Economy

No appetite for austerity

Published on 18 Mar 2010   |   International Herald Tribune

The new economic diet. Not to everyone's taste. Image : Ryan McVay, Presseurop

From Greece to Ireland, the EU is encouraging members states to imposing painful cuts in public spending. But a growing number of critics are criticising a “cult of austerity” that threatens to push Europe further into recession.
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Czech Republic

Speculators reach for the sun

Published on 18 Mar 2010   |   Mladá Fronta DNES
Buoyed by bountiful state subsidies, the Czech solar sector is booming. Investors the world over are rushing in to snatch up this manna, with little thought to the ecological aims, bemoans Mladá Fronta DNES.
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The best of today's press

March 18 2010

Irish Cardinal to consult Holy Spirit

In the wake of child sexual abuse allegations that have rocked the Irish Catholic church to its foundations, the primate of all Ireland is “ashamed”, reports the Irish Times. In his St Patrick’s Day address to the faithful at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Cardinal Sean Brady spoke of his role in inquiries into allegations of child sex abuse in 1975, in which the two child victims were made to sign an oath of silence to the Catholic church.

See all today's press
 
Gas   |   Energy solidarity not yet on tap
To avoid natural gas shortages that have marked the past few winters, the EU is studying a mutual assistance plan for member states. But the trigger conditions won't satisfy everyone, and member states aren't ready to play the game, writes Rzeczspospolita.
Published on  17 Mar 2010  |   Rzeczpospolita
 
EU–Mediterranean   |   On the other side of the Med
In these times of economic crisis, the countries of the southern Mediterranean are displaying unexpected dynamism – a trend the EU is beginning to shore up with regional cooperation projects, reports El País.
Published on  17 Mar 2010  |   El País
 
Economic crisis   |   Germany in the dock
German trade clout is sapping other European economies. This sentiment, aired by the French finance minister and spreading fast across the EU, got thrashed out in today’s press.
Published on  16 Mar 2010  |   Presseurop
 
Italy   |   Papa’s boys, daddy’s girls
According to a recent OECD study, Italy ranks right after the UK as the wealthy nation in which a father’s income and educational attainments most heavily determine his sons’ success. And this dearth of social mobility is a drag on economic growth, notes the OECD.
Published on  16 Mar 2010  |   La Repubblica
 
Eurozone crisis   |   All for one, one for all
The idea of a European Monetary Fund is gaining ground. The object: to shore up countries like Greece whose overindebtedness poses a threat to the euro’s stability. Those opposed, especially in Germany, should remember the solidarity Europe once showed in joining forces to establish a viable union.
Published on  15 Mar 2010  |   El País
 
Economic crisis   |   Club Euro, an erratic door policy
Long-standing members against new ones, irresponsible states against virtuous states, tolerance of the EU against excessive demands: the crisis over the single currency has revealed a new faultline within the union, according to the Bulgarian political scientist Ivan Krastev.
Published on  15 Mar 2010  |   Gazeta Wyborcza
 
Crisis   |   Farewell to fixed incomes
Battered by the economic crisis and drowning in deficits, several EU states have opted to cut public sector pay rather than devalue their currency. The choice is unpopular but not unprecedented, reports Il Sole 24 Ore.
Published on  12 Mar 2010  |   Il Sole-24 Ore
 
Greece   |   Athens forced to reinvent itself
The urban renewal project in the Greek capital has been hit by new government measures designed to remedy the disastrous state of the nation's finances. Without funding, city planners must explore other options, starting with the fight against cars and chaotic development.
Published on  12 Mar 2010  |   La Vanguardia
 
Ireland   |   A united island is inevitable
Following a 15-year peace process, the thought of a united Ireland no longer seems as unrealistic as it once did. And even unionists should come around to the idea, says Guardian columnist Seumas Milne.
Published on  12 Mar 2010  |   The Guardian
 
Geopolitics   |   Revolutions fail to change the East
In Ukraine and Georgia, "pro-Western" movements, which are hoping for a second wind even though they cannot count on support from the EU, are not only paying for their poor political performance but also for the fact that they no longer figure in Europe's geopolitical ambitions, explains Polish political analyst Olaf Osica.
Published on  11 Mar 2010  |   Tygodnik Powszechny
 
 
 

Blog

 

French is just too provincial

One of the most consistently informative and entertaining blogs about the European Union has to be Jean Quatremer’s Coulisses de Bruxelles.

Losing Angela in translation

When presseurop.eu was launched in May last year, one of its guiding mottos was Umberto Eco’s “The future of Europe is translation.” But sometimes I’m inclined to think that the future of Europe is lost in translation. I recently checked a statement by Angela Merkel concerning the CD-rom nabbed by HSBC supergrass Hervé Falciani containing data on Germans who have siphoned off their money to Switzerland in order to avoid taxes back home.

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