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January 7, 2011
ON 1 JANUARY 2011, Estonia was duly ordained the 17th member of the Eurozone. Welcome to the party, my Baltic chums! Are the children of Kalev now waking up from their festive-season hangovers and thinking “Blimey, chaps! Look at our money! It’s gone all weird! What did we do!?” I wonder, do the Estonians have… » read more
December 16, 2010
The European Central Bank has just announced that it will almost double its ’subscribed capital’ over the next three years, from €5.76 billion to €10.76 billion. ‘Subscribed capital’ is the amount that countries pay into the ECB when they become fu…
November 1, 2010
An interesting new paper by German think tank Centrum für Europäische Politik has listed “Five hard rules for a hard Euro”. It sums up some of the ideas on how to save the euro, currently floating around Germany.Here they are:More automatic sanctions…
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bail-out, Centrum für Europäische Politik, EMU, English, euro |
October 22, 2010
The excellent WSJ Real Time Brussels blog notes that EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski isn’t entirely happy with the amount of money that potentially can be lent to struggling governments, using the EU budget as a guarantee.Mr. Lewandowski told…
October 1, 2010
Today’s gloomy revelations from Ireland were followed by rather disturbing news from the Greek parliament.As part of a long-standing tradition to let tax evaders off the hook every three to four years, Greece’s parliament has rushed through a law whi…
September 16, 2010
A new poll published yesterday by the German Marshall Fund of the United States makes for interesting reading.With a few exceptions, majorities in the eurozone countries said the euro has been a bad thing for their economy, including France (60%) and G…
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economic government, English, euro, eurobarometer, European Commission, poll |
September 3, 2010
Last week, three associations of Dutch pension funds’ issued a quite startling warning to the Dutch Parliament: “If interest rates remain so low” they said “the the entire pensions system will be undermined”, adding that insurers could take a seriou…
August 18, 2010
An interesting article on Spanish website Citzalia.It looks at recent Eurostat data, which shows that, since the euro came into force, Spain and Greece have seen the highest increases in the cost of living throughout the EU. In comparison to the rest o…
July 29, 2010
A recent Eurobarometer poll has found that the majority of Spaniards, a sizeable 54 percent, believe that “without the euro, with the peseta, we would have been able to confront the economic crisis”. Somewhat surprisingly, perhaps, this is higher t…
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EMU, English, eu communication policy, euro, European Commission, Spain |
July 22, 2010
We have just come across this rather amusing snippet from Labour leadership contender Ed Balls who, we learn via the Today programme, single-handedly prevented Britain from joining the euro in the latter part of the last decade (and the first part of t…
July 14, 2010
Over a year ago, a commentary on this page warned about ‘the result of President Barack Hussein Obama’s policy of pouring some 4.5 Trillion dollars into the US system. The aim is to buy out toxic assets created by toxic financiers and decades of toxic government policy. The problem is that it is likely to… » read more
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Economy - Finances, Economy and Finance, English, euro, financial nightmare |
June 4, 2010
Guy Verhofstadt, president of the European Parliament (EP) Liberal Democrats and former Belgian prime minister, briefed the European Policy Centre today on his vision for Europe. In his view the main underlying issue at stake is whether the EU uses the ‘Community method’ or intergovernmentalism. The Union will only progress if it reduces its intergovernmental… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, EU integration, EU Opinions, EU Priorities, euro, future EU, future of europe |
March 23, 2010
Following its succesful campaign to pressure Ireland into signing the Lisbon Treaty, the EU elite now seems set on an even bigger task: forcing Germany to accept a bailout plan for Greece. A range of selcted EU leaders hope that Germany will give in a…
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12117, 12118, bundesbank, EMU, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, euro, Financial Services, Germany, greece, Merkel |
February 19, 2010
During the last European Council meeting, EU leaders made their position towards the Greek economic crisis clear: Greece will have EU’s help if the measures taken by the country fail to tackle the economic problems. In other words, Brussels will make sure that Greece will not need EU’s assistance; towards this direction, EU has proposed… » read more
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Economy - Finances, Economy and Finance, English, euro, financial crisis, financial economics, financial stability |
February 16, 2010
The EU’s finance ministers, and a handful of heads of state, are meeting today in another attempt to come up with answers to the ‘Greek question’. No details are expected to be announced, although an agreed decleration will give Greece a month to get d…
February 15, 2010
The comment pages of today and the weekend’s papers were understandably filled with reflections on a potential Greek bailout and the wider implications for the euro and the EU as a whole. We argued in our recent briefing that a bailout would have far-r…
January 29, 2010
Here’s another thought for the weekend. Apart from the legal obstacles (at least on paper) involved in giving emergency support to Greece – something we’ve touched on many times before – there may be a second legal hurdle that EU leaders have to pass i…
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bail-out, EMU, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, euro, Financial Services, greece |
December 1, 2008
Thanks to the Euro, members of the Euro-zone have been able to weather the international financial crisis much better than those outside the euro-zone. Hungary and UK, not to mention Iceland, have seen their currencies coming under pressure for devaluation, as they lacked the solidity and solidarity of the single currency. It is therefore […]… » read more
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Denmark, Dollar, EMU, euro, Euro-zone, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, romania, Sweden, Yen, Yuan |
