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Pedro Gonçalves

World economies prepare for panic after Greek polls | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...eurozone-idUKBRE85805E20120614

EU Euro Economy Greece

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Officials from the G20 nations, whose leaders are meeting in Mexico next week, said that central banks were ready to take steps to stabilize financial markets - if needed - by providing liquidity and prevent any credit squeeze after Sunday's election. Canada is "ready to act" if the situation takes a serious turn for the worse of there is "an external shock," Andrew MacDougall, a spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said on Thursday.
  • Greek banking stocks soared more than 20 percent on Thursday amid market talk that secret opinion polls were showing that a government favourable to the international bailout agreement was likely to emerge after the June 17 election.
  • Central bankers are ready to ensure enough cash is flowing through the financial system if severe market strains emerge after the elections in Greece, which coincide with votes in Egypt and France, G20 officials said."The central banks are preparing for coordinated action to provide liquidity," said a senior G20 aide familiar with discussions among international financial diplomats.
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  • Britain did not wait for the elections to announce action. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King said the country would launch a scheme to provide cheap long-term funding to banks to encourage them to lend to businesses and consumers.
  • King said the euro zone's problems were causing a crisis of confidence in Britain that was leading to a self-reinforcing weaker picture of growth."The black cloud has dampened animal spirits so that businesses and households are battening down the hatches to prepare for the storms ahead," he said.
  • Faced with Greek defiance, officials said the euro zone would not tear up the main targets of the bailout no matter who wins the elections, but it might consider giving a new government in Athens some leeway on how it reaches them.
  • "The headline targets cannot be changed," one senior EU official told Reuters. "There could be some tweaks to the path to get there, but not the goals.
  • One euro-zone official said that the main concern, if SYRIZA overwhelmingly won the election, was the risk of large capital outflows from Greece if depositors worry their savings in euros could later be frozen or converted into new drachmas."It is not even about a bank run on Monday morning after the elections. People can now log on to Internet banking and make transfers on Sunday evening as well," an official said, explaining the rationale of the ministerial call.
  • Visiting Rome, Hollande called for the euro zone to adopt bold new mechanisms to insulate member states and their banks from market turmoil, such as a joint fund to pay down debt, putting him on a collision course with Berlin."We need imagination and creativity to find new financial instruments," Hollande told a news conference. "To deepen financial union, there are many options such as a financial transactions tax and joint debt issuance, including euro bonds, euro bills or a debt redemption fund."
  • However, Merkel rejected "miracle solutions" such as issuing joint euro bonds or creating a Europe-wide deposit guarantee scheme. Such proposals were "counterproductive" and would violate the German constitution, she told parliament.
  • She warned against overstraining the resources of Europe's biggest economy, saying: "Germany is putting this strength and this power to use for the well-being of people, not just in Germany but also t
Pedro Gonçalves

Whatever euro's fate, Europe's reputation savaged | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...putation-idUKBRE85F03P20120616

EU Europe US China

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Whether the euro lives or dies, the chaotic way Europe has tackled the crisis could undermine the region's geopolitical clout for years to come and leave it at a distinct disadvantage in a rapidly changing world.
  • "The Europeans are completely consumed with a battle to save the euro zone," says Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. "It's a deep and ongoing crisis bigger than any they've experienced in decades... it's an environment where European leaders could hardly be expected to prioritise anything else."That could leave the continent being increasingly sidelined as emerging powers - not just the BRIC powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China but other states such as Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa - grow in importance.At the very least, it could undermine the ability of the continent's leaders to persuade the rest of the world to take them seriously on a range of issues, from trade to the importance of democracy and human rights."Europe probably isn't going to stop preaching to the rest of the world," says Nikolas Gvosdev, professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College. "But it's much less likely that others are going to be inclined to listen."
  • At the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, European states suffered the indignity of being outside the room when the final deal was struck between the United States and emerging powers. In the aftermath of the euro zone crisis, it's a position European leaders may simply have to get used to.
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  • for the rest of the world, it's not just the continent itself that is rapidly losing its shine. The whole European political model - generous welfare systems, democratic decision-making, closer regional integration and the idea of a currency union as a stabilising factor - no longer seems nearly as appealing to other, still growing regions.
  • "If the euro dies, it will mark the end of the European experiment in forging closer financial and political integration. But it will also have wider international implications."
  • Chellaney argues the demise of the euro might help secure the primacy of the dollar - and therefore perhaps of the United States itself - for years to come.But others believe a European collapse would be a sign of things to come for the US as well.
  • "The health of the euro or the EU, for that matter, will have a marginal impact on gold and power that is tending any way towards Asia, especially China,"
  • Washington takes the potential threat of Europe's unravelling very seriously. In the short-term, the Obama administration is clearly concerned over the electoral fallout should the crisis in Europe cross the Atlantic before November's presidential election.But in the longer term, whether the euro survives or not US planners are beginning to face up to the fact that the continent will likely be poorer and rather more self-centred than Washington had hoped.
  • While Britain and France took the political lead in Libya last year, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates complained European NATO forces were in fact almost entirely dependent on US munitions, logistics and other backup.
  • But the change in European thinking and the additional defence spending Washington called for now looks all but impossible in this time of austerity.
  • "It's doubtful any future US Defence Secretary is even going to bother to make that kind of pitch," says Gvosdev at the US Naval War College. "We'd hoped Europe could take the lead in some parts of North Africa as well as the Balkans and Eastern Europe. That now looks very unlikely."
  • Washington's military "pivot " towards Asia, he said, had been based in part on the assumption that Europe would remain stable and wealthy and the US now had little or nothing to worry about on its North Atlantic flank. A weakened Europe could make US planners much less confident of that, particularly if China extends its influence.
  • Beijing has upped its investments in Europe in recent years, including major port projects in Greece and Italy.
  • Some waning of Europe's international influence was always likely, experts say, with an ageing population chewing up ever more resources and emerging economies inevitably growing faster. But the current crisis could supercharge its decline. Whether the continent's leaders realise that, however, is another matter.
  • "Europe's main source of influence (should) be the success of its political and economic model in providing high living standards and democratic freedoms," says Jack Goldstone, professor of international affairs at George Mason University near Washington DC "If the current crisis undermines both of those as well, Europe will look like a rather weak, badly run system of ageing and economically stagnant states. Irrelevance awaits."
Pedro Gonçalves

Greeks to decide euro membership in nail-biter vote | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...k-greece-idUKBRE85D11E20120615

Greece Euro EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • EU partners have warned that no more bailout money will be handed to Greece, which is expected to run out of cash in weeks, unless it meets its budget and reform pledges. Tsipras says the EU is bluffing and that he wants to keep Greece in the euro."If one country leaves the euro, the euro zone collapses," he told Greek TV on Thursday. "If they don't give us the next loan installment, the euro zone will collapse the day after."
  • Analysts say it will be a Pyrrhic victory for whoever wins - Samaras will find it hard to govern for long with an empowered Tsipras protesting at the gates and Tsipras will realise he is inheriting a state on the verge of bankruptcy without bailout funds."It's possible that we will have a collapse no matter who is in government," said Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics at Athens University. "There is no easy solution."
Argos Media

Suffocated by Debt: Greece Teeters on the Verge of Bankruptcy - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,617915,00.html

Greece Economy

shared by Argos Media on 08 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Over the past few weeks, workers and public employees have been calling strikes across the country. Last Thursday, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Greece's major cities, paralyzing public life. Trains, buses, and ferries stopped running. Hospitals offered only emergency services. Public schools were closed.
  • Crisis? The situation in Greece is not all that bad, insists Panos Livadas, the government's secretary general of information. The shops and cafés are full of customers, he points out. The Greek economy is "really indestructible. I don't understand these international situation assessments."
  • Educated young people from the middle class have little prospect of finding employment, despite being well qualified, and are forced to take casual jobs to make ends meet. As a result, many young Greeks are forced to live with their parents until they are well past the age of 30. The anger of the "€700 generation" -- as the young people are known -- over their situation exploded last December in weeks of rioting throughout the country.
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  • He characterizes Greece's banking sector as being "basically sound" and "in considerably better condition" than those in other EU countries and in the United States. He notes that Greece was the first EU country to provide a government guarantee for personal savings up to a total of €100,000.
  • now the European Commission has instigated disciplinary proceedings, because Athens has exceeded the euro zone budget deficit limit of 3 percent for the third time in a row. The results of audits carried out by Brussels look very different from the information in Livadas's glossy brochures. In EU statistics, Greek government debt is listed as amounting to 94 percent of the country's gross domestic product. Italy is the only other euro zone country which has a higher level of government debt. Greece also has the lowest credit rating of all the euro zone countries. It has to finance its government debt under terms which are worse than for any other euro zone country, with the exception of Malta.
  • He explains that in 2008 his country's economy expanded by 3.2 percent, "one of the highest growth rates in the euro zone." Over the past four years, he says, economic growth in Greece has been twice as high as the overall average in the currency union countries.
  • Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the Bank of Greece, the nation's central bank, warned his countrymen against "self-satisfaction" and spoke of a looming danger of national bankruptcy. And Greece has still to feel the full effects of the global recession.
  • "The negative factors you see here are all leftovers from the past," says one EU diplomat, adding that most of them are homegrown. Economic experts are anxiously waiting to see what's going to happen this summer. They fear there could be a decline in the tourism sector, one of the most important pillars of growth in the Greek economy, accounting for 17 percent of gross domestic product. The volume of tourist bookings from the United States is reported to have dropped by up to 50 percent. The number of British vacationers, some 3 million annually in the past, alongside 2.3 million Germans, is expected to shrink by up to 30 percent.
  • The situation of banks that invested in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans is uncertain. Greek financial institutions invested billions of euros in bank takeovers or in setting up their own branches in Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. Given that the value of the national currencies in some of those countries has fallen dramatically, what were originally seen as attractive investments in developing economies could well turn out to be huge losses.
  • That's what the crisis looks like in Greece. "Nobody wants to see it, but everybody is afraid of it," says Kalliope Amyg, a young political scientist. "The country is dancing on a volcano."
Pedro Gonçalves

Rudderless EU: Chancellor Merkel's Dangerous Lack of Passion For Europe - SPIEGEL ONLIN... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,775085,00.html

EU Germany

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 21 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Kohl believes his political legacy -- the euro and European unity -- is in danger, and he is not just blaming the policies of the Greeks and Portuguese, but Merkel as well. What the chancellor is doing is "very dangerous," Kohl recently complained, according to one visitor. Then Kohl added: "She's destroying my Europe."
  • Kohl reacted to the original, German version of this article by stating in an interview with Bild newspaper published on Monday that the comments ascribed to him were "totally fabricated." In the interview, he went on to say Merkel's predecessor, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, was partly to blame for the crisis because he had agreed to a softening of the Stability Pact on fiscal discipline in the euro zone, and had allowed Greece to join the euro in the first place.
  • No CDU government leader has been cooler towards Brussels than Angela Merkel. To her, Europe isn't a question of war and peace but of euros and cents. Her policy so far has consisted of cheerless repair work, of plugging holes and putting out fires.
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  • The chancellor's indecisiveness is infuriating her party. First she declares Germany's fate is tied to the survival of the euro. Then she claims the Spaniards and Greeks don't work hard enough and complains that the German taxpayer has to bail them out. It's unclear whether she's trying to be stateswoman or queen of the tabloids.
  • Finance Minister Schäuble is particularly skeptical about the chancellor's actions in this respect. He refrains from uttering a word of criticism in public. But he allows himself to be feted in Brussels as the German government's "last European" -- that in itself amounts to hidden criticism of the chancellor.
  • For Schäuble, the euro crisis is an opportunity to finally realize his plan for a political union. "Europe is like a bicycle. If you stop it, it will fall over," he said in a keynote speech in Paris in December, quoting the great European Jacques Delors.
  • Merkel's actions show she doesn't want to pull Europe towards a political union.
  • Merkel is also afraid of German voters. Rarely has Europe been as unpopular with German citizens as it is now, and getting people to accept the need for unpopular policies has never been Merkel's strong point. Her background growing up in East Germany is a further factor -- the European euphoria of her western CDU colleagues has always been alien to her.
  • The CDU's Bavarian allies share the chancellor's objections. CSU party leaders have been warning against passing too much power to Brussels, just like they did in the 1990s, when then-CSU leader Edmund Stoiber tirelessly railed against the introduction of the euro. But that amounted to little more than beer hall talk which had no impact because Kohl remained faithful to European integration.
  • Merkel's lack of vision for Europe allows the CSU's euroskepticism to resonate more strongly. The pro-Europeans in the CDU are worried that the CSU's rhetoric could soon become government policy, and are pleading with the Bavarians to drop their populist stance in EU affairs. Ironically, they are getting help from Edmund Stoiber, of all people. The former Bavarian governor has become a staunch European since 2007 when he was appointed to head a unit tasked with reducing bureaucracy on behalf of the Commission.
  • Stoiber recently warned against a "renaissance of nationalism" and uttered a sentence that can be read as criticism of Merkel. "At the moment there is no one who has an overall European perspective," he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Germany Should Leave the Euro but Probably Can't - David Champion - Our Editors - Harva... - 0 views

blogs.hbr.org/...should_leave_the_euro_but.html

Economy Euro EU Germany

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 11 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • a break-up of the euro may not in Germany's short-term interests.
  • Being in the euro helped Germany become more productive relative to its southern neighbors. If Germany still had a deutschmark, the discipline of its businesses would have been rewarded by a relative increase in its value, thereby limiting the disparity between Germany and other countries. Germany would not, therefore, have experienced to such a degree the low unemployment and healthy growth that its voters have gotten used to. In turn, this would have tempered the flow of German funds recycled southwards as investments in Greek, Spanish, and other assets, reducing the bubble pressure on Club Med asset prices.
  • Breaking up the euro, whether by Greece and Spain or by Germany, could at a stroke eliminate those productivity advantages and possibly stall the German economy. It could also instantly crystallize losses on assets held by German savers in Club Med bonds and loans, probably necessitating an immediate capitalization of the German banking system. In other words, the problems currently being experienced in the South would get transferred to the North.
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  • it's easy to see why German politicians might be hesitant to actually take the initiative on breaking up the euro. Reviving the deutschmark will involve certain and immediate pain for German voters. Muddling through might cushion that pain by leaving more of it with other electorates and enable German voters to blame the policies and work-cultures of Southern Europe.
Pedro Gonçalves

Europe's Sovereignty Crisis - Joschka Fischer - Project Syndicate - 0 views

www.project-syndicate.org/...English

EU Europe

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 31 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • the EU must combine greater stability, financial transfers, and mutual solidarity if the entire European project is to be prevented from collapsing under the weight of the ongoing sovereign-debt crisis.
  • For a long time, Merkel fought this new EU tooth and nail, because she knows how unpopular it is in Germany – and thus how politically dangerous it is to her electoral prospects. She wanted to defend the euro, but not to pay the price for doing so. That dream is at an end, thanks to the financial markets.
  • The markets issued an ultimatum to Europe: either embrace more economic and financial integration on a federal basis, or face the collapse of the euro and thus the EU, including the Common Market. At the last moment, Merkel chose the sensible option.
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  • Other crisis countries in the eurozone have not been stabilized, because Germany – fearing a domestic political backlash – has not dared to embrace a community of liability by issuing Eurobonds, even if the European Financial Stability Facility’s new role means that virtually 90% of the path has already been traveled
  • The agreement at the most recent European Council will be more expensive, both politically and financially. Despite doubling financial aid and lowering interest rates, the agreement will neither end the Greek debt crisis and that of other countries on the European periphery, nor stop the EU’s associated existential crisis. It will only buy time – and at a high cost. Further aid packages for Greece may seem impossible to avoid, because the losses imposed on Greek debt holders have been too modest.
  • Had the European Council’s heads of state and government taken this foreseeable decision a year ago, the euro crisis would not have escalated to the extent that it has, the total bill would have been lower, and European leaders would have been rightly praised for a historic feat.
  • the bail-in of private investors, much applauded in Germany, is of secondary importance, and is intended only for the German public and the MPs of the country’s government coalition; indeed, upon close inspection, it turns out that banks and insurance companies have made a decent profit. Their losses will remain minimal.
  • the single currency’s collapse was avoided, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy was right to laud the establishment of a “European Monetary Fund” as a real achievement. But this bold move has huge political consequences that have to be explained to the public, because the move toward establishing such a fund – and, with it, a European economic government – amounts to an EU political revolution in three acts.
  • the two-speed Union, which has been a reality since the first rounds of enlargement, will divide into a vanguard (euro group) and a rearguard (the rest of the 27 EU members). This formalized division will fundamentally change the EU’s internal architecture. Under the umbrella of the enlarged EU, the old dividing lines between a German/French-led European Economic Community and a British/Scandinavian-led European Free Trade Association re-emerge. From now on, the euro states will determine the EU’s fate more than ever, owing to their common interests.
  • this jump into a monetary fund and economic government will lead to further massive losses of sovereignty for the member states, in favor of a European federal solution. For example, within the monetary union, national budget laws will be subject to a European supervisory body.
  • If the euro is to survive, genuine integration, with further transfers of sovereignty to the European level, will be unavoidable. This historic step cannot be taken through the bureaucratic backdoor, but only in the bright light of democratic politics. The EU’s further federalization enforces its further democratization.
Pedro Gonçalves

Latvia to apply for eurozone membership within weeks | Business | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...tvia-apply-eurozone-membership

EU Euro Latvia Poland

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Poland is the only EU country not to have fallen into recession since the Lehman Brothers crash. Increasingly it sees its future in being as closely integrated in the EU as possible, playing the regional leader and usurping Britain's position in policy-making influence.
  • For that to succeed, euro membership is essential as the zone binds itself into closer political and economic regimes and becomes the key decision-taking forum. The Polish president recently established a high-powered committee to examine and foster eurozone membership. Warsaw is now talking of a 2017 deadline.
  • whatever happens to the euro happens to us anyway. Our economy is completely euro-ised: 80% of borrowing, households and businesses, is in euros. This will help financial and economic stability."Similar arguments are made in Lithuania, while in Poland the impetus is less economic than political and geo-political. Warsaw appears resolved to hitch itself to Germany, and deems it a national security imperative, worried about Vladimir Putin's Russia, to embed itself utterly in the EU. It increasingly sees the eurozone as the safest of havens, despite the volatility.
Pedro Gonçalves

Greek pro-bailout conservatives regain lead - polls | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ion-poll-idUKBRE84P06F20120526

Greece EU Euro

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 27 May 12 - No Cached
  • New Democracy would get between 25.6 percent and 27.7 percent of the vote if the election was held today, according to the polls by Eleftheros Typos/Pulse, Proto Thema/Alco, Real News/MRB, To Vima/Kapa and Ethnos/MARC. SYRIZA's support was between 20.1 and 26 percent.According to the Pulse and MARC polls, New Democracy and the next-biggest pro-bailout party, the socialist PASOK, would together win a parliamentary majority of between 11 and 16 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament.
  • Analysts said New Democracy's lead was precarious. "These polls show that people got scared from SYRIZA's lead in previous surveys," said political analyst John Loulis."This is still a very tight race. New Democracy has a small advantage but whoever called them favourites would be dead wrong," he added.
  • "We're not willing to pour money into a bottomless pit," German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung.IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Greeks had to take responsibility for their fate, adding that deprived children in Africa needed more help than people in Greece."I think they (the Greeks) should help themselves collectively ... by all paying their tax," she was quoted as saying in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper.
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  • Sixty-five percent of respondents in the Ethnos/MARC survey said that the country should "negotiate hard" to revise the bailout's terms, while 54 percent believed that there was no way Athens could leave the euro. A total of 82 percent said the country should keep the single currency.
  • SYRIZA, led by its charismatic 37-year old leader Alexis Tsipras, is doing particularly well among the young who are particularly hit by unemployment, pollster Pulse said.New Democracy, by contrast, had a big lead among the over-60s, Pulse said.
  • In a bid to woo anti-bailout voters, conservative leader Samaras said on Saturday Greece should be given more time to comply with a bailout term to generate about 11.5 billion euros in savings over the next two years."All new spending cuts ... should take place over four years, not two," he was quoted as saying by Real News.
  • Without new bailout funds, Athens may run out of cash by end of June, newspaper To Vima reported, citing a memo compiled by former Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on May 11."From June 20, the government's available cash will cross negative territory to the tune of 1 billion euros," the document said, confirming earlier reports by finance ministry officials that Greece might run out cash by the end of June.
Pedro Gonçalves

Parma mayor becomes Italy's most-watched politician | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ly-parma-idUKBRE84Q01U20120527

Italy EU Five-Star Movement

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 27 May 12 - No Cached
  • Pizzarotti's leap to fame comes thanks to the grassroots Five-Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo, which dealt a stunning blow to the parties that have governed Italy for the past two decades in this month's local elections.
  • The movement, which was created just three years ago and relies extensively on the Internet, has become the country's second most popular party with more than 18 percent support and more than half of Italians would consider voting for it, according to opinion polls.
  • Something like an Italian Michael Moore, Grillo's language is irreverent and outlandish. He uses the most vulgar Italian swear words without hesitation, and awards his political rivals colourful nicknames.Monti is "Rigor Montis," and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi is the "psycho-midget". Italy's established parties are dead, he says, and their leaders are "zombies, vampires, mummies".
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  • The bear-like Grillo, who sports a beard and a mop of tangled white hair, says Italy should dump the euro, devalue the lira, and force foreign banks to accept debt payments - at a loss - in the new currency.
  • Pizzarotti chooses his words carefully and does not swear. Instead of attacking rivals, he talks about finding "common ground". He sidesteps the question of the euro, saying he is not an economist."We do different jobs," Pizzarotti said of the movement's leader. "He's our loudspeaker, he shakes up people's consciences. He is like a plough that shifts the earth. We are the ones planting the seeds."
  • Grillo refuses to call the movement a party, and bans his candidates from going on TV talk shows. The Internet, his blog and social networks are the movement's main means of communication.It accepts no public campaign financing, unlike the millions of euros pocketed by the established parties every year, funding itself instead from the proceeds of Grillo's stand up shows, and sales of books, videos and T shirts. Pizzarotti spent just over 6,000 euros ($7,500) on his entire campaign.
Pedro Gonçalves

Germany, France present united front on policy | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...idUSTRE65E0P120100615

EU France Germany

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 15 Jun 10 - Cached
  • "More than ever, Germany and France are determined to talk with one voice, to adopt common policies, to give Europe the means to met its legitimate ambitions," Sarkozy told reporters at a joint news conference with Merkel."So (we will have) economic governance at the level of the 27 (member states) and in the event of necessity, there'll be meetings concerning euro problems within the euro zone."
  • Merkel stressed that government by the 27 was particularly important to her and that measures aimed at punishing budgetary sinners in the euro zone needed to be ramped up."We need a strengthening of the (EU) Stability and Growth pact. We also agree that we need to consider changes to the (EU) treaties," Merkel said, noting that Germany and France would submit proposals on this matter soon.
  • "One point here could involve withdrawing voting rights for notorious sinners in the euro zone, which seems important to us, because we really need treaties with bite to make this stability and growth culture work," she added.
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  • Merkel and Sarkozy said they were sending a joint letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the G20 chairman, seeking to accelerate reforms in financial regulation.The letter also pushes for a global tax on financial transactions and agreement in principle on a levy on banks to pay for the cost of financial crises, Merkel said.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - New Greek strikes announced as PM prepares for Merkel - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8551227.stm

Germany Greece EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Mar 10 - Cached
  • eports of potential support for Greece are proving unpopular in Germany. Its economy minister said earlier that his government "does not intend to give a cent" to Greece in financial aid.
  • Many Germans do not support their taxes being used for bailouts.
  • There are also fears that rescuing one country could encourage others to expect the same. Meanwhile, Germany passed its budget for 2010, with borrowing set to soar this year. New borrowing is expected to reach 80.2bn euros ($109bn; £72.5bn) - double the previous highest debt record, set in 1996. However this is less than the 85.8bn euros initially proposed by the government.
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  • Few doubt that Mrs Merkel will eventually take action if she sees the stability - or credibility - of the euro under threat.But with support for her centre-right coalition slipping, Mrs Merkel has reassured voters that she will not use taxpayers' money, nor breach the "no bail-out clause" in the EU's Maastricht Treaty.A recent poll shows that 71% of Germans think the EU should not help Greece at all. You could call it a culture clash. Germans are big savers, not big spenders.
  • On Thursday, his government went to the financial markets to borrow money and saw its 5bn euro ($6.8bn; £4.5bn) bond issue oversubscribed. But Greece will need to borrow more in the coming months - more than $70bn for the year as a whole.
  • Mr Papandreou has suggested that Greece might go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help. But the other countries in the eurozone would not welcome what would be seen as a sign that they could not fix their own problems. The president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, has dismissed the idea of the IMF providing financial aid for Greece. "I do not trust that it would be appropriate to have the introduction of the IMF as a supplier of help through standby or through any kind of such help," he told reporters in Frankfurt on Thursday.
Pedro Gonçalves

Crisis for Europe as trust hits record low | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...trust-eu-falls-record-low

EU Europe Eurosceptics

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • "The damage is so deep that it does not matter whether you come from a creditor, debtor country, euro would-be member or the UK: everybody is worse off," said José Ignacio Torreblanca, head of the ECFR's Madrid office. "Citizens now think that their national democracy is being subverted by the way the euro crisis is conducted."
  • The most dramatic fall in faith in the EU has occurred in Spain, where the banking and housing market collapse, eurozone bailout and runaway unemployment have combined to produce 72% "tending not to trust" the EU, with only 20% "tending to trust".
  • In Spain, trust in the EU fell from 65% to 20% over the five-year period while mistrust soared to 72% from 23%.
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  • The data compares trust and mistrust in the EU at the end of last year with levels in 2007, before the financial crisis, to reveal a precipitate fall in support for the EU of the kind that is common in Britain but is much more rarely seen on the continent.
  • Five years ago, 56% of Germans "tended to trust" the EU, whereas 59% now "tend to mistrust". In France, mistrust has risen from 41% to 56%. In Italy, where public confidence in Europe has traditionally been higher than in the national political class, mistrust of the EU has almost doubled from 28% to 53%.Even in Poland, which enthusiastically joined the EU less than a decade ago and is the single biggest beneficiary from the transfers of tens of billions of euros from Brussels, support has plummeted from 68% to 48%, although it remains the sole country surveyed where more people trust than mistrust the union.In Britain, where Eurobarometer regularly finds majority Euroscepticism, the mistrust grew from 49% to 69%, the highest level with the exception of the extraordinary turnaround in Spain.
  • "Overall levels of political trust and satisfaction with democracy [declined] across much of Europe, but this varied markedly between countries. It was significant in Britain, Belgium, Denmark and Finland, particularly notable in France, Ireland, Slovenia and Spain, and reached truly alarming proportions in the case of Greece," it said.
  • Aart de Geus, head of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German thinktank, also warned that the drive to surrender more key national powers to Brussels would backfire. "Public support for the EU has been falling since 2007. So it is risky to go for federalism as it can cause a backlash and unleash greater populism."
Pedro Gonçalves

Dutch politics fragmented as elections loom | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ics-poll-idUKBRE83L02O20120422

Netherlands EU Economy Democracy Society

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • The poll also showed that a majority of those surveyed favour smaller budget cuts than those stipulated by the European Union, a further sign that the notoriously frugal Dutch are suffering from "bailout fatigue" and resent the high cost of rescuing profligate peripheral euro zone countries."Voters from different parties share the same view - disgust or disappointment over the political action and the political parties," De Hond said in a statement, adding that two thirds of those polled agreed with the statement "I'm tired of all the party politics".
  • Annual budget cuts of 14 to 16 billion euros are needed for the Netherlands to meet European Commission targets. Without them, its public deficit is forecast to hit 4.6 percent of GDP in 2013, well above the 3 percent agreed with the Commission.
  • If the Netherlands does not cut spending and breaks EU budget rules, it is likely to lose its coveted triple-A credit rating, leading to higher borrowing costs.The level of state debt rose to 65.2 percent of GDP at the end of 2011 from 62.9 percent in 2010, Statistics Netherlands said last month.
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  • The catalyst for the crisis was Geert Wilders, whose anti-euro, anti-Islam Freedom Party had pledged to support the minority government in parliament and give it the majority to pass legislation.But after seven weeks of talks, Wilders suddenly backed out just when a deal appeared close.Wilders' supporters are against budget cuts, particularly cuts in welfare, health and unemployment benefits, and there was talk, which he denied, that the Freedom Party was split over the proposed cuts."We don't want to make our pensioners bleed for the sake of diktats from Brussels," Wilders told reporters on Saturday.
  • "This was a package that would damage our economy over coming years and increase unemployment. And all that to meet a demand made by Brussels, accepted by the Liberals, of reaching a 3 per cent deficit in 2013."
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Greek exit would be 'catastrophe', says former Greek PM - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...business-18477034

EU Euro Economy Greece

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Mr Papandreou told the BBC that, given more time, Greece could abide by the terms of the bailouts. "The euro is keeping us stable. Leaving would mean a bank run, higher inflation, deep wage cuts and a fall in GDP of more than 20% - it would be a major catastrophe," he said. But Mr Papandreou said Greece was not the problem. "If it was, you could simply kick out Greece".
  • He said the underlying problem which needed to be addressed was the architecture of the euro. There was a single currency, but "no unified banking system, no common fiscal policy, and different labour laws and pension systems".
Pedro Gonçalves

France24 - Voters say 'no' to repaying Dutch and UK Icesave losses - 0 views

www.france24.com/...llapse-bill-icesave-referendum

Iceland Economy

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 08 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Iceland's socialist government was surveying the damage Sunday after a referendum rejected a deal to pay Britain and the Netherlands billions for losses in the collapse of the Icesave bank.    As expected, Icelanders overwhelmingly voted down the deal in Saturday's referendum, with some 93.6 percent of voters lined up on the "no" side after more than 50 percent of the votes had been counted.    Only 1.5 percent of voters had so far voted "yes" to the Icesave deal, said RUV public broadcaster which compiles all electoral statistics.
  • Icelanders were asked to vote on whether the country should honour an agreement to repay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars) by 2024.    This would be to compensate them for money they paid to 340,000 of their citizens hit by the collapse of Icesave in 2008.    Some observers had warned that a "no" vote might result in the International Monetary Fund blocking the remaining half of a 2.1-billion dollar rescue package.    It could also hit European Union and euro currency membership talks, Iceland's credit rating and destabilise the leftwing government, which negotiated the agreement in the first place, they argued.
  • Grimsson said that while Icelanders were not against compensating Britain and the Netherlands, many considered that the repayment conditions, and especially the high 5.5-percent interest rate agreed upon, were exorbitant.    "The people of Iceland, farmers, fishermen, teachers, nurses, are by and large willing to repay to Britain and the Netherlands what is equal to over 20,000 euros per depositor," Grimsson said.    "But they are not ready to pay a very high interest rate so that the British and Dutch governments would make a huge profit off this whole exercise."
Pedro Gonçalves

Westminster rejects Alex Salmond claim on Scotland's EU membership | Politics | guardia... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...salmond-scotland-eu-membership

EU Scotland UK

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 02 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • The UK government statement stressed that, unlike the Scottish government, it had obtained formal advice from its law officers and that Scotland would have to negotiate the terms of its EU membership with the UK and all other 26 member states.It said: "This government has confirmed it does hold legal advice on this issue. Based on the overwhelming weight of international precedent, it is the government's view that the remainder of the UK would continue to exercise the UK's existing international rights and obligations and Scotland would form a new state."The most likely scenario is that the rest of the UK would be recognised as the continuing state and an independent Scotland would have to apply to join the EU as a new state, involving negotiation with the rest of the UK and other member states, the outcome of which cannot be predicted."Referring to statements by European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, and his deputy, Viviane Reding, that a newly independent country would be seen as a new applicant, it added: "Recent pronouncements from the commission support that view."
  • Spain's foreign minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, said an independent Scotland would have to "join the queue" for EU membership.
  • almond retaliated by quoting from an expert on the EU's borders, Graham Avery, a former strategy director at the commission who was made one of a number of honorary directors general of the European commission after he retired.In a submission to the Commons foreign affairs select committee, Avery supported Salmond's position that it was inconceivable that an independent Scotland would be expected to leave the EU and then reapply. Salmond said his opinion "rather puts the lie to the scaremongering campaign of Labour and their unionist colleagues in the Conservative party".
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  • "For practical and political reasons, they could not be asked to leave the EU and apply for readmission," Avery told the committee. "Negotiations on the terms of membership would take place in the period between the referendum and the planned date of independence. The EU would adopt a simplified procedure for the negotiations, not the traditional procedure followed for the accession of non-member countries."But Avery, now at St Antony's College, Oxford University, directly contradicted Salmond's assertions that an independent Scotland would not be expected to join the euro instead of sterling, and that it would not need to sign up to the Schengen agreement rules on security and immigration.Avery said independence would give Scotland a louder and stronger voice in the EU, but new member states "are required to accept [the euro and Schengen] on principle". While Scotland's position was still not clear, Avery warned: "In accession negotiations with non-member countries, the EU has always strongly resisted other changes or opt-outs from the basic treaties."
Argos Media

After the Fall of Wall: A Report Card on Post-Cold War European Integration - SPIEGEL O... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,613866-2,00.html

EU Economy Germany Middle East Fritz Scharpf CFSP Peter Glotz Thomas Risse

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • When it comes to a common foreign policy, Europe's most tragic failure was its long hesitation to intervene in the former Yugoslavia, where the continent's first genocide since the Holocaust took place during the 1990s. It was only in 1995 that the European Union decided to intervene militarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina -- and then only under the leadership of the United States. The Europeans finally became more active in Kosovo in 1998-1999.
  • the deficiencies of European foreign policy have also been exposed in the European Union's handling of the genocides in Africa, both in Rwanda in 1994 and in present-day Darfur. The European Union and its member states were very active in expanding the protection of international human rights; they have also given their support to the international principle of the "responsibility to protect," which offers protection from genocide and massive human rights violations to the populations of all countries. But, in the past 20 years, whenever these words had to be backed up with actions, Europe has been content to let other countries, especially the United States, take the lead.
  • the era of "permissive consensus" has come to an end: In other words, most Europeans are no longer willing to passively and silently accept European unification. Underscoring that point are the French and Dutch rejections of the 2005 constitutional treaty and the Irish"no" to the Lisbon Treaty in 2008.
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  • The political elites in Europe have not yet responded to these problems. There have been no significant public debates; neither about the euro, EU expansion, a proposed constitution, nor the European Union's responsibilities in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Instead, Europe's political elites have remained silent. EU policies are determined, following the pre-1989 Western European tradition, by a cartel of political elites that is insulated from the democratic public. The more that Europe lacks the acceptance of its citizens, the harder it will befor the Union to meet the coming geopolitical challenges.
  • The assumption that the European Union lacks competence in foreign and security policy is misguided. For nearly a decade, the European Union has had access to the entire spectrum of institutional capacities -- including military capability -- that is necessary for active participation in global politics. It is an equally unconvincing argument that the 27 member states are simply too difficult to coordinate to actively engage in international politics. On the contrary: the foreign and security strategy of the European Union is remarkably consistent and coherent, from effective multilateralism, to peaceful conflict resolution, to addressing the problem of fragile statehood. Europe only needs to match its words with action. Member states need to abandon their vain attachment to national prerogatives and speak with one foreign policy voice. Here the largest member states -- Great Britain, France, and Germany -- have often been the biggest hindrance.
  • The era of the G-7 or G-8, in which the western industrial states (and Russia) could keep to themselves, is over. There is no alternative to a G-20 that systematically includes developing nations from all regions of the world into the process of global governance.
  • Until now, the European Union -- despite its inclusion in the Middle East Quartet -- has always been reluctant to propose solutions to the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Instead, Europe has essentially hidden behind the United States. Now, after eight years of the Bush administration, America has lost nearly all of its credibility, and it is going to be a while before President Obama can do anything to significantly reestablish it. There is a need, in other words, for the European Union and its member states to play a larger role -- not least, because the European Union has pro-Arab as well as pro-Israeli positions represented in its institutions and among its member states. The European Union could credibly serve as an honest broker in the region -- if it only wanted to.
  • Unfortunately, the countries of the European Union allow themselves to be played against one another yet again -- especially along the economic fault line between old and new member states. Europe's answer to the economic and financial crisis is not encouraging. Instead of a coordinated reaction of the EU member states, national measures have taken priority. Even Germany -- despite all its pro-European rhetoric -- has shown little appetite for cooperation.This failure is particularly frustrating in light of the fact that Europe has the world's best institutional capacity to develop integrated answers to crossborder economic challenges.
  • In addition, there is still a clear asymmetry between negative and positive integration, as political scientist Fritz Scharpf diagnosed in the mid-1990s. The creation of an internal market continues to trump the development of economic and social policies that can steer and correct that very market. It is no accident that the call for a "social Europe" is getting ever louder. The inability for European governments to coordinate their responses to the financial crisis has contributed to the legitimation crisis of European integration.
  • The post-Cold War era is over. Europe has no choice but to orient itself to the challenges of the future. Before anything else, the European Union needs to gain the approval and trust of its own citizens. The failed referenda pose less of a threat to Europe than does the continent's growing Euro-skepticism and the silence of European elites in the face of criticism "from below." Those who are believers in Europe and European unification must actively take on the challenge of convincing others.
  • The deceased politician and scholar Peter Glotz, just several weeks after the end of the fateful year 1989, wrote in this very publication that "the decisive question of the next decade will be whether the European elites manage to overcome the narrow categories of the nation state. ... In Europe, the nations are too weak to engage in global politics; at the same time, they are strong enough to prevent the development of an effective supranational European politics." Twenty years later, those observations have unfortunately lost none of their truth.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | EU ministers suspend aid to Hamas - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...4895068.stm

Hamas US EU Palestinian Authority Palestine

shared by Argos Media on 19 Mar 09 - Cached
  • EU foreign ministers have endorsed a temporary halt to direct aid to the Palestinian government led by Hamas.
  • The Palestinian Authority (PA) has received about $600m (500m euros; £340m) a year in aid from the EU since its foundation in 1994, with another $400m coming from the US.
  • Hamas is complaining of international blackmail, and supporters joined protests outside the building where EU representatives are based in Gaza City. BBC Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhadi says both the EU and the US have been looking into ways to channel money into Palestinian society, possibly through the UN or aid agencies, to keep basic services running.
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  • The European Commission said last week that the suspension of direct aid from the EU would mean $36.9m (30m euros; £21m) was at stake in the immediate future.
  • Hamas, which won elections in January, is described as a terrorist group by the EU and the United States. The EU, the biggest aid donor to the Palestinians, is expected to maintain some humanitarian aid.
Pedro Gonçalves

David Cameron warned off 'opportunism' over Europe | Politics | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...eron-warned-opportunism-europe

UK EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 16 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • David Cameron risks making "premature" and "opportunistic" demands in Europe and weakening Britain's power in Washington and other major capitals, the most senior diplomat to leave government in recent years has warned.Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's ambassador to Washington until last year and before that the senior British diplomat in Brussels, said in a Guardian interview that recent warnings by the US administration urging Britain against staging a distracting referendum was "a conscious decision by the Obama administration to intervene in the UK debate", reflecting a long-standing view that it wanted its closest political ally closely involved in Europe.
  • Sheinwald said: "If Britain is active and influential in Washington that makes us more influential in Brussels, Delhi and elsewhere. Equally if we are influential in Europe, then we have a bigger impact in Washington and the other power capitals of the world. These things are mutually reinforcing.
  • "I just cannot see any logical basis for thinking a move to the sidelines, or particularly a move out of Europe, would be anything other than diminishing to UK's capacity, standing, influence, ability to get things done and capacity to build coalitions internationally."
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  • Sheinwald, who was ambassador to Washington between 2007 and 2012, is the most senior diplomatic figure to urge caution on Cameron. He was also the UK diplomatic lead in Brussels between 2000 and 2003, as well as chief foreign policy adviser to Tony Blair between 2003 and 2007. He is now a member of the thinktank and advocacy group Business for New Europe.
  • "We have sold investment in the UK on the basis that the UK is the best gateway into the single market. That is the way we have presented ourselves. American firms and firms from the far east have based themselves in London for that reason. That has been such a success over the past decade or 15 years."
  • "Investors are worried by the thought that we are going to end up outside the EU by mistake, or without thinking through the economic consequences or end up with an inferior model like Norway or Switzerland."
  • Such a move would exclude many foreign owned financial services from Britain, he said.
  • Philip Gordon, the US under-secretary for European affairs, last week used a briefing in the UK to urged Cameron not to hold a referendum.Sheinwald said the White House regard "another dose of uncertainty on top of the euro crisis as deeply unwelcome".
  • "They know it affects the pace of the recovery of the European economy. But they also know it will affect the ability of Europe to focus on other things so it will contribute to a weakening of European resolve for example in the middle east and whether Europe has a capacity in the area of security and defence. It will affect our ability to project our power and work with America on world problems."He added: "The idea, if there were an idea, of going it alone being somehow appealing to our traditional partners or to our future partners in Asia or elsewhere in the world has been undermined very significantly by the comments made by the Obama administration."
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