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Reinventing Europe: Jean Pisani-Ferry on crisis economics

Date: 15th May 2012 | Author: Jean Pisani-Ferry,

Categories: Euro Crisis, Reinventing Europe,

As part of ECFR's Reinvention project, we are running a series of blog posts looking at particular thematic issues facing Europe as it attempts to deal with the financial crisis. In the second of the series Jean Pisani-Ferry looks at the economic side of the crisis.

In the two years since the outbreak of the Greek crisis, much has been done to rebuild the architecture of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). There is now a crisis management regime in place and crisis prevention has been strengthened through the six-pack legislation and the new fiscal treaty. This is by no means a trivial achievement. But more is needed, for two reasons, one systemic and one macroeconomic: first, the very concept of a bare-bones EMU, whose only two pillars are monetary and fiscal, has not survived the crisis; second, Europe still lacks a consistent strategy to tackle the adjustment

Reinventing Europe: Tibor Dessewffy on Hungary

Date: 10th May 2012 | Author: Tibor Dessewffy,

Categories: € View, Reinventing Europe,

As part of ECFR's Reinvention project, we are running a series of blog posts looking at particular thematic issues facing Europe as it attempts to deal with the financial crisis. In the first in this series, Tibor Dessewffy examines the attraction of populist politics in Hungary.

In his paper on future scenarios for Europe, Mark Leonard convincingly argues that the major tensions in both the European and the domestic arenas are between technocratic and populist forces. The financial crisis has certainly led to a more integrated technocratic system of crisis management, but the uncertainty over whether measures to control the crisis will succeed is also creating support for populist forces.

The public reception to populist claims varies greatly across Europe. In Hungary, for instance, a speech was given in March arguing that “We will not be a colony”. This speech, however, was

Euroland elections

Date: 10th May 2012 | Author: Ulrike Guérot,

Categories: Germany in Europe, Reinventing Europe,

The interesting thing about living in the US is to experience a change in perspective. Here, Europe is often perceived as a united entity. In the Huffington Post for example there were several articles which reported last weeks’ elections in Europe – in France, Greece, Armenia, Serbia, Schleswig-Holstein, Italy - as if they were more or less all in the same “country” - a country called 'Euroland'. Moreover, the differences between countries or the sort of elections – local, regional or national – seemed only minor details.

The New York Times focused more on the elections in France and Greece, but it also featured a piece on ‘elections in the Eurozone’. As always, the NYT also had a slightly ironical take on the elections, referring to the lusty nature of French politics.

Last week I had the chance to talk to an investment banker in New York City. We not only talked about the

Japanese lessons - Waving or drowning?

Date: 9th May 2012 | Author: Nicholas Walton,

Categories: Euro Crisis, Europe and the world, Reinventing Europe,

Few things make Europe's problems seem a long, long way away like 43° heat and fabulous wealth. But, as I walked along the seafront Corniche in Doha just 48 hours ago, I was thinking about just where Europe goes from here.

I was listening to a couple of thought-provoking podcast programmes on my ipod. First up there was an episode of (the ever-excellent) Peter Day's World of Business that looked at Japan's economic situation and asked whether it was waving or drowning. Noriko Hama argued that it was, as is widely believed, drowning, thanks to massive debts, deflation, insularity and demographic catastrophe.

Not so, argued Eamonn Fingleton. His reasoning made interesting listening to a European. He was dismissive of the problems associated with debt, and instead emphasised Japanese strengths, such as its ability to produce extremely high-spec products, making it clear that he

The Dutch in a twist

Date: 25th April 2012 | Author: Dick Oosting,

Categories: Euro Crisis, Reinventing Europe,

The precarious coalition that Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte (VVD, conservative/liberal) had cobbled together 18 months ago (with the Christian Democrats (CDA) and with the support of Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV)) collapsed on Saturday. The makeshift construction by which the PVV did not participate in government but ‘condoned’ it had been hanging by a thread already because they recently lost their minimal formal majority after the defection of one of Wilders’ lieutenants.

The bust-up came over cuts required to meet the 3% limit for the 2013 budget. With the deficit running at 4.8% some €14b had to be found, and the three party leaders had been negotiating for seven weeks in secret. Just as Rutte thought they were there – having found over €14b in all manner of measures to which Wilders had agreed individually – Wilders pulled the plug on the package, saying that he would

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