debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The outcome of the ECB meeting yesterday was rather more positive than I had hoped. Why? Because the decision to do nothing was not unanimous. That’s it I’m afraid, but my expectations beforehand were very low. One reason was reading this short speech by Jörg Asmussen, a member of the Executive Board of the ECB. [...]
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’ [...]
Standard and Poors (S&P) was right to downgrade the sovereign debt of nine euro area countries and to put virtually all of them on negative watch (implying a substantial probability of a further future downgrade). The chances of default remain very low (in the overall landscape of debt instruments that agencies rate) but they have [...]
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