Worldcrunch
-OpEd- MUNICH — Talk to a Greek person about the difficult situation their country faces and you’re likely to hear some pretty astounding things. Some argue, for example, that the financial collapse came at the right moment, that without it Greece wouldn’t have been pressured into the reforms needed to halt its downward spiral. But […]
–Op-Ed– MUNICH — We Germans have always struggled with the euro crisis. We talk about it a lot, muse about what would happen if the euro zone split up, bitch about those nasty countries frittering our money away. But there’s one thing we don’t do: suffer from the economic crisis. On the contrary. Even if […]
LES ECHOS (France), TELEGRAPH (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch PARIS – After six straight quarters of contraction, new signs were reported Wednesday that the recession in Europe’s single-currency euro zone may be set to end. Manufacturing in the euro zone increased for the first time in well over a year, boosted by higher private sector output in […]
EUROSTAT, IL SOLE 24 ORE (Italy) Worldcrunch PARIS – The euro zone has registered yet another record high unemployment rate of 12.2%, European statistics agency Eurostat reports on Friday. Earlier in the day, Italy, the third-largest economy in the currency bloc, reported a first quarter jobless rate of 12.8%, the highest in the 36 years […]
EL PAIS (Spain), GUARDIAN (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch MADRID – Good and bad news arrived Thursday as Europe continues its struggle to emerge from a five-year-long economic crisis. Bad news first: Spain has again marked record-high unemployment figures, with a 27.2% jobless rate for the first quarter of 2013, the seventh straight quarter of rising jobless […]
PARIS – Should the 500 euros bill be taken out of circulation? A study by Merrill Lynch raised the question, and it is not a small question, as those bills comprise one-third of the total monetary value of bills currently in circulation, that is to say some 300 billion euros. Still, the bills are very […]
AP (USA), BBC, THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch NICOSIA – Cyprus has no intention of leaving the euro zone, President Nicos Anastasiades said in a press conference on Friday. “In no way will we experiment with the future of our country,” declared President Anastasiades. He said the situation of the country had been “contained” following its […]
NICOSIA – The festival atmosphere on this sunny morning in Nicosia doesn’t match the bad vibes coming out of Brussels. The Faneromeni church in the heart of Cyprus’s capital is decked out with garlands made of hundreds of blue and white Greek flags and Cypriot flags with the shape of the island nation depicted in […]
Worldcrunch PARIS – On Friday, the European statistics agency Eurostat, released new European Union and euro zone unemployment figures from January, showing record highs. Here is a breakdown of the alarming numbers: – More than 26 million people unemployed in the 27-member European Union. – Almost 19 million unemployed in the 17-country euro zone. – […]
BERLIN – Europeans are in a virtual state of paralysis about the future, frozen by a fear that – were they to turn away from Brussels – the result would be a rise of reactionary nationalism. Not surprisingly, these new chauvinisms are perfectly suited for some political agendas – on all sides of the ideological […]
NICOSIA – The moment you arrive in Cyprus you sense something about the little eastern Mediterranean island that sets it apart from its European neighbors. There are an unusual number of men in suits carrying briefcases. And the bright billboards on the streets leading from the airport have Cyrillic writing on them. Some of the […]
Lately, it seems like the whole world is finding fault with the French. Ratings agency Moody has downgraded France and the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the European Commission have all acknowledged that the country needs to undertake critical economic reforms to avoid decline. The so-called “Five Wise Men” […]
BBC, GUARDIAN (UK), DIE WELT, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINER ZEITUNG (Germany), LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch ATHENS – Greek unions are staging “the mother of all strikes” as Parliament votes on another round of budget cuts, writes the Guardian. The bankrupt Greek government is facing a tough job: convince the Greek people that austerity measures are necessary. “This […]
PARIS – In the United States, “China bashing” is in full swing. Denigrating China has been a mainstay of the American presidential campaign, in a time of economic one-upmanship between Washington and Beijing. During the final televised debate, devoted to foreign policy, Republican candidate Mitt Romney once again accused Beijing of manipulating its currency and […]
LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch A study published this week by two economists for the German Bertelsmann Foundation says that if Greece defaults on its debts and leaves the euro zone, it would cost the world’s major economies 17.8 trillion euros by 2020, and cause a severe worldwide depression, reports French business newspaper Les Echos. Greece’s […]
BRUSSELS – Greece needs at least two more years and an additional 30 billion euros in order to be able to meet the targets set for it by the euro zone countries, European sources tell Süddeutsche Zeitung. When – and indeed if – the country gets money from the second bailout package is unclear. In […]
PARIS – Is there a way that the countries of southern Europe can avoid sinking further into debt at unsustainable interest rates, without resorting to euro bonds, which Germany refuses to consider? Former IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has an idea that he presented this past weekend at the YES (Yalta European Strategy) Forum which was […]
DE TELEGRAAF (The Netherlands), BBC NEWS, THE GUARDIAN (UK) Worldcrunch AMSTERDAM – Two Dutch centrist parties have secured an absolute parliamentary majority between them in Wednesday’s elections, reports The Guardian. VVD, the party of liberal Prime Minister Mark Rutte, claimed victory with 41 seats, two more than center-left rivals Labor, which won 39. According to […]
FOCUS, BERLINER MORGENPOST (Germany), LES ECHOS (France) Worldcrunch BERLIN – The German Constitutional Court has upheld the legality of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which had been set up to help bail out countries in the euro zone on the verge of financial collapse. With the decision Wednesday, a great source of anxiety was lifted […]
LES ECHOS (France), DIE WELT, DER SPIEGEL (Germany), IL SOLE 24 ORE (Italy) BLOOMBERG (US), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch FRANKFURT – Aiming to squelch speculation of an impending demise of the euro, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said policymakers have agreed to an unlimited bond-purchase program to regain control of interest rates in the […]
BEIJING – Every time that German Chancellor Angela Merkel makes a trip to China, she always goes home with a large chunk of investment. Her just concluded visit was no exception. In addition to more than 10 cooperation agreements in areas such as aerospace and the automotive industries, Merkel has also obtained a commitment from […]