The groundswell feeling of injustice is heightened because governments have
ratcheted up borrowing to fund aid and guarantees worth £3.7 trillion to failing
European banks while making deep and painful cuts to social provisions. To add
insult to injury, the austerity programmes for the eurozone have been drafted
and imposed by the European Commission in Brussels and the EU’s Central Bank in
Frankfurt. Debt programmes have been directly imposed by the EU and
International Monetary Fund “troika” in Greece, Portugal and Ireland, which have
effectively been stripped of their economic sovereignty. It is going to get
worse. EU forecasts predict that joblessness rates will climb even further,
hitting 11pc in the EU and 12pc in 2013. In Greece, unemployment is 23.6pc, and
54pc among young people. One thousand Greeks are losing their jobs every day.
In Spain, once an EU pin-up for growth and a country that was not in debt before
the banking crisis, youth unemployment has hit 55pc and the recession is still
deepening. Tens of millions of Europeans blame austerity for suppressing demand
and acting as a dampener on growth at a time of economic recession triggered by
the financial crisis. The deadly combination of slowdown plus austerity,
compounded by economic imbalances built into the EU’s single currency, has
pushed countries, especially the southern European economies at the heart of the
eurozone debt storm, into what looks like a deep and protracted slump. 
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The groundswell feeling of injustice is heightened because governments have
ratcheted up borrowing to fund aid and guarantees worth £3.7 trillion to failing
European banks while making deep and painful cuts to social provisions. To add
insult to injury, the austerity programmes for the eurozone have been drafted
and imposed by the European Commission in Brussels and the EU’s Central Bank in
Frankfurt. Debt programmes have been directly imposed by the EU and
International Monetary Fund “troika” in Greece, Portugal and Ireland, which have
effectively been stripped of their economic sovereignty. It is going to get
worse. EU forecasts predict that joblessness rates will climb even further,
hitting 11pc in the EU and 12pc in 2013. In Greece, unemployment is 23.6pc, and
54pc among young people. One thousand Greeks are losing their jobs every day.
In Spain, once an EU pin-up for growth and a country that was not in debt before
the banking crisis, youth unemployment has hit 55pc and the recession is still
deepening. Tens of millions of Europeans blame austerity for suppressing demand
and acting as a dampener on growth at a time of economic recession triggered by
the financial crisis. The deadly combination of slowdown plus austerity,
compounded by economic imbalances built into the EU’s single currency, has
pushed countries, especially the southern European economies at the heart of the
eurozone debt storm, into what looks like a deep and protracted slump. 
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Zona euro, în recesiune
Zona euro se află oficial în recesiune tehnică, pentru a doua oară în ultimii trei ani. Autorităţile europene au înregistrat o contracţie economică de 0,1% în trimestrul al treilea. UE a evitat la limită al doilea trimestru de scădere, arată datele publicate de Eurostat.
PIB al zonei euro a scăzut cu 0,1% în trimestrul al treilea, după un declin de 0,2% în trimestrul preceden.
Economia intră în recesiune tehnică după două trimestre consecutive de scădere a PIB,. Informează Mediafax.
La nivelul Uniunii Europene, recesiunea a fost evitată după consemnarea, în trimestrul al treilea, a unui avans la limită, de numai 0,1%.
În trimestrul al doilea, UE a avut o contracţie a PIB de 0,2%, la fel ca zona euro.
hael Meister, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, told reporters that he could "live with" giving Greece more time to bring down its debt levels, adding that the EU had "many tools" to enable this to happen.
However, he said that a writedown of Greek debt would be unacceptable to Berlin, and that MPs would not rush through a vote on the country's next aid tranche.
10.52 Lots of news on Greece this morning, with the main message being that European governments will NOT - EVER - take a haircut on their holdings of Greek debt.
Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said that while the EU was "working closely and constructively with the IMF to find a solution to open issues, mostly on funding and assessing debt sustainability," the loans made by euro-area governments to Greece "won’t be touched".
Mr Rehn (pictured, below) told reporters in Helsinki:
Lowering Greek loan rates may be one part of the program to ease Greece’s unsustainable debt load, but the solution will consist of various elements and no one measure is enough to ease the debt burden.
hael Meister, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party, told reporters that he could "live with" giving Greece more time to bring down its debt levels, adding that the EU had "many tools" to enable this to happen.
However, he said that a writedown of Greek debt would be unacceptable to Berlin, and that MPs would not rush through a vote on the country's next aid tranche.
10.52 Lots of news on Greece this morning, with the main message being that European governments will NOT - EVER - take a haircut on their holdings of Greek debt.
Olli Rehn, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, said that while the EU was "working closely and constructively with the IMF to find a solution to open issues, mostly on funding and assessing debt sustainability," the loans made by euro-area governments to Greece "won’t be touched".
Mr Rehn (pictured, below) told reporters in Helsinki:
Lowering Greek loan rates may be one part of the program to ease Greece’s unsustainable debt load, but the solution will consist of various elements and no one measure is enough to ease the debt burden.
The eurozone has tumbled into a double-dip recession as the crisis in Portugal, Spain and Greece spreads to other countries in the currency bloc.
Eurozone GDP fell by 0.1% in the third quarter, after shrinking by 0.2% in the second quarter, plunging the region into a recession that economists fear could drag into next year.
The big surprise was the triple-A rated Netherlands, which saw its economy shrink by 1.1% in the third quarter, dragged lower by a 3.1% decline in investment and a 2.4% drop in exports. Economists had expected Dutch GDP to contract by just 0.2%. Austrian GDP also shrank by 0.1%.
But core countries such as France and Germany continued to show growth, for the time being. French GDP ticked up by 0.2% in the third quarter, compared with analyst expectations that the economy would remain at a standstill. That will be a rare piece of good news for the president, François Hollande, who has suffered a dramatic decline in popularity during his first six months in power.
Germany also beat expectations with growth of 0.2% in the third quarter but Europe's biggest economy is clearly feeling the effects of the eurozone crisis. Growth has slowed from 0.5% in the first three months of the year, and 0.3% in the second quarter.
Portugal and Greece remain in very deep recessions, with output falling by 0.8% and 7.3% respectively – while the economies in Italy, Spain and Cyprus continued to contract.
Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics said: "The business surveys point to far worse to come throughout the region in the fourth quarter. With austerity starting to hit French households and German unemployment beginning to rise, the outlook for domestic spending is bleak even in the core." She expects eurozone GDP to shrink by up to 0.7% this year, and another 2.5% in 2013.
Economists said the data could prompt the European Central Bank to cut rates from 0.75% to 0.5% sooner rather than later. Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said: "Indeed, an interest rate cut in December is very possible."
The July-September decline was limited by Germany and France, the bloc's largest economies which combine for half of the region's GDP. Each advanced 0.9% from the previous quarter, at an annualized rate, with gains driven largely by consumer spending and exports. France revised down its second-quarter figure from no growth to a slight contraction.
But the bloc's next three largest economies—Italy, Spain and the Netherlands—all shrank, with Dutch GDP down at a 4.5% annualized pace.
"We are hanging in and keeping our fingers crossed, but so far things are going well," said Bernd Supe-Dienes, managing partner of German manufacturer Dienes, based outside of Cologne, which produces industrial knives and cutting systems. He expects orders to be flat compared with 2011. However, some of his customers in the machinery business "are being a little more cautious" amid a weaker global economy.
Mr. Supe-Dienes plans to ramp up his company's marketing efforts to attract new business, and has no plans yet to reduce his 420-person workforce. "We expect a slowdown, so we are careful with investments and are trying to preserve our cash position," he said. If conditions erode more sharply, he may shed some temporary workers.
The big surprise was the triple-A rated Netherlands, which saw its economy shrink by 1.1% in the third quarter, dragged lower by a 3.1% decline in investment and a 2.4% drop in exports. Economists had expected Dutch GDP to contract by just 0.2%. Austrian GDP also shrank by 0.1%.
But core countries such as France and Germany continued to show growth, for the time being. French GDP ticked up by 0.2% in the third quarter, compared with analyst expectations that the economy would remain at a standstill. That will be a rare piece of good news for the president, François Hollande, who has suffered a dramatic decline in popularity during his first six months in power.
Germany also beat expectations with growth of 0.2% in the third quarter but Europe's biggest economy is clearly feeling the effects of the eurozone crisis. Growth has slowed from 0.5% in the first three months of the year, and 0.3% in the second quarter.
Portugal and Greece remain in very deep recessions, with output falling by 0.8% and 7.3% respectively – while the economies in Italy, Spain and Cyprus continued to contract.
Jennifer McKeown of Capital Economics said: "The business surveys point to far worse to come throughout the region in the fourth quarter. With austerity starting to hit French households and German unemployment beginning to rise, the outlook for domestic spending is bleak even in the core." She expects eurozone GDP to shrink by up to 0.7% this year, and another 2.5% in 2013.
Economists said the data could prompt the European Central Bank to cut rates from 0.75% to 0.5% sooner rather than later. Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said: "Indeed, an interest rate cut in December is very possible."
Post a Comment