debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Ireland’s economic crisis has its roots in a housing bubble that collapsed in 2007. Commentators have pointed to a number of bankers, politicians, developers and builders who share part of the responsibility for the orgy of lending and borrowing that preceded the crash, but the key role of the media has not yet been systematically [...]
The Labour Party was congratulating itself yesterday on having joined with Tory rebels to defeat the Tory-led government by voting to cut the EU budget. In truth, this was sheer opportunism. While the two Eds (Miliband and Balls) may believe that supporting belt-tightening in Europe is good populist politics, in truth, Labour has shot itself [...]
That would be the accurate headline in tomorrow’s papers given today’s verdict by Germany’s Constitutional Court. But it is unlikely that any newspaper concerned about its circulation will print it. Whatever the pre-verdict media frenzy, the simple fact is that a verdict from Karlsruhe that would have seriously threatened the introduction of the ESM would [...]
The most recent Eurostat data – from spring 2012 – paint a stark picture: over 50 per cent youth unemployment in Greece and Spain, over 30 per cent in Bulgaria, Italy, Portugal and Slovakia and a European average of 22 per cent. The danger of a »lost generation« is no longer merely the writing on [...]
The video of Paul Krugman’s recent talk at LSE in London is now online. SEJ had a slot to interview him just before the lecture but his publisher had to cancel the last moment. So even though we cannot offer you a dedicated interview, here is the full video of his talk.
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, [...]
There is no shortage of talk nowadays about Europe’s deficits and the need to correct them. Critics point to governments’ gaping budget deficits. They cite the southern European countries’ chronic external deficits. They highlight the eurozone’s institutional deficits – a single currency and a central bank but none of the other elements of a well-functioning [...]
2011 was supposed to be the year that saw the back of the Global Crisis. Alas, the crisis is still with us as the North Atlantic banking part of the crisis morphed into the Eurozone crisis, and slow growth in advanced countries once again threatens emerging economies. In this column, IMF chief economist Oliver Blanchard [...]
The British press is obsessed with Cameron’s veto and its effect on Europe. But that is largely irrelevant to the big story: in truth, the euro is commiting suicide. If the German debt-brake law is adopted by all 17, it will be impossible for any country to engage in serious counter-cyclical fiscal policy (and existing [...]
Building on Dani Rodrik’s “fundamental political trilemma of the world economy”, various trilemmas have been put forth (e.g. by Kevin O’Rourke, Yanis Varoufakis, etc.) to explain the euro crisis. O’Rourke concludes: “If the nation state remains dominant within the Eurozone, then the trilemma suggests that there are two logical possibilities. Either public opinion is successfully [...]
It seems that, at last, the penny, or rather the euro cent, has dropped. The ECB appears to be willing to intervene in a more substantial way to contain the crisis. It may have decided not to commit suicide after all. Member States, individually and collectively, are, in return, apparently prepared to contemplate the previously [...]
We live in troubled times. The global economy is on the rim of an abyss and on planet Pundit there are new apocalyptic predictions of falling living standards, rising unemployment, increasing child poverty, growing inequalities and social unrest that cumulatively threaten our collective well-being and political stability. Leaders of the major economies search desperately and [...]
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