Reading the latest statistics on EU member states government deficit and debt, issued by Eurostat, the EU statistical service was a revelation. For the first time the Service noted that, “Eurostat has no reservations, nor did it make amendments on the data reported by Member States”. It was a relieve knowing this after all those […]Eurozone has definitely overcome its structural uncertainties
April 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Reading the latest statistics on EU member states government deficit and debt, issued by Eurostat, the EU statistical service was a revelation. For the first time the Service noted that, “Eurostat has no reservations, nor did it make amendments on the data reported by Member States”. It was a relieve knowing this after all those […]IMF: European banks do not perform their duty to real economy
April 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
During this week everybody took an interest on Europe’s and more so on Eurozone’s financial standing. During the last two days Jörg Asmussen, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, the International Monetary Fund and the European Council Presidency came out to either criticise or reassure everybody that the European financial and banking system […]G20 to Germany: Abandon miser policies
April 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Tomorrow Thursday 18 April, the 20 ministers of Finance and central bankers of the largest economies of the planet will meet in Washington DC to discuss and agree on policies over world financial and real economy affairs. The meeting takes place just hours after the International Monetary Fund issued its regular World Economic Outlook (see […]Germany and France only care about keeping their borrowing cheap
April 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The two days of unofficial meetings of the Ecofin and the Eurogroup councils staged in the historic scenery of the Dublin Castle completely missed their targets. For one thing today’s main story, by Suzan A. Kane, on the European Sting proves that the much-advertised target to arrest the €1 trillion tax evasion in the EU […]Eurozone dignitaries play with people’s life savings
April 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The informal Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings in Dublin today and tomorrow will discuss but are not expected to come up with decisions on two burning and closely interrelated financial issues. It is about the relaxation of bank secrecy legislation in certain EU member states like Austria and Luxembourg and the procedures to be followed from […]Eurozone retail sales fall shows recession
April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service, retail trade volume in February compared with January 2013 fell by 0.3% in euro area and remained stable in the EU27. However in comparison with the same month of 2012, the drop in retail sales was much larger. In detail, in February 2013 compared with the same month […]Is Eurozone heading for disinflation?
April 3, 2013 by 1 Comment
It will be very interesting to hear what the governor of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, has to say tomorrow in his monthly Press conference, about the fast falling inflation rate and the even faster growing unemployment in Eurozone. Unless he sticks to the letter of ECB’s Statutes and insists, that unemployment does not […]Eurozone recession subsides
March 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to the €-coin index the euro area growth remained negative for the 18th month in a row in March 2013, after the index turned negative in October 2011. The index measures the level of economic activity in the entire Eurozone and predicts GDP developments some months before the official data appear. The only positive […]Germany hides its own banks’ problems
March 28, 2013 by 1 Comment
The insistence of the Brussels, Berlin and Paris authorities that Cyprus is a special case and the rest of the Eurozone banking system is safe, has only superficial value. Markets do not believe that. It’s not only that the Greek, Italian or even the Spanish banking systems are in deep trouble. The problems are not […]Eurogroup president swallows statement on savings confiscation
March 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Even if last weekend’s negotiations over the Cyprus problem were so demanding and exhausting for Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch minister of Finance and President of Eurogroup is not excused for having said that the solution agreed for Cyprus will be from now on the standard arrangement for any future financial bailout or rather bail-in in […]Why and how Germany had it again its own way in Cyprus
March 25, 2013 by 1 Comment
The final agreement reached between the Eurogroup and the Cypriot authorities contains two pivotal elements. The first is a draconian downsizing of the tiny country’s overgrown banking system. The second and less important element is “an independent evaluation of the implementation of the anti-money laundering framework in Cypriot financial institutions, involving Moneyval alongside a private […]EU prepares a banking union amidst financial ruins
March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There was no better opportunity than now, to observe how unfounded and shallow the institutional structure of Eurozone was, probably for the big guys to do whatever they liked. At a time when the Cyprus banking sector threatens to drive the whole island to a shipwreck, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are […]Eurozone in trouble after Nicosia’s ‘no’
March 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The comparison of repercussions from the Greek ‘yes’ and the Cyprus ‘no’, to the troika of EU-ECB-IMF proposals, concerning the bailouts of the corresponding economies, may produce political and financial implications for many Eurozone governments, the EU Commission and the International Monetary Fund. The Greek ‘yes’ is presenting very difficult problems in the longer […]Cyprus tragedy reveals Eurozone’s arbitrary functioning
March 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Monday’s night statement by the Eurogroup President, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, on Cyprus was the perfect field for a full PhD research, on the way decisions are made in the European Union. The problem is that until some years ago this kind of decision-making when wrong, and it usually was, had negative consequences only on subsidies paid […]Our present and future tax payments usurped by banks
March 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to Eurostat, the EU statistical service, tax payments in absolute terms, kept rising in the Eurozone after 2009 and surpassed the pre-crisis levels in 2011. Given that all along this period most of the euro area member states applied austerity measures, by cutting social spending, it is common knowledge by now that the extra […]
Germany loses leading export place
March 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to the prestigious German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the country lost its leading position in the list of exporting nations. It was not only China that surpassed Germany in terms of exports of goods, but also the US exported more products during 2012. DIW is one of the leading economic research institutions […]The Ecofin Council creates officially the clan of ‘undead’ banks
March 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Today 5 March 2013, in Brussels, without much publicity the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Union, known as the Ecofin Council, is expected to discuss, inter alia, the new draft rules on bank capital requirements (“CRD 4”), including future rules on bankers’ bonuses. Those issues go in pair, in a way that […]‘Free state aid’ for imprudent banks
February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Over the past few years the Commission’s approval for government rescue of imprudent banks, under the EU state aid rules, has become a cliché. As if those rules do not exist, when it comes to banks. On every other state aid case granted by national governments to the private sector, the Commission remains adamant and […]Draghi sees inflationary bubbles
February 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The governor of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, speaking yesterday in the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, in an unexpectedly strong statement said that the euro area is still open to “potential inflationary bubbles”. He then added that “the possible effects of Euro exchange rates on inflation must be monitored […]Financial Transaction Tax: More money for future bank bailouts?
February 15, 2013 by 3 Comments
The European Commission announced today the details of the implementation of the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT), under the procedure of the enhanced cooperation. It must be noted that such a procedure may be launched at the request of at least nine EU member states. Incidentally, the eleven member states actually wishing to introduce a financial […]Commission goes less than mid-way on expensive euro
February 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Olli Rehn, the EU Commissioner for the Economy took the floor yesterday, over the euro exchange rate market developments. As he usually does, Rehn wanted on this issue too, to be seen as going mid-way between Berlin and Paris. The question to be answered is of course, if the euro is expensive or not? However […]ECB asks for more subsidies to banks
February 1, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Union authorities have so far bestowed hundreds of billions of EU taxpayers’ money to the European Stability Mechanism and the European Financial Stability Facility of a total value of at least €700 billion, to be used to bailout banks and not only. As if those practically unlimited resources were not enough to secure […]Appreciation of euro to continue
January 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
This January’s upwards trend of the euro parity with the other major currencies, the dollar and the yen, led today at a quote very close to the upper benchmark of 1.35, triggering worries about Eurozone’s exports. During this first month of the year the single European currency has appreciated at least 15% with the dollar […]Banks suffocate the real economy by denying loans
January 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday the European Central Bank released data on Eurozone bank deposits and loans for December 2012. According to this report deposits by households and the non financial business sector increased during 2012 by at least 4%, while the loans to private sector (non-financial businesses and households) continued to decrease. The diverging direction of increasing […]Eurozone’s sovereign debt not a problem anymore?
January 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Understandably sovereign debt statistics for Eurozone and the EU have become most crucial over the past five years, not only for the implicated countries but also for the global financial community. Until recently a bad spell over Greece’s prospects concerning its government debt could send all and every world market to a downwards spiral. And […]EU: Centralised economic governance and bank supervision may lead to new crisis
January 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the first Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) of the year on January 22, the two first and more important items on the agenda were the “enhanced economic governance and policy coordination” (the “two-pack” economic governance) and secondly the “financial regulation and bank supervision”. On both accounts the Council made giant steps forward setting […]Financial transactions tax gets go ahead
January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Sting on Saturday 19 January wrote that, the “The ECOFIN Council is expected on Tuesday 22 January to adopt the Commission’s proposal to authorise enhanced cooperation on the Financial Transactions Tax”. Indeed today 22 January 2013, the Ecofin Council adopted a decision authorising eleven member states to go ahead with enhanced cooperation on […]Cyprus banks under scrutiny
January 21, 2013 by 1 Comment
Eurozone’s support to Cyprus is not on the agenda of todays’ Eurogroup, the council of the 17 Eurozone ministers of Finance, nor will this issue be discussed in tomorrows’ Ecofin, the council of the 27 EU economic ministers. This is a clear sign that there will not be any decision on this problem until the […]Jeroen Dijsselbloem new Eurogroup president
January 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to an official announcement of the Council of the European Union, on 21 January, the Eurogroup, the council of the 17 Eurozone ministers of Finance appointed its new president, the Dutch Minister of Finance Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Dijsselbloem takes over from Jean-Claude Juncker, minister of Finance and Prime Minister of Luxembourg, and will hold the […]Trade surplus up production down in Eurozone
January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the apparent slow-down of the world economy and the drop of external demand for Eurozone products the first estimates by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, show a hefty trade surplus of €13.7 billion for the 17 countries single money zone in November 2012. Not all news however was positive for Eurozone in November. Industrial […]Eurozone: How can 200 banks find €400 billion?
January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) considers that Eurozone banks need to strengthen their capital accounts by at least €400 billion in order to reach a viable capital to assets coverage ratio of 5%. The good news from OECD however is that its economist estimate that the single money EU zone seems to have […]France: New labour laws for more competitiveness
January 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Only hours had passed, after Olli Rehn, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs early in the morning of Friday 11 January in Brussels had accused France of doing little to regain its lost competitiveness, and in Paris during the same afternoon three labour unions agreed with employers on a package deal […]ECB to support only banks not Peoples
January 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In two different articles the European Sting yesterday made important references and observations on the policy lines followed by the European Central bank. ECB’s double standards Maria Milouv in her article entitled, “European financial values on the rise”, commented as follows: “With the prospect of a further reduction of ECB’s interest rates appearing now more distant […]
