The latest publication of the GDP data for the EU shows three distinct trends but one unifying theme – slower growth. In an important but dwindling group are those economies which are still expanding, led by Germany where GDP grew by 0.5% in the first quarter of 2012. In a larger group are those countries [...]
Posts Tagged ‘EU’
Greek exit won’t save euro: fundamental restructuring needed
May 15th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.With the smart money on an early Greek exit, the two main questions to arise are: what will happen to Greece, and what future then for the Eurozone? If Greece leaves, the exchange rate will drop sharply from 340 drachmae to €1 at entry to the euro to perhaps 1,000 drachmae, a loss of value [...]
As Hollande meets Merkel, when will Left in UK take on monetarists?
May 14th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.It is almost incredible that after failure upon failure the monetarists have still not yet been run out of town. Even after the decisive anti-austerity presidential election in France a week ago, the ejection of all austerity-accommodating parties in Greece, and now the drubbing of the German Conservatives in North-Rhine Westphalia, it seems the best [...]
Hollande’s message for Labour: focus on jobs, growth and an end to austerity
May 7th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.There are several important implications in Hollande’s convincing victory over bling-bling Sarkozy. It’s not just the first Socialist presidential win for 31 years, even more significantly it clearly marks a turning point in European politics, though a lot still depends on how forcefully and skilfully this wedge against the dominant Right is used. But the [...]
Where Europe is going, Britain will follow
Apr 25th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.The 1st round Socialist victory in the French presidential elections on Sunday, the collapse of the Right-wing Dutch government on Monday, the probable demise soon of the Right-wing Czech government , and the likely election on 6 May of an anti-Merkel government in Greece point conclusively in one direction. Across Europe the democratic backlash against [...]
The postwar Europe project has failed – we need a new and very different one
Apr 11th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.The European political project has failed: what was conceived as a means of preserving peace has become, through the outlawing of an expansionary fiscal policy by the Merkel-Sarkozy pact, an instrument to create division, inequality and conflict. Like the Left is increasingly doing across Europe (and the public did some time before), we must reject it [...]
The French goose and the Greek gander
Feb 15th, 2012 by Ann Pettifor.Inside the Eurozone, what’s good for the French democratic Goose it appears, is not necessarily applicable to the Greek democratic gander…. From the Financial Times of 13 February, 2012: Bookmarks Hide Sites
Solidarity campaign to support the people of Greece
Feb 14th, 2012 by Newsdesk.The following appeal for solidarity was today made in a letter to the Guardian. It can be signed here. The people of Greece face an unprecedented economic and political crisis (Violence grips Athens, 13 February). They are being driven to poverty and mass unemployment by the demands of the so-called Troika. Hospitals in Greece are running [...]
Greece: the explosion of a revolution
Feb 9th, 2012 by David Osler.My next scheduled visit to Athens is only four months away, and I guess the city will still look pretty much the way it did last time I was there, its skyline dominated as ever by the Parthenon and the Acropolis. But in social and political terms, Greece is going to feel very different. Such [...]
Liberals wear Birkenstocks, actually
Jan 30th, 2012 by David Osler.What is this country coming to, Telegraph columnist Jeff Randall asks this morning, when we cannot even kick out al Qa’eda masterminds, Nigerian rapists, Romanian Big Issue sellers and those nice smiley Polish girls behind the counter at Pret, and set our indigenous chavs to work selling over-priced sarnies instead? Throw in repeated over-the-top use [...]
