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.
MADRID | By Luis Martí | AfD is in a destructive mood. They are not interested in salvaging what Europe has managed to build. Their objective is rather to pull down existing structures while looking to the past for inspiration, namely to national currencies.
MADRID | If Spain’s democracy owes something to someone it would be Germany. During Spain’s democratic transition, Christian democracy and Social Democracy German foundations sustained and alerted incipient political parties when they need it.
LONDON | Egan-Jones also blamed Chancellor Angela Merkel for her resistance against “European Union bonds and money printing” while “pushing for fiscal controls and the seniority of bailout funding.”
MADRID | by Luis Martí | Almost twice as many Spaniards as Germans own their home and look therefore, richer. But they are not.
Project Syndicate | By Dominique Moisi| 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?
BARCELONA | CaixaBank researchers | The euro area’s drop in GDP was slightly more than expected. The European Commission expects a 0.3% drop in GDP in 2013, but the latest economic figures point to a slow recovery.
BRUSSELS | by Eberhard Rhein | However important balanced budgets might be for Europe in view of its rising social charges, in particular the huge burden resulting from an ageing population, Germany does not deserve praise for having precipitated the balancing of its budget.
MADRID | Something is moving in the EU. Those who up to now advocated doses of further austerity to cure Euro zone ailments, start faltering at the huge damage inflicted on the economy.
MADRID | By Julia Pastor | Javier Flores, head of analysis at Asinver: “France’s economic system will not fall into bankruptcy, but the French model cannot be considered as a superpower any more.”