debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The eurozone crisis is one of the most significant challenges EU policymakers have yet faced. Waltraud Schelkle examines Germany’s reaction to the crisis, finding that while Germany proposed economic self-restraint in 2008, it also embarked on a policy of domestic fiscal stimulus to the welfare system and car industry that amounted to 3 per cent of GDP. [...]
The sharp debate over the ongoing crisis of the euro zone has to a great extent driven protagonists into two camps. In what might be called the “official camp”, we find those who support the common currency project and with it policies of fiscal austerity. In the other, the “camp of the critics”, are those [...]
Yesterday saw the first clash in the German parliament between Chancellor Merkel and the newly designated “chancellor candidate” of the SPD, Peer Steinbrück. The occasion was a debate about the euro crisis. The new Merkel was on display. Solidarity was writ large. Greece, so her fervent wish, should stay in the euro area. The currency [...]
One of the phrases frequently written in economic circles in the United States (and to a lesser degree in Europe) is “the Euro is going to collapse.” Those who repeat that phrase over and over again do not seem to know how the Euro was established, by whom, and for whose benefit. If they knew [...]
Rarely is a high-flying country brought back down to earth in a single night, but that is precisely what happened to Germany recently. In both football (soccer) and politics, the country had come to embody an unseemly mixture of arrogance and denial. It thought itself the measure of all things European, in terms of both [...]
The latest Y2K of Europe has passed. The Greek elections are over with no “Grexit” in sight and Europe did not fall apart. All the screaming Cassandras were wrong once again. Indeed, French president François Hollande, the leader of efforts for a new economic strategy in Europe, led his Socialist Party to a solid win [...]
Just as Paul Krugman has argued that we know how to get out of the American and European recession, we also know how to get out of the Eurozone (EZ) crisis—and could do so at the G20 meeting in Mexico today and/or at EU summit on 28-29 June. The crisis is entirely self-inflicted. For example—and [...]
While the punters speculate on the outcome of the Greek election on 17 June, in truth ‘Grexit’ has already happened. Because of massive withdrawals from the Greek banking system, the country is on emergency life support from the ECB. First, following the inconclusive May elections, the ‘troika’ decided that it would postpone the €48bn recapitalisation [...]
With Europe bogged down by the financial crisis and its national governments failing or being voted out of office across the continent, Germany has looked like an island of prosperity and stability. Chancellor Angela Merkel has appeared to be the embodiment of the new strength of old Europe’s problem child, a country admired by some [...]
I think there are some good reasons to believe that something has got to give very soon. It looks like the wheels are coming off the Eurocrisis strategy of kicking the can down the road and throwing crisis countries into a recession/depression. I won’t repeat the reasons for why austerity is wrong – numerous authors have done this on SEJ [...]
For those who have watched the Greek people humiliated by the troika’s ever more strident calls for austerity, it is easy to despair about ever seeing any real political change in a Merkozy-dominated Eurozone. But things may soon improve. Consider the following points. First, Europeans are beginning to wake up to the reality of ‘austerity’ [...]
Angela Merkel’s announcement that she will actively support Nicolas Sarkozy in the upcoming French presidential elections came as a surprise to many. And although I have not been a staunch supporter of Merkel’s European policy, I am convinced that she is doing the right thing. But I was also irritated that many Germans felt alienated and spoke [...]
All Content