100 posts
Eurosphere roundup: Big freeze over Europe, Greek bailout, ACTA
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Italy hit by shortage of Russian gas from FT.com – World, Europe Cold weather and reductions in supplies from Europe have put strain on the gas systems across the continent Europe’s big freeze tightens grip from BBC News | Europe ...
Is the new Treaty really sustainable?
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By Cristina Mariani Analysis: 25 Member States agreed on the new Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. Is it sustainable? “With this treaty, the contracting parties agree, as member states of the E...
Eurozone’s Problem Isn’t Greece or Italy: It’s Germany
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Article by Geroge Friedman, published on Firstpost.com, 6 February 2012 The German government proposed last fortnight that a European commissioner be appointed to supplant the Greek government. While phrasing the German proposal this way might seem e...
German official ‘simply doesn’t understand’ rest of world
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Gideon Rachman of the FT has great run-down of his recent conversations with German officials and diplomats. There is considerable impatience with the Davos-led, Lagarde-Cameron-Geithner line that Germany has to throw more money at the problem, by bu...
Europeans fighting against ACTA and snow… A Eurosphere roundup
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ACTA activates European civil society (News) from EurActiv.com Growing ACTA protest online and on the ground by Grahnlaw By now, more than 1.526 million netizens have signed the Avaaz.org petition for the European Parliament to reject #ACTA. The call...
"The Eurozone’s Strategy of Pain" by Jean Pisani-Ferry
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For the third year in a row, the eurozone is the weakest link in the world economy. In 2010, attention was focused on responses to the crisis on the eurozone periphery – Greece, Portugal, and...
EU budget pact - a major breakthrough?
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video By Bernd Riegert At their summit on Monday, 26 Europ...
The euro: more summits, more problems
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Europe's policymakers are more interested in bailing out bankers than the real economyNot for the first time, the eurozone is set to make a huge mistake. Actually, make that two: one political, the other economic. At its summit today European leaders...
Weekly Bond Yield developments in the Euro Area (W4.2012): Greece Negotiations and Portuguese Yields
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In the week that that passed the Euro-Zone economy was marked by an emphasis (of the media and of analysts) on positive data releases, both in Europe and in the USA. On the down side, fruitless Greek PSI negotiations caused … Continue reading &...
Le Monde: European Austerity Deemed Ineffective
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http://www.lemonde.fr/crise-financiere/article/2012/01/18/l-austerite-jugee-inefficace-berlin-est-appele-a-debloquer-la-situation_1631074_1581613.htmlhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/79729651/Le-Monde-AUSTERITE (PDF Version)Both Rationale and Effective...
Greece will not exit the Euro - Groundless threats and speculation
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Greece will never exit the euro nor will it ever be forced out. Image source: Herald Sun The negotiations between Greece and its private creditors for the restructuring of the sovereign debt are continuing and are expected to be successful within th...
The Troika letter strangling Greece
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FROM THE RADICAL PRESS / IL MANIFESTO The Troika is demanding two huge privatisations immediately, massive sackings in the public sector, enormous employment ‘flexibility’ in the private sector, a new cut to pensions and wages and ano...
German proposal for Greece’s compliance: accelerating eurozone exit
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At the top of my list of to do’s for the past few weeks has been to update the post on Greek PSI that I wrote just before Christmas to include some more recent developments, such as the prospect of ECB participation. Last night, Peter Spiegel from...
Europe on Autopilot: How Krugman predicted the euro-mess in… 1998
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I came across a December 1998 article in Fortune magazine by the indomitable Liberal economist and Nobel prize winner in which he takes a critical look at the monetary union the Europeans were creating. It’s quite amazing how much has not cha...
DPP issues warrants for arrest of millions of foreigners who wrecked Irish economy.
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The Director of Public Prosecutions has issued millions of warrants for as yet unnamed non-Irish nationals in connection with the reckless borrowing of money and purchasing of property in Ireland which created the massive collapse in the Irish econom...
The EU Fiscal Stability Treaty: Summary and Analysis
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UPDATE: the approved text of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union is available here. The Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union is expected to be disc...
Farewell then Greece
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The FT has an extraordinary leak of German plans for the future of Greece. Essentially if they come to pass we will no longer be able to describe Greece as a country. A nation yes, a culture most definitely, but a country. No longer.The strictures ar...
The money printing bonanza of the ECB will not end well
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I have long now been saying that the European Central Bank has been producing oceans of money (out of "thin air" of course), creating artificially low interest rates for sovereigns, at the expense of liquidity in the real economy. Thanks to its loose...
Spain’s jobless top five million, highest in nearly 17 years
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Spain’s jobless queues stretched to over five million in the last quarter of 2011, underlining once again the failure of austerity policies in the country. The National Statistics Institute (INE) figures showed 5.3 million people were unemploye...
A new year, the same old problems...
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Ahead of the first (full) EU summit of the new year, we've put together our thoughts on what progress to expect. As per usual there are lots of topics to be discussed but we don’t expect too many concrete decisions. We’d expect a final draft of...
Belgium: Against blind Austerity, For an Alternative
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Ahead of Belgium’s general strike on Monday, here’s some alternative ideas to austerity, courtesey of the main trade union confederation, FGTB Belgium is bracing for a general strike on Monday. It will be led by Belgium’s FGTB trade...
The solution to the euro crisis? A European credit rating agency!
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How do you suppose MEPs plan to get out of Europe's economic mess? By acknowledging that the single currency was a rotten idea to begin with? By allowing stricken economies to default, decouple and devalue? Nope. They plan to regulate, or even censo...
European Trade Union Confederation rejects new “undemocratic” EU treaty
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European Trade Union Confederation rejects new “undemocratic” EU treaty slamming proposals as “more of the same austerity” More...
What keeps central bankers in Frankfurt awake at night – and why should Britain care?
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In a blog post for the Telegraph, we argue,In his speech in Davos yesterday, David Cameron outlined some very sensible proposals for how to deal with Europe's economic crisis. But, almost in passing, he also called for a eurozone “central bank t...
Cameron’s pot has the temerity to call the Eurozone’s kettle black
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David Cameron is one of those people who never fail to take the biscuit, and his attack on Angela Merkel in Davos yesterday was a massive one covered with lashings of chocolate. Cameron had the temerity at the World Economic … Continue reading...
Merkel is correct about Eurozone reforms – But which reforms?
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The policies of Merkel do not align with her rhetoric. Image Source: Flickr In her speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said among others the following (from euronews): Do we want coherence without ambit...
Italians poorer, wealth gap widens
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Poverty is on the increase among Italians and so is inequality of wealth, according to the Bank of Italy. Figures from the country’s central bank show that in 2010 14.4% of Italians were poor – defined as having an income lower than half...
Not really a ringing endorsement
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Rather preposterously, Jacques Santer has got the job as head of the EU bailout fund. "He is someone with a name. He is close by and was available," or in other words 'he is unemployed and twiddling his thumbs', is the best the EU could come up...
First thoughts on the ESM: Another European non-solution
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On Monday January 23, 2012 the finance ministers of the eurozone member-states, met to discuss issues related to the ongoing crisis of the Euro. The discussion focused on two issues: (1) the negotiations for the restructuring of the Greek sovereign d...
"Kanzleramtology" by Hans Kundnani
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The euro crisis has made Germany so important that anyone interested in the future of Europe – or even in economies outside the eurozone like the UK – now has to spend a lot of time trying to...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Guido Westerwelle in Washington: "Euro and the Future of Europe"
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video I am honoured to be the guest of the Brookings Institution today. And I am especially pleased to see so many f...
Harsh
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Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg - whose country is currently grappling with whether to sign up to the euro fiscal pact - is not impressed by Greece's implementation of its EU-led austerity programme.This is what he reportendly told journalists i...
Kanzleramtology
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The euro crisis has made Germany so important that anyone interested in the future of Europe – or even of economies outside the eurozone like the UK – now has to spend a lot of time trying toRead more…...
Party of European Left on how to tackle the crisis – statement
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To face up the financial markets and emerge from the crisis, unite the Left, strengthen the struggles and recover power to the peoples, the Party of the European Left says. More...
Yet Again, the EU is a Step Behind
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Following the European Council Summit in December of last year, leaders agreed to accelerate entry of the European Stabilization Mechanism (ESM), the permanent successor to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to July of this year. Given...
Spanish banker gets Euros 56 million pension
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Its misery for people in Spain these days. Well, most Spaniards, not the likes of Francisco Luzón, a senior executive at Santander bank. Luzón, it emerged this week, has left the country’s largest bank with a pension of Euros 56 million. His...
l’Humanité on the advance of the radical Left Front
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France’s communist newspaper l’Humanité on the rise of the radical Left Front and how it is boosting a debate on genuine alternatives to austerity. Read...
Protests promised in Portugal over rail fare hikes
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PORTUGAL A Plataforma das Comissões de Utentes da Carris, the Platform of Committees of Rail Transport Users, has promised to organise protests in the coming days over sharp rises in fares for rail transport announced by the right wing government of...
More on Greece’s ‘Voluntary’ Deal
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More on the issue of whether a voluntary" deal is possible for Greece.
What do Germans really think about the euro? More than you might imagine
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Thomas Fricke at the Financial Times Deutschland gives a pointer to a useful paper by Daniel Gros and Felix Roth that asks Do Germans support the euro? One of the most repeated lines in the last two...
Too small (a step) to succeed
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La crise a popularisé l’expression de langue anglaise « too big to fail », pour signifier qu’un établissement financier est trop gros pour faire faillite si sa ruine doit entraîner celle de tout le système financier mondialisé. A...
Three remarks on the negotiations of the fiscal compact
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On the December 9, 2011 European Council summit, the heads of state and government of the 26 out of the 27 EU member-states (except the UK), reached a political decision to sign a new intergovernmental treaty that will reinforce the existing fiscal r...
Seven Days In Europe
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Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended his country’s new constitution before the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, saying it is based on fundamental values of democracy and freedom. Orban’s trip to the EU assembly...
EU ‘Austerity’ Deal won’t work – Irish Workers face a grim Future
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The EU summit on Friday 9 December, during which 26 out of 27 member countries agreed on a new intergovernmental treaty including a “fiscal compact” to enforce budgetary discipline on states which...
What we want Vs. what we need.
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One of the more curious aspects of our current austerity programme is how slapdash it is. You could easily form the impression that the government is approaching the cutbacks with a hand down the back of the couch approach, looking for money wherever...
The European Crisis in 2012
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video For much of the fourth quarter of 2011, it appeared the eurozone was doomed. Debt was piling up for several ke...
More Anglo-Saxon conspiracy
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Eurocrats want you to know the crisis has nothing to do with the flaws inherent in the eurozone system. No, prominent (and normally pro-U.S.) German MEP Elmar Brok calls it akin to a “currency war” in pursuit of “Anglo-American in...
The Draft Euro Fiscal Pact - Episode IV
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We have just got our hands on the fourth draft of the European 'fiscal pact' (this time, the Telegraph's Bruno Waterfield - who is always quick off the blocks - beat us to it), which is being circulated among national delegations tonight. At a first...
Fresh Trouble for the Fiscal Pact
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One week after we published the third draft of the new European 'fiscal treaty' setting out tougher deficit and debt rules for eurozone countries, and with a fourth draft imminent, a quick update on where negotiations are at the moment.The big news t...
Fiscal Pact Divides Europe
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The decision of 26 EU states to agree to a new fiscal pact (read: coordinated austerity) at the last EU summit was met with self-congratulation and new claims of optimism.However, within less than a month all of this has dissipated as it becomes clea...
Catalans in fresh protests over spending cuts
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Public sector workers marched through Barcelona Wednesday to protest against spending cuts made by the regional government of Catalonia. The protestors marched behind a large black and white banner reading “No to the cuts. Save Public Services...
Greek lessons for Portugal
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It appears that the “voluntary” Greek bond swap might finally come to an end.Time then to spare a thought for the derivative that drove the need to draft the damn...
Just to be clear about those those ECB deposits…
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From the ECB’s January monthly bulletin (our emphasis):All in all, the increase in liquidity, as measured on the settlement day of the three-year LTRO, was equal to €193.4 billion....
