debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond
This year’s annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund made clear that Europe and the international community remain rudderless when it comes to economic policy. Financial leaders, from finance ministers to leaders of private financial institutions, reiterated the current mantra: the crisis countries have to get their houses in order, reduce their deficits, bring down [...]
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 [...]
An additional almost 200,000 Europeans were unemployed in March compared with February according to the latest Eurostat data. Of these the vast majority were in the euro area (169,000). The pace at which the labour market situation is deteriorating is, if anything, accelerating. Since March 2011, when ill-advised austerity and monetary policy tightening began to [...]
The recent joint economic forecast by the IMK, WiFO and OFCE is now available in English (see the link on the right; auf deutsch hier). I should warn you: it makes miserable reading. While the extraordinary measures by the ECB and the shoring up of the European bail-out fund have averted a meltdown, the institutes [...]
The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March – down from the rate of more than 200,000 in each of the preceding three months. The rate of unemployment dropped from 8.3 to 8.2 percent mainly because fewer people were searching for jobs – and that rate depends on how many people are actively looking. It’s [...]
This is supposed to be a serious blog about European economic developments and policy. But this crisis keeps throwing stuff up that is hard to take seriously. Yesterday it was a rich British Lord offering a GBP 1/4 million cash prize to come up with the best way to break up the euro area. Today [...]
Unemployment in Europe continues its inexorable climb upward. Eurostat reported today that in February 17.13 million people were unemployed in the euro area and 24.55 million in the EU27. New records, as you can see from Eurostat’s own chart below. A rather clearer picture of the policy-making disaster that this represents emerges [...]
You may have seen the advert for the ETUI/ETUC Benchmarking Working Europe publication over on the right of the SEJ homepage. You can download the whole thing for free, but I thought that, in this and a few follow-up blogs, I would pull out what I see as some of the most interesting graphs and [...]
If you were a Greek MP would you have voted for the austerity package in the Greek Parliament on Sunday evening? The fate of Greece and perhaps of the euro area was, according to both Greek and EU policymakers, on the line. And despite riots in the streets and resignations from the government, the Greek [...]
A widely held belief in political circles of the left is that a country, like Spain, cannot follow expansionist policies on its own. It is said over and over again that unless the entire EU or, at least, the Eurozone expands, one country cannot do it alone. This was indeed the position of the Zapatero [...]
So a British government minister has come out and said that (Britain’s) unemployment problem is due to the laziness of the unemployed. There is no shortage of jobs, she announced, pointing to the more than 400,000 vacancies registered with UK unemployment offices. OK, this is really so dumb that I am tempted not to bother. [...]
Today’s unemployment numbers are not just depressing. They should make policymakers ashamed and everyone else extremely angry. 23.8 million men and women in the EU27, and 16.5 million in the euro area, were unemployed in December 2011. This is more than 20,000 more than in November, and the November figures have themselves been revised upwards [...]
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