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 […]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 […]Is a deal over EU budget possible today?
February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Anglo-German understanding prevailed today in Brussels and the European Union spending will be further cut, below the level proposed by the European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy, in November. Actual payments during the seven year period of 2014-2020 will be restricted to €908 billion, close to what Germany wanted and a bit more than […]Why the financial scandals multiply?
February 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Deutsche Bank discharged yesterday a number of medium ranking dealers, related to the Libor fixing ring, while along with other major European lenders Deutsche appears ready to pay fines of hundreds of millions. Yesterday the Royal Bank of Scotland, another “systemic” financial group, agreed to pay $600 million in fines to US and British authorities […]3+1 issues to haunt tomorrow’s EU Summit
February 6, 2013 by 1 Comment
Tomorrow’s European Council Summit has a very loaded agenda, with first item on it the pending agreement over EU’s proper budgets for the next seven years. Apart from this there are another two crucial matters the 27 leaders have to tackle, namely the bilateral trade agreements with Europe’s main trading partners (meaning Japan, US and […]European markets itchy with short-term disturbances
February 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
European markets had a very bad day yesterday, Monday 4 February. During the first hour of business bourses all over Europe, the euro included, had a discouraging start. The largest losses were monitored in the Paris stock exchange, with the CAC index losing around 3%, a large percentage change for a prime market. In view […]London to say hello or goodbye to Brussels this week
February 4, 2013 by 2 Comments
Towards the end of this week, on 7 and 8 February, the 27 EU leaders will gather again in Brussels in a most crucial Summit, which is supposed to decide the financial means all the EU institutions will have at their disposal over the next seven years. In this respect this Summit will be different, […]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 […]EU countries invested €5 trillion abroad
January 30, 2013 by 1 Comment
Stocks of European Union direct investments to the rest of the world amounted to €5 trillion at the end of 2011, marking an increase of 50% during the period of 2008-2011, according to Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU. In 2011 however, the yearly inflows of foreign direct investments (FDI) into the 27 EU […]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 […]Everybody against Japan over yen’s devaluation
January 28, 2013 by 2 Comments
Yesterday, Jörg Asmussen, Member of the ECB’s Executive Board speaking in an interview to a Greek newspaper said, that the issue of the Japanese yen devaluation should be referred to the G7 and the G20 councils. He added that if each-one goes for himself with national currency competitive devaluations, the outcome will be catastrophic for […]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 […]London, Berlin, Paris to fight over EU budget
January 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron is about to announce today in London, that if the conservative party wins the 2015 election, the UK should opt for a different relation with the European Union and then put it on a referendum for Britons to decide. In this case the relations between London and the mainland […]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 […]ILO: Unemployment to increase by 8.1 million in 2013-2014
January 22, 2013 by 2 Comments
An International Labour Office (ILO) report published today entitled “Global Employment Trends 2013: Recovering from a second jobs dip”, estimates that unemployment in all 185 member states of the organisation, will rise again this year by 5.1 million and by another 3 million in 2014. The ILO is the international organization responsible for drawing up […]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 […]The West unites against Mali desert rebels
January 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was very characteristic that the European Commission press release issued yesterday about the EU’s support for the French military operations in Mali was available only in the French language. On the same day 17 January the Council of the European Union found the opportunity to announce the opening an EU military training mission in […]Inflation not a problem for Europe
January 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The downward trend of Eurozone inflation was confirmed yesterday by Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union. According to this source “Euro area annual inflation was 2.2% in December 2012, the same as in November. A year earlier the rate was 2.7%. The EU27 annual inflation was 2.3% in December 2012, down from 2.4% […]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 […]Eurozone’s credibility rock solid
January 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) issued yesterday its first short-term debt paper (bills), which met an unprecedented success in this capital market auction. The bid/cover ratio was 3.2. This means that for every euro of this debt issue, investors offered 3.2 euros. The bills mature on 4 April 2013. In detail this ESM’s bill issue […]Japan to invest in euro values
January 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Japanese minister of Finance Taro Aso early on Tuesday 8 January said his country will invest some of its huge foreign reserves in European Stability Mechanism debt paper. Japan is second only to China in foreign-exchange reserves with $1,274,160 million. Chinese foreign reserves are anything around $3.2 trillion. Almost instantly after the Taro statement the […]IMF: Sorry Greece, Ireland, Portugal we were wrong!
January 5, 2013 by 3 Comments
Sorry Greece, Ireland and Portugal says now the International Monetary Fund, we have grossly underestimated the negative effect on your economies, from our draconian austerity policies we recommended two years ago. This unbelievably blatant recognition, that the Fund, together with the EU Commission and the European Central Bank are applying wrong policies to the over-borrowed […]Should Europe be afraid of the developing world?
January 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
China and India are undoubtedly the two heavyweights of the developing world. On their foot-steps one can categorise also Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and some more countries of South East Asia. Yes, those are the tigers of growth, based on the iron willingness of their people to secure a more or less comfortable life, after […]A new European banking space is born this year
January 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The year 2013 can be termed as the European banking year, after the last EU Summit of heads of governments and states decided on 13 December to create a unified bank supervision and auditing space, under the European Central Bank in 24 out of the 27 countries, at the exemption of Britain, Sweden and the […]A very good morning in European markets
January 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the fact that the American Congress endorsed the agreement needed for the US to avoid the “fiscal cliff”, the dollar didn’t seem to recover and continued on its mild downward tendency with the euro, a path that started three weeks ago, with the finalisation of Greek package. In the US the agreement negotiated between […]The Chinese solar panels suddenly became too cheap for Europe
December 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment
On 6 September 2012 the European Commission introduced an anti-dumping investigation on imports of solar panels and components originating from China. Understandably the present market conditions, including selling prices of solar panels in the European Union, have been there for many years. More than ten. That is, from the moment that a number of EU […]At last a good price for the Greek debt!
December 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Greece and its Eurozone masters once more took by surprise all and every financial market, by offering a generous buy back price for the country’s outstanding debt held by the private sector, mainly banks, pension funds and speculators. In more details on Monday 3 December the Greek debt management agency (ODHX) announced that Athens calls on […]Bundestag kick starts the next episode of the Greek tragedy
November 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment
It’s quite astonishing to watch the German Parliament, the Bundestag, voting on Friday 30 November, with the overwhelming majority of 473 deputies in 584 present, saying yes to a third in a row aid programme for Greece, while all the major media insist, that the public opinion in this country is against any help Berlin should […]
