debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Francois Hollande’s Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, claims the new budget (unveiled on 28 September) is ‘fair, economically efficient and allows France to meet its priorities’. In the carefully chosen words of the Guardian’s economics editor, Larry Elliott, the claim is ‘total moonshine’! It is true that more than half the €37bn in planned budgetary savings [...]
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 [...]
In almost every major media source, print, television and online, one of the first comments on the recent election in France was, will financial markets freak out? To the relief of many and the despair of others, they have not as yet. That this question would leap to mind, at least to journalistic minds, is [...]
As one who believes that Europe’s nation states need to move closer together and on from their past, if they are to exert influence in the world, the current times are very worrying. The EU is under threat as never before, economically from the crisis and politically as the forces of nationalism grow stronger. Since [...]
What has been economically obvious for some time even to the most obtuse or ideological observer has now finally had significant political consequences. The strategy of austerity plus market-oriented so-called ‘structural’ reforms pushed through by the centre-right governments and neoliberal-dominated European policymaking institutions has failed. This was a death foretold. Like in the episode of [...]
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 [...]
“Vous verrez, Antoine; dans quelques années ils feront comme si je n’avais jamais existé…” (You’ll see, Antoine; in a few years they’ll act as if I never existed…”) remarks the dying President Mitterrand to his idealistic young biographer in the Robert Guédiguian film Le Promeneur du Champs de Mars. Yet sixteen years after Mitterrand’s death, [...]
Sunday the 6th of May 2012 might become a significant date in European politics. The Greek election results and above all the election of Francois Hollande as new French President might be the start of political change in Europe. I (and others on SEJ) have argued for a long time that the Angela Merkel driven European [...]
Francois Hollande has emerged as the new leader of Europe. Like the biblical young David, he has dared to challenge the Goliath-like consensus imposed by German conservatives, according to which only cutting budgets can get us out of the crisis. If he wins the battle, he may well become the King of the European Promised [...]
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 [...]
Business lobbies and conservatives have become extremely good at hijacking progressive policy concepts and perverting them into something that suits their own agenda. European economic governance is a perfect example of this. In the nineties, trade unions and progressive politicians were staunch defenders of economic governance. At the time, the idea was that if all [...]
At the moment, the Euro Area is stagnating, unemployment is rising and the entire banking system is dangerously fragile – in Nouriel Roubini’s phrase, we are watching a slow motion train wreck. But if the opinion polls are right, Francois Hollande will very soon be President of the French Republic and economic policy in the [...]
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