debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
The G20 Leaders Declaration at the Toronto Summit (June 2010) endorsed an ambitious agenda of ‘structural reforms’ cutting across both labour and product markets that would lift global output significantly, create ‘tens millions more jobs’, sustain poverty reduction and reduce global imbalances significantly.[1] The latest (18-19 April, 2013) Communique of Finance Ministers and Central Bank [...]
I planned to blog on the failure of the ECB to take the opportunity of its Council meeting today to inject confidence and optimism (or at least counter fear and pessimism) in the face of the recession, record unemployment and falling inflation by announcing concrete steps to underpin the promise “to do all its takes” [...]
Comparisons with medieval doctors can only spring to mind on reading about the further misery the (Commission, ECB, IMF) Troika is seeking to impose on the Greek economy. The (Greek) government predicted that the recession will reach 3.8 percent of gross domestic product next year but the troika believes that the contraction is likely to [...]
How rising income inequality contributed to Germany’s macroeconomic imbalances. ‘New growth agenda’ or ‘structural reforms’? This seems to be the new dividing line in the economic policy debate in Europe, opposing, in particular, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the new President of France, Francois Hollande. Although everybody agrees that Europe will need economic growth [...]
In the aftermath of the most recent European Council, there was an avalanche of public statements which, in effect, put the Council’s policy package into serious doubt. One statement in particular deserves further analysis. In an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung on the 11th of December, Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann expressed the view that the [...]
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