Tag: euro zone crisis

French President François Hollande said he would promote the idea of mutualised European debt at an informal summit in Brussels this week, increasing pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to drop her opposition to the proposal.

France's new president François Hollande arrived in Berlin for his first meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel only hours after his inauguration yesterday (15 May). The two expressed broad agreement over the necessity to kick-start the European economy but they also had to acknowledge differences over their concepts of growth.

The leader of Greece's socialist PASOK party, Evangelos Venizelos, will today hold talks with the New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras, in what is seen as a last attempt to find a governing majority in Parliament and avoid another election that could lead to Greece's euro exit. 

François Hollande’s victory in the French presidential elections marks the end of both the ‘Merkozy’ duo and their disastrously recessionary austerity-only policies, argues Sergei Stanishev.

Greek voters dealt a serious blow on Sunday to the fragile political consensus that has kept Europe's currency bloc intact through more than two years of crisis, rejecting the austerity-for-aid policies that have shielded the country from bankruptcy and a euro exit.

On Sunday (6 May), the French will elect a new president, the Greeks will hold general elections, and EU hopeful Serbia will designate their new president, Parliament and local authorities. The stakes appear high not only for the individual countries concerned but also for Europe as a whole.

Britain's George Osborne accused fellow EU finance ministers of trying to water down Europe's bank capital rules and said this would make him "look like an idiot", as talks about a law to stop another financial crisis unravelled in Brussels.

A high-ranking member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition has said that they are ready to accept “rhetorical” changes to the EU' fiscal compact treaty in case of a victory of socialist candidate François Hollande in the French presidential elections. 

Despite deteriorating economic growth and fiscal forecasts, the European Commission maintained yesterday (19 April) its "primary view" that Italy was on track to run a sizeable primary budget surplus in 2013 and congratulated Rome for enshrining a 'golden rule' in the  constitution to balance the country's budget.

Greece’s fiscal nightmare is far from over as the European Commission is set to ask Athens for a new round of spending cuts aimed at reducing labour costs, administration and healthcare expenditure, according to a draft seen by EurActiv.

Eurex, a subsidiary of Deutsche Börse, will launch on April 16 a new futures contract on French government bonds, a move that is drawing the ire of French Socialists who accused the German group of speculating on France's insolvency.

Although not always directly, China has made clear that it won't support the severely wounded eurozone either by a blank cheque nor huge investments until it shows that it can first save itself, writes Duncan Freeman from the Brussels' Institute of Contemporary China Studies.

Unemployment in the eurozone reached its highest level in almost 15 years in February, with more than 17 million people out of work, and economists said they expected job office queues to grow even longer later this year.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed on Friday (30 April) on a temporary increase, up to €700 billion, of their financial rescue capacity to prevent a new flare-up of Europe's sovereign debt crisis, but markets may judge it too small to be convincing.

Hundreds of EU tax experts are set to stream into Greece to help tackle tax evasion by wealthy citizens and companies after the European Commission's Task Force for Greece reported unpaid tax bills as a priority issue.

Conservative European leaders from Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain have banded together to shun the campaign of François Hollande, the socialist candidate for the presidential election in France and front-runner in the opinion polls, according to weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

Banning credit ratings on European Union sovereign debt would be a step too far and fail to row back the financial sector's heavy reliance on ratings, EU lawmakers said on Wednesday (29 February).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel scraped through a parliamentary vote endorsing a second bailout for Greece on Monday (27 February) but faced a growing backbench revolt against pouring in more money in support of the eurozone.

As part of an ongoing series, EurActiv France is profiling major candidates in the 2012 French presidential elections, analysing in detail what their political action, programmes and policies mean for the European Union. François Hollande, Socialist candidate and current front-runner, promises a break with the 'Merkozy' consensus on Europe's economic crisis and a revision of the fiscal compact treaty.

Analysts and politicians concur that the second bailout plan for Greece, agreed yesterday (21 February), has only bought Athens more time, with some already betting on a discreet euro exit for the debt-laden and recession-stricken economy.

The EU's 27 finance ministers will be debating new transfers of power to the European Commission when they meet on Tuesday (21 February), as they examine proposals to tighten control over member states' budgets in the wake of the eurozone's debt crisis.

Optimism is growing that Greece has finally done enough to secure a second bailout after it set out extra budget savings, but the moves failed to ease tensions with EU paymaster Germany.

Greece's parliament approved a new austerity bill early today (13 February), backing state spending cuts of €3.3 billion in order to secure a second EU/IMF bailout and avoid national bankruptcy, as buildings burned across central Athens and violence spread around the country.

Yes, European countries have to cut public spending in order to put their finances back in shape. But this should not compromise essential public services such as education, health care or tax collection, writes Klaus Heeger of the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI).