Year of Referendum Disasters In 2016 the European Union both as an organization and hope for a better and more peaceful future suffered at least two serious and possibly mortal blows: the British “in/out” referendum gave a direct hit, while the constitutional plebiscite five months later in Italy delivered a glancing blow that might yet […]

Broad opposition in Europe to the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has prompted its supporters to summon the “protectionist” spectre. In response to the criticism of TTIP by US presidential candidates and progressive politicians in Europe they, according to media reports, are talking up the end of “free trade” that has allegedly brought so many […]

History provides many examples of authoritarian rule achieved through formally democratic procedures. To these we should add the EU Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG, also known as the “Six Pack”), adopted by 25 democratically elected EU governments (all but the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom). On an EU website we find the […]

The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht that lay the basis for the euro committed signing governments to several economic targets. Subsequent treaties and protocols made these targets stricter. The targets suffer from serious technical mis-specification. The problems of the criteria have their basis in a fundamental flaw that must be recognized and corrected to prevent further economic […]

With the returning regularity of a bad habit, the Financial Times reassures us that yet again German economic growth snatches the euro zone from the jaws of recession. Just a day later the same august source bemoaned “sluggish” growth in the euro zone. And a few days later the European Central Bank confirmed non-recovery with […]

Several years ago the idea that fiscal austerity could induce growth, “expansionary austerity”, had a brief flowering before withering under the heat of ridicule. Recently it resurfaced under a different name, “deflationary boom”. If expansionary austerity was oxymoronic, deflationary boom is simply moronic. To deconstruct and disinfect deflationary boom we need an operational definition of […]

If you read Larry Summers in the Financial Times, you know that recent data confirm falling prices in the euro zone.  Summers argues that the deflation indicates global stagnation, though we find disagreement on the appropriate interpretation. For some it is no more than the transitory effect of falling petroleum prices. The focus on petroleum […]

Prior to the release of growth statistics in the middle of August there was widespread expectation that a sustained eurozone recovery would at last be verified. However, the numbers showed a result familiar to long suffering commuters all over Europe – “we regret that this service is delayed”. This is far from the first such […]

The German government has been a strong supporter of austerity programmes, arguing that the associated goals of deficit and debt reduction provide the best, if not the only, route to economic recovery in Europe. Some writers reach back to the hyper-inflation of the 1920s to explain this faith in the virtues of belt-tightening. Recent release […]

Deficit Politics A few days ago the Italian government objected to the way that putative technocrats at the European Commission calculated their country’s “structural deficit”. To all but the few familiar with the arcane intricacies of the Maastricht Criteria, the Six-Pack and the Two-Pack the objection might seem esoteric at best. However, it has the […]