Archive for the ‘Battle for Europe’ Category
Posted by seumasach on January 17, 2012
SMH
18th January, 2012
Cash-flush investors snapped up euro zone debt Tuesday despite a slew of sovereign downgrades, pouring money into the region’s bailout fund as well as into Spanish and Greek paper.
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Posted by seumasach on January 16, 2012
New Europe
14th January, 2012
Strong reactions have followed the decision of rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the overall creditworthiness of nine Eurozone countries, including France.
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Posted by seumasach on January 16, 2012
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Posted by seumasach on January 15, 2012
Cailean Bochanan
15th January, 2012
The multiple European downgrading announced by S&P can hardly be called unexpected and is only dramatic in a rather theatrical sense. The empire has taken on the persona of a “Dennis the Menace” character with an array of wild pranks: celebratory shrieking over the murder of an Arab leader, “taking out” Iranian scientists, NGO street theatre in Moscow, an extra- fraudulent set of monthly employment statistics. S&P’s hit on the Eurozone is well within the range of insanity of the above and is true to form. It is also particularly stupid. The Anglo-Americans may have been scarcely able to contain their glee as they pissed on their erstwhile European allies: but Europe has shown itself to be far from a corpse.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called the S&P announcement an “artificially produced” setback that emerged just as leaders’ efforts were beginning to bear fruit. In an e- mailed statement, he said he’ll step up efforts with euro-member states to create a European rating company.
Michael Fuchs, the CDU’s ranking floor member for economic issues, said the downgrades were “arbitrary Anglo-Saxon politics that don’t square with the efforts of countries including France” to take aim at state spending.
Merkel: Euro Leaders Must Redouble Efforts
Bloomberg
14th January, 2012
Chancellor Angela Merkel said euro- area downgrades by Standard & Poor’s reinforce Germany’s stance that European leaders must redouble their efforts to resolve the debt crisis as governments prepare to sell more debt next week.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
Meanwhile, in a move to circumvent their influence, Germany’s Merkel backed a proposal to reduce the reliance of institutional investors on ratings agencies, which some of her allies say are politically driven.
The idea would be to introduce legislation to allow institutional investors to evaluate risk themselves and make decisions independent from the U.S.-based agencies.
This is exactly the response required.
Merkel vows faster eurozone reform after S&P downgrades
Reuters
14th January, 2012
(Reuters) – European leaders promised on Saturday to speed up plans to strengthen spending rules and get a permanent bailout fund up and running as soon as possible, a day after U.S. agency S&P cut the ratings of several euro zone countries’ creditworthiness.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
L’Ue: “Decisione incoerente mentre affrontiamo la crisi”
La Repubblica
13th January, 2012
ROMA – “È un attacco all’Europa”. Così, ufficiosamente, fonti governative italiane commentano la notizia deldeclassamento da parte di S&P 1 di Paesi come Spagna, Portogallo, Austria, Francia e Italia. “Per quanto riguarda il nostro Paese non è stata tenuta in considerazione – spiegano le stesse fonti – l’operato italiano sulla manovra e il lavoro sulle liberalizzazioni”. “C’è una voglia di reagire tutti assieme”, spiegano le stesse fonti. Per questo motivo ci sarà una presa di posizione dell’Eurogruppo. Mario Monti, sottolineano anche fonti ministeriali, intende affrontare la questione lunedì con il presidente del Consiglio, Van Rompuy, per invitare le istituzioni europee ad agire al più presto sul fronte della crescita. La questione del declassamento è stato affrontata dal premier anche nell’incontro con il segretario del Pd, Pierluigi Bersani che ha spiegato come la notizia sconfessi la linea tedesca. Intanto filtrano le prime reazioni del premier italiano: il governo è ancora più determinato ad andare avanti con il programma di riforme stabilito, come riconosce la stessa agenzia Standard e Poor’s nel suo rapporto sull’Italia. E ancora: bisogna promuovere soluzioni a livello europeo per sostenere gli sforzi nazionali in favore della crescita e dell’occupazione. A Palazzo Chigi si leggono positivamente alcune indicazioni contenute nel rapporto di Standard&Poor’s. In particolare l’avviso, a pagina 4, che ci sarebbe un’ulteriore previsione negativa per l’Italia qualora il Governo tecnico non riuscisse ad applicare le riforme necessarie a causa dell’opposizione di gruppi di interesse oppure se la vita del Governo Monti fosse più breve rispetto alla durata del suo mandato. Palazzo Chigi legge anche positivamente il giudizio di S&P sul fatto che “l’indebolimento del quadro politico europeo viene in qualche modo compensato dalla più forte capacità dell’Italia di formulare e applicare politiche anticrisi”.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
Germany’s Schaeuble: We Shouldn’t Overrate Assessment Of Ratings Agencies -TV
WSJ
13th January, 2012
BERLIN (Dow Jones)–German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble Friday downplayed the significance of a possible downgrade by Standard & Poor’s of France and Austria.
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Posted by seumasach on January 14, 2012
Todo apunta a un oportunismo por el que parece que la agencia quiera corregir el embrionario optimismo de los mercados, más que servirles de referencia objetiva.
“Everything points to an opportunism through which the agency wishes to correct the embryonic optimism of the markets rather provide an objective assessment”
The Anglosphere is playing with fire by deployment its rating agencies in this overtly political manner. At least, let’s hope so, let’s hope that the Eurozone can respond adequately to this undeclared economic war. The empire is on the offensive everywhere in what looks like a desperate last stand. Can blowback be far behind.
El Pais
14th January, 2012
Google-translate Spanish-English
La rebaja de la calificación a la deuda soberana de nueve países europeos -España, Francia e Italia entre ellos- que la agencia Standard & Poor’s anunció anoche constituye una enmienda a la totalidad de la eurozona. O bien pasará factura a la agencia o bien deberá provocar cambios en la política económica dominante en la Unión Europea. Su preanuncio tuvo efectos ambivalentes: una rebaja en la cotización del euro y el mantenimiento de las Bolsas continentales.
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Posted by seumasach on January 9, 2012
EuroNews
9th January, 2012
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared relaxed when they faced the press following their first crisis meeting of 2012.
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Posted by seumasach on January 9, 2012
David Gosset
Asia Times
10th January, 2012
The redistribution of global power modifies relations between great powers and invites them to reconsider their diplomatic priorities. While in the aftermath of World War II the future of Europe was proactively shaped by the United States, or more precisely, by a group of American “Wise Men”, China is now in a position to have an unprecedented impact on the European integration. As Beijing fully develops its immense potential and becomes the world’s biggest economy in the coming decade, its capacity to influence will certainly grow.
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Posted in Battle for Europe, Multipolar world | Tagged: china-europe cooperation, Chinese diplomacy, Chinese soft power, David Gosset, Euro-China Forum, strategic partnership between China and Germany | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 