June 17, 2018
The change of government in Italy calls into question the German leadership of the European Union, which was myopic at best. Italy has never benefited from the introduction of the euro. Its GDP per capita after the introduction of the common currency has stagnated. German-imposed austerity measures and the lack of solidarity among member countries… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
August 31, 2015
Over the past fifteen years, quite a lot of criticism has been levelled by the “MIT gang”° against what has become known as the Washington consensus. Very little or no public discussion, however, has taken place about its close European offshoot, the Berlin consensus. Sure, there are some differences between the neoliberal economic thinking underpinning… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
August 3, 2015
In Wolfgang Schaeuble’s Germano-centric EU, no institution is more important – apart from his Politburo-like Eurogroup and the Office of the Chancellor – than his Ministry’s Council of Economic Advisers. The most influential adviser among them is Professor Hans-Werner Sinn from Munich, a Christian missionary-manqué turned tele-economist. Like any good German, Professor Sinn has but… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
|
E.U., Economy & Euro, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, Security |
July 30, 2015
To those in the know, the Italian peninsula was not only the cradle of the Roman Empire or Rome the centre of the Catholic faithful, but also the birthplace of capitalism and of countless statecraft innovations and institutions still widely used around the world today. During the middle ages, the Italian city-states thus discovered and… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
|
E.U., Economy & Euro, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, External Relations, Security |
July 23, 2015
Very few American experts grasp the motivations behind the construction of the European Union. As a result, American specialized literature abounds with misguided comparisons, such as that between the US Civil War from the 19th century and today’s tense situation between Europe’s North and South. Yes, the EEC was initially formed in 1957 to prevent… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
July 13, 2015
With protracted negotiations still going on in Brussels, I would like to provide my readers with an opinion I have expressed in February this year, in an email exchange with my younger Blogactiv colleague Dimitri Rapidis from Athens. I still consider today that the total absence of a Plan B has severely weakened the position… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
|
E.U., Economy & Euro, EU Priorities and Opinion, External Relations |
October 14, 2012
Slowly but surely, the set of remedies employed in the hope of solving the euro crisis is now spreading recession from the periphery to the core of the eurozone. Austerity measures, accompanied by an increase in taxes, will bring France’s economic growth to a halt next year. Germany’s growth rate, based on its solid export… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
March 14, 2012
The introduction of an EU-wide financial transactions tax (FTT) has been delayed again in Brussels, as it has met with strong opposition from a group of countries led by Britain. Undaunted, the French and German finance ministers, seconded by the Italian premier, are pushing the Danish presidency to speed up talks on the issue. First… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
|
, E.U., euro, geoeconomics |
March 1, 2012
The eurozone’s unemployment rate has reached 10.7 percent in January, meaning 16.9 million people out of work, of which 5.5 million young people under 25. If we add to these figures the 2.7 million people unemployed in the UK as well as another few million jobless in the other EU member-states, we can understand why… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
|
, E.U., euro, geoeconomics |
February 7, 2012
Amid international media acclaim, the European Council on Foreign Relations has recently released the results of its innovative EU foreign policy research project, the 2012 European Foreign Policy Scorecard. The ECFR’s researchers have assessed the EU’s foreign policy performance in 2011 in six major areas: the relationship with China, Russia, the US, Wider Europe (Western… » read more
Posted by Spotlight on Geopolitics
