debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
There are those moments when things become very clear. One such moment arrived last week, on the 9 May when the President of the European Commission presented the Commission’s statement for Schuman Day also known as Europe Day. This statement contains a number of enlightening comments, revealing the real thinking inside the Commission. First, there’s [...]
Everybody is saying it: Greece will go under and probably the euro with it. Indeed, not just on the Eurosceptic right but on the left too it has become oddly fashionable to welcome Greece’s exit from the euro. This is dangerous nonsense. If Greece leaves, the euro is almost certainly doomed. Nobody can be certain [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Some politicians (and economists) pretend that cutting spending and raising taxes will lead to budget balance.[1] The argument is all too familiar in Britain. Indeed, it is the cornerstone of the ‘austerity drive’ and ‘fiscal compact’ that the Euro Area (EA) is currently adopting. In particular, Angela Merkel has promoted the notion that government profligacy [...]
Rarely has an election resonated so widely across the European Union as the French presidential ballot has done. Rarely has a leadership change in one EU member state created expectations of a real policy shift. Remarkably, a new European demos and public sphere are emerging from the economic crisis. Europeans are recognizing how interdependent they are. One [...]
There has been much criticism in Britain of Germany’s domination of the EU — of the country’s exporting its domestic rules to other member countries, and of its heavy-handed treatment of the UK over the Euro-zone crisis. Berlin is sensitive to such developments. And it gives a large portion of the blame to the UK. [...]
Ok, so let’s start with the basic economics. Britain is part of Europe. Next time you are driving on a motorway, play a game: read the number plates of the lorries that you pass and count the different nationalities. You’ll need to learn the alphabet code but it’s a quick way to see how inextricably [...]
A recent speech delivered by Mr Asmussen (Executive Director of the ECB) at a seminar organised by the IIEA in Dublin (The Irish Case From An ECB Perspective), gives powerful (though unintended) grounds for a ‘no’ vote in the forthcoming referendum. Mr Asmussen emphasised that from an ECB perspective it was of the ‘utmost importance’ [...]
The success of Britain in toning down the ambitions of the European institutions, shifting the balance away from the supranational executive towards the intergovernmental method, the muzzling of a voice in world affairs that is independent of Washington, the dragooning of Europe to the cause of unfettered globalisation and ‘light touch regulation’, the internal market, [...]
I write as someone who is on the British left – someone who sees the destructive capacity of capitalism before I see its dynamism. Someone who sees the separation of power from politics and politics from power being the over-riding feature of the last 30 years. Someone who believes in the fabulous potential of people [...]
Britain has long been the awkward partner in Europe. In 1951, she refused to join the European Coal and Steel Community, predecessor of the European Community. Ernest Bevin, Foreign Secretary at the time, said of the Coal and Steel Community – ‘If you open that Pandora’s box, you never know what Trojan ‘orses will jump [...]
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