debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
Some claims made for economic austerity policies are so prima facie absurd that no one would believe them, making it a waste of time to point out the absurdity. Or so I thought, and wrong I was. The suggestion that a near-miracle recovery occurred in Latvia, and that this extraordinary reversal from bust to boom [...]
In case of severe economic depressions, even the OECD considered public works programmes (PWPs) a reasonable option in fighting the rise of unemployment: “… increased reliance on public sector job creation schemes targeted to the hardest-to-place jobseekers might provide a useful, temporary backstop to activation regimes during the recession.” (OECD Employment Outlook 2009, p. 14). [...]
Latvia was the first country in Europe to join an EU and IMF supported programme in December 2008 to cope with the fall-out of the global economic and financial crisis. Policy-makers made a resolute commitment to defend the exchange rate peg between the Lat and the Euro given the aim to enter the Eurozone in [...]
Despite the fact that many European economies are facing an austerity-induced recession, the ‘Austerians’ are already back on the attack. When travelling this week to Riga, Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, rediscovered that Latvia, back in 2009, had been one of the Troika’s first guinea pigs in Europe to test out the policy of [...]
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. [...]
Saturday’s Latvian parliamentary election was a success for the centre-left coalition, the Harmony Centre, which became the largest parliamentary group with 32 of the 100 seats in the Saeima. Harmony Centre is a coalition between the Social Democratic Party Harmony (SDPS) and the Socialist Party (LSP) and has in particular its support in the Russian-speaking minority. Despite the electoral success, it is unlikely that they will get seats in the government. 13 parties participated in the elections and five passed the five percent threshold: Party Election [...]
The Danish middle class is shrinking. That can be read in a new report from The Economic Council of the Labour Movement (Arbejderbevægelsens Erhvervsråd), the Danish labour movement think-tank. The report shows that 31.5 percent of the Danish population belonged to the middle class in 2002. Seven years later that share had drop to 28.6 [...]
Greece has bought some time with a new package of financial support, but the country is not out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen whether the souped-up austerity policies that Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government has promised will prove to be politically acceptable and sustainable. History suggests some grounds for skepticism. In [...]
The welfare state in Europe is under attack – and what’s the news? In the past decades, we have seen both the gradual erosion of the welfare state’s financial basis as well as fundamental structural reforms that got to the core of welfare provision. This transformation has been accompanied by an intense debate about the [...]
News of the appointments in the new European Commission has been dominated by the political struggles for the high-profile positions. The portfolio responsible for the Commission’s development program in poor countries is decidedly not one of them. The Financial Times, reporting on the appointment of Andris Piebalgs to the post, suggested that he deserved better. [...]
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