In the fourth year of the ongoing financial and real economy crisis in Europe, the deterioration of the employment and social situation was an easily predictable prospect. However the increasing pace of this worsening and the widening divergence between member states, as monitored by the EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review for March 2013, […]Berlin favours economic and social disintegration in certain Eurozone countries
March 27, 2013 by 1 Comment
In the fourth year of the ongoing financial and real economy crisis in Europe, the deterioration of the employment and social situation was an easily predictable prospect. However the increasing pace of this worsening and the widening divergence between member states, as monitored by the EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review for March 2013, […]Can the EU last long if it cuts Cyprus out?
March 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The latest and most important rhapsody in the Cyprus tragedy was performed yesterday morning by the twenty-three members of the European Central Bank’s governing council. The text issued by them was very brief and went like this: “The Governing Council of the European Central Bank decided to maintain the current level of Emergency Liquidity Assistance […]No tears for Cyprus in Brussels and Moscow
March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
One after the other Eurozone’s major players draw their red lines towards Cyprus, after the country’s Parliament rejected unanimously the agreement struck between the Nicosia government and the Eurogroup in the early hours of Saturday morning 16 March. The agreement was supposed to provide the Cypriot authorities with €5.8 billion from a haircut of 6.75% […]Cyprus Parliament says no to blackmail
March 20, 2013 by 1 Comment
Not one Cypriot Parliamentarian voted yes for the draft bill proposal, providing for a haircut on all deposits in Cypriot banks. As a result the island’s financial system will remain shut down until Thursday, in the hope that a solution to the stalemate will be found. It was quite a spectacle to see all the […]Eurozone officials play with people’s deposits and minds
March 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It seems that, some only theoretically serious decision-making political bodies, like the Eurogroup, collectively believe they can play with a haircut on bank deposits, as if it was a trivial matter. Unfortunately there is no other explanation. Institutions like the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and of course the German […]The EU Spring Summit set to challenge austerity
March 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The “Spring Summit” of the 27 EU leaders on 14-15 March unfolding currently amidst the Brussels winter scenery, will be forced to challenge the presently followed economic policy orientation of austerity, under the pressure of major developments. Obviously the Italian elections results and the ensuing political stalemate, set a new background for every political economy exercise […]Hollande decisively rebuffs Merkel’s and Rehn’s austerity policies
March 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
European Commissioner Ollie Rehn, of Finnish origin (not finished, at least not yet), who has become the EU’s champion of austerity, will find it increasingly difficult to defend his Castle of Miser over the coming months. Yesterday, speaking in an interview to a daily newspaper of his country (on demand?), he playfully unleashed thunders against […]Italy can stand the US rating agencies’ meaningless degrading
March 11, 2013 by 1 Comment
Last Friday the Fitch rating agency downgraded Italy’s long term creditworthiness to “BBB+” from “A-“, with negative outlook. The American firm did that with a delay of many days after the Italian elections, citing as reason the unconventional results of the vote. It is important to note however that capital markets themselves, after the initial […]A Brussels antithesis reveals where the EU is heading
March 6, 2013 by 1 Comment
Yesterday in the Ecofin Council in Brussels, a handful of politicians from EU’s member states, away from their constituencies, left to be ‘guided’ by the European Commission in mortgaging to the EU’ bureaucracy their counties’ financial sovereignty, by approving the “two pack” directives. On the same occasion they created the clan of the ‘undead’ banks […]An ECB banker wants to change the European social model
March 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A banker, member of the European Central Bank’s executive board, in the brief time of half an hour, during which he delivered a speech on Saturday 2 March, in the context of the European Conference at Harvard, wanted not only to ‘correct’ the Europe’s social contract but also to demolish John Maynard Keynes’s contribution to […]The Italian crisis may act as a catalyst for less austerity
February 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Italian political stalemate which threatens the financial stability of this country and risks to shake the Eurozone through the contagion effect, has not prompted Germany to relax its tough position vis-à-vis the euro area debt crisis and the severe austerity measures favoured by Berlin. As a matter of fact, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German minister […]Let the Italians have it their way, it may be good for all Eurozone
February 27, 2013 by 1 Comment
The large size of the Italian sovereign debt, in the region of €2 trillion and its refinancing torments now the minds of all Eurozone political leaders. The same is true for capital market investors, who showed a remarkable cold-blooded attitude yesterday, after it was certain that no single political party can formulate a viable government […]Italian voters put again the European Peoples in the Brussels picture
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The results of the Italian election reminded everybody that Europe has never been a plain political field and, no matter how hard Brussels and Berlin planners are trying to impose solutions of the Mario Monti type, voters are determined to have it their own way. Italian voters by their last weekend’s choices put again the […]Italian electoral results to change Eurozone climate and weight on the Cyprus issue
February 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Dr Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Federal Minister of Finance insisted yesterday that Cyprus is not a “systemic” member country of Eurozone. Given that Schäuble expresses authentically and exclusively the paymaster Eurozone and all country bailout programme in the euro area, the plan to save Cyprus from the blunders of its own banks, will be quite […]Why Europe’s high productive performance is discredited?
February 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service, released data on Eurozone’s foreign trade showing that during 2012, euro area trade in goods recorded a surplus of €81.8 billion, outperforming the most optimistic predictions. This is not however the only good news for Eurozone external accounts for last year. Traditionally Eurozone records also a hefty surplus in international […]The US reject EU proposal for prudential financial controls
February 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The North Atlantic economic volume, comprising mainly Eurozone and Britain on the one side and US and Canada on the other constitute the largest almost uniform playfield. Of the two sides, however, the more dependant on the rest of the world is the American one and more precisely the US, with its huge double deficits, […]EU–US: What is the real exchange in a Free Trade Agreement?
February 14, 2013 by 1 Comment
The usually slow-moving European Commission over issues like free trade agreements, this time didn’t lose its time and President Manuel Barroso announced yesterday that, “the European Union and the United States have decided to initiate internal procedures to launch negotiations with the aim of reaching a ground-breaking free trade agreement: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment […]1 million citizens try to create a new EU institution
February 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
On April Fools’ Day 2012, the European Citizens Initiative (ECI) came into force and marked the starting point of the first collections of signatures to reach the one million benchmark. The first to accomplish this task are the Organisers of the Right2Water initiative. Incidentally, the European Commission issued an announcement saying that its services will […]What our leaders hide from us
February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Europe had a very interesting day yesterday. Let’s see why. First was the British PM who delayed the EU Summit for five hours, then an agreement was announced to reduce the Irish sovereign debt by €20 billion and finally it was Mario Draghi, who helped contain the hike of the euro vis-à-vis the dollar, just […]Berlin repels proposal for cheaper euro
February 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
“No, the euro is not overvalued, if the long-term tendencies are taken into account”, said yesterday Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Zaimpert, in Berlin, as if the rest of the Eurozone was not existing. He added that the long-term competitiveness cannot be achieved through monetary measures and accommodating exchange rate policy. Seemingly the European Sting was […]Everybody against Germany over the expensive euro
February 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At last Francois Hollande said it. The French President in a strong statement yesterday said the Eurozone must have an exchange rate policy for the euro. It was high time that Hollande said that, because no other Eurozone leader has the weight to demand such a ground-breaking monetary policy change. So far all European Central […]South Eurozone countries threatened by rising borrowing cost and expensive euro
February 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A strange combination of the expensive euro (undermining external competitiveness) and worsening market conditions for sovereign borrowing by south European countries, are increasing the pressures on the four crisis stricken Eurozone member states, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. In this way the positive developments of dropping risk premiums that prevailed since the beginning of the […]EU Parliament semi worried over democratic deficit
January 31, 2013 by 1 Comment
Yesterday at the European Parliament in Brussels, during the closing session of the Parliamentary week devoted to the European Semester (EU economic governance – fiscal treaty), a joint group of EU parliamentarians and members of national parliaments concluded, that the under construction closer economic and monetary union calls for more democratic control. The MEPs and […]EU out to conquer African Union summit
January 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission will be represented in force at the African Union (AU) summit of African heads of state and government to be held on 27–28 January. Among other dignitaries from Brussels and other EU capitals, EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs will be also present in this African summit. But what will he be carrying […]German opposition win in Lower Saxony felt all over Europe
January 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The defeat in the Lower Saxony election of the German governing coalition led by Angela Merkel’s CDU and comprising as a junior partner the pro-business party of Free Democrats (FDP), may change the political landscape in the entire European Union. It has already prompted Philipp Rösler to offer his resignation from the leadership of FDP, […]Britain in and out of the EU
January 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
On the agenda of the Economic and Finance Ministers Council, the Ecofin, which is to take place in Brussels tomorrow there are two ground-breaking items. First on it is the Single Supervision Mechanism (SSM) for the EU banking industry, meant to audit and supervise over the 200 “systemic” banks of the Eurozone, under the guidance […]Cameron postpones speech in Holland
January 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Sting is monitoring very closely what is happening in Britain over the burning issue of the country’s relations with the European Union. The possibility of holding a referendum about a possible exit is developing into a deeply splitting issue. Prime Minister David Cameron seems cornered in his own party by the group of […]Britain heading to national schism on exit from EU
January 13, 2013 by 1 Comment
Either the British conservatives have lost any sense of reality or they think that reality has to accommodate their problems. This time it was George Osborn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who said that the European Union has to change or Britain will leave the club. For one thing being a British he knows very […]Eurozone: Austerity brings new political tremors
January 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The new political stalemate in Portugal – after the President of the country send the 2013 government budget to the high court questioning its constitutionality – casts again doubts over Eurozone’s ability to manage the austerity policies needed, to secure a viable politico-economic path. In more detail, yesterday Wednesday 2 January, the Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva, […]Eurozone 2013: Where to?
December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In 2012, Eurozone not only managed to effectively counter its double-faced, credit and sovereign debt crisis, but also convinced the global financial community, that the single European currency is probably the safest deposit of value. The world responded positively by voting the euro at the region of 132 American cents. A fair price, to keep […]EU summit: Are the London Tories planning an exit from the EU?
November 23, 2012 by 1 Comment
It’s not the first time that the European Union leaders are divided between the paymasters and the receivers. However during their last Summit of Thursday and Friday 22 and 23 November the 27 heads of states and governments were divided in more than three groups and left the conference room blaming each other, for the […]Is there a cure for corruption in Greece?
November 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
As Henry Kissinger said, corrupt politicians are defamation for the rest 10%. It seems that Greece is a classical paradigm of this. Not to forget that the architect and contractor of the Athens Acropolis died in prison accused of stealing some of the gold used to construct the Goddess’s statute. Today in this country, contrary […]European Union: From financial consolidation to deeper political division
October 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In June 2012 the 17 Euro-area leaders who made a giant step forward towards a closer Eurozone union, when back home, those on the giving side, namely Angela Merkel, pretended that nothing has changed, while the ‘winners’ made it look like a gift, which it was not. As for the 10 heads of states and […]
