Briefings
Panic in the eurozone
Contagion
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Press review: Worst case scenario for euro approaches
13 September 2011139 5Presseurop -
Eurozone: Madrid and Rome – two sorts of crisis
8 September 2011116 5 La Vanguardia Barcelona -
Debt crisis: Act now to save dying euro
10 August 2011142 11 Mediapart Paris -
Eurozone: Spanish and Italian debt spiral
3 August 2011149 3 El País Madrid -
Debt crisis: Italy and Spain in turmoil
19 July 201151 2PresseuropPresseurop -
Eurozone crisis: Italy, the last battleground
12 July 2011135 4 La Repubblica Rome -
Debt crisis: It’s the euro, stupid
12 July 2011131 7 Presseurop -
Italy: Markets sanction political mess
11 July 2011PresseuropCorriere della Sera -
Debt crisis: Portugal’s junk status gives Ireland jitters
7 July 2011PresseuropThe Irish Times -
Greece: After bailout, new default rumours
5 July 2011PresseuropPúblico -
Debt crisis: Why Greece will bring the euro down with it
14 June 2011417 15 The Irish Times Dublin -
Editorial: Strike two
7 June 201123Presseurop
With Greece progressively sinking deeper and deeper into crisis amid doubts about the country’s ability to remain in the Eurozone, the European press worries about the national and continent-wide consequences of Greek default, which appears to be increasingly likely. 
One bows to rigorous demands from Germany and the ECB, the other dithers, entangled in its political games. Spain and Italy, however, both play a crucial role for the future of the single currency. 
They may agree on the malaise afflicting the global financial industry and the Eurozone in particular, but European governments, who appear to be unaware of the gravity of the situation, have failed to take concerted action. French news website Mediapart argues that time is running short for the implementation of existing solutions. 
With each passing day, both countries are growing weaker on the markets. And the more it costs to finance their debt, the less chance they have of surviving the crisis. To date, no one has come up with a solution.
Although Italy’s economic indicators are better than other countries', hedge funds have chosen to attack it because of the country’s huge public debt andThe last battleground stagnant growth. The fall of the eurozone’s third largest economy would deal a fatal blow to the common currency while providing enormous profit opportunities to speculators. 
Sceptical about the Greek bailout, the markets are rounding on the Spanish and Italian sovereign debts. For the Spanish press, the fault lies with those Europeans elites incapable of defending the single currency with a community response. 
As Standard & Poor's gives the Greek economy the lowest credit rating in the world, the economics editor of the Irish Times argues that if the country’s long history of political and economic dysfunction is a guide to the future, the eurozone’s 16 other countries are at risk too. EU disarmed
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European summit: The fake euro rescue
27 October 2011256 3 Berliner Zeitung Berlin -
Eurozone crisis: Everything is possible, even a burst of energy
3 October 2011113 3 La Tribune Paris -
Eurozone crisis: Let Greece then Ireland default
28 September 2011176 2 Irish Independent Dublin -
Political fiction: Three Eurozones are better than one
16 September 2011199 12 De Volkskrant Amsterdam -
Debt crisis: End of the age of stability
12 September 2011141 3 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Frankfurt -
Debt crisis: ECB in the Italian trap
6 September 201198 6 Il Sole-24 Ore Milan -
France-Germany: Nice ideas, shame about the delay
17 August 201141 5 La Stampa Turin -
Debt crisis: First paralysis, now panic
11 August 201139 1 ABC Madrid -
Press review: The ECB, a lonely fireman late to the fire
9 August 201129 2 Presseurop -
Debt crisis: Are there any leaders out there?
8 August 2011382 5 The Guardian London -
Debt crisis: Final summer holiday for the euro?
5 August 2011212 15 La Repubblica Rome -
Eurozone crisis: Understand the banks and you save the euro
14 July 2011103 11 Die Zeit Hamburg -
Eurozone crisis: Euro – a right-wing dream gone wrong
13 July 2011851 11 The Guardian London -
Debt crisis: Only a new Marshall Plan can do it
6 July 2011324 4 The Guardian London -
EU-US: America and Europe sinking together
5 July 2011252 1 Financial Times London -
Editorial: Greek myths and EU budgets
1 July 201144 1Presseurop -
Greek crisis: In Plato’s cave
30 June 2011105 2 El Mundo Madrid -
European budget: Crisis to change rules for structural funds
28 June 201133 1PresseuropPúblico -
Debt crisis: Save Greece and be damned
24 June 201125PresseuropPresseurop -
Debt crisis: Euro – what Brussels will do next
23 June 201162 2 Le Monde Paris -
European Union: Solidarity through wealth transfer
23 June 201129PresseuropPresseurop -
Debt crisis: Could a federation save the euro?
23 June 20112PresseuropLa Tribune -
Debate: Europeans have a right to the truth
22 June 2011212 5 La Repubblica Rome -
Debt crisis: Why the ECB won't allow restructuring
21 June 2011147 3 Mediapart Paris -
Debt crisis: A German requiem for a single currency
20 June 2011464 15 Der Spiegel Hamburg -
Greece: Imperial Germany - eager to bury the euro
20 June 2011143 23 To Vima Athens -
Debt crisis: Greece, the serf of Europe
17 June 2011261 8 Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung Frankfurt -
Debt crisis: EU - a confederacy of dunces
31 May 2011188 11 Jornal de Negócios Lisbon -
Greek crisis: The bailouts are building a federal state
12 May 201178 The Times London -
Greek crisis: A crazy way to run civilisation
10 May 201169 4 The Guardian London -
Debt crisis: Final rescue before renovation
5 May 201114 Der Standard Vienna
Europe's politicians would like to celebrate the decisions of the 26 October summit as historic. But the euro crisis will be with us a while longer yet. The basic paradox – that states want to buy the trust of investors with money that they don’t have – just can’t be eternally ignored. 
On the eve of two key meetings, the European Summit of October 18 and the G20 summit in November, the founding principles of Europe are shifting. The crisis has the merit of advancing the union – but time is running out, warns the managing editor of the Tribune. 
Growing rumours of a Greek default have spurred the markets, not sent them into freefall. This suggests that worse than default is agonising and dithering about the fate of the Eurozone, according to Irish economist David McWilliams. 
There is no denying the reality: Eurozone countries are so different that there will be no common exit to the current crisis. The solution, argues a Dutch economist, is to divide states using the single currency into three groups governed by different rules. 
The resignation of the ECB’s chief economist, Juergen Stark, accelerates a trend that the Germans do not want to fess up to, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: The end of the policy of stability at any cost to avoid state bankruptcy. 
Faced with the risk of Italian default, the European Central Bank opted to provide support for Italy’s sovereign bonds in exchange for a commitment from Rome that it would rapidly implement of a package of austerity measures. Now the Berlusconi government’s failure to take decisive action is seriously threatening the credibility of the ECB. 
The steps proposed by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy during their meeting on August 16 are useful for tackling the debt crisis – and the crisis could have been avoided if they had been taken months ago. 
Political dithering and rumour-mongering have caused dramatic falls in global markets. Fiscal integration will be necessary if the euro is to survive the storm. And Angela Merkel is the only political leader who can make it happen, says ABC's editorial. 
On 9 August, all of the European press — with the exception of newspapers in the UK — are devoting their front pages to the dramatic decline in financial markets, which have continued to fall despite intervention from the European Central Bank (ECB). 
Faced with the euro crisis, world leaders look at best paralysed and at worst irresponsible. But a situation this serious needs heads of government who can take the bull by the horns. 
The slow response of European bureaucracy and Germany’s stubborn refusal to accept the sole remedy that can save the euro and Europe — collective management of public debt and an end to national sovereignty in budgetary policy — could effectively sink the euro.
The fate of the euro is a matter of indifference to the financial markets. Investors are pulling their money out of Rome, Athens, Lisbon and Madrid. And Europe – especially Germany – is doing everything to drive off the financiers it so depends on. 
With the very existence of the euro is in question, an American economist points out the fundamental difference between the single currency and the EU: while the former is the fruit of a right-wing political project, the latter stems from a project for solidarity between nations. The death of one does not mean the death of another. 
To emerge from the enduring debt crisis, Europe needs a programme as ambitious as the post-war US sponsored plan. But this time, it has to find the resources internally and foster a continent-wide redistribution. 
Both the EU and US have struggled to cope with the economic crisis in their own distinctive ways. A monumental error, argues Gideon Rachman, since their problems are essentially the same. 
Like the shadows described by the Athenian philosopher, the solutions adopted to prevent the Greek debt crisis from taking down the euro with it are Greek paradoxes that Europeans do not wish to see. The deputy director of El Mundo weighs in. 
With the single currency at risk of collapse, the leaders of Europe’s 27 member states are set to meet for a European Council summit to finalise the details of a mechanism that is supposed to prevent a repeat of the Greek crisis. 
The financial crisis has exposed the deception and subterfuge of politics, yet the leaders of Europe continue to deny the obvious. Only honesty, and the courage to tell the truth, can save Europe. 
For many economists, debt restructuring is the only possible outcome of the Greek crisis — an option that the European Central Bank has systematically refused to acknowledge. Médiapart argues that it would at least have the advantage of bringing much needed transparency to the banking sector. 
As Germany hesitates once more to bail-out a near bankrupt Greece, German weekly Der Spiegel affirms that not only can the euro as we know it be saved, but also it is threatening the entire future of Europe. 
In publishing the image of a Greek flag draped over the coffin of the single currency, Der Spiegel has revealed the hidden goal of German policies: German hegemony, argues Athenian daily To Vima. 
The Greek rescue isn’t helping. It’s just harming. And with it is receding the rule of law. Europeans, once upstanding citizens, are turning into a gang of bribers and blackmailers, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in its Sunday edition. 
In imposing austerity on indebted countries, the European Union and its leaders have shown themselves to be blind and even stupid. A Portuguese professor of law argues that they have put their partners in difficulty without obtaining any advantage for themselves. 
The bailouts don’t work but they do allow the EU to build up centralised power at the expense of nation states, argues Times columnist Anatole Kaletsky. 
Despite a series of swingeing austerity budgets to calm the international markets, Greece yet again totters on the brink of bankruptcy. But should democracies determine economic policy according to what a few thousand traders might, or might not, want? 
How many failed states will still send out distress calls for help? The new bailout plan meant for Portugal ought to be the last, because Europe is going to have to reorganise the monetary union from top to bottom, says the Standard. Pyromaniac rating agencies
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Spain: Booming business for ratings agencies
14 July 20111PresseuropEl Periódico de Catalunya -
Debt: Will no-one rid us of the rating agencies?
7 July 2011143 5 Público Lisbon -
Debt crisis: War declared on rating agencies
7 July 201188 1PresseuropPresseurop -
Debt crisis: Amartya Sen: let's wrest democracy back
24 June 2011743 3 The Guardian London -
Debt crisis: Credit rating agencies go after euro
13 June 2011465 10 Libération Paris -
Economic crisis: The curse of credit rating agencies
21 December 2010246 The Guardian London
Quick to denounce the ‘oligopoly’ of the rating agencies, European leaders have so far failed to take concrete steps to counter their baleful influence, writes Portugal’s Público daily. 
The Greek crisis illustrates what happens when political authorities abandon responsibility in favour of non-accountable bodies such as rating agencies, writes the Nobel prizewinning economist. 
Considering that they failed to see the previous crises coming, Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch are suspected of wanting to destabilise the euro zone, and now they are threatening the strongest countries. 
The economic destiny of nations is now in the hands of credit rating agencies Moody's, S&P's, Fitch. Unelected, unaccountable and with hugely inflated powers, they must be curbed, argues a Guardian columnist. Editorial
A year after the start of the Greek crisis, the eurozone is still on the brink of disaster. The 110 billion pledged by the EU and the IMF and the drastic austerity measures implemented by the Papandreou government have not been enough to restore market confidence or to convince the ratings agencies, which have increased pressure on the country while its financial situation continues to worsen. Hot on the heels of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which have been forced to accept a stick and carrot regimen of bailouts and austerity packages, Italy and Spain have been rocked by attacks on financial markets. And the fear is that a default involving either of these countries could result in host of unpredictable political and economic consequences including the break-up of the eurozone.
At the Frankfurt headquarters of the European Central Bank, and in capital cities throughout Europe, political and economic decision makers are attempting to find a solution which may involve more austerity, more EU solidarity, or even banking sector participation and sovereign default.
Amid conflicting calls for more federalism and the defence of national interests, European leaders are at a loss as to which course to take. Terrorised by the power of the markets and rating agencies, they appear incapable of the decisive action which is urgently needed if the situation is to be brought under control.
