Former Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has slammed a proposal by the populist Sweden Democrats to hold a referendum on Swedish European Union membership calling the prospect of a vote “dangerous”.
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) – Germany’s finance minister is urging bolder steps to strengthen the euro currency union by setting up a fund to help countries hard hit by unemployment and by laying the foundations of an EU-wide tax system.
Mainstream media outlets have scrambled to recast Italy’s crisis in national sovereignty as a debate over participation in the European Union (EU) and its currency (euro) to draw attention away from President Sergio Mattarella’s unprecedented veto of democratic elections.
ROME (AP) – The leader of Italy’s right-wing League party says he won’t give ground in a standoff that is blocking the country’s next government from taking office.
The European Union single currency Euro slumped Monday, reflecting gloomy investor confidence, slow economic growth, and strong Dollar performance.
Weakening morale in Germany, declining optimism among manufacturers, and spooked markets have put predictions of strong growth made by the Central European Bank in doubt, wire news service Reuters reports. Of the Eurozone fall, Reuters writes: Economic sentiment in the
A poll has shown that the majority of Italian voters between the ages of 18 and 40 support Eurosceptic parties like the Five Star Movement and the new right-wing coalition of populist Lega Nord and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Matteo Salvini, who leads Italy’s nationalist-populist Lega Nord (Northern League), has committed to leaving the European Union’s single currency zone if he wins big in this year’s elections.
Almost half of Germans what to see the Deutsche Mark restored, with just 41 per cent saying they want to keep the euro.
BRUSSELS (AP) – Official figures show that industrial output across the 19 countries that make up the eurozone fell in June, a development that will likely reinforce concerns about the export-sapping impact of the rising euro. Eurostat said Monday that
Dire prophecies of an economy in freefall after Brexit have suffered another blow with the publication of a report which indicates that Britain will outperform Germany, France and the entire Eurozone over the coming years. Oxford Economics, which employs around
Emmanuel Macron plans to use his first full day as president of France to fly to Berlin to lobby for greater Eurozone integration. Macron wants a common budget and a joint finance minister for all 19 states to have adopted the euro.
The euro surged Monday after moderate Emmanuel Macron won the first round in France’s presidential election and looked set to triumph in the run-off against right wing candidate Marine Le Pen next month.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The eurozone’s top official said “fatigue may have played a role” for comments he made last month that unleashed a storm of criticism across southern Europe. In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, published
Government central banks are jettisoning the euro over fears for the stability of the European Union (EU) – but continue to see the pound sterling as an attractive long-term investment.
ATHENS (AFP) – Greece is close to a long-delayed deal with its creditors after months of tough talks, a senior official has said. “We are close to an agreement in coming days,” Greek parliament chief Nikos Voutsis told a European Left meeting
The Dutch parliament is to hold an inquiry on whether it could ditch euro, amid growing scepticism of the European single currency.
BRUSSELS, Jan 12 (Reuters) – Euro zone finance ministers will discuss on Jan. 26 the “compatibility” of Italy’s bailout for bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena with European Union rules, an official in the bloc told Reuters on Thursday.
PARIS (AFP) – French far-right leader Marine Le Pen pledged Friday if elected president she would campaign for France to leave the EU if Brussels fails to surrender control over national borders, law-making and economic and monetary policy.
Most Greeks now say they regret joining the euro currency, while a majority also believe the European Union is on the verge of collapse.
Eurozone countries will compete to leave the single currency next year and this will lead to the euro collapsing, one of the leading candidates to become Italian Prime Minister has warned. Luigi di Maio, a senior member of the populist Five
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Eurozone finance ministers meet Monday as far apart as ever on the debt relief measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund for it to back their bailout programme for Greece.
LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) – European stock markets fell on Thursday, weighed down by a drop in the shares of major airlines after Lufthansa issued a profit warning. The pan-European STOXX 600 index and the similar FTSEurofirst 300 were both
Italy‘s anti-establishment 5-Star movement, buoyed by big gains in local elections, has pressed demands for a referendum on whether to keep the euro, something that would add to a wave of plebiscites shaking politics across Europe. The fact that Britain
The euro currency union has been a disaster that has led the German dominance of the European Union (EU), and is doomed to failure, the former head of the Bank of England has warned. In an extraordinary attack on the
Large denomination physical cash is going to be outlawed if central bankers have their way.
Iran’s re-entry into the oil market, following the end of sanctions over its nuclear program, will also mark the beginning of a major effort to reduce its dependency on the U.S. dollar. Not only is Iran demanding payment in euros instead of dollars for its new oil contracts, but it also wants the billions owed by its trading partners to be remitted in euros.
The eurozone is not expected to welcome any new members in the coming years, as the region’s long crisis seems to have put some countries off, deputy European Commission chief said in a newspaper interview Monday. “No new members are
Greeks are getting around what is delicately described as a “liquidity problem”—i.e. no money—by bringing back the barter system. It even has an Information Age twist: a bartering website with its own virtual currency system, and thousands of users.
Greece should abandon the “catastrophic” euro and return to the drachma, the leader of the country’s new breakaway left wing party has said. Panagiotis Lafazanis, who served as Energy Minister until he was sacked by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, said
In a televised address to his people, he said he had a moral duty to resign, because he was elected (just over half a year ago!) as a staunch opponent of the austerity measures he now believes it necessary to impose, in order to keep Greece in the Euro and secure its future.
In a very long piece on former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis in the New Yorker, the former head of the nation’s economy admits to being surprised both by the Greek people’s rejection of an austerity deal and the Prime Minister’s acceptance of one.
The Greek government appears likely to call a confidence vote following a rebellion among lawmakers from the ruling Syriza party over the country’s new bailout deal, senior ministers said on Monday. Energy Minister Panos Skourletis described such a parliamentary vote
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras confronted a widening rebellion within his leftist Syriza party as parliament voted to approve the country’s third financial rescue by foreign creditors in five years. The vote was held after daybreak on Friday after lawmakers
The Greek stock market was shut down five weeks ago, as the nation spiraled into an economic and political crisis, facing its final debt showdown with European creditors. The market just concluded its first day of trading since the shutdown, and the outlook is grim: the market lost 16.2 percent of its value on the first day back in business.
No scene of political turmoil is complete until somebody gets investigated by prosecutors. Such is the fate of former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who has become a darling of the anti-austerity, hardcore left ever since he departed his office on the eve of the 11th-hour bailout deal.
On Wednesday, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras floated the idea of calling for early elections in Greece to “bolster a parliamentary majority that has been strained by bailout reforms demanded by creditors,” as Reuters put it. Such is the chaos of end-state socialism in Greece that Tsipras really needs his own party to lose in those early elections. The Syriza party is coming unglued over the austerity components of Greece’s latest bailout package.
Greece’s outspoken former finance minister could be about to face treason charges after he revealed details of a plot to hack taxpayer accounts in preparation for the country’s exit from the euro. The country’s Supreme Court has referred Yanis Varoufakis
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may have contained a rebellion in his left-wing Syriza party to win parliamentary approval for a second package of reforms. But as Ciara Lee reports he’s still got a long way to go in order
The Greek parliament last night comfortably passed a second set of reforms in order to continue talks on a new bailout, although the governing Syriza is now deeply divided. Dozens of hardliners with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s party rebelled, effectively
