European Union

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May Day’s long read: Sex, Demography, and the Future of the European Union

The Fair Observer | It is easy to say that Europeans should have more sex. Demography is destiny, after all, or so it has seemed for millennia, and what could be better than sleeping your way to world power? Despite the financial crisis, a diminishing birth rates and seemingly unsustainable welfare states, Glenn Carle believes German leadership might offer a solution for structural reform in Europe.


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Investors appetite for Spanish economy: will it last?

MADRID | By David Fernández | Foreign investors are showing a sudden interest in assets made in Spain due to, among others, central bank’s last data, Europe’s decision to delay the deficit commitment by two years and international factors such as second-round monetary helicopter launched by the Bank of Japan. Will this trend vanish?


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France’s German Mirror

Project Syndicate | By In the mirror of Germany, the French must ask themselves fundamental questions. Have they made the right choices in terms of leaders and policies in recent decades?


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The downward trend continues in the EU

Economic weakness will remain in the second half of the year, CaixaBank analysts say. Consumer confidence fell again in the third quarter of the year. The IMF also lowered its growth forecasts.



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Fed’s meeting and ruling on ESM, crucial rendez-vous

Morning! There’s a lot of event risk this week. Among things investors will be looking up are the Federal Reserve’s meeting and German Constitutional Court ruling about the legality of the European Stability Mechanism. It’s not that the court will rule against the ESM, but it could attach conditions that would make it react slowlier. “Investors are likely to keep focusing on the ECB’s plan as a roadmap, which it’s…


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Cooperation: the European Union is out of step, Spain is out of control

By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The European Union disbursed €52.97 billion on Official Development Aid (ODA) in 2011, which was €490 million less than the previous year, as well as €15.4 billion less than the amount that could be invested if member States would have remained faithful to their commitment of devoting 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI) to these matters by 2015. Instead, most of the EU…


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Tuesday’s German charts: economic sentiment crashes

http://exbacksms.com/ How to win back your ex euro area's GDP shrinks by -0.3 percent. The survey's results for the whole European Union, understandably, spells pessimism, too: it has fallen from -2.4 to -20.1, due not only to perceptions of the current situation but also to how the medium term looks like. zp8497586rq


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Cyprus: the fifth euro bailout would cost less than €4 billion

By Tania Suárez | Vassos Shiarly, minister of Finance in Cyprus, admitted Monday night that his country would urgently need a bailout. The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times refer to several European officials who have said that this rescue would rise to €3 billion to €4 billio. Shiarly said that “This issue is urgent. We know that the recapitalisation of the banks (in Cyprus) must be finished by June…


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Japan on the horizon

By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Peeking into Japanese modern economic history is a must for most Europeans, since we are plunging into the same mud waters that country has gone through for twenty years. Japan seems to have succeeded in leaving the 1990 crisis behind, a crunch not altogether different from our predicament. On the positive side, there is the fact that now we know it could have returned…