Germany's main opposition, the Social Democrats, have upped the ante, saying that Chancellor Angela Merkel must assume greater risks to avert a breakup of the single currency.

Bloomberg has a report on an interview the SPD floor leader, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, gave to the Rheinische Post newspaper.

He raised the pressure on Mrs Merkel to agree to more burden-sharing to stem the euro crisis, claiming that Mrs Merkel, while rejecting euro-region bond sales, fails to say that Germany is already exposed to losses from the debt crisis through the European Central Bank’s bond purchases:

The government should finally be honest about it to the people. If we want to prevent the breakup of the euro zone, it won’t be without risks for Germany.....I have been following the EU. crisis for the last three years and the Muppets in Brussels still have no idea what to do. It gives me no confidence at all in our leaders in Brussels. The numpties in Westminster are not too bright but they beat the nutters in Brussels and Strasbourg hands down.

From debt crisis to food crisis. The UN's food agency has warned today that the world could face a food crisis like that of 2007/08 if countries restruct exports on concerns about a drought-fuelled grain price rally. In its latest update, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said its food price index climbed 6pc last month, after three months of decline, driven by a surge in grain and sugar prices.

Anxieties over extreme hot and dry weather in the US Midwest sent corn and soybean prices to record highs last month, driving overall food prices higher.  Grain markets have also been boosted recently by speculation that Black Sea grain producers, particularly Russia, might impose export restrictions after a drought there hit crops.

The FAO's senior economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters:  There is an expectation that this time around we will not pursue bad policies and intervene in the market by restrictions, and if that doesn't happen we will not see such a serious situation as 2007/08. But if those policies get repeated, anything is possible.

Spanish debt is in the £trillions - Italy's debt is in the £trillions

A former head of the IMF ran a Spanish bank and is being hauled in to a Spanish court because he is accused of fiddling the figures to claim his Bankia bank made a 309 million euro profit - when in fact, after the government siezed the bank two months ago it was found the bank made a 3 billion euro LOSS

And what is the result - the bank is begging for £19billion (why it only made a £3billion loss)....Who has to borrow the money ?: - The Spanish People. What guarantee have they got on the Loan - none - Merkel and co have voted to take away taxpayer protection on the funds. They have created a great money laundering scam where they pretend the government is not borrowing money at all and that magically the ESM gives the money without any protection -- But the reality is - taxpayers are still borrowing the money and liable for the repayment of the loans - the governments borrow - they give it to the ESM and the ESM gives it to the banks instead --- But - here's the killer - Merkel agreed there is no protection for the funds - so currently if things go wrong (and the bankers diddle the books again) - taxpayers lose the lot - but still have to repay the banking debt....The emperors new clothes - look at the banks - they will be fine - the ESM gives money (let's pretend its not taxpayers )....And the moral of the story - if you were a head of the IMF or a banker - you can fiddle the books as much as you want and taxpayers will borrow money and bail you out. If a bank in Spain is fiddling the books 4 years in to this Euro crisis - what is the real state of the banks. Exactly how many £trillions of banking debt is being transferred to taxpayers- well it is a great big black hole - with absolutely no end in site

Spanish debt is in the £trillions - Italy's debt is in the £trillions

So let's set up the ESM and pretend taxpayers are not borrowing the money - well we are.....Time to stop borrowing....Let the banks and the bankers face austerity - Iceland let their banks collapse - time for Europe to do the same....We pay tax for services - not to service banking debt.....These people are transferring so much debt from banks to taxpayers it will take 100 years to clear it off - so your great great great great grandchildren will be paying tax - not for services - but to pay for the sins of bankers and politicians now. Since when did taxpayers become liable for private investor debt - they never shared the profits so let them share the losses. --- NO MORE BORROWING TO GIVE MONEY TO CORRUPT BANKERS

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is well known for her opposition to further aid for crisis-stricken euro countries without additional controls, but what do German voters think? A new SPIEGEL ONLINE survey reveals that a narrow majority is opposed to any more bailouts, and almost three-quarters of Germans want stricter fiscal oversight from Brussels.

Europe is now in the third year of its sovereign debt crisis and the prospect of a breakup of the single currency no longer seems as farfetched as it once did. But from the perspective of most Germans, the euro crisis is still something that mainly affects other countries, namely Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and now Cyprus.

But although the German economy has shown itself to be surprisingly robust, with unemployment falling and tax yields rising, Germany will not be able to withstand the negative trend in the euro zone for ever. "The crisis in the euro zone is catching up with the German economy," commented Ferdinand Fichtner, chief economist at the German Institute for Economic Research, earlier this week. Indeed, the institute has just dropped its growth forecast for the German economy for 2013 from 2.4 percent to just under 2 percent.

Romania's president faces impeachment

Romania's president faces impeachment after the governing coalition called for him to be suspended.

Centre-right (wrong - he's a former securitate officer an still active in the that community, therefore he's NOT center-right) President Traian Basescu has been at loggerheads with Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who heads the opposing Social Liberal Union (USL), which has a majority in parliament.

If parliament votes for Mr Basecu's suspension, a national poll on his impeachment can follow.  Mr Ponta himself is under pressure to resign over allegations of plagiarism. The USL party has asked parliament to hold an extraordinary meeting to suspend Mr Basescu, a party member told a Romanian news agency.  Mr Ponta's USL party passed a law to simplify the process of having the president impeached. That law still needs to be considered by the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court itself has accused Mr Ponta of trying to dismantle it, and on Tuesday complained to the European Commission that he was threatening the court's independence. The USL, in power since May, says that the court is heavily influenced by Mr Basescu, whose popularity has dropped since he imposed austerity measures agreed with the EU and IMF in 2010.  The political conflict between the president and prime minister has stalled decision-making processes in Romania at a time when it is finalising agreements on an IMF-backed aid package for its economy. Mr Basescu has accused Mr Ponta of trying to interfere with Romania's legal and state institutions in order to secure his indictment. On Tuesday the US ambassador to Romania, Mark Gitenstein, expressed deep concerns about any attempts to affect state institutions.

Well done Greeks - you have voted for your continued slavery...to the 4th. Rich

BRUSSELS--- Europe, facing a momentous Greek election after a week of mounting financial stresses, is preparing for what some financial analysts are calling its "Lehman moment": the prospect that Greece could leave the euro currency union following Sunday's vote.

Mean Street host Francesco Guerrera calls on WSJ's Charles Forelle to discuss why the European crisis is so important to the U.S. economy.

With Greece poised to vote on austerity measures, the Euro zone is on the verge of a painful rupture that could be its dissolution. If Greece chooses to exit the Euro, the resulting chain of events may be hard to contain.  Yet, European officials say that even an election that results in a Greek embrace of the euro and an acceptance of the terms of Europe's March bailout of the country may only temporarily ease pressure on the euro zone, whose crisis-management strategy many analysts say lies in shreds.

Borrowing costs in Spain and Italy rose sharply higher in recent days despite efforts to insulate Spain, the euro zone's fourth-largest economy, from the effects of Greek uncertainty by lining up a bailout request last weekend for as much as €100 billion to boost the capital of Spanish banks.

"We are back in the danger zone," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based economic think tank.....After his side beat Russia to advance in Euro 2012, Greek national football manager Fernando Santos was asked how much modern European civilisation has strayed away from its ancient Greek roots.
He replied: "We are inspired by Greek history, not Merkel." I say : ...BUT, WHATEVER Horst Rechenbach The Governor of GREECE decides is the LAW ...!!!! Greeks have done it to themselvs !!!! 
PARIS -- The quiet elections - -French voters have been taking part in a second round of parliamentary elections seen as crucial for President Francois Hollande's reform agenda. The socialist leader, who was elected last month, is seeking a solid left-wing majority in the lower house.   He has promised to hire more public workers and to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to "growth"......Socialists and their left-wing allies won 46% in last Sunday's first round, against 34% for the centre-right UMP.  Nationwide, the turnout was a modest 57%. France's 46 million eligible voters are picking representatives for 577 seats in the National Assembly.  After the first round, 36 seats out of 577 were declared in constituencies where the winner got more than 50% of the vote. Socialists and their allies won 25 of those seats.

Handful....

"Drachma" is an ancient Greek currency unit and translates as a "handful", which is a lot less than what Greece will need to pay off all its debts.

For two years, everyone has been asking what would happen if Greece left the euro and went back to the drachma. Now that time may be upon us. ... With Greece unable to devalue its currency, the country is hobbled with crippling debt payments it cannot afford. Even though it has cut its debt in half, Greece has been subject to much social unrest as five years of recession and bailout-imposed spending cuts have bitten hard.

Last week, a majority of Greeks voted for parties that want to rip up the country's bailout agreement with the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) - including neo-Nazis.

The biggest winner was the leftist anti-bailout coalition, Syriza, whose share of the vote more than tripled and who describe the austerity imposed by the bailout as "barbaric".

Syriza is among those holding talks about forming a government, one that rejects policies of austerity, and if it comes to pass, a Syriza-led government will definitely not adhere to the terms of the bailout.....So how would Greece leave the euro?

No big announcement

In reality, the new prime minister probably will not announce it on TV one day, between broadcasts of the lottery and the football.

The new government will want to renegotiate some parts of the bailout, but if that doesn't happen, then Greece could simply stop paying its debt.

That would be a euro default.  Actually, a second, as Greece technically defaulted on its debts when it renegotiated a 50% write-off of its debts with its creditors earlier this year....And that would put the ball back in Brussels' court

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Greece has already started printing Drachmas in secret and that Germany had been printing DMs

The Pew Global Attitudes Project polled 8,000 people in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Poland, Britain and the Czech Republic from mid-March to mid-April and identified unprecedented levels of discontent with the EU. "The European project, which began with the creation of a small common market in 1957, grew to a larger single market in 1992 and then created the single currency in 2002, is a major casualty of the sovereign debt crisis," the report concluded. "Majorities or near majorities in most nations now believe that the economic integration of Europe has actually weakened their economies." At a time when the EU is pushing closer to an economic and fiscal union for the eurozone, popular opinion is pulling the other way. That contradiction has led to electoral upsets across Europe, from Greece to the Netherlands and France in the past three months alone. Majorities in most countries now blame EU integration for damaging their economies, but the figures hit 70% in Greece, 63% in France and 61pc in Italy, all countries once regarded as staunchly pro-European. Just one third of the people – 34% – believe that economic integration, a central plank of the EU's raison d'etre, is a benefit.
De La Rue, the money printer, failed to dampen speculation that it has been secretly awarded a contract to start printing drachmas the moment Greece is forced out of the euro. The company said that its order book had increased by 14pc, to £248m, but its policy was to never reveal which specific contracts it was working on. The chief executive Tim Cobbold said: “We have people in every region in the world. We are very close to all geopolitical conditions that develop.”

He said, however, that in most circumstances it took six months between an initial order being placed by a central bank or government, and the notes being delivered. This was the time it took when South Sudan introduced the South Sudanese pound after it gained independence last year.

To print a new currency in the space of a couple of weeks “would be impossible”.

Sergey Shvestov, the vice president of Russia’s Central Bank, said that Greece already has a plan to introduce its own currency, in parallel to to the euro. He said it with high certainty.

Making contingency plans for different options is the right thing to do for anyone, but saying it about Greece and with such a degree of certainty is new.

Shvestov didn’t want to share more details, but said that leaving the euro-zone is a necessity for Greece. He said it would be a “good example” for other countries.

The Russian Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow said that a Grexit will ignite a global crisis affecting the price of oil. They see a a chance of more than 50% that Greece will leave the euro-zone and that it will cause other countries will leave as well. El Economista brings this report. Rumors about fresh polls show that anti-bailout SYRIZA is in the lead, with 30% support. The situation in Greece is so bad that the country may leave the zone even if pro-bailout parties win.

EUR/USD is struggling between 1.25 and 1.26. Is another fall coming?

Well, it seems almost every analyst accepts that Greece right now is truly "on the edge" and that anything could happen, as it has before. Many people in Greece appear to be concerned about SYRIZA because it isn't actually one democratic political party but rather a coalition of SYN, AKOA, DEA, KEDA, "Active Citizens", and a number of other assorted independent left-wing groups and activists. Most of these groups have had no political experience and a history of squabbling amongst each other and voters in Greece are concerned that if SYRIZA is given power it will then enter into extremely treacherous and difficult times as the leading force in the government and it may not have the strength and unity required to simply stay together. In other words, if any party is likely to fall apart under the pressure and stress it's SYRIZA. For all the bold things that Tsipras did and said last week, he also demonstrated some political naivety. I also note that quite a lot of ordinary people in Greece are now saying that it's time to stop punishing ND & PASOK, that they've been given a good shock, but that it's now time to put together a government that actually has some experience of successful business and government. Personally, I would like to think that SYRIZA will win the election and will successfully guide Greece through the turbulence, saying "No!" to all of the transnationals that have previously been allowed to plunder the country and addict the Greek people to excessive consumerism. But like most Greeks all I can have is hope. I see that the other parties are now fighting very hard to win on June 17. Samaras made me snort yesterday when he declared, trying to take the ground from under SYRIZA, rather like an angry schoolboy, that he was the first person to object to the memorandum. And Venizelos has been doing a lot of angry shouting of late. The other possibility of course is that if Greeks in Greece keep draining the banks of cash as they have been, then the banks may run dry well before June 17. It's May 18 today and a month is a long time in Greece these days. If the money does run out at the banks, some people will survive on the money they have stashed under the mattress, but a lot of others simply won't have any money at all and that could spell trouble on the streets. And the tanks COULD roll in. It's an extraordinary situation. 80% of Greeks want to stay in the Eurozone but between 30 and 40% currently support the party that has said it could quite easily tell Brussels that the bailout agreements are "null and void"....I think the most dangerous outcome of all this is in fact Greece NOT leaving. Although departure will be hard for Greece, the massive over-valuation of the economy does in one way or another have to happen. If Greece is bankrolled to stay in, the danger is that countries like Spain and Italy will then believe that they too can be bailed out. The problem is that the EU (i.e. Germany) can afford to bail out Greece but it cannot afford to do this for either Spain or Italy. Also, the price of Greek exit is manageable, perhaps more so than the price of a full bailout.  If Greece is forced out and restructures, this should hopefully focus minds in Madrid and Rome. They will realise that they MUST take serious and painful steps to correct their own failures and mispricing.... It of course comes down to Germany, and really Angela Merkel's electoral calculation. Germany can save the Euro, but only by cutting Greece loose. If it insists on bailing Greece out, the Euro is doomed to failure and with it, probably, the EU as we know it.

Lies and lies again ...The poisen = is the euro ...it should go and Germany should be on trial again for the distruction of europe !!!

BS no 1. ----The news that the eurozone has avoided recession is politically tricky for the UK government, which has repeatedly blamed Britain's economic woes on the problems over the English Channel.

Just last night, chancellor George Osborne warned that the eurozone crisis was affecting the wider economy, saying in Brussels that:

The euro zone crisis is having a real impact on growth across the European continent, including Britain....

The British recovery has been damaged over the last two years not by Britain getting a grip on its public finances but by uncertainty in the euro zone.

So it's somewhat embarrassing to now find that the Eurozone managed to avoid contracting in the last three months, while the UK shrank by 0.2% (although, in the spirit of balance, many business leaders reckon that reading was too negative). Ed Balls, Labour's shadow chancellor, has already argued that today's GDP data shows the UK's double-dip was caused by domestic policy.

BS no. 2 ---- A strong performance by the powerhouse German economy, which grew by 0.5pc, helped haul the 17-members over the line and prevented the eurozone recording a second quarter of contraction in a row, according to the latest figures from Eurostat. In the fourth quarter of 2011, eurozone GDP shrank by 0.3pc.

Howard Archer, economist at Global Insight, said: “While it is welcome news that the eurozone avoided recession, its performance is hardly something to celebrate as GDP was only flat year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012. Furthermore, generally weaker latest data and, particularly, survey evidence suggests that renewed GDP contraction is very much on the menu for the second quarter.”

The debt crisis took its toll on the other core economies. French GDP failed to grow at all in the first three months of the year; Austria and Belgium showed modest growth; the recession in the Netherlands continued as its economy contracted 0.2pc quarter-on-quarter.

GREECE HAS A GERMAN GOVERNOR - HORST REICHENBACH ...IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW !!!!

 THE PEOPLE OF GREECE SHOULD KEEP VOTING OUT THESE TRAITORS - Panos Kammenos, leader of a conservative party that opposes Greece's international bailout deal, emerged from the presidential mansion where the talks had been held and said that no deal had been reached. Greek socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos ( who is not a socialist in fact, but more of a Merkel slave infiltrated among the real socialists) backed up the report. "We are going again towards elections, in a few days, under very bad conditions," he said, while a statement from the president's office noted simply that efforts to form a government had failed.. Left-wing leader Fotis Kouvelis added: "I did everything I could to avoid new elections. From the very first moment some parties had chosen to go for new elections."...The leaders of Greece's main political parties have been trying to form a coalition since elections nine days ago. The anti-austerity Left Coalition party Syriza, which is widely expected to win the new elections in June, refused to take part in this week's discussions.

Party spokesman Panos Skourletis said: "It is obvious that there is an effort to bring about a government that will implement the bailout. We are not participating in such a government."

We're well and truly in uncharted territory now. Policy makers, economists and the commentariate are in complete disarray, headless chickens are running around all over Europe as a multitude of unstoppable objects are about to collide head on into immovable objects. Europe is braced for a crucial 48 hours of high-stakes summitry likely to decide whether Germany and France can strike a grand bargain aimed at dispelling growing pessimism over the chances of the single currency surviving in its current form. While eurozone finance ministers are to meet on Monday in Brussels, apparently at a loss over how to respond to political paralysis in Greece and a worsening crisis in Spain, all eyes are on François Hollande, the new French leader, who is to go to Berlin for his first face-to-face meeting with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, as soon as he is sworn in as president on Tuesday.

Hollande, Europe's new champion of growth policies, lines up against Merkel, the dominant cheerleader of austerity as the solution to the crisis. The German leader, increasingly isolated if inherently strong in the European contest, suffered a big setback on Sunday night, with her Christian Democrats slumping to a crushing defeat in an election in the big German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, according to German TV exit polls. The truth is the crisis is now so complex and the competing pressures of political and economic strains so great that no one has a fucking idea whats going to happen and what ways this is going to turn let alone how to get out of it. Whats really clear though, as with all situations where unstoppable objects impact immovable ones, there's going to be one hell of an explosion.  Nothing will happen other than a slightly less austere austerity.  The Euro was formed for France and Germany, perhaps the Netherlands and the northern European states - the southern states who rely as much on tourism as anything else for hard currency were always going to be a problem. Tax the banker trades, tax the rich more, re-distribute wealth, shut down tax havens and lessen austerity - that would instantly see growth return to northern Europe. The majority austerity to pay for minority greed-istas of Cameron, Clegg, Osborne are the hopeless ones, stuck in a world where minority greed rules, the rich get tax cuts and increase their wealth at the expense of the majority losing jobs and having their pay frozen.

Ministers in Berlin warned that they would withhold international aid to Greece in a move which could trigger a fresh, damaging countdown to default in Athens. Has anyone else noted the word 'INTERNATIONAL' in the above sentence? Since WHEN did Germany have the right to with hold INTERNATIONAL money? Just when did the Germans become the mouthpiece for the rest of the world? Either somebody is stepping way above their pay grade here or the Ministers in question are suffering from a psychiatric illness called Delusions of Grandeur.Did they honestly think that the Greeks were going to just take being starved and humiliated forever? It also beggars belief that before open their stupid mouths and issuing threats like this, that they haven't stopped to think what will happen if the Greeks decide to load up those lovely German submarines and French warplanes with missiles and aim them right at Berlin and Paris! Duh! How STUPID can you get?...So the Germans will withhold money that goes straight back to their own banks who were foolish enough to lend money to feckless Greeks in the first place. This is as much as a threat as saying you will shoot yourself in the head if the other guy doesn't give you his wallet....

Greece WILL default no matter how much money is pumped into it. Why can't the eurocrats see that the damage has been done and Greece should be allowed to leave the eurozone, default and return to the drachma in order to set their own interest rates and rebuild their own economy. Is it only me who thinks Herman Van Rompuy shares a significant resemblance to Emperor Palpatine?

Joseph Daul, Chairman of the EPP Group - Daul, took note of the election of Francois Hollande to the Presidency of the French Republic, and said he hoped that France continues to meet its European commitments, including the Fiscal Pact Treaty. The Chairman of the main European Parliamentary Group (center-right) congratulated the outgoing President, Nicolas Sarkozy, for his remarkable commitment to Europe, including during the French Presidency of the Union and in managing the debt crisis. "Nicolas Sarkozy has, in close collaboration with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and with all the European partners, taken the measures required to address national public finances and restore confidence in the ability of Europe to emerge of the crisis. He also had the courage, domestically, to make fundamental reforms in the areas of pensions and higher education, among others. These reforms will serve his country well". Joseph Daul believes that the essential growth policy which must be implemented alongside the policy of sound management of public finances, should not result in additional spending as "we no longer have the means."

IN  GERMANY...(THE IVth Reich) : The governing Christian Democrats and the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) are neck-and-neck in opinion polls. The CDU and its struggling coalition partner, the Free Democrats, look set to lose their majority in the state legislature.But the SPD and the Greens could also struggle to muster a majority. The vote comes ahead of another vital electoral test for Mrs Merkel - elections in Germany's most populous state, North-Rhine Westphali....The collapse of the liberal FDP in recent opinion polls could deprive Mrs Merkel of her coalition partner in federal elections due in 2013. The party has now lost all its seats in five state legislatures. The vote in Schleswig-Holstein is seen as hinging on whether the Free Democrats can achieve the minimum 5% of the vote needed to gain representation. In the latest state election, in Saarland in March, the FDP only won 2% of the vote. Early polling in Schleswig-Holstein indicated the FDP would fail to reach 5%....But the latest surveys suggest they could just scrape in.

Another deciding factor could be the performance of the new Pirate Party, which looks likely to win seats in the state parliament....The party, which campaigns on "digital rights" issues, has already pulled off a string of surprise state election successes, winning seats in Saarland, as well as in Berlin last year.

However, a party representing the state's small Danish-speaking minority, which has guaranteed representation, could also help the SPD and the Greens to form a government.

Joseph Daul, Chairman of the EPP Group, welcomed the decision of the Greek people to entrust Nea Demokratia with the most votes in today's elections. The Chairman of the EPP Group said: "Greece is an indispensable and undeniable part of Europe. We recognise there will be difficulties in creating a new government in Greece, according to election results so far. However we wish the Chairman of Nea Demokratia Antonis Samaras success in the difficult negotiations to form a coalition government and we support all of his efforts towards guaranteeing the European course of the country and bringing it back on the path of economic recovery and growth."

Merkel faced trouble at home as opposition politicians joined Mr Hollande in his bid to make the austerity pact more flexible. They complain that the "one-size-fits-all" rules do not suit Germany's individual states and municipalities. The question of how to address the eurozone's debt burden is toppling governments across Europe. The three-month-old Romanian government fell on Friday as it lost a no-confidence vote over state asset sales. Against a backdrop of rising concerns, the pound hit a two-and-half-year high against a basket of currencies tracked by the Bank of England. Italy, the eurozone's third largest economy, paid more to get auctions of its government debt away on Friday morning. It paid yields, or implied interest rates, of 5.84pc on its 10-year bonds, up from 5.24pc last month. Separately, Ireland slashed its growth forecast for this year from 1.3pc to 0.7pc.

MADRID - Spanish officials moved to shore up confidence in the ailing local economy after new data showed unemployment at an 18-year high, after credit-ratings firm Standard & Poor's slapped Spanish government debt with a two-notch downgrade. Spain's statistics bureau Friday said the country's jobless rate rose to 24.4% in the first quarter, from 22.9% in the fourth quarter of last year, inching toward its highest level on record. More than half of workers under 25 years old were without jobs. In the first quarter of 1994, Spanish unemployment reached 24.6%. Spain's government said its program of economic reform will benefit the country after it was hit by a credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's and figures showed unemployment had hit an 18-year high. "The figures are terrible for everyone and terrible for the government," Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia-Margallo said in a radio interview. "Spain has been, and is, in a crisis of huge proportions." Spain's labor market has been hard hit by the collapse of a decadelong housing boom and by budget cuts that are removing tens of billions of euros from the economy. In addition, rigid labor laws make it easier to dismiss workers than to adjust their wages or change their duties. Spain's unemployment rate is more than double the 10.7% euro-zone average, and now totals about 5.6 million people.

PARIS—President Nicolas Sarkozy was thrust into a fight for his political survival after lagging behind Socialist candidate François Hollande in the first round of France's presidential poll. Voters must now choose between Mr. Sarkozy, the 57-year-old incumbent who says he has the experience and energy to steer France clear of Europe's sovereign debt crisis, and Mr. Hollande, also 57, an affable career politician who promises a more regal, conciliatory air in the Élysée presidential palace. One crucial question is whether Mr. Sarkozy will be able to lure the 18.0% of voters who chose far right leader Marine Le Pen. Polls show that a large portion of people who voted for Ms. Le Pen in the first round may abstain in the second round rather than vote for Mr. Sarkozy. France's choice has large implications for the rest of Europe. Until now, the country has conformed to Germany's austerity recipe for tackling the crisis. But Mr. Hollande, who is favored to win the May 6 runoff, has urged his neighbors to spend more to achieve economic growth. "My responsibility, and I know that I am being watched beyond our borders, is to reorient Europe on the path of growth and job creation," Mr. Hollande told supporters on Sunday....Another European development over the weekend underlined signs that more Europeans were rebelling against the frugality that has dominated the continent's response to its sovereign debt crisis. In the Netherlands, talks over measures to slash the Dutch government's budget deficit collapsed after seven weeks of negotiations. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said early elections were an "obvious" outcome.

IMF ....explained ...

IMF in context (explained) : As of mid 2008, the IMF had around $1,6 billion in the bank. Compared to the sums involved in the designed financial collapse, this represents a grain of sand on Peblle Beach. There was a story about the IMF selling off 400 tons of gold. We don't know if this was real gold, tungsten coated bars, or pure make believe gold?? There were stories floating around that India would pay hard cash for this imaginary gold, but then all went quiet.....Whatever reserves the IMF has acquired since the designed financial collapse, they are digitally created Monopoly Money reserves. The IMF is a global extortion racket...they force cuts, force payments to bust banks, in exchange for Monopoly Money created out of thin air, that states will pay back with REAL money, plus interest....nice business !!!...The US is already broke. Britain is broke and Canada wants to stay solvent. Why would anyone in their right mind impose more sacrifices on their own people to prop up an insane political project like the Euro?The argument that it is in their own self-interests doesn't wash as there will inevitably be a day of reckoning for this mess and delaying it will make the pain worse all around, not better; so its time for Europe to bite the bullet rather than taking everyone else down with them.....And... the news item : Global politics and economic theory don’t lend themselves easily to punch lines. But in January this year, Christine Lagarde managed to inject a little light relief into proceedings at the World Economic Forum. Holding up her Louis Vuitton handbag, the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) turned to her fellow power brokers in one session and said: “I am here, with my little bag, to collect a bit of money.” The joke broke the ice and the room rippled with laughter. But, beneath the disarming charm, Lagarde was deadly serious. For months now, the IMF has been trying to coerce its 187 members into committing as much as $600bn (£378bn) more to the fund to build what she described at the Brookings Institute in Washington last week as a “global firewall” to defeat once and for all the European sovereign debt crisis.

The chief executive of market analysts RANsquawk :"The eurozone is being skewered by stubbornly high inflation and rising unemployment. Even ignoring the small matter of the debt crisis, the eurozone's fundamentals are once again looking increasingly sketchy. While in Spain there is a growing danger of unrest as popular frustration boils over at the new conservative government, even in buoyant eurozone economies, inflation is eating away at purchasing power. Any hope of consumers spending their way out of the dip has just faded further. In many of the 17, the numbers are conspiring to make economic output stagnate or contract. The increase in unemployment had been expected, and there was a sense of grim inevitability about these numbers". Unemployment figures like any stats are only as good as the accuracy of the source data. For instance, the figure in the UK is apparently 2.8 million with 29.12 million in work. That is out of an official 62 million population which is important because those not retired or at school etc not included in the 62 million are in effect unaccounted for. This is serious all over Europe because the population according to the people who really know through footfall count and accurate essential sales such as national food retailers like Sainsburys said that in 2007 (The Independent) they estimated the UK population at 78-80 million. Which means that there are not 2.8 million unemployed in the UK today at all, there could actually be in the region of 20 million technically. Whether unemployed or unaccounted for its a deeply worrying thought when one thinks this could be typical of what's happened all over Europe. What is alarming is that the natural self-sustaining model of capitalism has been severely undermined by the socialist ideology of make believe. And if all those unaccounted for people were found and ejected from all European countries there would be no unemployment, no housing shortages, no strain on infrastructure and so on. There would also be no internal threat of cultural destruction from Islam, no African ghettos in our cities, less crime, less strain on social services, more resources for indigenous populations etc. And most importantly if people were given their country's back again they might begin to believe in them, themselves and work and fight for their own futures. Isn't it a shame that the EU Technocrats can't 'fix' unemployment figures like that have the debt crisis, and for every Euro they print and create on a computer they repatriate an ill-suited / illegal immigrant. But our leaders know best I suppose, they know what they are doing. 17 million unemployed - yes a direct result of the EUSSR policies that kill off any competitive edge we could have, whilst at the same time paying the EU elite massive amounts and pensions the rest of us could not even dream off.

Meanwhile some European banks have indicated an intention to repay their LTRO money. The pundits on CNBC were baffled. ...Obvious really.... What these banks so desperately need is not limitless credit which they don't want to pass on anyway (except of course to their own sovereigns, in so far as they are pressured to do that) but real money invested in them from outside Europe. In other words it's a ploy to lure in some Asian/American/South American cash. The repayments are presumably being made from the profits they have generated from gambling with the ECB credits on spreads/commodities etc. Just as we all knew they would.http://www.scribd.com/arbitraj/

This crazy game has to come to an end and now.

Olli Rehn -- "the most incompetent of all" commissioners -- the European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner, on Thursday praised the ECB's radical action to pump liquidity into the banking system through billions of euros cheap loans. "The risk of a credit crunch in the European economy has been prevented," he said. But with deposits at the ECB nearly three times the level reached when Lehman Brothers collapsed, the latest figures pointed to the spectre of a freeze that could be even worse than 2008. ...The eurozone's economy shrank 0.3pc in the last three months of 2011, according to the second reading by Eurostat. The Brussels agency said over the whole year, the combined GDP for all 17 members grew 1.4pc compared with 1.9pc in 2010. But the impact of the debt crisis was plain. For instance eurozone exports fell in the fourth quarter - for the first time in two and half years. The Stoxx Europe 600 index closed down 2.7pc on Thursday; France's CAC slumped 3.6pc; Germany's DAX, Spain's Ibex and Italy's FTSE MIB fell 3.4pc. In London the FTSE 100 shed 1.9pc. Gold was pushed up through $1,690 an ounce.

It really is time to call it quits! To continue to bail out banks that do not deserve bailing out with tax payers money is a huge misallocation of resources and an outright crime againsts the ordinary citizen. Bailing out coutries like Greece, is just taking the game to its extreme. --- This crazy game has to come to an end and now. The debts are quite simply going to have to be written off and the banks can fail. My commentary is this: SO WHAT? A legion of banks have failed in the past so why are they all too big to fail now? The bankers should not be allowed to loan money with the surety that they can gamble and never lose like weighted dice. --- Furthermore, this entire credit driven debt charade has to come to an end for the good of all the world's people. We cannot continue this mass transference of wealth from the poor to the super rich to create yet another group of financial Kings, Czars, Emperors and Pharoahs. Loading every human being to the hilt with debt is quite simply downright evil. "Lobster potting" people with mountainous debts from the age they turn into adults until, quite literally, you bury them is as morally decrepit as it is totally wrong. What kind of world do these greedy plutocrats want? Obviously, not one where they have any concience orconcerns over the less fortunate of the planet! --- Perhaps as a man or woman gets richer, wealth is not enough and then power drives them all crazy as they all vie to play with the planet. Well so far every despot and dictator has acheived little other than ruin and disaster for the human race. What we need is a dilution of power not further concentration as a one world Government and currency.

I don't think that many sane people think that Greeks will remain in the Euro-Zone

If the €130bn bailout from the troika of the European commission, the ECB and the IMF is delayed – or withdrawn altogether – it's likely that Greece will have to go back to the drawing board and start negotiations with its private sector creditors all over again. For one thing, the write down, or "haircut", of up to 70% on Greek bonds that's at the heart of the negotiations is being bought at the expense of up to €30bn in sweeteners, financed by the euro-zone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. Without that cash, the Institute of International Finance, the Washington-based body representing the banks in the talks, would be likely to walk away – or at least to offer up a much smaller haircut.....More importantly, though, if the wider bailout offer is withdrawn, the incentives for investors would change fundamentally-----So let me get this straight. The creditors are willing to take a 70% haircut so long as they are given a €30 billion 'sweetener'?? I may be a little slow here but wouldn't that make the final haircut somewhat less than 70%? It's like we are in wonderland with these guys claiming they are giving one thing but in fact quietly taking another. Anyway, it all looks immaterial now the revised figures from the IMF are showing that Greece's debt will now be 129% of GDP by 2020, such is the spectacular collapse of the economy. It seems the only thing growing in Greece is defense expenditure - no doubt buying German arms. Germany cannot approve a bailout on these projected figures....Well, better let them default and get on with the rebuilding ASAP.

Breaking news:
Greece's cabinet agreed on Saturday to launch a debt swap for private creditors on March 8 with the aim of completing it by March 11, a government official said. The swap is to accompany a 130-billion-euro rescue package that Athens hopes to agree with its euro zone partners on Monday and will mean that creditors take a 70 percent cut in the real value of their holdings...........Here comes the D-Day!

Hungary sells 35billion of 10 years bonds, seeking to sell 45 Billion, yield at 9.9%

Hungary sells 35billion of 10 years bonds, seeking to sell 45 Billion, yield at 9.9%
** Not as bad as Portugal at 13.37%
** Just a little over Ireland at 8.207%
** And of course Greece at 34.955%

Meanwhile : The Frankfurter Allgemeine thinks recessions will be good for countries like Greece, which have debt problems, so they will be chuffed about the Irish double dip, no doubt. Deutschland geht es gut, noch.....is the motto. They seem to think that as the crisis only affects small countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and don't see the knock on.. The UK will also be hit, as Eire is the UK's main trading partner. Portugal is important to Spain, Spain is important to France. The Greek crisis is a disaster for its Balkan neighbors, and they are important for Italy. Am listening to the German EU Commissioner Günter Öttinger on SWR1, it will be interesting to hear what he says about he Eurocrisis. He fell foul of Merkel and was kicked upstairs to the EU by her a couple of years ago. She managed to shift several such nuisances: Christian Wulff, and Roland Koch are no longer Minister Presidents, Stefan Mappus also opposed her and has now left politics.