The next meeting of the Finance Ministers of the Eurozone (Eurogroup) is convening tomorrow and the main topic will be the Greek deal with the three institutions. However, the fact that the negotiations haven’t yet reached an accord from both sides makes the agreement very unlikely. That is the reason why the European leaders are preparing […]Can the world take the risk of a new financial armageddon so that IMF doesn’t lose face towards Tsipras?
June 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The next meeting of the Finance Ministers of the Eurozone (Eurogroup) is convening tomorrow and the main topic will be the Greek deal with the three institutions. However, the fact that the negotiations haven’t yet reached an accord from both sides makes the agreement very unlikely. That is the reason why the European leaders are preparing […]“If they think they can slave an entire nation, then they will just have the opposite results!”, Alexis Tsipras cries out from the Greek parliament
June 6, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The world is moving forward full speed ahead and the Greeks seem to be the heavy anchor that has not been effectively lifted. This time though it is nothing about the glass of the negotiations being half empty or half full, as the eurosceptics or the pro-Europeans would normally say. The glass broke last Wednesday […]ECB: Euro area should smooth out the consumption and income shocks of its members
June 4, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Tuesday Brussels celebrated the return of the Eurozone inflation to positive grounds after five straight months of deflation (negative inflation). Some EU Commission economists, among others, assume that three positive decimal points of change of the level of consumer prices in May (0.3%), can signal the return of the economy to growth. Under an […]The ECB tells Berlin that a Germanic Eurozone is unacceptable and doesn’t work
May 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed that Eurozone inflation was stuck at zero percent in April, remaining in the region of deflation. No need to mention what a too low or zero or negative inflation means for a stagnating or even receding economy. Add to that the perilous position of Greece in and […]More billions needed to help Eurozone recover; ECB sidesteps German objections about QE
May 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Eurozone economy has been taking two steps forward and one step backward over the past few months. The minimal increase of the GDP growth rate to 0.4% during the first quarter of this year and the equally small increase of people in employment was accompanied by a fall of industrial production and a decrease […]Although Greece is struggling to pay salaries and pensions Varoufakis is “optimistic”; the Sting reports live from EBS 2015
May 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Greek government found a very last-minute solution to pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was only due yesterday. However, it was last Thursday when Yanis Varoufakis was appearing to be optimistic about Greece’s situation and the overall negotiations with its creditors while attending the European Business Summit (EBS) 2015 where the […]Will Eurozone be able to repay its debts? Is a bubble forming there?
April 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This newspaper has been very reluctant in endorsing the widely accepted view that Eurozone has left behind its stagnation if not recession phase. The reason is that despite the GDP increases by a few decimal points – not more than three – of a percentage unit, inflation kept falling for more than twelve months until […]Can the national and age groups pockets of unemployment cause irreparable damages to Eurozone?
April 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment
It’s a bit awkward to consider a drop of the unemployment rate by one decimal point of a percentage unit as economic growth, and call it a reversal to the positive region, as some Brussels dignitaries and bureaucrats do. Incidentally, the euro area unemployment rate fell to 11.3% in February, down from 11.4% in January […]How Germany strives to mold ECB’s monetary policy to her interests
April 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Sabine Lautenschläger, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and at the same time Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the Single Supervisory Mechanism is in itself a living proof that euro area is a Germanic monetary zone, in reality an extension of the zone of the German mark. According to […]The EU Parliament and the ECB unknowingly or unwillingly fail to protect our financial assets
April 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the European Parliament and the European Central Bank rather unknowingly or unwillingly failed to protect the European citizens from the attacks of ‘money sharks’. In two different occasions the two most important European institutions secured the bankers reign on peoples’ money. Let us take one thing at a time. When the average hard […]Can Greece’s democratic institutions keep it in Eurozone?
March 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Paris, Washington and Brussels categorically reject the idea of a Grexit, while Berlin is still loudly insisting that the Eurozone can weather at a cost Greece’s secession. Behind closed doors though, the German decision makers are also not at all sure about that. Greece’s exit from Eurozone has lately become the talk of the town […]ECB’s billions fortify south Eurozone except Greece; everybody rushes to invest in euro area bonds zeroing their yields
March 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Even without having spent yet a single euro the European Central Bank’s program of sovereign bond buying of €60 billion a month has had an enormous impact on world financial markets. It suppressed the euro dollar parity from the unbearably high levels of 2014 (1.39 on 9 March 2014) to 1.08510 last Friday, the lowest […]Can ECB’s €60 billion a month save Eurozone?
March 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The European Central Bank as from this March will start pumping into the Eurozone economy extra liquidity of €60 billion a month of freshly printed money. The details of this extraordinary policy measure will be revealed tomorrow Thursday by Mario Draghi the President of ECB, in his regular Press conference after the Governing Council meeting […]Greece at the mercy of ECB while sailing through uncharted waters
February 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
In the efforts to solve the latest Greek enigma, the European Central Bank has once more proved that when it comes to what matters more in the EU, the Eurozone, it constitutes the power house of the entire European edifice. The ECB emerges imbued by truly pan-European motives in serving the Union project. When the […]Greece to stay in the euro area but the cost to its people remains elusive
February 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The frantic search of the Greek government – pressed at home by an accelerating bank run which culminated last Friday with €1 billion withdrawals in a few hours – to achieve an agreement with its Eurozone partners ended up in an almost total retreat of Athens in front of its creditors. The Greek minister of […]Greece’s last Eurogroup or the beginning of a new solid European Union?
February 20, 2015 by
Today everyone’s eyes are fixed on the extraordinary Eurogroup meeting which is taking place in Brussels. This is simply put one of the most important gatherings in the Union’s history because one of its member states is under the “dilemma” of staying within the Eurozone by signing an extension agreement or exit and face imminent bankruptcy. […]Athens searches frantically for a new compromise between politics and economic reality
February 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the new Greek government started faltering on all accounts. The young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who got elected on 25 January under a populist banner to change everything in this crisis stricken nation, proposed Prokopis Pavlopoulos for President of the Republic, an old fox representing the corrupt and incompetent political system which governed […]D-Day for Grexit is today and not Friday; Super Mario is likely to kill the Greek banks still today
February 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today is really the D-Day for the Greek matter. After a couple of moves in this grand chessboard, checkmate is just unavoidable. Today we are likely to reach a point without return where nobody will be able to save Greece from collapse and the Eurozone from breaking down. It is the great final round and […]On Grexit: Incompetence just launched the historic Ultimatum that could open “pandora’s box”
February 17, 2015 by 1 Comment
It’s clearly a very bad moment for Europe; unfortunately much worse than our wise European leaders can grasp. The Greek issue is inescapably bringing to the surface the political incompetence of many key figures in Brussels and beyond. Dijssebloem and the peer were never prepared for the Greek stubbornness; most likely they were never ready to […]Greece and Ukraine main items on EU28 menu; the course is set
February 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The world community will be watching very closely today’s gathering of the 28 leaders of the European Union in Brussels. The reason is that its agenda includes two crucial issues; the economic fate of Greece and a discussion on the outcome of a conference in Minsk, Belarus for the future of Ukraine. Yesterday afternoon both […]What does Tsipras have to offer to the rest of Europe? Is it worth an early advance of €10 billion? Berlin sturdily denies it
February 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The discussion about what is needed to get the European Union out of its economic stagnation is gaining momentum in many European capitals and Brussels, probably at the exception of Berlin. The German government still believes that Europe’s growth drivers are working, if not perfectly at least adequately, and rejects all initiatives to revive the […]German stock market is not affected by the Greek debt revolution while Athens is running out of time
February 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment
More than a week has passed since the Greek elections and the main European markets, except for the Greek one, do not seem to be influenced to a great extent by the victory of the left-party SYRIZA. The attempt of the Greek Prime Minister to calm down not only the markets but also the European […]Greece: The new government of Alexis Tsipras shows its colors
January 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Alexis Tsipras, the new Prime Minister of Greece and leader of the radical militant left SYRIZA party, who won last Sunday’s legislative election with a 36.34% of the vote and fell short of an absolute majority by two seats in a Parliament of 300, presented on Tuesday his new awkward coalition government. He had promised […]ECB’s €1.14 trillion again unifies Eurozone; Germany approves sovereign debt risks to be pooled
January 23, 2015 by 2 Comments
The long-awaited move of the European Central Bank finally came yesterday afternoon. Mario Draghi announced from ECB’s Press room in the Frankfurt tower that the Eurosystem, the central banking system of the euro area, will purchase bonds issued by governments and other European institutions at a rate of around €60 billion a month. Obviously the […]Why Eurozone urgently needs the ECB to print and distribute at least €500 billion
January 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Next Thursday 22 January the European Central Bank is expected to announce its new extraordinary monetary program (quantitative easing), under which the central bank or the 19 member state national central banks will buy up to 20%-25% of Eurozone’s government debt. According to Eurostat, the government consolidated gross debt is around €9 trillion. Theoretically then […]Are ECB’s €500 billion enough to revive Eurozone? Will the banks pass it to the real economy?
January 12, 2015 by 1 Comment
The major indicators that an economy is in recession and probably heading to something worse like a crisis, are falling prices and crumbling wages. Eurozone suffers of both of them. According to Eurostat, the EU statistical service, the annual growth of labour cost dropped in the euro area to 1.3% during the third quarter of […]Negative inflation hits Eurozone, ECB to print and distribute one trillion euro earlier than expected
January 8, 2015 by 1 Comment
This week more indications emerged pointing to the possibility that the European Central Bank is to announce a government bond purchases programme sooner than expected. Negative inflation of -0.2% (deflation) in Eurozone during December (announced yesterday by Eurostat), brings this prospect much nearer. The latest information related to the government bond purchases by the ECB […]Eurozone: A crucial January ahead again with existential questions
January 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The EU Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive entered into force as from yesterday 1.1.2015. In theory, from now in the unfortunate event of a failing or about to fail bank in all Eurozone Member States, a resolution or recovery will be conducted under a single rule book, as provided by the above mentioned Directive. As […]Draghi’s top new year resolution: Quantitative Easing
December 26, 2014 by
The year 2014 is coming to an end and the major concern of the European Central Bank (ECB) and its president Mario Draghi was and still is the inflation rate that is way below the target of close but below 2%. The next monetary policy meeting of the ECB’s Governing Council will take place on […]Germany rules the banking industry of Eurozone
December 18, 2014 by 1 Comment
Last Tuesday the European Parliament approved the appointment of the Single Resolution Board members. European Sting readers may recall that some months ago this Board emerged as the most powerful institution in Eurozone’s banking sector. Its powers were established by the final agreement between the European Parliament, the European Council and the Commission which instituted […]Bundesbank’s President Weidmann criticises France and the EU. Credibility at risk?
December 16, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Just a few days have passed since an official report by the Directorate General for Economics and Finance Affairs of the European Commission told the world that French economy is stagnating, and the second economic power of the Eurozone is still under the spotlight. It’s time for the Bundesbank to raise the voice against – […]ECB’s trillion has to be printed and distributed fast before Armageddon comes
December 15, 2014 by 2 Comments
The latest Eurostat data on employment and industrial production for the Eurozone economy point invariably to stagnation, if not recession, while the long-term tendency of household consumption, as a percentage of GDP, appears falling. In short all the key growth indicators of the economy are quite disappointing, to say the least. The economic problems of […]France fails again the exams. Kindly requested to sit in on Commission’s class
December 12, 2014 by Leave a Comment
France gets once more under the microscope. Apparently the second biggest economy of Europe is il for the past couple of years in trouble. Given its enormous political power historically in Brussels L’Exagone was getting away with it for quite some time but it seems that now the time has come for drastic medication. The Macron […]
