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It was yesterday when the Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras stated from the Greek island of Ithaca that the austerity measures are over cheering for the Greek bailout programme exit. Mario Centeno, the chairman of the ESM’s board of governors, had said last Monday that Greece is once more a nation which doesn’t need any additional […]
This story is brought to you in association with the European Council – Eurogroup Completion of the fourth and final review and growth strategy The Eurogroup commends the Greek authorities for the completion of all the agreed prior actions of the final review of the ESM programme. We congratulate the Greek authorities and Greek people […]
The center right and center left German mainstream political parties agreed yesterday evening to form a new grand coalition government. It will be the third time since 2005 the two Christian parties and the socialists jointly govern their country. The socialists will control the Finance, Foreign and Labor ministries, with Martin Schulz, the Social Democratic […]
The Finance ministers of the Eurozone met yesterday in Brussels to discuss mainly on the implementation of Greece’s ESM economic adjustment programme and have come to a final deal which will lead to the conclusion of the first review unlocking the second tranche of 10,3 billion euros. The Ministers gave a direct assignment to the […]
It was last Monday when the Eurogroup took place in Brussels to discuss about the Greek programme but no final decisions were made neither on the ESM’s programme first review nor on the debt relief. The Eurozone Finance Ministers decided though to come to an agreement at their next meeting on May 24, after the […]
The teleconference of the EuroWorking Group which took place yesterday is the forerunner of the extraordinary meeting of the Finance Ministers of the Eurozone on May 9 where Greece’s programme review is about to be discussed. The outcome was, as expected, disappointing regarding the agreement between the two sides on the package of basic and […]
The Lethal Deferral of Greek Debt Restructuring Written by Yanis Varoufakis ATHENS – The point of restructuring debt is to reduce the volume of new loans needed to salvage an insolvent entity. Creditors offer debt relief to get more value back and to extend as little new finance to the insolvent entity as possible. Remarkably, […]
The technical teams of the European institutions are now discussing the Greek proposal which was approved yesterday evening by SYRIZA’s governmental council and submitted to the institutions minutes before the deadline in order to have a final agreement at tomorrow’s Eurogroup. The fact that the Greek government has come up with a more professional and […]
Last Friday the ECOFIN council made up by the 28 EU ministers of finance, confirmed that a permanent arrangement for the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) and the single resolution fund (SRF) meant to deal with failing banks, will be agreed on before the end of the year covering the period after 1 January 2015. In […]
With the talks on the formation of a coalition government, involving Angela Merkel’s CDU and the German socialists of SPD having progressed as far as to cover the issue of Eurozone’s bank resolution mechanism, it seems that the main elements of an agreement over the completion of the European Banking Union are now in place. […]
A careful reading of the text of conclusions of last European Summit, the 28 EU leaders undersigned yesterday night after two days of discussions in Brussels, proves that they don’t really care about the implementation of their own June 2013 decision to combat unemployment and social exclusion, as the European Sting reported last morning. However, […]
Today, 18 October, is the last day for MEPs to table their amendments with the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Committee, in the process of formulating the legislature’s proposal for an EU mechanism to sort out troubled banks. This is the much debated bank resolution and recovery mechanism and fund. The Committee vote is planned for […]
Klaus Regling, the Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), speaking yesterday at the European Parliament, when pressed by legislators, accepted that the wealthy ESM under conditions could function as a backstop and finance jointly with other sources, euro area bank resolutions and recapitalisations. Regling did concede that he was “open to considering other […]
Past the German elections, the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, must have left free to take some steps forward in his quest for the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, and promote the defragmentation of Eurozone’s financial markets. Speaking yesterday in a hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of […]
Commissioner Michel Barnier, responsible for financial services, had a rough time yesterday at the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) of the European Parliament, when he told the legislators that the Commission will press ahead with its proposal about the creation under its own roof of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for Eurozone’s failing banks. […]
Borrowing on international markets is not at all a straightforward activity. Things are even more complicated when it comes to long-term debt paper with maturities spanning to decades. This little theory tells a lot about Eurozone’s creditworthiness. As a matter of fact, during the last few weeks the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) borrowed from […]
As the European Sting predicted the ‘Friday battle at Ecofin’ Council was not about the specific country recommendations of the Commission, or about the seven-year extension of the loans to Portugal and Ireland, nor on the direct bank recapitalisation instrument. It was the very issue of the creation of the Banking Union and its core […]
During the past few weeks there is a noticeable change of climate in Brussels towards a more relaxed attitude over economic policies. On Monday the President of Eurogroup and minister for Finance of Holland, Jeroen Dijsselbloem asked in a letter his 16 colleagues in view of their Luxembourg meeting, to reduce the sovereign debt […]
Eurogroup President and minister for Finance of Holland, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, in an unexpected move this week sent his peers a letter to invite them to their 20 June meeting in Luxembourg, asking them to think about taking a decision on a possible recapitalisation of Eurozone banks directly from the European Stability Mechanism, with retroactive enforcement. […]
The creation of a real European Banking Union, built to serve all Eurozone member states on equal terms found yesterday a new strong supporter. Yves Mersch, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and former Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg speaking yesterday at the UniCredit Business Dialogue in Hamburg, […]
The leadership of the European Central Bank took yesterday a step back from its strong presence in the public discussion over the depth and the strength of the under construction European Banking Union (EBU) and more precisely the single bank resolution authority. Both its President and Vice President Mario Draghi and Vítor Constâncio had very […]
The enactment of the European Banking Union emerges now as the next statutory step for Eurozone and the European Union as a whole, if the block is to continue as a solid entity or starts unravelling during the next credit crisis, which might not be very far away. In any case the European Central Bank […]
After Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, questioned loudly last Monday the one-sided character of the severe austerity policies currently applied in a number of Eurozone countries, yesterday it was the turn of Commission’s vice President Ollie Rehn, directly responsible for this tough strategy, to argue openly and clearly in favour of a relaxation. […]
The Spring European Council made yesterday a timid step towards the introduction of more social content in the austerity programmes currently applied in the EU and a giant leap forward in constituting the EU banking union. The relevance and the practical implications of the texts on each one of those two issues included in the final […]
Yesterday, José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, speaking in a farewell ceremony to honour the Cypriot Presidency of the European Union during the second half of 2012, made clear that the Commission has made the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the EU banks as its utmost priority and will […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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