Ahead of the 18-19 December Summit of the 28 EU leaders, the European economy dives deeper in recession and disinflation. Brussels sources estimate that November inflation plunged again to 0.3% from 0.4% in October, widely diverging from the institutional target of below but close to 2%. There is more to it though. According to Eurostat, […]How much time has the ‘European Union of last chance’ left?
November 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Ahead of the 18-19 December Summit of the 28 EU leaders, the European economy dives deeper in recession and disinflation. Brussels sources estimate that November inflation plunged again to 0.3% from 0.4% in October, widely diverging from the institutional target of below but close to 2%. There is more to it though. According to Eurostat, […]Draghi: printing a full extra trillion non negotiable to help all borrow cheaply
November 20, 2014 by 1 Comment
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi speaking at the economic and monetary affairs Committee of the European Parliament last Monday, made at least two direct references to additional monetary measures, to confront the anaemic economic conditions in Eurozone, “if warranted to achieve price stability over the medium term”. He referred to this prospect once while […]The banks first to benefit from the new euro trillion ECB plans to print
November 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last week, all the major media reported a deep division in the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, over a Mario Draghi policy proposal to pump more freshly printed money into the struggling Eurozone economy. Nevertheless, the European Sting very early in the morning of Thursday 6 November, before the meeting of the Council, […]EU growth in 2015 to be again sluggish; Can the Juncker Commission fight this out?
November 7, 2014 by Leave a Comment
It was last Tuesday when the European Commission (EC) met in Brussels to talk about the 2014 autumn economic forecast. Among others, the discussion was mainly about the sluggish growth and inflation, the impact of geopolitical crises in the EU economy as well as the significant economic performance of Ireland. Wrong growth forecasts The EC stated […]Five-year low inflation for Eurozone and now Mario has to finally wake up the Germans
October 2, 2014 by
The European Central Bank’s (ECB) governing council is gathering today in Naples to discuss the monetary policy just two days after the publication of the flash estimate of the annual inflation of the Euro area by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The inflation is expected to be 0.3% in September, a 0.1% […]ECB: Reaching the limits of its mandate to revive the Eurozone economy
September 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Everybody agreed that what the European Central Bank decided last week (to lower its basic interest rate to 0.05% and purchase asset backed securities and covered bonds) came as a surprise. As a result, stock and bond markets throughout Europe celebrated this additional almost zero cost liquidity, which Mario Draghi, ECB’s President, is ready to […]Eurozone: GDP development heads to naught; the expensive euro serves only Germany
August 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
A new Eurostat wave of data statistically confirmed that Eurozone is utterly moored in economic stagnation, with disturbing signs that this might even turn to recession. Most significantly, last week the EU statistical service issued an estimate that the euro area GDP idled with a zero growth rate during the second quarter. The same source […]The EU Commission implicates major banks in cartel cases, threatens with devastating fines
May 22, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Three major international banking firms Crédit Agricole, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase came yesterday again under the watchful eye of the European Commission, for their role in financial sector cartels (interest rates and derivatives denominated in euro). It’s about financial products based on the Euribor (euro interbank offered rate), an interest rate benchmark. This interest rate […]Hollande protects the euro from the attacks of extremists
May 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
On 8 May, on the anniversary of the Allied Forces victory against Nazi Germany marking the end of World War II, François Hollande, the French president, used the occasion to defend the European project. He wished that all the French citizens could listen to what he had to say. To this effect the French president […]ECB readies itself for extraordinary monetary measures defying Germany
March 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
In direct antithesis with the German Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schauble, Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, raised yesterday the issue of the deflation risk (negative inflation, most prices fall) which could possibly engulf Eurozone. Draghi, after receiving the ‘Schumpeter Preis’ in a ceremony for the Schumpeter Award, at the Oesterreichische […]ECB ready to counter the rise of the euro?
March 7, 2014 by Leave a Comment
As expected by many, the European Central Bank left its basic interest rate unchanged at 0.25%. However, Mario Draghi, the President of ECB, raised the tone of the central bank’s readiness to confront possible unfavorable developments in the money markets. Presumably he has in mind the risks which may arise in international money markets, from […]Commission launches ‘Industrial Renaissance’ initiative
January 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Wednesday the European Commission presented a ground-breaking communication for a “European Industrial Renaissance”. With it, the EU’s executive arm “is urging Member States to recognise the central importance of industry for creating jobs and growth and to mainstream industry-related competitiveness concerns across all policy areas”. The truth is, however, that industry doesn’t play the […]Draghi will not hesitate to zero ECB’s basic interest rate
December 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Combining what Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, said yesterday about low inflation projections and the Governing Council’s forward guidance of the economy, the conclusion one can draw is that, the ECB’s basic interest rate will remain at its present (0.25%) or lower levels for the next two years, at least well […]ECB’s Draghi favours a cheaper euro to serve all Eurozone countries
November 29, 2013 by 2 Comments
György Matolcsy, the controversial Hungarian politician and economist, currently serving as governor of his country’s central bank, handpicked for the job by the equally controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban, reported that the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi has set the ceiling for the euro/dollar parity at 1/1.30. This is something Draghi has […]Eurozone and Britain heading in different directions
October 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed yesterday that its ‘flash estimate’ of September inflation at 1.1% is correct. In a brief Press release, the Service announced that, “Euro area annual inflation was 1.1% in September 2013, down from 1.3% in August. A year earlier the rate was 2.6%. Monthly inflation was 0.5% in September 2013”. […]More capital and liquidity for the banks
October 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Benoît Cœuré, a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, after taking care of banks’ recapitalisation needs last week using taxpayers money, embarked yesterday in a new adventure to convince us all, that central banks with their unlimited liquidity supply to banks, do not help them exploit hard-working labourers and small and […]Merkel’s triumph will make Berlin more unbending
September 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Angela Merkel’s personal triumph in the German elections yesterday will not change the European political scenery much but it will certainly affect the way some things are done in Brussels and probably in Berlin, if the socialists of the SPD finally join the winning Christian democrats of CDU-CSU in a grand coalition government. In any […]Eurozone: Retail sales betray economic frailty
August 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Retail sales are an infallible measurement of the internal dynamism or its absence in every economy. They are tightly associated with consumption which is by far the largest component of Gross Domestic Product, investments and exports accounting for the rest of it. For quite some time now retail trade dynamism in Eurozone is practically non-existent […]ECB guarantees the liquidity of the Atlantic financial volume
August 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that the European Central Bank is determined not only to continue supporting Eurozone’s real economy with liquidity at almost zero interest rate cost for as long as it needs to achieve tangible growth, but by the same token it appears ready to succeed the American Fed in keeping the western financial […]Summer pause gives time to rethink Eurozone’s problems
July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The United States Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on his way back to Washington from the G20 meeting in Moscow made a stop-over in Athens on Monday to meet the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Probably this is not major news. However, what Lew said under the Acropolis about his encounter with the German […]ECB is about to lend trillions to banks
July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The institutionalisation of the Single Resolution Mechanism to deal with failing banks, a new tool to complement ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), two cornerstones in building the European Banking Union, cannot be accomplished correctly, if member states were allowed directly or indirectly to support with public money their failing or about to fail banks, in […]Why the euro may rise with the dollar even at lower interest rates
July 8, 2013 by 1 Comment
Goldman Sachs, the US financial giant, may be right in predicting more expensive euro parities with the American dollar around 1.37 within six months, largely higher than the current levels of 1.28-1.30. The European Sting has been pointing for a long time to Eurozone’s foreign account surpluses and the standard inflows of investments into the […]Europe rethinking its severe austerity policies
June 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Paris, Washington, IMF against Berlin and ECB on money and interest
March 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Inflation in Eurozone is steadily following a downward path for months now, having already reached levels below the ECB benchmark of 2%, being estimated by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, at 1.8% in February. At the same time, the euro area is bound to be announced in technical recession by 31 March, for having recorded […]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 […]
