Stearns, J. & Deen, M. (2015) “Greece Asks ECB to Keep Banks Afloat, Tsipras Pitches Deal“, Bloomberg Business, 01 February. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras began the hunt for allies against German demands for austerity as his week-old government appealed to the European Central Bank not to shut off the money tap. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said his country won’t take any more aid under its existing bailout agreement …Read More
Mitchell, B. (2015) “Germany has a convenient but flawed collective memory“, Bill Mitchell Blog, 02 February. There is a lot of discussion at present about the historical inconsistency of the German position with regard any debt relief to the Greek government. Angela Merkel has reiterated over the weekend that there would be no further debt relief. Why she is now a spokesperson for the Troika that does not include …Read More
Wren-Lewis, S. (2015) “We already have a simple and conventional story to explain the weak recovery“, VoxEU Organisation, 30 Ιανουαρίου. The anaemic recovery from the Global Crisis and the downward trend in real interest rates since 1980 have revived interest in the idea of secular stagnation. This column argues that if the US, UK, and Eurozone had not pursued contractionary fiscal policies from 2010 onwards, the recovery would not …Read More
De Grauwe, P. (2015) “Secular stagnation in the Eurozone“, VoxEU Organisation, 30 January. Nowhere in the developed world is the secular stagnation more visible than in the Eurozone. This column explains this phenomenon with asymmetric external balances within the Eurozone. Southern counties had accumulated current-account deficits and became debtors when the Crisis hit, whereas the northern ones became creditors. The burden of the adjustments has been borne almost exclusively …Read More
Moring, A. (2015) “Lessons from the crisis – We Europeans face a historic choice: either we further develop Europe as a single political entity, or we recede from the limelight, The European Magazine, 30 January. In her latest op-ed, The European columnist Juliane Mendelsohn rails against the “dysfunctional euro” and the flawed European project that “the market inevitably pushed us into.” She links her arguments to the call for …Read More
Merler, S. (2015) “Who’s (still) exposed to Greece? – a first trace of normalisation and resume in confidence since 2013, which the present political turmoil risks to revert“, Bruegel Institute, 29 January. Since the start of the crisis, the structure of Greek debt has changed considerably (almost 80 percent of government financial liabilities are now accounted for by loans, against slightly less than 20 percent back in 2008). At the same …Read More
Angier, T. (2015) “European social democracy is in danger of terminal decline unless it can reengage with its core values“, LSE EUROPP, 30 January. With the rise of parties on the far-right and radical left of European party systems, social democratic parties now face a challenge to retain their support base in several European countries. Tom Angier writes that the primary problem facing social democrats is that they have …Read More
Feldman, N. (2015) “Greece Turns Left, Europe Goes Right“, BloombergView, 30 January. Why has Greece chosen a far-left government at a time when discontented and frustrated voters elsewhere in Europe have turned to the far right? In northern Europe, the frustrated voters’ parties of choice are right wing and anti-immigrant. So how come frustrated Greeks made a sharp turn to the left, electing the near-communist Syriza party to lead …Read More
Rooduijn, M. (2015) “Populist arguments have become more pervasive in Western European countries“, LSE EUROPP, 29 January. To what extent has populism become a feature of public debates in European countries? Matthijs Rooduijn employs content analysis to assess the frequency of populist statements in newspaper articles in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. He concludes that populism is more widespread in these countries than previously assumed, with …Read More
Weisbrot, M. (2015) “How Greece Could Change the Future of Europe“, Vice News, Opinion & Analysis, 28 January. The Syriza party’s big win in Greece’s legislative election last weekend is a turning point in the long political fight over Europe’s botched recovery from the financial crisis and world recession of 2008-2009. The occasion presents a milestone for the eurozone, which has been plagued by mass unemployment and economic stagnation, …Read More
