European Economic Union: where's it at?

Official Euro site
British anti-Euro site
British pro-euro site

1992 the Maastrict treaty was signed handing over more power to the EEC, which became the EU, single currency plan was agreed. Over the life of the Union labour laws have be given minimum standards (which everyone but the UK exceeds), a human rights directive has been enacted by member states, the single european currency has come into opperation for most nations. Common foriegn policy aims and defence aims are starting to be persued.

EU has three descion making bodies, The Commision :- 20 senior politicians from member states (bigger countries have two smaller 1) each given a policy area eg. Romano Prodi (I - President of Comm), Chris Patten (UK :- Deputy pres.), Javier Solana (E - Forign policy) etc. Main policy and decision making body

Council of ministers. actually sseveral councils of ministers of each country and each policy area, heads of government , interior environment, agricuture etc. Make the big descisions over the future of the EU and set the policy direction, (more or less), for the commission

European Parliment:- single chamber and fairly week, can sack the commision, scrutinise decisions , approves the budget etc.

Also there are the european court of justice and the european court of human rights which is the highest court in europe.

More than NAFTA but NAFTA is where europe was in the 70s (the common market) so it could happen. However the EU evolved out of a desire to avoid another european war as much as a desire for easy trade with ones neighbors. And it has to be said that the economic differences between US and Mex are even more than those of europe after WW2. Part of the EU's job is providing devlopment aid to the poorest parts of Europe (South italy, South Wales, the post fascist iberian peninsula etc.)

i heart democracy!

there isn't a rolling EU-economy thread is there?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/world/europe/german-vote-backs-bailout-fund-as-rifts-remain-in-talks.html?hp

― iatee, Thursday, 27 October 2011 03:41 (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Part of the EU's job is providing devlopment aid to the poorest parts of Europe (South italy, South Wales, the post fascist iberian peninsula etc.)

― Ed, Thursday, 27 September 2001 00:00 (10 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol?

I read this morning that a senior advisor to Berlusconi got in a fistfight yesterday?

Yeah, it's annoying that it doesn't appear to have been captured on film, I've only seen stills of it.

http://thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/italy-pensions.jpg

Middle aged men in suits fighting, ye cannae beat it

Well, France and Germany sharing a televised smirk over Berlusconi's ability to deliver economic reforms comes close

For so many Italians that moment must have confirmed the righteousness of every chip they've ever had on their shoulders

"That Sarkozy, comes over here stealing our women..."

Can someone explain something to me?

Greece is now going to default on 50% of its debts. Why didn't it just do this a year and a half ago, when that amount was much smaller?

(I think I know the answer to this, btw)

My theory: the elite big players needed time to get their assets out of Greece. They couldn't all just pull out at once; that would bankrupt Greece immediately. They needed to do it slowly. On its own, Greece couldn't stay solvent long enough for this to succeed. So bailouts were conceived that would keep Greece alive long enough.

The savage imposition of austerity cuts during all this was pure theater, at least from a financial perspective. It sustained the narrative that Greece had to atone for its sins, tighten its belt, and get its books in order, even though everyone knew that default was inevitable.

So: rather than let Greece default immediately and start rebuilding its finances, its public sector and its industry, the EU and the IMF kept it hanging around like a zombie while its most elite creditors extracted the maximum amount of blood.

Now Greece's people have been broken on the wheel and its government committed to further years of austerity, its economy with no chance of recovery. But hey, the big boys avoided their 50% haircut.

By the way, here's a, uh, "handy" graph of Euro money flows (minus the shadow finance system):

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/22/opinion/20111023_DATAPOINTS.html

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/10/22/opinion/20111023_DATAPOINTS/20111023_DATAPOINTS-popup.jpg

I mean, this is already a year out of date, but writing off 50% of 299 billion would seem vastly preferable to writing off 50% of 350 billion (or whatever it is now)

http://www.robertsinn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Greek_debt.png

Technically Greece is not defaulting - it's a "voluntary" haircut. At least, they're hoping it won't count as a default, and therefore won't trigger CDS payouts.

Well it's a default on 50% of their financial obligations. Which could have been done a year and a half ago with much less pain.

And by "pain" I am implying "to society at large" rather than major investors.

I agree it probably would have helped to do it earlier, but I'm not sure it was a conspiracy to help certain well-placed bondholders to get their money out. I think it was mainly the long, slow process of procrastination about dealing with the issue directly on the part of European leaders. In any case, Greece still has a lot of debt and ongoing funding needs which have to be met by outside aid. That would have been the case even with an earlier haircut, I think.

chance to advance cuts in public sector too good to miss imo

same here- the current budget deficit is being treated as the main problem while we burden the nation with 90 billion odd of private debt

Sums it up pretty well:

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Merkel.png

Confess I don't remember her giving a speech on the size of Silvio Berlusconi's penis in April 2010

In the UK, European politics is a bit like one day cricket, we aren't very interested in or good at it and, when you get right down to it, we don't really consider it the real thing

wow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement

Not sure the EU will last if things keep going like this. People are running to the right.

https:/twitter.com/NvOndarza/status/1727620641187082645?s=20

After the Dutch elections and the surprise win of #Wilders, a snapshot into a current research of mine - participation of national-conservative, far-right and other right-wing populists parties in Europe: pic.twitter.com/CRoK9vlPgP

— Nicolai von Ondarza (@NvOndarza) November 23, 2023

This would mark a seismic shift in the global auto industry.

Volkswagen is prepared to let Chinese EV makers take over production lines in Europe that it was planning to shut down. Volkswagen and Audi are looking at potential partnerships with Chinese EV makers—in Europe. pic.twitter.com/V7nahc0rz8

— Kyle Chan (@kyleichan) January 29, 2025

Forgive me my ignorance...is it in place yet, on the way? What exactly is it? And what's the (or your) feeling over there about that? (As a Canadian, one of my concerns isn't as much that border security between us and the big US will be tightened, but rather, that it'll eventually collapse, and we'll transfer to the same currency...I mean, it's a possibility, NAFTA having pushed the door a tad.)
Single currencies spread over different countries...what's the deal?

― scott w, Thursday, September 27, 2001 12:00 AM (twenty-three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Kind of ironic that the Chinese 'communists' wield the tools of capitalism as well or better than the western capitalist imperialists.