Tweet The European policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming increasingly under pressure. Not only European Commission President Manuel Barroso, but also Enrico Letta, recently asked by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to form the new governnnent, have criticized her austerity policies, which have been dominant in Europe and are leading to disaster. Europe’s leaders have long been [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Germany’
Germany’s recovery is faltering
Sep 17th, 2012 by Michael Burke.Tweet Germany is widely regarded as the motor of the European economy. GDP grew by just 0.3% in the second quarter of 2012 and is barely 1% higher than a year ago. The German statistical agency Destasis speak of a continuing export-led recovery. But that is not strictly correct. German exports are rising. But because imports are [...]
Merkel isolated as preacher of reactionary austerity
May 19th, 2012 by Michael Meacher.Tweet It is almost incredible that faced with the very real likelihood of a slide into world slump, as Obama is now warning, Merkel continues to parrot the reactionary monetarist mantra that “there can be no growth through borrowing”. There can certainly be no growth through prolonged austerity, though she didn’t admit that. Bookmarks Hide [...]
Is this the end of the European project: German hegemony in an age of austerity?
Dec 12th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.Tweet The European project began at the end of the World’s most devastating war because Germany (with the support of France) wanted to put its past behind it. Now an age of austerity is being inscribed into the foundation of a European super-state because Germany (with the support of France) wishes to put its future first. [...]
Standard & Poor’s is right, ‘austerity’ has no economic clothes
Dec 8th, 2011 by Ann Pettifor.Tweet So European politicians want to shoot the messengers? Sure, ratings agencies haven’t always been reliable, decent or honest. And sure, like Eurozone politicians Standard & Poor is just following events, not shaping them. But on this occasion S&P’s analysis, if not their solution, is right. Credit Crunch 2.0 is fast accelerating and squeezing life out [...]
Not much grand about this EU bargain
Dec 8th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Tweet The praeternatural calm that has descended on the financial markets after Merkel-Sarkozy declared a ‘comprehensive’ bargain on Monday is unlikely to survive the Friday summit as the details sink in about what is involved, and even more about what is left out. Meanwhile back in Britain there is sound and fury from the Tory [...]
Merkel hoist on her own petard
Nov 9th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Tweet It must surely be one of the great ironies of the Euro sovereign impasse that Germany is now the biggest obstacle blocking the solution it most craves. As it becomes increasingly demanded within the Eurozone that the obvious solution to continuing bond market turbulence is that the European Central Bank (ECB) should take on [...]
EU: out of danger zone, still in intensive care
Oct 27th, 2011 by Michael Meacher.Tweet Some of the essential urgent components have now been put in place at last night’s Brussels summit, so that the Eurozone is safe for at least a few months ahead. But this was dealing with the immediate symptoms. The underlying structural flaws remain. The main one is that the Eurozone was always built on [...]
Exorcising the ghost of Pinochet
Oct 17th, 2010 by Mark Seddon.Tweet By delicious irony, the local Member of Parliament for the impoverished Atacama region of Chile – which includes the doomed mine of San Jose – is none other Isabel Allende. Allende is the daughter of the late President Salvador Allende, who put a revolver to his head in the final hours of the August [...]
