European Council: Banking union project fudged
The Daily Telegraph, London – EU leaders have decided to move forward with a banking union, but much more slowly than they had agreed last June. German procrastination and collective timidity are to...
View ArticleDebate: Federal Europe best cure for current gloom
Corriere della Sera, Milan – For Italian writer Claudio Magris, the only way to dispel the dismay prompted by the European economic and political crisis is to create a strong, decentralised and...
View ArticleZone euro : Doctor Merkel and her lethargic patients
On 7 November, Angela Merkel travelled to Strasbourg to present her vision of Europe to the European parliament. The chancellor, however, found herself “alone with her plan”, remarks Süddeutsche...
View ArticleGermany: Goodbye euro, hello recession
Die Zeit, Hamburg – What would happen if Germany left the euro? Economist Gustav Horn of the Hans-Böckler Foundation, which has close ties to trade unions, speculates on what would happen in the days...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: EU set back a generation
Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, Warsaw – It will be decades before the most economically stricken countries recover their pre-crisis standard of living. And the gulf between with these states and those doing...
View ArticleEU budget: Britain’s bluster serves the eurozone well
Financial Times, London – The EU leaders' failure to find an agreement on the budget is largely symbolic as negotiations concern only a very small part of the Union’s wealth. More important to the EU’s...
View ArticleIreland: Tightening the purse strings
“The most savage budget of the economic downturn" says the Irish Independent, assessing the government’s new austerity budget, which aims to save €3.5bn. The savings will come through a mix of higher...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: Germany’s pact with the devil
The Irish Times, Dublin – In Goethe's most famous fable, Faust, the German author demonstrates his opinion that paper money is a continuation of alchemy by other means. This view, argues The Irish...
View ArticleDebt crisis: Europe survives the year
El País, Madrid – The year 2012 seemed pretty dangerous for the eurozone and the whole of the EU. But the worst did not come to pass, especially since Angela Merkel made concessions, which allowed...
View ArticleNew Year's Quiz: 40 trick questions about Europe
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Frankfurt – Three years of the euro crisis, 2013 is around the corner, and you still have some questions? So does essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger. The...
View ArticleEconomy: Merkel shepherds us away from the fiscal cliff
NRC Handelsblad, Amsterdam – The last minute negotiations in Washington to avoid a budget shortfall show that short-termism is well grounded in US politics. And by contrast, it shows that despite her...
View ArticleEconomy: America’s European moment
“America turns European”, jokes The Economist on a cover featuring US President Barack Obama and the Republican House Speaker John Boehner dressed as a Frenchman and German respectively. “For the past...
View ArticleGermany: ‘Europe suffers, Germany wins’
In spite of the crisis, the latest figures from the German Federal Office of Statistics indicate that Germany’s federal, state and local governments completed 2012 with a budget surplus....
View ArticleEuropean union: A crisis of democracy as much as finance
The Guardian, London – The spirit of dictators like Nicolae Ceauşescu is finding new life in the response of the European elite to the eurozone crisis, says Slovenian thinker Slavoj Žižek. The same...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: The euro’s Lazarus moment
“The euro crisis has receded, leaving quite a lot of egg on (mostly) Anglo-Saxon faces,” begins Philip Stephens in the Financial Times, as news emerged that the embattled currency hit a new 14-month...
View ArticleItaly: ‘Who can save Italy?’
"The danger for Europe’s single currency seems to have abated," writes the weekly newspaper in its cover story, "yet the eurozone’s crisis is far from over." The zone is in recession and Italy has the...
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Eurozone crisis: Austerity plunges Europe into recession
The European press blames the economic shrinkage on austerity policies that prevail in most single currency states, with some newspapers advocating a change of course. “The eurozone has become a...
View ArticleEuropean Council: ‘Group therapy’ for growth-crisis countries
At Thursday’s European Council summit in Brussels, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will present figures that Süddeutsche Zeitung describes as “worrying”. In 2013, nine of the...
View ArticleItaly: ‘Europe, no progress on growth’
In his “last match in Europe”, outgoing Italian premier Mario Monti went to the European Council in Brussels to try and persuade northern countries to allow Italy more economic flexibility. Monti wrote...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: Byzantine lessons for Europe
The Guardian, London – From managing a single currency, to ending a recession and negotiating political and fiscal unions among a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic commonwealth, Byzantium’s leaders handled...
View ArticleEurozone: ‘Guarantee up to €100,000 remains’
Holding an emergency teleconference on March 18, the Eurogroup decided to adjust the bailout for Cyprus and drop the controversial levy on Cypriot saving deposits of less than €100,000. On March 16,...
View ArticleEuropean Union: How Europe’s leaders ran out of credit in Cyprus
Financial Times, London – The bigger problem remains the gap in trust between the north and the south, writes a Financial Times columnist. See more.
View ArticleEurozone crisis: ‘EU gives Cyprus an ultimatum to avoid it leaving the euro’
EU countries are "losing patience" with Cyprus, notes the daily. On March 21, the Eurogroup urged the Cypriot government to present a new bailout plan guaranteeing that bank deposits below the €100,000...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Just when you thought it was safe...’
The controversial Cyprus bailout has revived the risk of the systemic Eurozone crisis. The island’s banks “must be recapitalised directly through the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on an individual...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘30% haircut for the Bank of Cyprus’
At dawn on Monday, Cyprus and the troika of international backers (EU, ECB, IMF) reached agreement on a €10bn bailout plan, which should prevent the bankruptcy of the island and its exit from the...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Euro rescuers close down their first bank’
The Eurogroup's decision to liquidate Laiki Bank, the second largest banking group in Cyprus, is the first such decision taken by the organisation since the onset of the Eurozone crisis at the end of...
View ArticleCyprus: “This is the start of the Road to Calvary”
O Phileleftheros, Nicosia – In an open letter to his compatriots, a Cypriot scientist calls on the citizens of the island to show patriotism, and to roll up their sleeves for an independent initiative...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Eurozone shifts burden of risk from taxpayers to investors’
The EU’s €10bn rescue deal agreed with Cyprus marked a “watershed” in the way the Eurozone would handle failing banks, wrote the economic daily following comments by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, president of...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘The €9.2bn heist’
The bailout agreement concluded by Cyprus and the troika of international lenders (the EU, ECB and IMF) at dawn on March 25 stipulates, among other measures, that the island’s largest bank, the Bank of...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘The dwarf has been saved, but the giant is trembling’
“EU finance ministers have approved a multi-billion euro bailout, while the island is to cut a slice from bank deposits of more than €100,000,” writes the daily in its report on the Eurogroup plan...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Merkel’s pawn considers Cypriot haircuts elsewhere’
The Spanish daily has harsh words for the President of Eurogroup who prompted a slump in European markets and a spike in risk premiums for countries such as Spain and Italy on March 25. In an interview...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Cyprus avoids being expelled from Eurozone’
As a result of the March 25 agreement on the Cypriot bailout, "Cyprus could definitively lose its role as an offshore financial centre," writes the Moscow daily. Certainly, it will be viewed negatively...
View ArticleLatvia: Cypriot crisis is a boon for “Switzerland of the Baltic”
“For Russian businessmen and savers seeking a new bridgehead in the eurozone, Latvia is an ideal choice,” writes Martin Ehl in Hospodářské noviny. The political analyst reminds the newspaper’s readers...
View ArticleDebate: The “Latin Empire” should strike back
Libération, Paris – Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has revived the idea of a union of Southern European countries, a proposal first launched by another philosopher, Alexandre Kojève, just after...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘A dribble of cash’
Cypriot banks are scheduled to open on March 28 at noon local time, after being shut for 12 days while a bailout plan for Cyprus was devised. "Special security measures were taken" to avoid a bank run,...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: ‘Europe agonises over the crisis’
The Cyprus bailout package, is "difficult, painful and chaotic for Europe," says the Vienna daily, but adds that there is reason for "a little optimism: the euro works." The deficit of the eurozone...
View ArticleEU-Russia: Brussels’ Cyprus slip-up
Lidové noviny , Prague – The EU's Cyprus solution reveals how it wants to limit Russian influence in the Mediterranean and crack down on international tax havens. While the rescue plan may be a victory...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: Time to abolish the tax havens
El País, Madrid – The Cyprus crisis has shone a spotlight on the special tax status of the island in the eurozone. That status, though, is not very different from that of other European countries, like...
View ArticleAustria: ‘Banking secrecy: Faymann ready for talks’
“Measures against tax havens and tax evasion are on the agenda. Austria is expected to align itself with Switzerland and Luxembourg, whose minister of finance has stated that he is ready to make...
View ArticleSlovenia: Cyprus syndrome looms over Ljubljana
After Cyprus, will the next victim of the banking crisis be Slovenia, as has been feared for several months? While the situation of the Slovenian banks is indeed worrisome, “the OECD and the European...
View ArticleGreece: ‘Dangerous Dawn’
“Greek democracy is in danger,” says the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muiznieks, who has published a report following his visit to Greece earlier this year. Muiznieks, who...
View ArticleCyprus: ‘Tough dilemma with only one choice’
On April 30, the Cypriot parliament is expected to approve by a narrow majority the memorandum signed with the EU-ECB-IMF troika of international creditors and the corresponding agreement for €10bn...
View ArticleEurozone: ‘ECB: what is the reason for the lower rate?’
At meeting in Bratislava on May 2, the governing council of the European Central Bank is expected to cut the ECB’s key interest rate, from 0.75 per cent to 0.5 per cent or less. The decision, which has...
View ArticleBanking crisis: ECB wants to finish the clean-up
“Now that the Eurozone crisis is over, time to finish the job with the banks,” announces the front-page of NRC Handelsblad, in the wake of the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s May 11...
View ArticleMinorities: For George Soros, Roma are victims of the crisis
“The situation of the Roma [in Europe] amounts to the most serious case of ethnic discrimination and exclusion,” claims George Soros, in an interview with Romanian weekly Dilema Veche. The American...
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