Cartoon : 19th December The Economist

The Economist 2008

19th December Charlemagne in the Economist

The magnificence of Nicolas Sarkozy. Charlemagne, The Economist (en)
" ... Amid all this manoeuvring, France often angered small countries, which felt pushed around. A multi-speed Europe is a risky idea that could break up the EU. But Mr Sarkozy was surely right that future global co-operation will take different, ad hoc forms. It is “untrue” that institutions stop Europe from taking decisions, he said. Europe’s problem is a lack of political will. Like Bosquet’s in 1854, Mr Sarkozy’s judgment was both harsh and correct. ..."

Special USA : 31th October

On Rue89.com, a French based web newspaper, I found articles from a very good contributor based in Los Angeles : Armelle Vincent (California Dreaming Blog)

A Battle Mountain, Nevada, « on ne va pas voter pour un nègre ! ».

Bogs' News : 31th October

Friday's thought: The role of experts of international organisations. Julien Frisch, Watching Europe (en)

The MED will not escape the global economic Crisis. Eberhard Rhein, BlogActiv (en)
" ... This recession, which follows the global unleashing of the US banking disaster, will be not much different from any previous economic slowdowns, except its unprecedented global spread. No country, no economic sector, no household will be spared. Everybody will cut back on consumption and investment. Very few farsighted people will have the guts to look b beyond the current gloom and invest in long-term projects.MED countries will be hit in several ways ..."

It tells you something … Richard, The EUReferendum (en)
" ... The Armed Forces are having to spend a massive £700million on tougher armoured vehicles for troops in Afghanistan - while withdrawing an entire fleet of state-of-the art battlefield vehicles after barely two years of use ...
... But in a sign of the increasing ferocity of the fighting against the Taliban, the Viking's armour has proved unable to protect soldiers and Marines from roadside bombs and buried mines, and at least six drivers are understood to have been killed in explosions ..."

Who are the masters now? Richard, The EUReferendum (en)
" ... The regulation of financial services is an exclusive EU competence where the EU has adopted directives and regulations in the field and where there is general EU law that applies to financial firms, for example, the state aid rules. Member states can only legislate in the field covered by a directive (unless explicitly allowed to do so by the directive) in order to implement EU law, to provide further necessary detail or to ensure its proper enforcement, for example by adding sanctions for non-compliance ..."

Tory's finally spot the real economic crisis! Ironies Too (en)
" ... George Osborne, speaking at the LSE this morning, finally seems to have twigged the grave nature of the danger facing the country. Britain can borrow no more! ..."

What on earth. Open Europe Blog (en)
" ... Thanks to Bruno Waterfield's Telegraph blog we learn that “Brussels spin doctors are planning to put a ballot box into orbit” in an attempt to raise the profile of next June’s European elections.The stunt forms part of a £21million PR contract to come up with a "campaign concept and visual identity" for the European Parliament ..."

Whats up with Declan? RZ, Re:Europa (en)
" ... What would be needed is an alternative vision for the insitutional organization of the European Union. But Libertas has nothing to add, and seeks only to destroy ..."

Identity : 31th October 2008

The euro Seeking shelter . The Economist (en)
" ... Even solid ex-communist countries such as Poland want to speed up their preparations to meet the conditions for joining the common currency. And rich EU members that stayed out by choice, Sweden and Denmark, are thinking again. Joining the euro, at least in some eyes, means a loss of national identity ..."

Quote : 31th October Mc Cain endorsed by his Jailers

This one is quite ironically funny :

His Vietnam jailers for McCain
A bit of a double-edged sword, this one. McCain's bravery as a POW is one of his major selling points. But did he really want his former jailers to come out in support of him? Probably not. It didn't stop them though:
"If I had a vote in the U.S., I would choose McCain," beams retired Col. Tran Trong Duyet, the camp's former commander. "I want him in the White House."
From : They're behind you! Endorsements politicians really didn't want. Daniel Finkelstein, The Times (en)
Photo from The New York Times, 2008

Newspapers : 30th October

Winegrowers protest against law which 'could ban wine tasting'. Henry Samuel, The Telegraph (en)
" ... "How can one imagine that French wine, without even talking about its economic weight or its place in our heritage and our cultural identity, can have any real export growth opportunities when everything is done to censor it in our country?" asked Bordeaux mayor, Alain Juppé ..."

Spanish queen breaks silence - and upsets gay groups. Anita Brooks, The Independent (en)
" ... "I can understand, accept and respect that there are people of other sexual tendencies, but should they be proud to be gay? Should they ride on a parade float and come out in protests? If all of those of us who aren't gay came out to protest we would halt traffic," she said in the book, written by Spanish journalist Pilar Urbano ... "If those people want to live together, dress up like bride and groom and marry, they could have a right to do so, or not, depending on the law of their country, but they should not call this matrimony, because it isn't," she is quoted as saying. "There are many possible names: social contract, social union".

Iceland sees rift over EU membership. David Ibison, The FT (en)
" ... The first serious cracks in Iceland’s ruling Independence party on joining the European Union have appeared after its vice-chairman broke with party policy and said the crisis-hit nation should start thinking about membership now.
Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, minister of education, said an application for membership needed to be discussed “in weeks rather than months” ...
... A growing number of Icelanders believe the financial crisis could have been averted – or at least alleviated – if the tiny nation had pursued EU membership earlier and adopted the euro ...

Sarkozy leans on banks over lending. Scheherazade Daneshkhu and Ben Hall, The FT (en)
" ... The president summoned bank executives and Treasury officials to the Elysée palace to spell out in more detail their obligation to increase the amount of credit in the real economy by 3-4 per cent a year in return for €10.5bn ($13.5bn, £8.3bn) in subordinated loans from the government ...
... By putting pressure on the banks to perform, Mr Sarkozy has also deflected attention from the government and made it clear who people should blame if they cannot get credit ...
... The French Banking Federation said banks would pay on average 4 percentage points on top of the refinancing rate for their loans, which is neither punitive nor generous, analysts say.
But the state has adopted a hands-off approach – it has no power to dictate dividend policy, bankers’ pay or take a seat on the banks’ boards. Even the main condition – to maintain outstanding credit growth of 3-4 per cent – does not seem onerous in the context of last year’s 11 per cent rise ..."

EU okays French and Dutch bank schemes. Nikki Tait, The FT (en)
" ... Other schemes which have been given the green light came from the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Portugal. The commission remains in ”close contact” with several other member state governments and more approvals are expected in the coming days.
Both the French and Dutch plans have been approved with conditions. These include requiring the countries to renotify the scheme for approval in 6-8 months time, and to report to the commission on its implementation. In addition, there are undertakings that the countries will not discriminate over which banks can access the schemes, and that they will be open to subsidiaries of foreign banks operating in the respective markets. Similar conditions have been imposed on all the approved schemes ..."

New Anxiety Grips Russia’s Economy. Andrew E Kramer, The NYT (en)
" ... At the start of the global financial crisis, Russian authorities insisted they had ample cash reserves to weather any storm. But as sorrow has succeeded sorrow — plummeting oil prices, a 70 percent descent in stock markets here, a global credit crisis and a slow-motion bank run on this country’s private banks — Russia has had to spend its reserves faster than anybody imagined ... This week’s fall — $31 billion — was the steepest so far .... the question is: How long can Moscow keep this up before its reserves grow thin? ...
... Because so few Russians own stocks, the decline of the markets has not affected most of them directly. Instead, business people who relied on Western bank credit are now in the red, and foreign investors have fled to safer havens ...
... She said friends had decided to buy furniture. “If you have a couch, at least you have a couch, even if you have no money.” ..."

Treaty of Lisbon : 24th Ocotober

La Suède va ratifier le traité de Lisbonne le 20 novembre. Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (en)

" ... Le gouvernement suédois est confiant : le jeudi 20 novembre, le Riksdag, le Parlement monocaméral de la monarchie nordique (photo), devrait voter sans problème la loi de ratification du traité de Lisbonne à la majorité requise des trois quart des votants (nécessaire pour éviter une dissolution de la chambre qui s’impose pour un texte qui modifie la Constitution suédoise) ..."

And So It Ends - Hungary’s Government Announces Foreign Currency Loan Wind-up Package. Edward Hugh, A Fistful of Euros (en)
" ... So here, right now, and on 23 October 2008 in Budapest ends, in my opinion, a fashion for taking out non-local currency denominated loans, which lasted the best part of a decade and sewpt across half a continent, and especially in Central and Eastern Europe . Basically government after government in one CEE country after another will now find themselves with little alternative but to follow Hungary’s lead, as the parent banks turn off the tap on the one hand and the citizens themselves grow more and more nervous on the other ..."

The Sarkozy factor. Stanley Crossick, Bogactiv.eu (en)
" ... We all knew that when trying to second guess the French President, we would be dealing with a “known unknown”. Which Sarkozy would we meet on any issue: the dynamic, highly intelligent and focused one or the egotistical, overbearing impetuous one?
So far, so very good. His leadership on the financial meltdown has been excellent; inevitably bruising some egos. His recent statements suggest that there will be some stormy times ahead, but real debate on real issues is what the EU needs. Some Sarkozy developments ..."

A smell of decadence. Richard, EUReferendum (en)
" ... But the crises are far from over. In anything, we are about to enter a new and more dangerous phase, with not banks at risk of collapse, but whole countries, their currencies and economies.The danger is graphically illustrated today by Anatole Kaletsky, in a story headed, "A new set of financial skittles is ready to fall", as he charts what he calls "a series of powerful aftershocks." This, he writes, "has been shaking Hungary, Ukraine, Russia, Argentina and many other countries on the periphery of the global financial system, threatening not only their economies, but even their systems of government ...
...But, whatever happens, the "Weimar culture" of today's society will glide on serenely unaware of events, locked in its own tiny, obsessive, self-referential world, until the whole edifice crumbles around it. If it is then shocked at the outcome we, at least, will have some idea of the sort of thing that will come next ...

This is not a game. Richard, EUReferendum (en)
" ... Two days in a row, we find ourselves in almost total agreement with a Daily Telegraph columnist. Yesterday, it was Heffer and today it is Iain Martin.The target of our approval today muses on the state into which the Conservative Party has descended, observing thus:
"The metropolitan elite into which the Conservatives are being sucked is not actually particularly interested in ideas, or reform, and, unfortunately, senior Tories have too often given the impression - crucially, not Cameron himself - that they have become so pragmatic that they long ago forgot what they hope to achieve by winning office" ..."

Inquiry into Britain's Finances. Ironies Too (en)
" ... What with the Bank of England forecasting a prolonged downturn, Mr Brown at last acknowledging recession, the imposition of a three-day week at Nissan’s factory in Sunderland and the pound suffering its sharpest fall since the aftermath of Black Wednesday in 1992, it takes a special kind fool to oust Mr Brown’s shortcomings from the headlines ..."

Newspapers : 24th October

What the Poles have done for us. Harry de Quetteville, The Telegraph (en)
" ... Increased prosperity in Poland and the prospect of a severe recession in Britain mean that the economic gap between the two countries is closing fast ...
... The pound has slumped against the Polish zloty. Where Polish labourers working here could once depend on an exchange rate of seven zlotys to the pound, they now get about 4.7. Earlier this year, it hovered around just four. Coupled with average wages nearly doubling back in Poland, the incentive to remain has disappeared ...
... "Culture is a thing that always stays behind," says Joerg Tittel from the Polish Cultural Institute. "Polish culture means hard work. Also, family and personal relationships are very important. It's a far less cynical society than here. We [Poles] are importing old-school notions that history has proven work rather well." ...

Libya looks for bargains in plunging European markets. Rowena Mason, The Telegraph (en)
" ... Farhat Bin Guidara, who sits on the board of the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), said Europe was the fund's top investment priority, followed by the US, because there are bargains among plummeting equities ...
... "We are going more towards sectors such as pharmaceuticals, telecoms, utilities and food manufacture," Mr Bin Guidara said at a conference in Cairo. "We are targeting companies less affected by the recession. Some banks are good opportunities for investment, even with the current crisis." ...
... Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said last week that certain oil-rich nations may be buying stocks "massively" in Europe, forcing Italy's financial regulator to ask European Union countries if it was possible to stop them ..."

Sarkozy makes new Europe power bid. The Independent (en)
" ... Fears – or hopes – that President Sarkozy wants to use the crisis to impose a more “dirigiste” and less free-market approach on European economy will be heightened by another proposal that he tabled today. France is to create a €175bn “sovereign fund” to invest in “strategic” companies threatened by foreign take-over during the crisis. M. Sarkozy wants all EU countries to create similar state investment funds and to use them jointly to protect European companies if necessary ...
... In his speech at Argonay, near Annecy, in the French Alps today, he said: “The technocratic Europe, the apolitical Europe, the debate-free Europe, the Europe which could not take decisions, which could not act is about to give way to a political Europe which can decide, act and think.” ...
... Successive French governments have campaigned for more political control of the Euro and the “Euroland” economy. Successive German governments have rejected the idea, preferring to leave the management of the Euro to the European Central Bank.
German officials fear that Paris sees European economic government through interventionist eyes which will create, in the long run, more problems than they solve. President Sarkozy’s proposal for European “sovereign” funds to protect strategic industries has already set alarm bells jangling in Berlin ..."

Merkel sees red at Sarkozy's plans . Adam Sage, The Times (en)
" ... We cannot leave business at the mercy of predators,” Mr Sarkozy said. “What oil producers do, what China does, what Russia does, there's no reason that France should not do.”
However, critics said that, with budget debt of €1,200 billion, Paris did not have any wealth to spare. In practice, Mr Sarkozy appears intent on merging a variety of existing state investment tools into a fund under the control of the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, the institution managing state savings accounts and pensions. The French Government said that the fund would be worth about €100 billion ..."

The dark secret in the far Right's closet. Hugo Rifkind , The Times (en)
" ... Seems so. Jörg Haider, wherever you are, you're a big disappointment. For a while, I really thought you were the one we were waiting for. You liked the Nazis, you really weren't fond of Jews. You were an anti-immigrant populist, and finally, you seemed destined for real power. You could have inspired thousands. Oh yes. We really could have hated you.
But no. Because you had to be secretly gay, didn't you? You can still be an evil tyrant and be gay, of course. Just ask the Emperor Hadrian, but the secrecy of it, the wife and kids, well, that sadly points towards a degree of inner conflict. It makes you sound like a victim, Jörg. Not a bully. It's bloody annoying ...
... Perhaps the problem is that we don't hear enough from the far Right. Nobody wants to share a platform with them, and nobody wants to invite them on telly. Scrutiny doesn't happen. There is quite a gulf between the guy whom 30,000 people felt they were mourning at his funeral, and the guy who went to bed with his spokesman in the spare room while his wife slept alone ..."

Transcript challenges UK position on Iceland.
"... transcript of a conversation between the UK chancellor, Alistair Darling, and his Icelandic counterpart appears to question the British government’s claim that Iceland had refused to compensate UK savers.
The transcript, obtained by the Financial Times, is of a telephone conversation at the height of the crisis on October 7 between Mr Darling and Árni Mathiesen, Icelandic finance minister ..."

Sarkozy plans new French wealth fund. Ben Hall, The FT (en)
" ... The new fund will focus on shoring up smaller French companies judged strategically important because of their technology or sector. It could take short-term equity stakes or provide reimbursable loans. However, Mr Sarkozy did not say how large the fund will be. It will be financed from the CDC’s own resources, but could receive additional public resources if necessary, he said. CDC’s long-term equity investments were valued at €43bn at the end of 2007 ..."

Blogs : 17th October

Annals of embarrassed academics. P O Neill, A Fistful od Euros (en)
An object of contempt. Richard, EUReferendum (en)
A nice pot of tea. Richard, EUReferendum (en)
Récession: pas de plan de relance européen. Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
Lisbonne: l'Irlande fait lanterner l'Union. Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
Les Vingt-sept appellent à une refondation du capitalisme. Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
Distribution of publications, studies, reports and API. en.europa-eu-audience (en)
Poland airing its dirty laundry in public. Jon Worth, Euroblog (en)
Help without borders between Romania and Hungary. Julien Frisch, Watching Europe (en)
Bulgarian troubles. Vitaliy, The 8th Circle (en)
The Holodomor and German-American relations comments. Vitaliy, The 8th Circle (en)

Lloyds Bank raises mortgage costs. Ironies Too (en) 17th october
" ... These facts are reported in the Daily Mail, linked here, which incredibly also reports many in the UK still believe their houses are rising in value, read here. "

Anglo Disease, The End of The 'Bubbles' Greenspan Illusion. Jerome a Paris, European Tribune (en)
" ... The Greenspan Bubble was a time of great economic "growth", on the back of huge "profits" for the financial sector (which reachd 40% of total corporate profits). The profits proved to be imaginary. Can we also acknowledge that the growth was also imaginary, and thus that "reforms" (deregulation, labor market flexibility, tax cuts) DO NOT WORK, except to channel massive sums towards a happy few!? ..."

Libya Buys Italy As Colonialism Moves Into Reverse Gear. Edward Hugh, A Fistful of Euros (en)
" ... The investment may be worth much as 1.3 billion euros, according to a note by Centrosim analyst Marco Sallustio published this morning. It could allow Libya to obtain a seat on the bank’s board. Central Bank of Libya, Libyan Investment Authority and Libyan Foreign Bank bought shares to boost their holding to 4.2 percent, the investors said in a statement late yesterday. They intend to buy as much as 500 million euros of securities that UniCredit plans to sell over coming months ..."

Hungary Is Headed For A Substantial Recession As Foreign Exchange Lending Seizes Up. Edward Hugh, A Fistful of Euros (en)
" ... Hungary’s agony has continued during the week with both currency and stock markets falling sharply while bankers continue to report acute credit shortages ...
... Standard & Poor’s has announced that it placed its ‘BBB+/A-2′ sovereign credit rating on Hungary on CreditWatch with negative implications ... Hungary has a ‘BBB+’ rating at Fitch and ‘A2′ at Moody’s.
... Key Points in the Crisis ... Hungary has a large debt ... Hungary had an excessively loose fiscal policy between 2001 and 2006 and this boosted the budget deficit to above 9 percent of GDP ... Hungary has been running a current account deficit ... Hungary now needs to refinance its existing household and corporate debt by issuing both forint-denominated and foreign currency bonds ... internal demand in Hungary (construction activity, retail sales etc) has been more or less in contraction mode since the start of 2007 ... The Socialist government rules in a minority at the present time ..."

Major Washington Agency Runs Iceland Look-Alike Casting. Edward Hugh, A Fisful of Euros (en)
" ... “Many central and eastern European countries simply don’t have either the financial strength or the technical expertise to bail out banks,” said Lars Christensen, a senior emerging-markets analyst at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “It’s like an Iceland look-a-like contest and there are a number of candidates looking very fragile at the moment.” ..."

The EU Signals Global Leadership. Eberhard Rhein, Blogactiv.eu (en)
"Crises always have their positive by-effects. Who would have thought only a few months ago that the EU is able to play an effective role in the international arena outside its traditional competence for international trade! ...
... In acting so, the EU has demonstrated its capability of temporarily replacing fledgling US leadership ... We should draw at least four conclusions from these fortunate circumstances ... The EU needs a strong Presidency that is able to act decisively ... The EU must urgently learn to formulate its views on all major international issues ... Beyond its formal institutional structures the EU needs close informal links between what should become a sort of “inner circle” of a few key member countries and the Commission ... It would be naïve to believe that the EU can replace the USA ..."

Vers une représentation de la zone euro au G8? Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
" ... C’est une petite révolution, un pas de plus dans la mise en place d’un gouvernement économique européen. Pour la première fois, il est prévu, dans les conclusions du Conseil européen, que le sommet du G8 ... sera préparé par les Vingt-sept et pas seulement par les quatre pays européens du G8 et la Commission. Jusque-là, Paris et Londres, jaloux de leurs prérogatives, s’opposaient à une telle préparation en commun. Nicolas Sarkozy, à la demande de l’Espagne, a estimé qu’il fallait mettre fin à cette survivance du passé et mutualiser les sièges européens au sein du G8. Bientôt une représentation unique de la zone euro au G8? ..."

Sarkozy, président permanent du conseil européen? (suite). Jean Quatremer, Les Coulisses de Bruxelles (fr)
" ... Plusieurs délégations ont fait part, au cours du sommet européen de mercredi et de jeudi, de leur lassitude face à la présidence semestrielle tournante de l’Union ... Mis à part les Britanniques qui ont toujours du mal à reconnaître que quelque chose de positif puisse venir du continent en général, de la France en particulier, tout le monde reconnaît être séduit par l’activisme et le sens du compromis de Nicolas Sarkozy. « On est à la fois positivement surpris et impressionné par sa présidence », m’a confié un ministre d’un petit pays ..."

Archeology : 17th October

Found: Tomb of the general who inspired 'Gladiator'. Peter Popham, The Independent (en)

" ... The general in Gladiator, named Maximus Decimus Meridius by the film makers, was a favourite of the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius in the late 2nd century AD and fought with him against the fearsome Germanic tribes who threatened to inundate Italy, beating them back and postponing the empire's decline and fall for another century or more ...

... Concerning the true Marcus Nonius Macrinus, we know plenty about his military career ... but tantalisingly little about what made him tick. He came from Brescia in northern Italy, where his was one of the most important families, he began his military career under Aurelius's predecessor Antoninus Pius, and fought valiantly and successfully against the Quadi and the Marcommani ...

Newspapers : 17th October

IMF ready to help stabilise Ukraine. The FT (en)
EU leaders demand recession safeguards. The FT (en)
Germany slashes 2009 growth forecast. The FT (en)

Christine Lagarde warned Hank Paulson to bail out Lehman Brothers. Henry Samuel and Harry Wallop, The Telegraph (en)
" ... Sources close to Mrs Lagarde said that she had called the US Treasury Secretary - a close personal friend - well before the ailing bank's collapse imploring him to act, but he chose not to ...
... Mrs Lagarde, a perfect English speaker, said that governments must be "vigilant" over the health of hedge funds. "Initially everybody thought the hedge fund sector would be the first one to actually cause the collapse. They are vastly unregulated, they have been operating at the fringes, at the margin, and we need to be careful that there is no contamination effect," ... gave no concrete proposals as to how the situation could be fixed. "One thing at a time; We are working on that at the moment but I don't have the tools and the fixing and the solutions on hand," ....
... She has asked European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet to come up with a way of measuring the true liquidity among banks, which she said could not be seen by looking at stock exchanges. "This is not an easy index to communicate on, you need measure spreads of money markets. I suggested to Jean-Claude Trichet to think about an instrument that helps measure liquidity of system," ..."

Crunch resurrects Marx.Erik Kirschbaum , The Independent (en)
" ... His 1867 critical analysis of capitalism, Das Kapital, has risen from the publishing graveyard to become an improbable best-seller for the academic publisher, Karl-Dietz-Verlag.
"Everyone thought there would never again be any demand for Das Kapital, the managing director, Joern Schue-trumpf said. He has sold 1,500 copies so far this year, triple the number sold in all of 2007 and a 100-fold increase since 1990" ..."

Sarkozy over-reacts to French anthem incident . Charles Bremner, The Times (en)
" ... For 24 hours, the top story in France has not been the slumping markets or President Sarkozy's crusade to rebuild the world economy. It has been the fit of indignation, led by Sarkozy, over the fans who jeered the national anthem before the start of the match at the Stade de France on Tuesday night ...
... The Communist leader was one of the few eminent politicians to break ranks with the cross-party outrage. As well as condemning the jeering, people should ask why thousands of young French people boo the national anthem, she said. "Perhaps it is because they are suffering a lot. That they have the impression that they are stigmatised although they are in France, study here and work here." ...
... Le Monde has come out with a tough editorial against the excessive response to the footbal episode. It asks: Is it worthy of the main public leaders to turn a deaf ear to what this jeering expresses: the rage of the banlieues, the feeling of rejection and despair of the young descendants of immigrants, the searing and corrosive failure to integrate them into the community of the republic? ...

Euro stability helps to forge common goal. Ralph Atkins, The FT (en)
" ... Europe faced the full blast of the financial crisis this week, but for the continent’s monetary union it has not been all bad news.
The safety offered by the euro, which in its 10 years has become a stable, global currency, has suddenly made it more attractive ...
... Brian Cowen, Ireland’s premier, struck a similar chord on Thursday, saying his country “would have been in a far worse position had it not been for our membership of the EU, the euro and the role the European Central Bank played” ...
... In one respect life may also have become easier for eurozone policymakers. Until recently different countries performed differently ... Now, argues Holger Schmieding, economist at Bank of America, the threats to real economies are common – making it easier, for instance, for the European Central Bank to follow a one-size-fits-all interest rate policy. “For the internal cohesion of the eurozone it has not been bad,” he said ..."

Editorial comment: Diversity in unity. The FT (en)
" ... Some politicians have hailed this brisk action by the bigger member states as a fine model of European co-operation. In Brussels-speak, this was a triumph of inter-governmentalism. Who needs those fastidious commissioners in Brussels? Why worry about reviving the stillborn Lisbon reform treaty? National governments have proved that they can swiftly act in their collective self-interest when the occasion demands.
This may be true, but only up to a point, as the other business on the EU council agenda showed. As the economic slowdown grips Europe, the risks of fragmentation between member states are growing ever more acute. Poorer countries fear the EU’s environmental policies will unfairly hobble them. A dangerous economic faultline could easily develop between the 15 eurozone countries and the other 12 other EU members ..."

Iceland accuses UK of financial ‘siege’. Sarah O’Connor, The FT (en)
" .. “It seems to me the English banks and government is holding Iceland in a siege,” said Hyörtur Giflafonsson, owner of Örgovik, a fish exporter. “If this siege continues we will be thrown backwards 20 years.”
The central bank has asked all commercial banks abroad to route payments through it, a move it hopes will restore trust. However, several exporters said UK banks were refusing even to ship money via the central bank. Mr Giflafonsson said one customer in London was trying for the fourth time to find a bank willing to transfer his payment ..."

Canada and Europe Ponder Trade Pact. Ian Austen, The NYT (en)
" ... Following a meeting in Quebec City, Canada’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who is the president of the European Union as well, are expected to sign an agreement for preliminary negotiations meant to create a trade pact between Canada and Europe that would be even more sweeping than the North American Free Trade Agreement.
A person who is familiar with the government’s plan, but who did not want to be identified as upstaging an announcement by two heads of state, said the agreement would begin “a scoping exercise leading to the launch of talks.” ...
... Although proximity has made the United States Canada’s top trading partner, there have been many attempts to reduce the country’s economic dependence on its neighbor to the south ...
... Trade with the United States made up about 37 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product in 1990 and rose above 65 percent 10 years later ..."

Infography : Unhappy Anniversary 11th October

Unhappy anniversary: From raging bull to mauling bear, down market hits 1-year mark. David Carpenter, Newser (en) "... A year ago Thursday, Wall Street was celebrating the fifth anniversary of a bull market that had created $10 trillion in shareholder wealth since 2002. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 index hit all-time highs on Oct. 9, 2007 ..."

Here a Graphics from the WSJ comparing numbers after the 7 trillions lost in a Year ...

WSJ 2008

Identity : 10th October

Euro parliament adopts flag and anthem. The Telegraph (en)
" ... Beethoven's Ode to Joy, the final movement of his choral ninth symphony, will be used to open the parliament after each election and for formal sittings where heads of state are present. The blue flag with 12 gold stars will be flown on all parliament buildings and displayed in parliament meeting rooms and official events ...

Taking the Union out of Europe. The Telegraph (en)

" ... The reassertion of national interest will hearten Euro-sceptics. But, by the same token, it will prompt federalists to urge acceleration towards "ever closer union", initially by adopting the Lisbon Treaty which the Irish rejected in June ..."

Blogs : 10th October

Multilingual Web Sites. en.europa-eu-audience (en)
" ... Multilingual Web Sites (MWS) refers to sites that contain multilingual parallel texts; i.e., texts that are translations of each other ..."

A symbolic vote. Open Europe Blog (en)

" ... The motto, "United in diversity", will be reproduced on all Parliament's official documents.As PA reports, in reality the vote changes little - the flag and the anthem have been the EU's symbols since 1985 ..."

Yushchenko Dissolves Parliament (full speech) and the UKL#430. Vitaliy, The 8th Circle

" ... Yushchenko’s full speech announcing the dissolution of the Ukrainian parliament is posted below ...."

Blogs : EU In The Mess Update 10th October

Frosty relations in the north Atlantic. P O Neill, A Fistful of Euros (en)
" ... Asset freezes. Threats of litigation. Expressions of mystification about the intentions of a foreign government. The latest round with another axis of evil country? No: the current state of relations between the UK and Iceland ..."

Follow me! Richard, EUReferendum (en)
" ... Meanwhile, Tony McNulty, the employment minister, admitted that Britain was heading for a recession. Ministers said contingency plans were being drawn up to cope with large-scale unemployment, including more "rapid response" teams to be sent to the worst hit areas. Commentators are saying the world is "on a knife-edge". And Gordon Brown says the rest of the world should follow "his" example. Funnily enough ... immediately after its headline report on the financial situation, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme ran a feature on "Dr Death" who is in London to promote his do-it-yourself suicide kit ..."

A fascinating insight. Richard, EUReferendum (en)
" ... commercial banks made it impossible for the FSA to understand their business by embarking on ever more complex schemes and developing more and more complex products. The regulator could not keep pace. It could not hire people with the necessarily extraordinary skill base to evaluate the risks in these hideous products. Essentially the FSA could not regulate the unregulatable. But, concludes Moulton, "It's obvious now - the FSA should have stopped banks from doing these absurd things." ..."

Hungary in Danger of Bankrupcy. Dodo, European Tribune (en)
" ... Experts and the national bank claim that Hungary's financial situation is still sound and can weather the storm, and that we are seeing collateral damage from the global panic. Still, one hard fact remains: in the credit crunch, countries with higher budget deficits will have a hard time finding financing ...
... Hungary suffered a runaway budget deficit in recent years, peaking at 9.2% of GDP in 2006 (see Eurostat). It was just reduced to an expected 3.5% of GDP this year.
But, in a crisis, investors will pull back to the safest assets, so even -3.5% with positive trend may not seem as manageable ..."

Avoiding The Great Depression II. Eurosoc 2 , EuroSoc (en)
" ... Closer to events in London, Hamish McCrae lists six factors which he says show that we're not going back to the Thirties.
"First, what is happening now follows a long period of rising prosperity, the longest such period the world has ever known. In the 1930s the world was still recovering from the destruction of half the accumulated wealth of the 19th century.
"Second, there were deep rivalries and even hatreds between major nations that made economic co-operation virtually impossible and encouraged the rise of trade barriers and competitive devaluations. As a result world trade halved, making recovery very difficult ..."

Martti Ahtisaari's Peace Nobel Prize: Maybe not for Kosovo. Julien Frisch, Watching Europe (en)
" ... His last big project was to bring Serbia and Kosovo to an agreement - an effort that failed and led to today's situation of a partically recognised country in conditions that are "peacefull" only in the sense that there is no war ..."

Newspapers : 10th October

Finland’s Ahtisaari wins Nobel Peace Prize. The FT (en)
" ... Finland’s former president Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for a long career of peace mediation work including a 2005 accord between Indonesia and rebels in its Aceh province ..."

EU to debate ties with Russia. Tony Barber, The FT (en)
" ... European Union leaders will debate next week whether to reward Russia for withdrawing its forces from security zones in Georgia by resuming talks with the Kremlin on a long-term partnership agreement ...
... Some EU governments, such as Germany and Italy, are unhappy with the idea of “punishing” Russia because they blame Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, for ordering an attack on South Ossetia before the Russian invasion ..."

Newspapers : EU in Financial Turmoil 10th October

Geir Haarde, profile of a prime minister. Rowena Mason, The Telegraph (en)

Gordon Brown to sue Iceland over banking crisis. Christopher Hope, James Kirkup and Jon Swaine, The Telegraph (en)
" ... Mr Brown told a press conference: "We are taking legal action against the Icelandic authorities. We are showing by our action that we stand by people who save." ..."
(Pathetic Comment for a Former Chancellor of the Exchequer who supported this way of doing business for more than 10 years)

Barclays bankers enjoy £500,000 corporate trip amid bail-out. Alastair Jamieson , The Telegraph (en)
" ... Eighty bankers are entertaining 100 clients and their partners at the 16th-century Villa D'Este in Cernobbio. Although such corporate largesse is commonplace in the investment banking industry, the timing could not have been worse for Barclays – one of the eight banks that may take a share of the government's £500bn taxpayer-funded bailout ..."

City bonuses worth £3.5bn despite financial crisis. Robert Winnett, The Telegraph (en)
" ... A number of secretive City traders are thought to have made tens of millions of pounds by betting that banking and other shares would fall this year. Regulators stepped in last month to ban short-selling - a technique used by traders to profit as shares fall in value ..."

UK and Iceland clash on crisis. Tom Braithwaite, Jim Pickard and Alex Barker, The FT (en)

" ... Geir Haarde also criticised the British government for using anti-terror laws to freeze £4bn of bank assets. “Not many governments would have taken that very kindly,” he said.
The unprecedented move – criticised by legal experts as a distortion of the law’s intent – was used to protect the deposits of British account holders ..."

Merkel’s wake-up call alarms German savers. Bertrand Benoit , The FT (en)

" ... Anecdotal evidence shows the surprise statement this week from Angela Merkel, chancellor, that all savings were safe was a wake-up call for a country that had treated the global financial crisis as a remote threat on a par with climate change or jihadist terrorism ...

... data showing an increasing demand for cash in the eurozone were the main trigger for Ms Merkel’s guarantee announcement, Stefan Olbermann, a finance ministry spokesman ... "

Nations Weigh Global Action to Crisis. Mark Landler and Edmund L Andrews, The NYT (en)

" ... The British and American plans, though far from identical, have two common elements according to officials: injection of government money into banks in return for ownership stakes and guarantees of repayment for various types of loans ...

... Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain made the case, in a letter to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, for another option gaining favor among economists — guaranteeing short- and medium-term loans between banks ... "

Video : 3rd October 'Do Not Vote!' Campaign, USA 2008

Celebrities made an ironical call for Voting for the next Presidential Elections.

As Julien Frisch mentioned in his post, Shouldn't we be doing the same for the next European Elections ??? ... as in the current situation, the turn over is predicted to be very low.

Video found via, Watching Europe