Just because most European languages attach a semantic Spartan-like element to the term austerity, it doesn’t follow that austerity must obviously be a more consistent policy than, let’s say, a profligacy programme. Common ancient history aside, the increasing doubts about the German and French economies doing well in spite of the stress the euro zone is going under, tells us that austerity plans currently in place in euro peripheral States were not thoroughly…
NEW YORK | There was a final statement, yet not a consensus about how to tackle the euro zone turmoil. Everyone in Camp David hoped that Greece will remain in the euro. For the first time, the argument that Europe cannot face more spending cuts gained widespread support. G8’s final communiqué showed a big push to German Chancellor Angela Merkel: it is urgent to bring deficits down through austerity measures…
LONDON | If you haven’t heard of it, you have simply not been on planet Earth: Grexit was the trendiest word this week, but for the wrong reasons. Would Greece exit the euro zone, shuttering prospects of an approaching global economic recovery? The matter was not whether the Hellenic nation could stand the heat coming from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which assured the…
LONDON | The financial City of London would pose as an unlikely critic of Germany’s tactics throughout the long euro rope pulling between the peripheral rotten economies and the apparently unstoppable Teutonic motor. Report after report has come out from City analysts supporting how urgent austerity packages were and pointing at every bad decision made by Greek, Irish, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish politicians, who should have known better. Truth be told,…
Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | Greece was in free fall mode when at the European Central Bank they had the funny idea of pushing the country …downwards. The ECB said it had frozen all operations with Greek banks, which already are suffering a killing capital drain: “Central bank head George Provopoulos told Papoulias that Greeks have withdrawn as much as €700 million ($891 million) and the situation could worsen, according to the transcript…
MADRID | Markets have been plunged into utter chaos by the Greek political deadlock and the prospect parties staunchly opposed to the EU bail out plan may have the upper hand in the incoming elections. Panic has also been driven by light comments picturing Greece’s eviction from the euro as an anodyne and somehow inevitable event. Such a bullish appraisal does not emerge from Anglo Saxon analysts so much inclined to…
It was Germany, with a 0.5 percent growth of GDP in the first quarter of this year, that helped the euro zone avoid enter technical recession territory. GDP remained stable in both the euro are and the EU during January to March of 2012 compared with the previous quarter, according to flash estimates published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. Compared with the same quarter of the previous…
After the news came in of French president François Hollande’s brief encounter with the ever irresistible forces of nature, I began to consider in all seriousness what my mother said about the just sworn-in European leader: “poor thing,” she had muttered during our daily London-Valencia FaceTime conference, which is motherly talk for the more common ‘that guy’s a loser’ remark. Indeed, he was struck by lightning twice in just hours. Here’s the…
MADRID | The injection of public money and nationalisation of Bankia ends a compelling need with a solution, earlier discarded, that in the US or the UK has been long ago adopted but neither the Germans or the French want to face, in spite of many of their banks being as weak as some the Spanish entities may be. François Hollande’s arrival to the presidency of France is also good news:…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | In brief, Germany would lose out in competitiveness with the rest of the world, were it to accept a monetary expansion policy. Germany is a big exports country, not just to the euro zone but to the outside, too. Check the graph as a proof. Foreign manufacturing orders from the rest of the world, in fact, are growing up quickly while demand from the…