BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | German Council of economic experts (‘the Five Wise Men’) upgraded its forecast for the country’s GDP growth in 2014 to 1.9 percent from its previous expectation of 1.6 percent in November last year. However, the last Ifo’s data show that global events like Crimea crisis and a slowing Chinese GDP growth can badly impact the euro zone’s engine.
Anna Pivovarchuk | As Western media focuses on the Crimean crisis, Russia intensifies its assault on civil society. At the end of January, TV Rain, Russia’s independent news channel, was taken off air.On February 24, over 200 people were detained for protesting the verdict in the Bolotnaya case that saw seven antigovernment demonstrators sentenced for assault. One of them publishes a blog about investigations of money laundering and theft by government officials, It was recently blocked.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | “We come here to get rid of capitalist friends of EU’s Troika”, some demonstrators shouted last Saturday in Madrid. The international organization is back in Spain this week to review the country’s economic developments after January’s finalization of its bail-out, as an European Parliament’s inquiry unfolds over the triumvirate’s working method, its internal dissagrements and mistaken measures.
THE WEEK FROM LONDON | By Victor Jiménez | “Preposterous!,” said –wait for it, yes– minister for Education Michael Gove, who found this remote Latin-built-in word the perfect match to describe most of the cabinet to which he belongs. He might have intended to upset colleagues without letting the rest of the country understand…
BERLIN | By Alberto Lozano | Germans are worried, with good reason. Germany is the second fastest-aging country in the world, and between now and 2030, Germany’s population is forecasted to decrease from 81 million to around 77 million, and fall a further 12 million to 65 million by the year 2060, according to a recent study by Berenberg Private Bank and Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI). How can Europe’s engine face this challenge?
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Accounting is a changeable economic science. The result of a specific rate can vary depending on the items one put inside. Spaniards are used to manage different unemployment figures coming from different statistical data with different components, so that jobless population numbers can go from 5,98 to 4,72 million in the same quarter. The EU has just agreed to modify the methodology for calculating the region’s structural public deficit, which not only will relax peripheral countries’ efforts of austerity but also figures of Spain’s natural rate of unemployment.
MADRID | By Luis Arroyo | Nobel laureate economist Robert Shiller discusses the issue of the so-called “animal spirits” and what should be done in order to pump trust. He uses a visit to Japan as a base to show how effective the politics by Mr. Abe were. Japan is the country that has reduced the gap with the potential GDP.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | After a 16-hour-marathon talks until 7 a.m, 28 EU states reached an agreement on the Single Resolution Mechanism in order to achieve the long-awaited banking union. But they ignore two relevant realities about the project. First, 1989’s Second EU Banking Directive already considered the same common financial tools that today are being sold as a priority and an innovation for the European construction. Furthermore, there is no point in celebrating: a French entity still does not lend money to a Greek one. This deal is not correcting the euro zone’s financial fragmentation.
BARCELONA | By Joan Tapia | Spain has seen its credibility boosted by the European Commission and other international players like the IMF. However, this brighter image has not been translated into more confidence from its citizens.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor| German judges are removing uncertainties little by little. The country’s Constitutional Court confirmed on Tuesday that the European Mechanism of Stability is legal and does not damage the Bundestag’s budget. Furthermore, they also approved euro zone’s fiscal pact. The court had brought an appeal against constitutionality of both treaties in June of 2012. The third appeal regarding ECB’s bond purchase program is still pending of a sentence, however, and apparently it would be more difficult to solve: Karlsruhe’s court has required European Court of Justice to decide against the program following the arguments -more economic than legal- that Bundesbank has handed to them.