News archive of February 2018

Retail sales in the first two months of the year were down some half a billion euros on the same period in 2017, as households were left with less spending money after their Christmas shopping and purchases made during the Black Friday promotional event at the end of November.

The owner of a ferry company has been on hunger strike this week, waiting outside Shipping Minister Panayiotis Kouroublis's office for a license to serve a route linking the Attica port of Rafina with Crete.

The capital controls, now in their 33rd month, will ease as of Thursday, with the monthly cash withdrawal limit raised from 1,800 to 2,300 euros per customer per bank. This is the first substantial increase in the limit since the restrictions were imposed in June 2015.

A report by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) on risks to the global economy warned on Wednesday that Greece is more likely to leave the eurozone than stay in the currency union.

Turkish Airlines on Feb. 28 has urged Istanbul passengers to take the “all necessary precautions” ahead of the snowfall expected in Istanbul early on March 1 in a statement released on its website.

The benchmark of the Greek stock market chalked up monthly losses of 4.91 percent at the end of February, after another trading session that saw the majority of stocks head south at Athinon Avenue on Wednesday. However, turnover picked up, with almost a third of the total recorded in the closing auctions.

Interior Minister Panos Skourletis has approved 1,370,000 euros in aid for seven municipalities that suffered flood damage from torrential rain in early February. 

The main conservative opposition party New Democracy on Wednesday submitted to Parliament its proposal for the formation of an investigative committee to probe whether former health ministers Panayiotis Kouroublis and Andreas Xanthos, as well as Alternate Health Minister Pavlos Polakis, are guilty of breaches of faith. 

The office of a university professor at Panteion University in Athens was vandalized by members of an anti-establishment group on Wednesday afternoon, the latest in a series of attacks described by the perpetrators as "an expression of solidarity" with Constantinos Giagtzoglou, a 29-year-old terrorist suspect who was recently transferred from the capital's Korydallos Prison to a penitentiary in

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras gave his cabinet a moderate overhaul on Wednesday, appointing Deputy Prime Minister Yiannis Dragasakis to the post of economy and development minister and bringing in veteran leftist Fotis Kouvelis as alternate defense minister.

The reshuffle was triggered by the resignation of two ministers earlier this week over a row involving state benefits.