Reinventing Europe: the Dutch paradox
From our Reinvention of Europe series of National papers
From our Reinvention of Europe series of National papers
The markets have made a habit of being wrong when analysing decisions made by policy makers trying to fix the euro crisis. Now they've made it clear they are disappointed by the words of Mario Draghi, and they're wrong again.
As part of the ‘Reinvention of Europe’ project, ECFR is publishing a series of papers on the national debates within EU member states about the crisis and the future direction of Europe. The fifth paper in the series examines the situation in the Netherlands ahead of crucial elections.
With Russia due to play a central role in multilateral institutions over the next two years, its obstructionism over Syria does not bode well. However Europeans may find – to their benefit – that it is actually China that calls the shots on the international stage.
Granting a banking licence to the European Stability Mechanism, rather than using the European Central Bank, would be a more democratic fix.
In its attempts to rescue the euro, Germany is often seen as the odd country out. However, what is seldom understood abroad is that the German position is about more than limiting its own fiscal exposure.
Four years after Barack Obama's landmark speech in front of a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, the transatlantic alliance is fading fast. What went wrong?
Although Mariano Rajoy is distancing himself from the latest package of austerity measures being imposed upon Spain, they are the ultimate aim of a collective failure that must be explained to the Spanish people.