By Jesús Sánchez-Quinones, in Madrid, for Cotizalia | Europe has for more than three years now been immersed in a profound crisis of its economy and beyond. The focus of trouble has been moving from country to country. First it was Greece, when its authorities acknowledged that they had falsified its public account figures in late 2009. After Greece, the focus shifted to Ireland when his government had to seek a bailout to…
Awaiting the government’s official figures, which will be released next 30 April, the forecast published this week by the Bank of Spain should be taken as a telling sign of the success that austerity budgets throughout euro peripheral State members are enjoying. The Spanish central bank said that it expects the country’s economic activity to fall by 0.4pc during the first quarter of 2012, a one-tenth down from 2011’s last…
MADRID | The Dutch coalition collapse coupled with the plausible fiscal pact rebuke following the poll outcome in France has severely undermined investors’ confidence. Trust on discipline driven governance in the euro zone is crumbling. Losing in a row two key stalwart bastions of tough budgetary rules has sent shivers to the markets. Further challenges are expected to materialise as the austerity overdose dents popular support for governments at pains to…
MADRID | Although nine candidates attempted on Sunday to pass through to the second round of the French presidential elections, only two mattered in the dispute for the trophy: Nicolas Sarkozy, current president of the republic, and the socialist Francois Hollande. Two days after the first round of elections, the polls are very clear and give a significant advantage to Hollande, with an intention to vote of 54% against 45% for Sarkozy….
LONDON |The European economies are likely to continue being a significant source of volatility as disagreement within the European Central Bank inhibits its ability to put the region on a firmer footing, Standish said in a report published Thursday. The fixed income specialist for BNY Mellon made the observations in its April Outlook, by the global macro strategists at the firm. The conflicting viewpoints of members of the ECB’s governing council…
NEW YORK | A big amount of pain in the Spanish economy could have been avoided. But the Germany authorities chose not to. This is pretty much the line of thought that The New York Times has been sharing with its public for months. So far, the excessive “German-led mismanagement of the euro-zone crisis” has been the focus of as many op-eds as the war in Afghanistan or the US healthcare…
MADRID | Berlin is utterly bewildered, according to official sources, by the clumsy way Madrid is running its current crisis. A high ranking government representative stunned his German counterparts by openly declaring that Spain would be ready to find its way out of the euro if that was the prize to avoid intervention. He wasn’t bluffing. On Monday this week he presented PM Rajoy and ministers in charge of economic matters…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | A misdiagnosis can be fatal for the patient. Especially if the doctor is German, or Spanish but disciple of the Bundesbank school. Inflation is bad and so the public deficit is, that is the slogan. Let the people discuss whether this or that department should be reduced or not, and what about pensions or public investment?, VAT yes or no?, while the economy gets worse and…
By Luis Arroyo, in Madrid | John Authers, in Trends That Don’t Seem to Make Sense, have some pertinent questions to share. The one that has attracted my attention is: Why is the euro still so strong when at all other times a currency with so many risks would be certain to weaken? Resilience of the euro is startling and damaging. The eurozone’s crisis has been driven by balance of payments problems…
MADRID | Spain seems crippled by mounting economic woes. It faces a steep rise in risk premium fuelled by plunging confidence on its ability to reverse the bleak outlook ahead. Recession takes its toll in terms of higher unemployment, budgetary deviations and extensive deterioration in the banking sector. Reforms undertaken so far have failed to deliver any tangible benefit. Labour market overhaul has only helped to accelerate lay-offs, with no impact…