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This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has informed Deutsche Bank and Rabobankof its preliminary view that they breached EU antitrust rules by colluding to distort competition when trading Euro-denominated Sovereign, SSA (Supra-Sovereign, Foreign Sovereign, Sub-Sovereign/Agency), Covered and Government Guaranteed bonds. The Commission has concerns that between 2005 […]
Only a few years ago, Germany’s stars of pride and accomplishment were personified and embodied in the unparalleled triumphant stories and achievements of Chancellor Angela Merkel and Deutsche Bank. They both had amazed Europe and the world, with their successes in the politico-economic universe. Until the legislative elections of September 2017, and probably sometime earlier […]
Finally, Germany blinked. Chancellor Angela Merkel at last decided to clearly respond and, up to a certain degree, uphold French President Emmanuel Macron’s ideas, about reforming the Eurozone, in order not only to save it from unraveling, but, if possibe, to make it more cohesive and stronger. In an interview to last Sunday’s issue of […]
the next Italian election is, very probably, to take place within the next few months or even weeks. Then, Berlin, the rest of Eurozone capitals and probably the entire western financial world will learn, if it’s still politically possible to ask just one country’s taxpayers to save an obviously faltering global financial system. The test […]
Last Friday, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, rushed to Sochi, the Black Sea seaside Russian resort to meet Vladimir Putin. It was the first visit by a Western leader to meet him at home, after his fourth inauguration on 7 May as President of the vast country, this time for six more years. Looking through […]
As in VW’s diesel engines emissions scandal, in the case of Estonia’s half banking system working as mafia’s financiers, it was the Americans to unveil the wrongdoings. Is it by chance or the Europeans are looking the other way, when it comes to their own dirty laundry? Those calculated frame ups are not only meant […]
During the past ten years, Germany has become a politically boring country and yesterday’s election is not going to change that, despite the loss of around one million votes for the Chancellor’s party. Angela Merkel’s win came to none’s surprise and the results permit her to embark on a fourth term in the top job. […]
Last Saturday 8 July the Belgian newspaper De Standaard published an interview with Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank. Praet said it plainly “We do say that we still need a long period of accommodative policy before we are ready”. What he means by ‘being ready’ […]
Over the past three years the European Central Bank, guided by its President Mario Draghi, has been folowing a super relaxed monetary policy. It has been aiming at reviving uncertain economic growth and dying inflation, by handing out to banks, and through them to the economy, hundreds of billions of euro and at the same […]
The Theresa May brexiteer government has started feeling the heat about their choice to fight an electoral battle on a clear and loud plea, that a vote for Tories on 8 June is a vote for a hard Brexit. And mind you the closer we get to the polling date the more heated the controversy […]
Last week the European Central Bank surprised everybody by letting it be known that interest rates will “remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases”. To be noted, presently, the main refinancing operations interest rate is zero. Of course, the markets […]
Last Monday, Deutsche Bank’s management surprised everybody quite negatively by asking its shareholders for an €8 billion capital injection. Only hours before that, the London Stock Exchange had almost terminated the long negotiated merger procedure with the Deutsche Börse, the German bourse in Frankfurt. The LSE directors rejected the terms set by the European Commission […]
The US Department of Justice settled its claims against Deutsche Bank, the biggest German lender, for packaging and selling toxic mortgage securities to uninformed customers prior to the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Initially, the Justice Department had asked for $14 billion, but it seems it settled for a fine of $7.2bn. However, this is not the […]
This year’s annual meetings of the IMF – World Bank Group in Washington D.C., which kicked off on Thursday 6 October, turned out to be an all out financial war of words between the United States and Germany. In the middle of it stands the battered Deutsche Bank. For a start, there was a confrontation […]
More than one economic pundit felt relieved learning that Eurostat, the EU statistical service last Friday estimated the September CPI inflation in Eurozone at 0.4%, the highest level in two years. Understandably, they think that the stagnating and almost deflationary euro area is leaving behind its grim past, aided by ECB’s liquidity injections of €80 […]
Last week, Janet Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in more than one ways revealed that the American central bank prepares to confront the next financial downturn. On Wednesday, 28 September, speaking at the House Financial Services Committee in Washington D.C. , she defended the Fed’s rigorous supervision over […]
It was last Monday when the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) discussed with members of the economic and monetary affairs committee at the European Parliament (EP) about the EU economy in the aftermath of the UK referendum, revealing that the euro area economy shows notable adjustment properties to the global economic and political uncertainty. […]
The US government is reacting in many ways against the fine in back taxes of €13 billion which the European Commission imposed on Apple. Firstly, Jack Lew, the American Secretary of the Treasury, accused the EU of grabbing tax incomes which belong to the US. On 31st August he said, “What’s not appropriate is for, […]
Last Tuesday, the White House and the US Treasury in concerted actions issued farfetched statements against the EU Commission. The EU executive’s decision ordered the US giant technology company Apple Inc. to pay additional taxes of up to €13 billion in Ireland. These instant and strong reactions clearly denote that the US sees this Brussels […]
Last Monday David Folkerts-Landau, the chief economist of Deutsche Bank, the ailing largest lender of Germany, in an interview with the prestigious newspaper ‘Die Welt’ stated that European banks must be subsidized with €150 billion in rescue money to recapitalize. Obviously, it will be the taxpayers to once more provide the capital the euro area […]
Last Thursday morning the International Monetary Fund and the American central bank, the Fed, simultaneously but in the face of it independently, issued warnings about the health of the largest German lender, the long ailing Deutsche Bank. A few days before that the US rating agency Moody’s had degraded the creditworthiness of the bank close […]
The descent of prices in the world capital markets continued almost unhindered this past week and only last Friday financial, oil and commodity values gained some limited grounds. Altogether however, the major stock markets have erased trillions off their capitalization since last June, when the dark clouds gathered above the Chinese mega-cities of Shanghai and […]
The Chinese New Year began two days ago and has brought already significant turbulences and volatilities to the global financial markets and economies. Luckily for the world’s second largest economy, Chinese stock markets are closed due to New Year’s festivities and haven’t experienced, at least yet, the losses of the European, U.S. and Japanese markets. This […]
On Thursday 22 October Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank delighted the world capital markets with his comment about the “factors that are currently slowing the return of inflation to levels below, but close to, 2% in the medium term” He added that “In this context, the degree of monetary policy accommodation […]
Mario Draghi’s statement of last Thursday from Malta that the European Central Bank’s “monetary policy accommodation will need to be re-examined at our December monetary policy meeting”, offered a strong support to all major capital markets, with stocks gaining a lot of ground and the euro receding slightly. Understandably, a generous increase of ECB’s monthly […]
Government deficit decreased substantially in the third quarter of last year and reached -3.1% of the GDP in Eurozone. This is just one decimal point away from the 3% benchmark, set by the Treaty of Maastricht and the strict EU economic governance Regulations (the famous ‘two’ and ‘six’ packs). The gap between government income and […]
Although the “Structural reform of the EU banking sector”, as proposed yesterday by European Commission member Michel Barnier, undoubtedly goes halfway to fulfilling the suggestions of the Erkki Liikanen High Level Group Report, it agitated people on both sides of the spectrum. Those who protect the banks by profession said it is ‘irresponsible’, and those […]
In the latest issue of its World Economic Outlook (WEO), which was published yesterday, the IMF raises the tone of criticism against Europe. It’s again the risk of deflation and the projection that “economic slack will remain high”, the two axes which constitute the cutting edge of criticism of North America against Eurozone. The latest […]
While the whole world knows that the Eurozone banks are very short on truly own capital and their overall leverage ratio is less than 3%, the European Central Bank avoids analysing in detail the exact magnitude of this crucial indicator. In its Banking Structure Report, which was published yesterday covering the period 2008-2012 and the […]
The German banks in the north of the country seem to face grave problems. Yesterday the European Commission was forced to approve more state aid to Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (NORD/LB). This is a German Landesbank, one of the largest commercial banks in the country, which serves as central institution to savings banks in the German […]
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 […]
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 […]
“Splitting” is the magic word one hears nowadays all over the world in developed and developing counties alike, from Belgium, Spain, Scotland and Canada to Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Soudan, Libya and Turkey as if until now there were no divisions over national identity, incomes, wealth and natural endowments. Flemish, Flemish, Scots, Quebecois, Benghazies, Alawites, Kurds […]
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