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# The Global Intelligence Files

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

## Re: ANALYSIS FOR EDIT - RUSSIA/GREECE/GERMANY/EUROZONE - Greece: Why Privatization Matters?

Released on 2012-03-02 18:00 GMT

Email-ID | 5262440
Date | 2011-06-10 15:13:18
From | marko.papic@stratfor.com
To | writers@stratfor.com, ryan.bridges@stratfor.com

When a change in phrasing is made, that change needs to be highlighted. It
may seem innocent to change PASOK had been in power in Greece for 20 years
since 1974. into PASOK had led the country for 20 years beginning in 1974,
but it is not.
On 6/9/11 11:44 AM, Ryan Bridges wrote:
Title: Opportunities for Russia and China in Greek Privatization
Teaser: Athens' privatization drive, while threatening Prime Minister
George Papandreou's leadership of his party, is a chance for Russia and
China to take over important Greek transportation and energy
infrastructure.
Summary: Greece's eurozone partners are demanding that Athens accelerate
sales of public assets and allow an independent agency, likely to be
heavily influenced by Germany, to lead the privatization drive. There is
a risk that Greece's ruling PASOK party could rebel against Prime
Minister George Papandreou and eurozone austerity measures. But the more
significant long-term issue is that Russia and China could use the
privatization to snatch up strategic Greek assets.
Greece's privatization efforts have become central for the new
approximately 65 billion to 70 billion euro ($94 billion to $101
billion) bailout package being finalized by eurozone member states and
expected to be approved by the June 20 eurozone finance ministers'
meeting. As the chief condition of the new bailout plan, Greece's
eurozone partners are demanding that Athens speed up its sale of
publicly held assets and shift the responsibility of privatization from
the government to an independent agency that would, sources tell
STRATFOR, have considerable input from foreign governments. In other
words, Greece needs to sell about 50 billion euros worth of public
assets by 2015 and on terms that satisfy Germany and other eurozone
countries, regardless of the preferences of the Greek state that owns
the assets or the Greek public that depends on them for employment.
Greek privatization is a divisive issue that is threatening Prime
Minister George Papandreou's hold on his party. There is a danger that
the ruling PASOK party could revolt against Papandreou and eurozone
austerity measures, putting Europe's bailout efforts into question and
sending the sovereign debt crisis spiraling toward Portugal and Spain.
The long-term and geopolitical issue, however, is the effect that such
wide-scale privatization will have on strategic Greek assets, such as
ports and pipelines, which could find interested investors in Russia and
China, giving these powers a back door into Europe's transportation and
energy infrastructure. [Great summary]
Pain of Privatization
The new eurozone bailout plan has caused a political crisis in Greece.
The planned privatization of state enterprises means further layoffs of
public sector workers, and the Greek unemployment rate is already at
16.2 percent, more than 3 percent higher than a year ago. Employees of
Greek power utility PPC, telecommunication company OTE, and water
utilities EYDAP and EYATH have called a 24-hour strike for June 9 to
protest the privatization efforts, while the main private and public
sector unions, GSEE and ADEDY, will organize a general strike in the
country June 15.
Privatization, under most conditions, is painful. Inefficiencies built
into public companies due to political logic -- such as redundant
employment, subsidized pricing of goods and services, and wage inflation
-- are unraveled, to the consternation of a large segment of the
population. Furthermore, management positions in publicly held utilities
and businesses are often lucrative posts, which political leaders use to
reward party loyalists, or are even directly funded from the revenue of
the public companies. Thus, the workers facing unemployment and the
citizens protesting higher prices for goods and services are not alone
in resisting privatization; political elites, who are left without
important sources of economic revenue and patronage, also oppose it.
This explains why, historically, successful and thorough privatization
drives require a political outsider in the country to take control and
use privatization to evict established and entrenched elites. This is
why most successful and thorough privatization drives usually occur when
a political outsider takes control of a country and uses privatization
to evict established and entrenched elites from power. [We mean
political outsider as in opposition, not foreign power, right?]
Papandreou and his PASOK are most definitely not political outsiders.
Although it was out of power for five years before defeating the
center-right Neu Demokratia in 2009, PASOK had led the country for 20
years beginning in 1974. Therefore, the greatest danger in terms of
dissent to privatization is not from the mounting protests and strikes
on the streets of Athens and other Greek cities, which are largely
apolitical and offer no real alternative to the ruling party, but from
Papandreou's own party.
The events of the next few weeks will be crucial for Papandreou's
ability to retain control of his party. Because PASOK's popularity has
taken a dive, early elections would not benefit its members. Our
tentative forecast is therefore that Papandreou will be able to use the
prospect of being voted out of office to scare dissenting members of
parliament into supporting the new austerity measures. This depends on a
number of factors, including that street protests do not become violent
or out of control, which we do not foresee happening.
INSERT TABLE: Selected Greek Privatization Efforts
Opportunities in Privatization
A painful privatization drive for Greece, however, presents
opportunities for others to gain assets at potentially below market
value. German companies are taking interest in a number of Greek assets,
which is certain to frustrate Greeks, who see the forced privatization
drive as a loss of sovereignty and an insidious move by Berlin to
acquire control of potentially lucrative companies on the cheap. On June
6, as the new bailout agreement was being negotiated, Germany's Deutsche
Telekom acquired a 10 percent stake in Hellenic Telecommunications (OTE)
for around 400 million euros, giving German firms a 40 percent stake
plus one share in OTE [I assume we mean various German companies and not
the German government]. Athens is looking to sell another 6 percent of
OTE to Deutsche Telekom, but the German telecommunication company has
said it would invest further only if given full control over OTE's labor
policies.
Russian and Chinese companies also are looking to use Greek
privatization for geopolitical gain. For China, Greece is an interesting
strategic entry point into the Central and Eastern European emerging
markets. China would use the Greek ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki to
bring its goods to the Balkans, former Soviet countries like Ukraine and
Belarus, and Central European EU states like Hungary, Slovakia and
Poland. Beijing's logic is that it could expand its trade in
post-Communist Central and Eastern European countries where, considering
the region's generally lower income, the price point for Chinese exports
would be highly competitive. China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO) made an
investment in Piraeus in June 2010, leasing two container terminals for
35 years at a price of around $5 billion. COSCO's interest also was
piqued when the Greek government announced plans to privatize its entire
75 percent stake in the Piraeus port authority, and the Chinese company
wants to expand its investment both there and in Thessaloniki.
Russia is interested in using Greece to block a key European alternative
route for natural gas supplies. The European Union, which currently gets
[insert figure] percent of its natural gas from Russia, is looking for
alternatives to Russian-dominated natural gas transportation pipelines.
At the forefront of the union's plans is the "southern gas corridor,"
which is essentially an amalgamation of several different projects that
would bring Azerbaijani and potentially Central Asian or Middle Eastern
natural gas into Europe via Turkey. Greece is an important component of
this plan since it rests on one route by which natural gas piped through
Turkey would enter the European Union -- the other option would be to
fork north through Bulgaria and Romania. From Greece, any proposed
natural gas pipelines would have to make the short jump across the
Strait of Otranto to Italy. [Even though it would be longer, would it be
cheaper to go through Bulgaria/Romania since you don't have to build
underwater?]
INSERT: Map of Southern Corridor Options
There are currently a number of proposed pipeline projects that would
constitute the EU southern gas corridor, of which three are central. The
Nabucco pipeline is supposed to take the northern route from Turkey to
Austria via the Balkan EU member states. Two other pipelines would take
the southerly route from Turkey into Greece -- the proposed
Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) and the Interconnection
Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI), of which the planned Poseidon offshore
pipeline is the underwater part from Greece to Italy.
The Greek government is directly involved in the ITGI project through
its ownership of the Greek public natural gas company DEPA, which is
collaborating with Italy's privately held natural gas company Edison.
The key for Russia, specifically natural gas giant Gazprom, is blocking
[Changed because we say later that it wants to put Russian gas through
the pipeline, not kill it] lies in this particular southern corridor
project [Why not TAP too? Would the southern corridor fall apart if it
lost one of the three?]. The offered proposed privatization of DEPA is
therefore an interesting opportunity for the Kremlin. Gazprom has had
its eyes on ITGI for years, negotiating with DEPA in 2010 to potentially
gain an ownership stake in the project. The deal seems to have fallen
through, with Gazprom now concentrating on the Greek plan to privatize
DEPA -- as much as 32 percent may be up for sale. This would give Moscow
a seat at the table when decisions are made about whose natural gas ITGI
carries, turning ITGI from an alternative to Russian natural gas to an
enabler of continued Gazprom dominance of Europe's natural gas market.
The key question is whether Greece's eurozone neighbors will try to
prevent China and Russia from gaining access to these geopolitically
strategic assets. It is assumed that the new privatization agency,
independent from Athens, would have major German influence since Berlin
is contributing the most cash for the Greek bailouts. As such, would
Berlin look to ensure that Athens' strategic assets are purchased by
fellow eurozone member states and not by Russia and China? The answer is
most likely no. Germany, an exporter of high-end, capital-intensive
goods, does not consider China's low-cost goods export competition,
which means there is no reason for Berlin to prevent Beijing's access to
Eastern and Central European markets. Second, Germany has a budding
political relationship with Russia, including a solid relationship
between Germany's E.ON Ruhrgas and Gazprom. It therefore is unlikely
that Berlin will do much to block Gazprom's designs in Greece either
[With its plans to shut down all those nuclear power plants, Germany's
big energy concern is probably making sure there's more natural gas
flowing in, right? It wouldn't really care where it comes from so long
as it comes]. Considering that Germany is expected to have the greatest
influence in decisions made by the new privatization agency -- and that
Berlin's interest is ultimately to get Athens to raise as much cash as
possible -- we do not foresee Berlin standing in the way of Russia and
China in Greece.
--
Marko Papic
Senior Analyst
STRATFOR
+ 1-512-744-4094 (O)
+ 1-512-905-3091 (C)
221 W. 6th St, Ste. 400
Austin, TX 78701 - USA
www.stratfor.com
@marko_papic