Tag: debt

Greek leaders failed yesterday (8 February) to agree on a reform and austerity programme, the price of a financial bailout to avoid a messy default, forcing Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos to go to the country's financial backers with an incomplete deal.

Investors are bracing for a possible mass downgrade of eurozone countries as soon as this week after EU leaders failed to convince credit rating agencies that they have taken decisive measures to tackle the sovereign debt crisis.

Italy’s EU colleagues expressed satisfaction with the contents of a letter brought to the summit yesterday (26 October) by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi setting out Rome’s intention to rein in public expenditure and counter contagion from Greece’s sovereign debt crisis. EU SUMMIT LIVE!

Many advanced economies are on the brink of a double-dip recession as the recovery has been anaemic and sub-par in most of them, writes Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University's Stern School of Business.

The current debt strains in the US are very serious and have an impact on Europe and the rest of the world, the EU's commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Olli Rehn, said yesterday (8 June).

Although EU governments do bear responsibility for their current debt problems, this is only half the story as the financial crisis was triggered by unsustainable increases in private debt, writes Paul de Grauwe, professor of economics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

France and Germany are pushing for sanctions in the EU's eurozone stability pact, but fiscal profligacy only played a minor role in the debt crisis and the pact is the wrong place to start, writes Wolfgang Münchau of Eurointelligence in an October opinion piece.

The financial crisis is over but the world is currently divided into two groups: those countries that are recovering strongly and those that are lagging behind with new potential problems, writes Hans-Werner Sinn, professor of economics and public finance at the University of Munich and president of the Ifo Institute, in an August op-ed.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has called on the new Hungarian government to speed up fiscal consolidation, stressing that it was not Brussels that was demanding action but the financial markets. EurActiv Hungary reports.

Greece has given what amounts to an ultimatum to the European Union to come up with a clear offer of standby loans next week or face the embarrassment of Athens asking the International Monetary Fund for help.