Postponed Eurozone Summit: No Belgian habits during European emergencies!
Yesterday the President of the European Council announced the postponement of the long overdue Eurozone summit which was due to take place next week. I am wondering if the Belgian Council President is...
View ArticleThe Perils of Contagion – Europe must re-orientate macroeconomic policy!
Those who have seen the recent movie Contagion are aware how terrible this is when necessary precautions have not been taken in time. Let us be clear, the “crisis-beast”, or the financial markets have...
View ArticleIt is not the German mentality that brought Europe into crisis!
How long will Germans be made guilty in a Platonian cave haunted by shadows of the past? In the last couple of weeks all over Europe a sentiment of Germanophopia appeared and this even amongst...
View ArticleAusterity is ineffective – We all know it!
Keynes teaches us that we should not slow down growth in periods of already sluggish growth! Last year ended with an EU Summit and 2012 started as 2011 ended. At the beginning of January Merkel and...
View ArticleAusterity, elections and politics
The election of François Hollande in France and the outcome of the Greek elections are evident examples of the growing anti-austerity reaction in Europe. And France and Greece are not the only...
View ArticleDubious gambling of hedge funds on the shoulders of the sovereign state!
It seems that there is now consensus that it will be nearly impossible to lead the EU out of the crisis without any further growth stimulating measures. It also seems that the Spanish government’s...
View ArticleBudget cuts for the multiannual financial framework are not appropriate in...
Recently, in a German magazine, I published an analysis which questioned if Brussels wants Europe. Of course, this was a rhetorical question but nevertheless a valuable one regarding the current...
View ArticleWhy progressives should not favour EU budget cuts!
In my last blog I argued that the next EU budget should be a multiannual framework of a joint and common expression of a sound economic, fiscal and social policy in Europe. The budget framework should...
View ArticleHow to tackle youth unemployment
Ernst Stetter and Giovanni Cozzi (Economic Adviser at FEPS) Youth unemployment has become one of the most crucial economic and social issues in Europe since the outburst of the ongoing financial and...
View ArticleWhere will jobs come from?
In a conference organised by Policy Network in London this week, Lord Tony Giddens argued, in a session I had the honour to chair, that the problems we are facing at the moment are not just European...
View ArticleBack to the sixties: The EU is cultivating an old fashioned intergovernmental...
Last week, the European Council gave a clear sign that the EU is back in the Sixties. The heads of state are not willing to go further in sharing sovereignty and concede more power to the European...
View ArticleSolidarity in fighting climate change has vanished
Coming back from summer – the time of year when I spend most time with nature and appreciate the best things in life – I was quite astonished at the rate at which we are destroying Mother Nature. And...
View ArticleWill the misfortune of a German Europe remain?
Some points on the German elections 1. Success for Angela Merkel’s personalisation of German elections! Without doubt – this election result on Sunday represents a success for the playing out of the...
View ArticleTTIP could work if the pieces were in place … but are they?
During the weekend I received some emails and comments on the proposal to establish the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP/TAFTA). Talks between the EU and US started this summer. In...
View ArticleCommon Foreign and Security Policy – Sovereignty must be shared!
Invited yesterday to speak at a conference of the S&D Group in the European Parliament I raised the crucial question of the European Common Foreign and Defence Policy of the sharing of sovereignty....
View Article10 observations on the European elections campaign
1. The European election campaign undoubtedly helped the European Union to do an enormous step towards greater politicisation. Nevertheless the European Union is still far away to be a transnational...
View ArticleTowards the “MartinJuncker-Commission”?
Two days after the European elections the European parliamentarians took the initiative. The leaders of the groups in the European Parliament met and agreed to propose Jean-Claude Juncker as candidate...
View ArticleIs Mario Draghi kicking out financial capitalism and austerity policies?
Yesterday’s decision of the European Central Bank to cut its key interest rate below zero and the other measures announced are more than a European way of the U.S. Quantitative Easing (QE). The ECB cut...
View ArticleThe Juncker Commission: New orientation should have been different!
The day after the official presentation of the new European commission by the President-designate Jean-Claude Juncker, the press remains ambiguous in its analyses. Some have praised the audacity to try...
View ArticleFrance and the European Union: there is no “exception française”
The French Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave a speech this week on the general policies to implement in the country to overcome the crisis and to implement an economic policy in order to foster growth...
View Article