The Spanish tether already seems overstretched. On Monday, the national institute for statistics published fresh data confirming a forecast released days before by the country’s central bank, which warned of a contracting GDP: at -0.4 percent, records for the second quarter of the year were indeed 0.1 percent worse than for the first three months. Private consumption and investment have fallen, year on year rates of industrial prices have risen…
The European Investment Bank opened credit lines in support of small and medium-sized companies in Spain with two €200 loans to Banesto and Banco Popular. The EIB loan granted to Banesto is its first with the Spanish entity under the Bank’s new SME credit strategy and it will facilitate access to finance in the current economic crisis. In both cases, the capital line will carry favourable maturity and interest rate terms, which…
NEW YORK | The debate between austerity or growth to cure Europes illness is in full swing. Austerians are, though, losing support. A consensus is growing that current cuts alone aren’t likely to tackle the euro zone crisis. For US celebrity economist and director of the Earth Institute Jeffrey Sachs, “Fiscal policy alone won’t save Europe,” he said in the launch of the Center on Global Economic Governance at Columbia…
NEW YORK | When feeling overwhelmed with all the economic misery originated by a reckless Wall Street and a lax Washington, the regulator in chief, one tends to calm down thinking positively: at least we learnt the lesson. As the Chinese say, in every crisis there is also an opportunity, and maybe we improved the system. Yet then some articles come up: one pointing to the fact that lenders are…
NEW YORK | These are not the best days for being a banker. Banks lent irresponsibly, they were bailed out with public money, and then started a robo-signing foreclosures campaign. All while tightening the credit to small businesses. Now they are starting to pay their penance –some are taking even more of it than they were supposed to. Bank of America said that it will provide deeper than anticipated principal…
By Fernando González Urbaneja, in Madrid | Explaining the Spanish public deficit problem in 2012 in terms of confrontation between the government of Mariano Rajoy and Brussels is wrong and misleading. So far Brussels has not penalised members who do not meet their programmes, but has rather come to help achieve the objective, with more or less enthusiasm and more or less requirements imposed. Brussels may begin proceedings for an excessive…
By Tania Suárez.- The new unlimited liquidity action, a.k.a. Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO), has placed €529.532 billions today, with the goal of enabling again the flow of credit to the private sector. Gradually, there are prospects of an improvement in European financial markets. On one hand, the interest rates banks charge one another to lend money have dropped significantly: the 3-month Euribor has fallen to just under 1% from about…
MADRID | Original post on republica.com | The European government, which some now call ‘governance’, has not been doing well for quite a few years. The expansion of the club during the last two decades has caused chronic indigestion, and a loss of perspective and project steam. The Single European Act (last decade of the XX century) meant a decisive step forward for a united Europe at peace, free, and…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The Spanish financial system reform is already under way, so it generates a non-stop stream of news and comments. The news on Thursday precisely come from the minister of Economy Luis de Guindos’ statements, who said during an interview to radio broadcaster Onda Cero that after the second round of mergers and acquisitions, there will be around twelve entities left in Spain. “They will…