The Closer
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ROUND-UPUS markets weren’t too impressed by the Spanish rescue either. Financial stocks weighed on the S&P 500, which closed down 1.26 per cent at 1,308.93. Shares...
Nobody of any real importance is going to Rio
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Nobody of any real importance is going to the (hopefully) last UN mega sustainability/climate change conference about to open in Rio de Janeiro next week.Other, more urgent matters need the attention of world leaders: Next week, the world of env...
For Greece and Germany a democratic trial looms | Mark Mazower
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With neo-Nazis in Greece's parliament and its two-party system buckling under austerity, are the bad old days returning?In past weeks and months Greek institutions have taken a battering in the eyes of the world. An election produced no firm results;...
¿Rescate, intervención, préstamo?… no, secuestro
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Podemos estar discutiendo nominalmente hasta la saciedad cómo se llama lo que nos ha sucedido este fin de semana, pero la realidad pura y dura es que rescate, intervención o préstamo, España requiere un máximo de 100.000 millones de euros de ayu...
Lessons from Latvia
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Four years later, Latvia has one of the highest growth rates in Europe, the peg has held, and the fiscal and current accounts are close to balance. Preparing for the conference I just attended in Riga in which we tried to draw lessons, and reading...
France: François Hollande's opportunity | Editorial
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French Socialist leader will have some real room to manoeuvre if his party get majority in the national assemblyIt looks as if François Hollande and the French Socialist party are heading for a dominant position in the country's political structures...
A terrifying but promising sign
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Oh, sure, it sounds terrifying at first: “European finance officials have discussed limiting the size of withdrawals from ATM machines, imposing border checks and introducing euro zone capital controls as a worst-case scenario should Athens dec...
The euro crisis is happening in Britain too | Aditya Chakrabortty
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Areas of Britain are suffering just like Spain – to get an idea, visit Kirkby in MerseysideGeorge Osborne gazes upon Madrid's meltdown and spies an excuse: the euro ate his recovery. The rest of us should look at how one of the biggest economies in...
How can the EU win the people’s trust?
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Former Spanish foreign minister Ana Palacio raises some important points: “few official pronouncements, let alone policies, are addressing Europe’s deficit of trust and credibility. The current crisis has exposed the original lacunae and wide...
Sports and politics or how Sweden wins the Euro 2012
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Sports and sport events have always been instrumentalized by politics. Emperors used them to distract their peoples, dictators abused them to show their friendly, open and fair side, ideologists tried to prove their point. Therefore, it is not surpri...
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be"
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"The EMU will eventually (that is, within the next few months) either have to endure a monumentally costly break-up, or forge a tighter fiscal union with “debt-pooling,” joint budgets and tax systems, and guarantees against default. The domes...
Warming Oceans: Humanity’s Death-Wish
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Released in 2012, a study published in Nature Climate Changefound an "anthropogenic fingerprint" (human influence) on the warming oceans. The study, "Human-Induced Global Ocean Warming On Multidecadal Timescales," is based on observations of rising u...
Politics in Greece
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It is very difficult to understand Greece with North-West Europe references. Not that Greece is particularly "exotic" or "alien", but mostly because it has a rather troubled recent History that most foreigners or visiting tourists don't know well (an...
Back to the Future … of 1977
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As the euro zone ponders how to deepen its economic and political union, its leaders may want to take stroll in the European Commission’s historical archives ... and walk all the way to the section for 1977.
A letter from a friend for video “Welcome my friends to Cyprus”
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A good friend of mine in London after seeing the video “Welcome my friends to Cyprus” called to ask me if the whole thing was a big joke. or if it was ‘frighteningly serious’. Until then, I had been unaware of the content having only seen som...
[Spanish bank bailout] The day according to CDS
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There was some chatter on Monday about whether the bailout of Spain’s banks could trigger credit default swaps that reference the sovereign. It centred around the question of subordination....
EU-GREENLAND: A PARTNERSHIP FOR THE ARCTIC
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For someone like me, born in an island in the Mediterranean, travelling to the far North, is something very special. It’s like reaching the boundaries of the world. During my recent visit to Greenland, I had the opportunity to see with my own e...
Council of Europe states “Ban will not lead to fewer abortions” A social fabric roundup…
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TweetShare via email Ban will not lead to fewer abortions: Council of Europe from Hurriyet Daily News Criminalizing abortion will not lead to fewer abortions, said the Deputy Secretary General… Body Politics With An Islamic Touch: It Is...
Can the Bank keep Posen, please?
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Ultimately, central bank independence depends upon having built a coalition of support in society for that independence – legislative rules and protections regarding the central...
‘Tribune’ on Jews, Israel, and “left” antisemitism
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Book review from Tribune: Prophets against profits and rebels versus kings Israel and the European Left: Between Solidarity and Delegitimization by Colin Shindler Continuum, £17.99 by David Harounoff Monday, June 4th, 2012 Few issues have divided th...
‘Tribune’ on Jews, Israel, and “left” antisemitism
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Book review from Tribune: Prophets against profits and rebels versus kings Israel and the European Left: Between Solidarity and Delegitimization by Colin Shindler Continuum, £17.99 by David Harounoff Monday, June 4th, 2012 Few issues have divided th...
e-IDs
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Last Monday, the European Commission presented a new proposal for a regulation (on electronic identification and trusted services for electronic transactions in the internal market) that would lead to more security of electronic transactions. The a...
Selling Fear Without Facts
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It seems hardly a month goes by without a commentator or competitor in the EU invoking the ever-lurking specter of the US Patriot Act Boogeyman, to suggest that European customers should not trust their cloud service requirements to a US-owned provid...
Euro 2012: the threat of hooliganism
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For the first time in its history, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) has decided to entrust the planning of the Euro 2012 competition to two Eastern European countries – Poland and Ukraine-in line with FIFA’s policies seeking to conq...
The euro as ‘EM currency’
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As the euro fell 1.3 per cent against the dollar on Monday…It seems like an opportune time to discuss a Nomura note arguing that the euro increasingly trades like an emerging...
