Europe

[Sparky]

[Hans Bulvai]

[Sparky]

[Endovelico]

Could we come back to specific European questions? Please..................

[Endovelico]

[Najar]

Endo,

If Germany decides to walk out of Euro and switch back to DM , what do you think will happen? Wont Euro drop in value and rest of Europeans see their savings plummet?

[Hans Bulvai]

[Endovelico]

[jerryberry]

The summer meeting of Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas (read neh-chaas) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel took a special twist, as reported by Dow Jones Newswires on Sunday, when the two leaders began talking about ways to save the euro from its sovereign-debt malaise.

During the informal private part of their meeting, held in August, Ms. Merkel asked Mr. Necas to join the euro zone despite the ex-communist country’s desire to steer clear from the debt-infested currency union, a person familiar with the meeting told Dow Jones Newswires.

Fiscally sound Czechs would help Germany increase the weight of prudent euro-zone members in contrast to profligates like Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, Ms. Merkel told the Czech leader, according to the person familiar with the discussion.

“Such a request was raised at the meeting and the reply by Prime Minister Necas was that if a northern European euro area existed, the Czechs would join the next day,” the person said.

According to the person, the two leaders hit it off very well during their first meeting, partly because they both hold degrees in physics and share memories of growing up during the Cold War on the Soviet-controlled side of the Iron Curtain.

The leaked thoughts on a dual-speed euro zone from the summer Czech-German meeting sync with ideas about a “core Europe,” broached as early as 1994 by Wolfgang Schäuble, a German parliamentarian at the time and the current finance minister in Ms. Merkel’s cabinet. The idea centers on creating an economically and strategically stable core of the continent, comprising Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, which .

Over the weekend, Mr. Necas’s suggestion to form the fiscally prudent euro zone received unexpected support from two German business associations, even though Berlin government officials remain cautious in comments on the issue of an euro north-south divide.

On Sunday, the associations of German family-run businesses and young entrepreneurs wrote a letter to Ms. Merkel asking her to consider forming a new currency union that would include only economically strong and fiscally responsible nations.
The Czech Republic, a European Union member since 2004, is obliged to adopt the euro eventually, provided it meets criteria that include limits on public debt and fiscal deficits. Czechs hold sovereign debt equal to 37% of the country’s gross domestic product, below the euro-zone criteria of 60% and about half the 80% average of current euro-zone members.

Czechs are above the government deficit ceiling of 3% of GDP. But Mr. Necas’s cabinet is working to trim the gap to below 3% of GDP by 2013 from more than 5% this year, which would put the Czech Republic among the European Union’s most fiscally prudent members.

[Endovelico]

Maybe we are all starting to think about two monetary unions although for different reasons. The northern countries want to get rid of their unreliable southern partners and the southern countries want to become competitive a bit quicker. Northern countries think the problem is the South's fault, but they forget that they, northern countries, are placing unreasonable demands on the South. We are not less rigorous on our budgets because we want, but because we need. Our weaker competitiveness is due to some structural problems which need time to be solved (workers qualification, investment), but a common currency and the lack of willingness of our northern partners to assist in solving those problems have put us on an unreasonable level of indebtedness. Social security and government expenditure are means to keeping things afloat, but they add to our problems, and our northern partners have decided to play the virgins among the whores...

People forget that southern countries have some extremely efficient firms, although in insufficient numbers. Once we have been able to reach the desirable levels of investment we may very well be more competitive than our northern partners. A separate monetary union for Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus, with a devalued currency in respect of the euro, AND a decision to limit imports to the value of exports (which would freeze our level of debt and stimulate local production), might quickly give us an edge over our virtuous northern partners.

Of course, we have an alternative: collective default on sovereign debt. I'm sure our northern partners would love that...

[Endovelico]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[YMix]

[Rhapsody]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[Endovelico]

[YMix]

[Rhapsody]

[Rhapsody]

[Endovelico]

[Torchwood]

Old nationalist song in Ireland:

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
Three hundred men and three;
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A Nation once again!!

updated version doing the rounds in Dublin:

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen,
For Greece and Rome who bravely spent ,
Three hundred billion euros and more;
And then I sighed I yet might see
Our fetters bound once more ,
And Ireland, long a nation, be
A province once again!!



Seriously though, there is a real prospect of Sinn Fein winning the next election and repudiating the bail out. Shades of

[Demon of Undoing]

If Sinn Fein wins , I will laugh and laugh and laugh .

The people have all become the Red Queen . All ways must be our way .

[Endovelico]

Only if left parties - real left parties - win in the next elections throughout Europe, may we go back to some kind of sanity. In Germany, right now, the SPD, the Green Party and Die Linke have well over 50% of the voters' preferences (31% + 19% + 7%). Their policies would be very different from the present government's.