Tag: eurozone

Only one-fifth of Danes want increased economic integration with Europe, according to the latest polls. A referendum on potential euro membership is not in sight, say members of the government.

While the UK goes one way, the rest of the EU goes another. Europe’s ongoing financial crisis exposes systemic weakness in the way the political economy is run. Executive authority is dispersed amongst different and fairly obscure institutions, and democratic accountability is thin, writes Andrew Duff in a BlogActiv post.

Several countries would like a special budget for the eurozone to protect the single currency from “asymmetric shocks”, with France, Germany and others backing the idea, according to EU diplomats.

More muddling-through in the EU is in the pipeline. If that wasn’t so dangerous, one could somehow live with it. But the problem with muddling-through is that it does not offer a perspective for those countries that are really suffering in this crisis. It does not create hope. Europe is in a bind, writes Jan Techau.

Europe needs continuity and stability at the helm of government to make it stronger and more resilient, European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding said in an interview with EurActiv Italy, while also pushing for a third Barroso term at the Commission.

On 12 September Germany's constitutional court will issue a preliminary verdict on the European Stability Mechanism and the fiscal compact. Whatever the court does, the debate about a new, pro-European constitution will hot up this autumn. But do not be fooled: Germany is still a very long way from agreeing to eurobonds, says Katinka Barysch.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is due next week to hold his first meetings with eurozone leaders since taking office, striving to assure them he will honour a pledge for more austerity and gauging whether they could grant him more time to pull it off.

After dutifully abiding by EU fiscal rules, Finland's tiny population remains surprisingly unemotional about bailing out less disciplined eurozone members, and is mostly clinging on to its faith in the single currency project.

Britain's banks have been told to test how they would cope if several eurozone countries exited the single currency, the UK's Financial Services Authority watchdog said.

Countries in Eastern Europe have until now shown remarkable economic resilience, after being hit harder by the 2008–2009. But their economic future relies on a new model of growth, argues Jana Grittersova.

French President François Hollande wants the European Union to agree before the end of 2012 on growth-boosting measures worth €120 billion, putting him on a collision course with German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has ruled out further spending to restart Europe's ailing economy.

Leading business executives meeting in Brussels yesterday (31 May) complained about the constant nagging over austerity and structural reforms and urged policymakers to focus on those areas that will boost Europe’s competitive advantage against the rest of the world – investment in people.

Even though austerity depresses economic output, the Adjustment Programme is not the root of Greece's woes, argues Nikos Chrysoloras, a Brussels-based correspondent for Kathimerini, Greece’s leading newspaper and a Robert Bosch Stiftung “EU Journalism Fellow” for 2012, on a journalism practice with EurActiv.com.  The op-ed was first published on the Euro Crisis blog. 

The OECD called on EU leaders today (22 May) to ease the pace of austerity, saying aggressive budget cuts to curtail the eurozone's debts threaten to suck the currency area into a downward spiral that could spill over into the global economy.

Europe could strengthen its monetary union by giving European politicians the power to declare a sovereign state bankrupt and take over its fiscal policy, the former head of the European Central Bank said yesterday (17 May) in unveiling a bold proposal to salvage the euro.

Last-ditch negotiations to form of a unity government in Greece appeared to reach a dead end yesterday (13 May) when the country’s political parties failed to reach agreement on a mandate. New elections now look almost certain, with the spectre of a eurozone exit looming large. 

Relaxing wage restraint in North European countries is not a solution for the economic problems of Southern Europe. Structural solutions are the only way out, writes Raymond Gradus.

EU leaders tend to argue that the newly agreed fiscal compact is a step towards a fiscal union, while in reality the future of the eurozone remains in limbo, argues Philip Whyte.

The European Parliament is set in the coming weeks to reinvigorate the ongoing debate on eurobonds, pushing for the common issuance of eurozone-backed state securities as a means to counter the ongoing public debt crisis.

As Wolfgang Schäuble moves closer the Eurogroup's chair, people close to him say such an appointment would mark the crowning of his career for the German finance minister who is often referred to as the last true European in Angela Merkel's government.

Some positive developments in Greece such as liberalisations in important sectors of the economy are counterbalanced by negative factors such as the reform programme's similarity to the failed programme of 2010 or the political instability ahead of the national elections, making an already difficult situation into an even more complex one, argues Anna Visvizi from DEREE college.

The experience of the Polish EU presidency in 2011 shows how the Lisbon Treaty has made the Council presidencies politically irrelevant and how the economic crisis has pushed countries outside of the eurozone into political insignificance, writes Piotr Maciej Kaczyński.

One of the factors that sparked the financial crisis in 2008 were the so-called Basel banking requirements, argues Stefano Micossi, and the EU should get its act together to heal these illnesses within the banking legislation.

Demonising tax evasion and corruption in Greece has long been a governmental strategy in order to avoid the politically costly structural reforms that could lead the country out of its current crises, argues Anna Visvizi.