March 30, 2012
The Spanish government has today unveiled the toughest austerity package of the post-Franco era. Pretty extraordinarily, given the country’s situation, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy didn’t take part in the press conference following today’s cabi…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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austerity, crisis, eurozone crisis, eurozone. bail-out, Rajoy, Spain |
Speaking to the Polish Parliament yesterday, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski pointed the finger at the UK for not pulling its weight in the domain of European defence, claiming that he was “disappointed” that the UK did not want to build up joint EU…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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defence, eu military cooperation, nato, Poland, Sikorski, UK; |
Update – 12:10: Eurozone finance ministers have already reached an agreement and put out a statement. It’s pretty much exactly as we expected, with all assigned funds being rolled into the headline lending volume to give the €800bn.The fact remains t…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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bailout, EFSF, efsm, esm, German Constitutional Court, Greek bailout, ireland, italy, Portugal, schauble, sovereign debt, Spain |
Over on EUobserver, we take a look at what can be described as the “Monti paradox”:One of the main reasons why the euro crisis has calmed down is Mario Monti – the Italian Prime Minister who replaced Silvio Berlusconi last year, and who now heads a
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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austerity, berlusconi, EU reform, eurozone, italy. mario monti, labour market reform, sovereign debt |
March 29, 2012
A 24-hour general strike is under way in Spain, in protest against the centre-right government’s labour market reforms. Reports in the Spanish media suggest that participation rates have been higher in the manufacturing sector than in services. 58 peop…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
March 27, 2012
No, this is not another one of those taxpayer funded EU awards. This is about what takes place beyond the rhetoric, political horse-trading and posturing amongst ministers and diplomats in Brussels. This about the tiny matter of actually implementing t…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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better regulation, ECJ, EU regulation, France, germany, italy, red tape, UK; |
March 26, 2012
Yesterday’s elections in the German region of Saarland saw a somewhat unexpected surge for Angela Merkel’s CDU party, which won 35.2% of the votes, ahead of the Social Democrats (SPD) on 30.6% and the far-left Die Linke on 16.1%.As Torsten Krauel comme…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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Baden-Wurttemberg, CDU, CSU, Die Linke, FDP, german regional elections, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Piratenpartei, Saarland, SPD, westerwelle |
Here’s a rather interesting – although perhaps not a new – perspective on the euro. Slightly more optimistic than the doom and gloom that are commonplace these days (yes, we’re guilty too).James Rickards, an American lawyer, economist and investment b…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
March 23, 2012
Earlier this week, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle held a meeting with a number of his European counterparts dedicated to ‘conceptualising’ the political composition of Europe after the crisis has passed and provide some though leadership.Ahe…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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data retention, EU integration, eurozone. bail-out, German Constitutional Court, germany, posted workers directive, westerwelle |
The European Commission continues to spend a huge amount of taxpayers’ time and money pushing around its proposal for an EU financial transaction tax (FTT), despite it by all accounts looking like a complete non-starter – something which even the G…
Posted by Open Europe blog team
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eu, European Commission, eurozone, finance, financial regulation, financial transaction tax, FTT, UK; |
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