidies for poor families, as well as free healthcare for the uninsured and unemployed.

‘A European problem’

The next hurdle will be €7 billion in bonds held by the ECB that mature in July and August. Greece doesn’t have the cash to repay them, and failure to do so could ultimately lead to Greece’s exit from the eurozone.

“Debt is not just a Greek problem. It is not even just a problem of the south, the countries of the EU periphery. It is a European problem,” Syriza MEP Professor George Katrougalos, told RT.

Katrougalos thinks Greece deserves the same help that ‘southern’ countries like Greece and Spain gave Germany over sixty years ago. In 1953, half of German war debts (16 billion marks) were annulled to help its economy recover.

“If we have an EU divided and countries that cannot pay their debt, and countries like Germany are gaining from that, we have a union that can no longer keep its cohesion,” Katrougalos said.

What’s next?

Eurozone finance ministers will hold a scheduled meeting in Brussels Monday, with Greece expected to top the agenda. The EU has signaled it will be able to handle a Greece exit from the single currency union.

Last Thursday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi announced that Europe would embark on a US-style stimulus program, injecting a total of €1.14 trillion into the economy over the next two years.

However, the bank said it will not buy any Greek government bonds (debt) as a part of this program until at least July, when Greece is due to repay some of its debt to the ECB. - RT.