The imperative economic realities for the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will not be altered noticeably after his crushing win in yesterday’s referendum. His ‘no’ (OXI in Greek) option marked an overwhelming victory meaning that the Greeks rejected the latest offer from the country’s creditors. To be reminded, during the past five months the Greek […]Greece: Tsipras’ referendum victory does not solve the financial stalemate of the country and its banks
July 6, 2015 by 1 Comment
The imperative economic realities for the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will not be altered noticeably after his crushing win in yesterday’s referendum. His ‘no’ (OXI in Greek) option marked an overwhelming victory meaning that the Greeks rejected the latest offer from the country’s creditors. To be reminded, during the past five months the Greek […]Hardened creditors drive Greece to dire straits; Tsipras desperate for an agreement
July 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, his government and their depressed country are now in real dire straits. This is a much worse position than in any time during the last five years, a period in which Greece repeatedly faced total collapse and was rescued by a troika of creditors (the European Union, the European […]Greece’s Tsipras: Risking country and Eurozone or securing an extra argument for creditors?
June 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his governing left wing SYRIZA party, cornered between its populist rhetoric for greener grass and the realities of the dragging on negotiations with the country’s creditors, called for a referendum next Sunday 5 July without a clearly defined question, denying to exactly clarify where the ‘yes’ or the […]Greferendum: the biggest political gaffe in western modern history to tear Europe apart? #Grexit #Graccident
June 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Once upon a time there was a beautiful historical country that used to be part of the European Union. It became the 10th country to join the block in 1981 and was evolved ever since to become a pole of stability and growth in the Balkan region and serve crucial geo-strategic interests in the Mediterranean. The introduction in the […]A Monday to watch the final act of a Greek tragedy; will there be catharsis or more fear?
June 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today’s Eurogroup summit of the 19 euro area heads of state and government is convened by Donald Tusk, the President of European Council in order to bluntly present Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM with a final ultimatum; ‘comply or leave the Eurozone’. Of course this initiative was not Tusk’s, given that his mandate is rather […]ECB: Euro area should smooth out the consumption and income shocks of its members
June 4, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Tuesday Brussels celebrated the return of the Eurozone inflation to positive grounds after five straight months of deflation (negative inflation). Some EU Commission economists, among others, assume that three positive decimal points of change of the level of consumer prices in May (0.3%), can signal the return of the economy to growth. Under an […]The ECB tells Berlin that a Germanic Eurozone is unacceptable and doesn’t work
May 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed that Eurozone inflation was stuck at zero percent in April, remaining in the region of deflation. No need to mention what a too low or zero or negative inflation means for a stagnating or even receding economy. Add to that the perilous position of Greece in and […]Big world banks to pay $ 4.95bn for cheating customers; Is it a punishment or a gentle caress?
May 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week five of the world largest banks, JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and Union de Banques Suisses were fined by the American magistrates a total of $ 4.7 billion for rigging interest rate benchmarks. The banks had been setting those standards by themselves for five years after 2007. In another case the […]More billions needed to help Eurozone recover; ECB sidesteps German objections about QE
May 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The Eurozone economy has been taking two steps forward and one step backward over the past few months. The minimal increase of the GDP growth rate to 0.4% during the first quarter of this year and the equally small increase of people in employment was accompanied by a fall of industrial production and a decrease […]Eurozone at risk of home-made deflation and recession
May 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Tomorrow Tuesday, 5th April, the European Commission will present its ‘Spring European Economic Forecast’ including assessments and predictions about GDP, inflation, employment and government finance for 2014, 2015 and 2016. Good providence made sure that last Thursday Eurostat released its flash estimate of April inflation standing at the edge of zero percent, up by an […]The EU Parliament and the ECB unknowingly or unwillingly fail to protect our financial assets
April 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the European Parliament and the European Central Bank rather unknowingly or unwillingly failed to protect the European citizens from the attacks of ‘money sharks’. In two different occasions the two most important European institutions secured the bankers reign on peoples’ money. Let us take one thing at a time. When the average hard […]ECB with an iron hand disciplines the smaller Eurozone member states; latest victim: Greece
March 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi reacted strongly while answering a MEP’s question in the European legislature. He was asked if the ECB is “blackmailing” and financially “suffocating” Greece. As expected, he denied the accusations. Was he right though? Rather not. Only some hours afterwards the central bank ordered the […]Can Greece’s democratic institutions keep it in Eurozone?
March 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Paris, Washington and Brussels categorically reject the idea of a Grexit, while Berlin is still loudly insisting that the Eurozone can weather at a cost Greece’s secession. Behind closed doors though, the German decision makers are also not at all sure about that. Greece’s exit from Eurozone has lately become the talk of the town […]ECB’s billions fortify south Eurozone except Greece; everybody rushes to invest in euro area bonds zeroing their yields
March 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Even without having spent yet a single euro the European Central Bank’s program of sovereign bond buying of €60 billion a month has had an enormous impact on world financial markets. It suppressed the euro dollar parity from the unbearably high levels of 2014 (1.39 on 9 March 2014) to 1.08510 last Friday, the lowest […]Can ECB’s €60 billion a month save Eurozone?
March 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The European Central Bank as from this March will start pumping into the Eurozone economy extra liquidity of €60 billion a month of freshly printed money. The details of this extraordinary policy measure will be revealed tomorrow Thursday by Mario Draghi the President of ECB, in his regular Press conference after the Governing Council meeting […]Greece at the mercy of ECB while sailing through uncharted waters
February 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
In the efforts to solve the latest Greek enigma, the European Central Bank has once more proved that when it comes to what matters more in the EU, the Eurozone, it constitutes the power house of the entire European edifice. The ECB emerges imbued by truly pan-European motives in serving the Union project. When the […]Greece’s last Eurogroup or the beginning of a new solid European Union?
February 20, 2015 by
Today everyone’s eyes are fixed on the extraordinary Eurogroup meeting which is taking place in Brussels. This is simply put one of the most important gatherings in the Union’s history because one of its member states is under the “dilemma” of staying within the Eurozone by signing an extension agreement or exit and face imminent bankruptcy. […]Athens searches frantically for a new compromise between politics and economic reality
February 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week the new Greek government started faltering on all accounts. The young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who got elected on 25 January under a populist banner to change everything in this crisis stricken nation, proposed Prokopis Pavlopoulos for President of the Republic, an old fox representing the corrupt and incompetent political system which governed […]D-Day for Grexit is today and not Friday; Super Mario is likely to kill the Greek banks still today
February 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today is really the D-Day for the Greek matter. After a couple of moves in this grand chessboard, checkmate is just unavoidable. Today we are likely to reach a point without return where nobody will be able to save Greece from collapse and the Eurozone from breaking down. It is the great final round and […]Deep chasm still divides Athens and Brussels; can Eurozone use the nuclear arm of liquidity against Greece?
February 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today the Eurogroup, the 19 Eurozone ministers of Finance at 3 o’clock in the afternoon will start discussing the future of Greece. It’s quite uncertain if a decision will be reached. Late last Saturday the technical consultations for the Monday meeting were concluded in Brussels. The preliminary work was realized by a group comprising Greek […]Alexis Tsipras ready to test Eurozone’s political sturdiness; Up to what point?
January 26, 2015 by Leave a Comment
With the left-wing SYRIZA ready to form a new government in Athens, the party will be the first radical political formation to lead a Eurozone country, and its leader Alexis Tsipras will be the youngest Greek prime minister for more than one and a half century. The party won yesterday’s legislative election with an 8% […]Why Eurozone urgently needs the ECB to print and distribute at least €500 billion
January 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Next Thursday 22 January the European Central Bank is expected to announce its new extraordinary monetary program (quantitative easing), under which the central bank or the 19 member state national central banks will buy up to 20%-25% of Eurozone’s government debt. According to Eurostat, the government consolidated gross debt is around €9 trillion. Theoretically then […]Are ECB’s €500 billion enough to revive Eurozone? Will the banks pass it to the real economy?
January 12, 2015 by 1 Comment
The major indicators that an economy is in recession and probably heading to something worse like a crisis, are falling prices and crumbling wages. Eurozone suffers of both of them. According to Eurostat, the EU statistical service, the annual growth of labour cost dropped in the euro area to 1.3% during the third quarter of […]“C’est la vie”? French recession and unemployment to linger in Eurozone
December 5, 2014 by Leave a Comment
It was last Wednesday when the financial information services company Markit published the Markit Eurozone Composite Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) for the month of November. This indicator revealed a weak growth outlook for the 18-country Eurozone while the disappointment of investors was apparent. November’s Eurozone economic growth The downslope of Eurozone’s growth continued in November […]Eurostat overturns Commission’s assessment of the economy
December 1, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Friday 28 November Eurostat did it again. Almost simultaneously with the presentation of Commission’s “Annual Growth Survey 2015”, disingenuously entitled “A new Momentum for Jobs, Growth and Investment”, the EU statistical service published its frustrating flash estimate of November inflation rate down to a mere 0.3%. Positively this new dive of inflation closer to […]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, […]Is the ECB ready to flood Eurozone with freshly printed money?
November 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The insatiable appetite of the global financial system for more free cash from central banks has now reached the Governing Council of the European Central Bank. After the American central bank, the Fed, announced last month that it discontinues its quantitative easing policy, under which it has supplied the US banks with around $ 4 […]How close is the new financial Armageddon? IMF gives some hints
October 13, 2014 by 1 Comment
Six years after the Western financial system collapsed under its immeasurable greed for easy money expressed as an insatiable thirst for risk, the American and European banks and governments are 30% deeper in debt. Few of them can duly repay without major problems of the most dangerous political kind. It is even more alarming that […]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% […]There is a way for Eurozone to reach a sustainable growth path
September 22, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Slowly but surely Euro area inflation rate heads for the zero zone, making decision makers nervous and everybody else, especially the unemployed young even more pessimistic and passive about their present situation and the future prospects. And all that is happening in this part of the globe where only a few years ago the Europeans […]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 […]It’s not summer holidays what lead to the bad August of the German economy
September 5, 2014 by
The second quarter was very disappointing in terms of GDP figures for Germany. The biggest European economy is facing tough times at the moment Russia imposes economic sanctions against the EU. It is now more than necessary for Germany to find a way to climb up to growth but its fiscal policy comes as an obstacle […]If on a summer’s night: is UK businesses’ “new deal” the only key to the “best of all worlds”?
September 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
If you are a loyal reader of the European Sting, or at least a well-informed European citizen, you will certainly know that surveys don’t really bring good news for the Union. Anytime a new survey about the public opinion around the bloc comes out, the European Parliament is shaking a bit. “People are not really interested…”, […]
