The attempt to bail-out Greece and other struggling eurozone countries raised the prospect of a two-speed European Union with far closer ties between countries using the euro compared with those, such as Britain, that remained outside. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said the deal had pulled the eurozone back from the brink of disaster and laid foundations for the creation of an EU “economic government”. He hailed it as “a historic moment” that would provide “bold and ambitious” plans for the creation of an embryonic EU treasury in the form of a European Monetary Fund. “By the end of the summer, Angela Merkel and I will be making joint proposals on economic government in the eurozone. Our ambition is to seize the Greek crisis to make a quantum leap in eurozone government,” he said. “The very words were once taboo. We will give a clearer vision of the way we see the eurozone evolving. We have done something historic. There is no European Monetary Fund yet, but nearly.” Even large euro countries such as Italy and Spain have seen their borrowing costs jump, raising fears of a financial crisis that could destroy the single currency. In response, eurozone leaders meeting in Brussels were drawing up a deal that would effectively use money from successful northern economies such as Germany to support the budgets of indebted nations in southern Europe. Greece will receive another bail-out worth €159 billion and will be allowed to default on some of its debts for the first time. Private investors holding Greek bonds will be asked to contribute to the bail-out, losing some of their money, or having to wait longer for repayment. European stock markets and the euro rose as investors bet that the deal would avert any immediate break-up of the single currency. The agreement being discussed last night will hugely expand the role of a €440 billion (£389 billion) eurozone emergency bail-out fund, effectively creating a European Monetary Fund. The European Financial Stability Facility was set up last year as a rescue fund for countries struggling to raise money from bond markets. Under the deal it will be given significant new powers to use its funds to pre-empt debt crises in euro economies. The fund will be able to make “precautionary” loans to eurozone members, which they could use instead of borrowing money from the markets. It will also be able to make loans to recapitalise banks in the weaker economies and buy back government bonds from private investors.
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Friday, July 22, 2011
The attempt to bail-out Greece and other struggling eurozone countries raised the prospect of a two-speed European Union with far closer ties between countries using the euro compared with those, such as Britain, that remained outside. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said the deal had pulled the eurozone back from the brink of disaster and laid foundations for the creation of an EU “economic government”. He hailed it as “a historic moment” that would provide “bold and ambitious” plans for the creation of an embryonic EU treasury in the form of a European Monetary Fund. “By the end of the summer, Angela Merkel and I will be making joint proposals on economic government in the eurozone. Our ambition is to seize the Greek crisis to make a quantum leap in eurozone government,” he said. “The very words were once taboo. We will give a clearer vision of the way we see the eurozone evolving. We have done something historic. There is no European Monetary Fund yet, but nearly.” Even large euro countries such as Italy and Spain have seen their borrowing costs jump, raising fears of a financial crisis that could destroy the single currency. In response, eurozone leaders meeting in Brussels were drawing up a deal that would effectively use money from successful northern economies such as Germany to support the budgets of indebted nations in southern Europe. Greece will receive another bail-out worth €159 billion and will be allowed to default on some of its debts for the first time. Private investors holding Greek bonds will be asked to contribute to the bail-out, losing some of their money, or having to wait longer for repayment. European stock markets and the euro rose as investors bet that the deal would avert any immediate break-up of the single currency. The agreement being discussed last night will hugely expand the role of a €440 billion (£389 billion) eurozone emergency bail-out fund, effectively creating a European Monetary Fund. The European Financial Stability Facility was set up last year as a rescue fund for countries struggling to raise money from bond markets. Under the deal it will be given significant new powers to use its funds to pre-empt debt crises in euro economies. The fund will be able to make “precautionary” loans to eurozone members, which they could use instead of borrowing money from the markets. It will also be able to make loans to recapitalise banks in the weaker economies and buy back government bonds from private investors.
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Sa recapitulam : "Grecia, SALVATĂ de la FALIMENT cu 85 miliarde euro" ...sau? : "CNN. Pachetul oferit se ridică la suma de 109 miliarde de euro"....ca sa fim siguri : "CNN. Pachetul oferit se ridică la suma de 109 miliarde de euro" ...aceste informatii apar intr-o singura pagina din presa ...ce concluzie se trage ? ...unde mai pui ca "sectorul privaT' (care o fi ala...bill gates? sau warren buffett, sau familia onasis, poate carla bruni... ca nici-un privat nu "consimte " la o pierdere de proportii ca aceasta) ...intreb din nou CONCLUZIA ????????..... eu as zice , numai vorbe , numai abureala !!.... unde mai pui ca in conturile institutiei numita pompos " Facilitatea Europeană pentru Stabilitate Financiară" nu exista nici-u sfantz !!!!! Ce de prostii frate, iar populatia inghite si iar inghite !...as zica ca, VOR VEDEA GRCII BANII LA "CALENDELE GRECESTI" , la fel si "investitorii privati" ...amuzant NU ?????
t last, a real crisis. The Franco-German salvage operation for the eurozone was inevitable for the simple reason that Armageddon never happens. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel patched together yet another "temporary" bail-out for the Greeks, and will do so for the Portuguese and Irish if need be. German taxpayers will pay the Greeks' bills and aid Europe's banks as they continue to profit from 20% interest on their sovereign loans. Power always wins, so long as it can get someone else to pay.
A more intriguing crisis erupts in Britain. The chancellor, George Osborne, showed impressive cynicism in abandoning his opposition to a "two-speed" Europe and demanding that the eurozone move swiftly to fiscal union – with Britain firmly outside. Only such a union, he said, would discipline the debtor nations and thus avoid bank anarchy that would spill over into the British economy. Britain would have no part in any rescue, but it relied on the eurozone to continue on its path to ever closer union.
Cynical Osborne may be, but he is right in his historical analysis. The latest Greek bailout is the moment when continental Europe finds itself forced to transmogrify from a loose federation into a brittle unitary state. If European politics starts to implode and return to xenophobia, manned borders, ethnic cleansings and trade boycotts, that start is now. This is a true turning point.
From the earliest days of European union after the second world war, such a point was the greatest danger. As long as national currencies could move flexibly in a climate of free trade, Europe's extraordinarily diverse political economy could enjoy a "variable geometry". The safety valve of devaluation allowed countries to adjust over time. Their distinctive autonomies and political cultures could survive.
That safety valve is now turning off. Huge subsidies must flow from high-performing to low-performing countries within the eurozone to pay government bills, support projects and finance sovereign debts. In their wake come bureaucratic intervention and fiscal discipline. This means harmonised taxes, harmonised enforcement, harmonised regulation and harmonised government, only distantly accountable to electorates. Once monetary union was introduced, back in 1999, the rest had to follow.
Gordon Brown's greatest gift to the British nation was to face down Tony Blair in 2001-02 and stop him joining the euro. Blair regarded anything anti-European as "hopelessly, absurdly out of date and unrealistic … a kind of post-empire delusion". The euro was to be the culmination of his plan for European supremacy. Brown stopped it. The epitaph on this particular spat is Blair's brief and dismissive reference to the euro in his memoir, as if he was never really in favour. It is a bizarre rewriting of history.
Only a fool could want Europe to return to the divisive feuds and nationalist horrors of the 19th and early-20th centuries. Any student of the Balkans knows that such horrors are never far below the surface. But a monetary union that denies nations the freedom to breathe and adjust their economies in their own way over time runs just this risk of regressive reaction.
Each step towards "ever-closer union" has brought reaction nearer. The Single European Act of 1986 was necessary to police free trade, but the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties put in place the architecture of a federal state that has become ever more rigid and ever more unpopular. The single currency bound the politics of Europe with hoops of steel. Osborne wants those hoops to tighten further, to trap the 17 eurozone countries in a realm of unaccountable federalism, a fiscal rigidity that he must know will eventually snap.
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