Columns
Finding a Way out of the Crisis – Growth and Employment in Europe
The economic and social consequences of lopsided policies focussed on lowering expenditure are fatal. Europe is threatening to fall apart as a result. Instead of the European crisis easing, it has worsened over the past two years and the credit risks which Germany is shouldering have not shrunk, but have grown significantly. The crisis from which [...]
European Monetary Union: Doomed to fail or just another Stepping Stone?
With talk of a Greek exit from the Euro now being treated seriously it can be informative to consider past experiences with monetary union. The normal fate for currency unions has been eventual failure and dissolution, and the history books are full of examples of such failures. By and large having some pre-existing form of [...]
German State Elections send Merkel an Economic Message
The recent elections in North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW) have produced a great result for the German Social Democratic party (SPD) and a crushing defeat for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). After a dozen years, and with a vote share of 39.1%, the SPD has re-emerged as the strongest party in Germany’s most populous state. The CDU, on the other hand, [...]
Democratizing the Eurozone
In recent months, more and more attention has been focused on the failure of the Eurozone leaders’ policies of fiscal consolidation, with growth presented as the alternative. The problems for the Eurozone stem not just from the policies, however. They also come from the governance processes and the politics—or lack thereof. Processes The main problem [...]
Creating Jobs in recession-hit Communities in Europe: Why Microcredit will not help
As the jobs crisis continues to escalate right across Europe, the European policy-making elite is at an almost complete loss as to what to do. However, there seems to be broad agreement that at least one policy intervention can work in today’s desperate circumstances – microcredit. A policy that is more familiar to developing countries, [...]
Is Europe on a Cross of Gold?
Increasingly, one hears predictions that the euro will go the way of the gold standard in the 1930’s. And, increasingly, the reasoning behind such forecasts seems persuasive. But does that mean that the euro doomsayers are right? Following the 1929 stock market crash, Europe was hit by a massive deflationary shock. Output collapsed and unemployment [...]
The Good Society
Thanks very much for inviting me here this evening; not least because it allows me to talk about philosophy, society and socialism. Believe me as a Labour MP this does not happen very often. I have been a MP for ten years. I went with Tony Blair into Downing St in 1997 and spent three [...]
Kenya, Oil and Populism: Learning from Germany
In March Kenya discovered oil. Even before it has proved to be commercial, and years before the money will flow, oil has already had an impact: by April public servants were demanding a large wage increase. Oil discoveries are psychological earthquakes: people imagine that good times have arrived. Such a narrative is the default option for [...]
Blogs
At least nine EU countries in recession: stimulus urgently needed
The latest Eurostat flash estimate shows that at least nine EU countries are in recession, having posted negative economic growth in both the first quarter of 2012 and the last of 2012. In four of these Member States that makes three consecutive quarters of contraction and in Greece and Portugal output has been falling for [...]
The Euro Endgame
The Euro endgame is now on. And for the first time since this whole saga has started I see the likelihood that something is going to give soon as higher than the whole Eurozone staying together. It is not a forgone conclusion but it is hard to see where the political impetus to decisively change course is [...]
On Underwear Bombs
Two days after Social Europe published my note on soft power and hard facts, the press announced the arrival of the new terrorist Wunderwaffe: the underwear bomb… Just to remind you, the piece ended with a musing: Some people reckon that the collapse of the Soviet Union was triggered by Reagan involving Gorbachev in an [...]
Doubling Down
I guess we knew this was coming, but in the face of last Sunday’s election results and the broader evidence that Europe’s economic strategy is an utter failure, the usual suspects are, you guessed it, doubling down. Simon Wren-Lewis looks on in horror as the Dutch agree on completely unnecessary austerity measures, as a way of showing [...]
European Politics after the Greek and French Elections
The important elections in Greece and France are now behind us and the results will hopefully have a decisive impact on European crisis politics. The days after such important elections are also ‘talking heads’ time. I was on Al Jazeera International and on Sky News to discuss the implications of the election results for European [...]
European Democracy: 2012/2014 another Stepping Stone?
It has become common talk across the European Union to blame the Commission for being undemocratic, and a better representative of financial elites than of the people’s interest. Populist parties wallow in corrosive attacks on “Brussels’ diktats”, while mainstream politicians do not dare risk a stand in favour of Commissioners widely seen as unelected technocrats [...]
Europeanism and the Europeanisation of Family
Euroscepticism inside the European Union is not as thriving as Euro-doomsayers have suggested: in various elections in Europe in the last months, an overwhelming majority of Europeans have reasserted their support for pro-European parties. Yes, the eurosceptic fringe has been growing, but it is still only a minority. Nevertheless, in these trying times popular support [...]
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