Euro crisis – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

#EUREF: Fate of Greece will delineate Ireland’s means of remaining within the Eurozone

Mick Fealty on May 14, 2012, 9:41 am

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RTE’s The Week in Politics is well worth watching… It was the Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore who drew the short straw left him by the Taoiseach’s refusal to debate Gerry Adams on television.. It was notable more for the heat than any modicum of light it generated from either side. “Let’s stick to Ireland…” was Gerry Adams answer to the Sean O’Rourke’s opener on the crisis in Greece. And he did, no matter how many times he was invited to speculate …

Euro crisis: “Hold your sides and laugh out loud, otherwise you’ll have to cry.”

Pete Baker on May 11, 2012, 4:33 pm

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Despite some optimistic noises overnight, it still seems more likely than not that Limbo Greece will face new elections. As the Guardian live-blog noted earlier today The Democratic left party in Greece has said it will not back a pro-bailout government. That almost certainly means that Venizelos’s attempts to form a government coalition around agreement on the bailout terms are dashed and that the country will face fresh elections In the meantime, there are still a few days left to catch eurosceptic Michael Portillo’s …

Euro crisis: “Europe will be lucky if it ends up in stagnation like Japan for the next ten years”

Pete Baker on May 9, 2012, 8:38 pm

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Back in Limbo Greece, stage 2 in the 4-stage attempt to form a government with a parliamentary majority ends without agreement – as the BBC notes Mr Tsipras said he had failed to reach agreement with mainstream parties because of his insistence on rejecting austerity measures demanded by the EU and IMF as part of a bailout deal. He made the announcement after talks with the Pasok and New Democracy parties, which support the bailout. Pasok leader Evangelos Venizelos is now …

Austerity is a dish Ireland will almost certainly have to eat, hot or cold…

Mick Fealty on May 9, 2012, 4:31 pm

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Markets are itching again… The Greek indecision over forming the next government is such that the Euro has slid to just under $1.30, and yields on Spanish debt are rising to $6.06… [Ms Lagarde, got yer umbrella handy? – Ed] Scary stuff… What’s even more scary is that those economists who cast a darkening glance over the fiscal treaty as a means of getting out from under a recession that may already be hardening into a depression are not wrong …

Euro crisis: “Hollande is man of the moment, but Europe’s gaze is firmly fixed on Athens”

Pete Baker on May 8, 2012, 4:49 pm

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As the Irish Times’ Arthur Beesley notes All of this puts Hollande’s push to renegotiate the treaty in the shade. German chancellor Angela Merkel was quick to rebut her new French partner yesterday, but that can be read as the opening gambit. Her staunch ally Nicolas Sarkozy has been deposed. She has no choice but to work with the new tenant. The Merkozy days are over. In Brussels, the expectation remains that some form of an amendment will be conjured …

Greece: “Country in Limbo”

Pete Baker on May 7, 2012, 7:46 pm

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Gerry’s analysis notwithstanding, in Greece they’re trying to come to terms with those election results. As the BBC reports Greece’s centre-right leader, Antonis Samaras, has said he cannot form a coalition government, hours after he was given a mandate by the president. His New Democracy, which backed the last EU bailout, emerged as the biggest party after Sunday’s election, but he said a coalition was “impossible”. […] President Karolos Papoulias has now arranged a meeting for Tuesday morning with Alexis …

Hollande wins in France…

Pete Baker on May 6, 2012, 7:29 pm

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According to reported early estimates Socialist Francois Hollande has been elected as France’s new president, early estimates say. He got about 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off, according to projections based on partial results, against 48% for centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. The Guardian’s live-blog will have further updates. As for what it means for the fiscal pact, and the wider Euro crisis, I think the results in Greece may prove to be more significant. Exit polls in the Greek parliamentary election …

Euro crisis: April is the cruellest month…

Pete Baker on April 30, 2012, 5:27 pm

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Apart from all the others… And it doesn’t matter how big your umbrella is. BBC Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt, on springtime in Europe What is being exposed is a major flaw with Mrs Merkel’s fiscal pact. It is undemocratic. It ties the hands of future governments – and that, of course, was its intention but it doesn’t stop voters opposing further cuts. In the eurozone, deficits are being reduced. But debt – in many cases – is still growing. Growth …

Yes, Ireland can apply to the IMF for money, but…

Mick Fealty on April 30, 2012, 9:25 am

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If you want proof that SF dropped the ball on the anti case last week by putting partial quotes from Karl Whelan and two other eminent economists, it’s the fact that they have lent their own authority to an economist who is way off base from their own anti Fiscal Compact position. On Morning Ireland this morning Whelan gently debunked the idea, arising from (though strictly speaking, not contained within) a Sunday Times’ story yesterday that Ireland would be able …

Euro crisis: “It is nice to have a big umbrella…”

Pete Baker on April 23, 2012, 5:04 pm

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The Guardian’s Economics blog starts with an interesting observation Those who watched Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund a year ago say he played a blinder. Although he was to leave Washington under a cloud shortly afterwards, DSK impressed with his no-nonsense approach to his fellow Europeans. The IMF‘s managing director asked Jean-Claude Trichet, then president of the European Central Bank (ECB), and Christine Lagarde, at the time France’s finance minister, who they thought they …

Euro Crisis: “Germany is not pursuing these manoeuvres out of malice…”

Mick Fealty on April 17, 2012, 2:34 pm

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As Pete noted yesterday, things are never quite as they seem with the Eurozone. Paul Krugman writing in today’s New York Times bemoans the shortsightedness of Europe’s politician, but in it he makes an important category error when he describes the ECB as the European equivalent of the Fed… But he does suggest what has previously been thought unthinkable: “…in the 1930s — an era that modern Europe is starting to replicate in ever more faithful detail — the essential …

Euro crisis: “Barroso absolutely confident that Spain can meet its economic challenges.”

Pete Baker on April 16, 2012, 3:02 pm

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With Spain probably in recession, again, and the cost of its government borrowing topping 6%, again, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso is being ridiculed for his optimistic futuring. As the Guardian’s Eurozone crisis live-blog notes European Commission president José Manuel Barroso has just been quizzed about the eurozone crisis, at a summit on sustainable energy. Barroso attempted to calm fears, telling his audience that he is “absolutely confident that Spain can meet its econonic challenges”. Alas, Barroso didn’t explain …

ECB self censoring its own comms with an (overly?) sensitive Irish marketplace?

Mick Fealty on April 16, 2012, 1:06 pm

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In the digital age, edits get noticed. Clearly there are some details about the ECB’s bail out for banks that it didn’t want too widely publicised in Ireland… Jörg Asmussen, a German member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, where he has responsibility for international and European relations… Perhaps Mr Asmussen has inherited the Danish penchant for speaking plainly from his Flensburg home but on Friday in a speech to the IEA in Dublin, he said: “…the …

Euro crisis: “The worst, I fear, still lies ahead.”

Pete Baker on March 20, 2012, 6:36 pm

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In a recent column in the FT, Wolfgang Münchau asked an interesting question [free reg req] The markets have concluded that the eurozone crisis has ended. Several politicians said that they, too, believed that the worst was over. Complacency is back. I recall similar utterances in the past. Whenever there is some technical progress – an umbrella, a liquidity injection, a successful debt swap – optimism returns. If you think the European Central Bank’s policies have “bought time”, you should …

“Enda sounded like Fr Ted trying to explain to a baffled Fr Dougal the difference between “small” and “far away”.”

Pete Baker on March 14, 2012, 1:55 pm

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In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord on the latest shenanigans in the Dáil Meanwhile, the saga of the Promiscuous Notes rumbles on. It was Gerry Adams’s turn this time to wave them provocatively at the Taoiseach. The Spanish have the right idea, said the Sinn Féin leader. They took the toro pos los cuernos in Europe this week and got themselves a reduction in their budget deficit targets. “Will the Taoiseach follow the lead of the Spanish government, …

Euro crisis: “by the fifth instalment producers have to ramp up the violence and special effects.”

Pete Baker on March 8, 2012, 8:44 pm

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There have been some choice quotes flying around as the Greek government neared the 8pm deadline for securing sufficient private sector creditor involvement in their bond swap deal [and convincing Frau Bundeskanzlerin – Ed]. Like this quote from the Guardian live-blog at 6.59pm “if it closes at more than 90% its a triumph,” one well-briefed government official said. “If it’s above 75% its relatively good, if it’s lower than that we’re fucked,” he added saying the effects on market psychology would …

Euro crisis: “The expectation, however, must be for a fudge.”

Pete Baker on March 5, 2012, 5:30 pm

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When 25 of 27 EU leaders signed the “fiscal compact” [pdf file] designed to enforce budget discipline within the eurozone there was a rare, and unexpected, mood of optimism in the corridors of Frankfurt Brussels. An enthusiastic editorial in the Irish Times today calls for widespread political debate about the required new economic and political architecture. …the euro zone will not be stabilised without putting some such new economic architecture in place. A new political structure will also be required to ensure …

Euro crisis: “It might be something which would allow Greece also to at least, to some extent, get a new start.”

Pete Baker on February 14, 2012, 10:23 pm

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Have the Greek coalition partners in Government, led by the technocratic former Greek and European central banker, Lucas Papademos, done enough to meet the demands of Germany their eurozone partners? Maybe… and maybe not. As the Guardian’s live-blog noted today Jean-Claude Juncker, who is also prime minister of Luxembourg, says the Eurogroup was still missing information from Athens on how it plans to save promised €325 million. He says he also did not receive assurances from the leaders of the two main …

Euro Crisis: Cold morning after a hot night in Athens…

Mick Fealty on February 13, 2012, 10:00 am

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Twitter was burning with indignation last night (as it often is) that the MSM did not throw any attention on the crisis in Athens as the Greek Parliament acted upon the German ultimatum to impose an austerity package that may see the new government washed away in the upcoming general election in April. I suppose that takes care of whether Greece defaults in the near term or not. As Pete has pointed out, the package is not enough to prevent …

Euro crisis: You have six days to comply…

Pete Baker on February 10, 2012, 4:12 pm

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That’s the message to Greece from Germany the EU finance ministers. Despite initial reports, prompted by the Greeks themselves, what was agreed yesterday between the party leaders there fell short of what was required – by some €300-odd million. From the Irish Times report The ministers imposed a six-day deadline on Greek authorities to comply with their wishes and said all three parties in its coalition must pledge to implement the austerity plan and continue to do so after a …