This article is published in association with IMF. Ceyla Pazarbasioglu The global economy avoided what could have been a systemic debt crisis during the turbulence of recent years, but vulnerabilities remain amid high debt servicing costs that pose an important challenge for low and middle-income countries. Some may yet confront major tests. When countries do falter […]Sovereign Debt Restructuring Process Is Improving Amid Cooperation and Reform
June 27, 2024 by Leave a Comment
This article is published in association with IMF. Ceyla Pazarbasioglu The global economy avoided what could have been a systemic debt crisis during the turbulence of recent years, but vulnerabilities remain amid high debt servicing costs that pose an important challenge for low and middle-income countries. Some may yet confront major tests. When countries do falter […]Tsipras imposes more austerity on insolvent Greece; plans to win new early election soon
July 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
On 9 July this newspaper predicted that the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was adamant about keeping his country in the Eurozone. In order to do this the Sting foresaw that he was prepared not only to pay a dear price for a third bailout scheme (April 2010, June 2012 and July 2015) financed by […]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 […]ECB’s €1.14 trillion again unifies Eurozone; Germany approves sovereign debt risks to be pooled
January 23, 2015 by 2 Comments
The long-awaited move of the European Central Bank finally came yesterday afternoon. Mario Draghi announced from ECB’s Press room in the Frankfurt tower that the Eurosystem, the central banking system of the euro area, will purchase bonds issued by governments and other European institutions at a rate of around €60 billion a month. Obviously the […]Poor Greeks, Irish and Spaniards still pay for the faults of German and French banks
February 3, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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 […]The fatal consequences of troika’s blind austerity policy
January 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
When the ‘troika’, made up by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund was atypically formed first in spring of 2010 to bail out and audit Greece, its widely advertised purpose was to inflict an internal devaluation on this country. Later on the troika undertook to perform the same task […]How the Irish people were robbed by banks, the Commission and their own government
December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In 2007 Ireland’s sovereign debt was 25% of the country’s GDP. After the financial crisis – and €140 billion later – in 2012 it reached 120% of the GDP at €190bn. Yet the Dublin government this week celebrated the Irish ‘exit’ from the EU-ECB-IMF troika’s surveillance programme, that brought the 4.5 million people nation to […]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 […]Why the ECB suddenly decided to flood banks with money?
July 10, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was not a coincidence that the Governing Council of the European Central Bank suddenly decided unanimously last week to further relax its monetary policy promising more and cheaper loans to all banks, exactly at a time when the US central bank, the Fed, is about to start calling back the trillions of dollars it […]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 […]Why the West supports the yen’s devaluation and Japanese over-indebtedness
May 13, 2013 by 1 Comment
While the ministers of Finance of seven major industrialised countries making up the G7 council agreed pompously last weekend that monetary devaluations should not be used as a home economy revitalisation tool, Japan doing exactly that got a pat on the back and was given the green light to continue on the same path. The […]Germany hides its own banks’ problems
March 28, 2013 by 1 Comment
The insistence of the Brussels, Berlin and Paris authorities that Cyprus is a special case and the rest of the Eurozone banking system is safe, has only superficial value. Markets do not believe that. It’s not only that the Greek, Italian or even the Spanish banking systems are in deep trouble. The problems are not […]
