Farewell to Brussels

July 22, 2010 3:07 pm by Tony Barber

For better or worse, my time is up as Brussels bureau chief for the Financial Times, so this is my last post on this blog. My successor, Peter Spiegel, will arrive in September. I wish him, and all the readers and contributors to the Brussels Blog, the very best.

Leaving Brussels after three years feels rather like exiting an intensely gripping drama at the end of Act III instead of staying to the end. The fate of Polonius in Hamlet comes to mind. What was his sententious advice to his son? ”Neither a borrower nor a lender be/ For loan oft loses both itself and friend/ And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” Now there’s something for Angela Merkel and George Papandreou to chew on.

In Brussels there are days when you feel the European Union is a magnificent creation, one of the most inspired experiments in mankind’s history. Then there are days when you feel disgusted by the pettiness, the short-sightedness, the incoherence of it all. As followers of this blog will know, I count myself a European in heart and soul and I desperately want the EU to succeed.

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Posted in EU | Permalink

Rivalries blur EU’s focus on improving economic governance

July 13, 2010 11:03 am by Tony Barber

Reforming the management of economic policy, primarily in the eurozone but also in the European Union as a whole, is without question one of Europe’s highest priorities. Few steps would do more to raise the EU’s credibility with the US, China and the rest of the world than concerted action to improve European economic performance and make the euro area function more efficiently as a unit. Much of this comes under the heading of “economic governance”. But the difficulty is that it is not always easy to figure out which Europeans are in charge of the process.

On Monday Herman Van Rompuy, the EU’s full-time president, chaired the latest meeting of a task force on economic governance that he was chosen last March to lead. The task force, consisting largely of EU finance ministers, came up with various sensible ideas on tightening sanctions (financial and non-financial) on countries that break European fiscal rules. Task force members also want to strengthen the monitoring of macroeconomic imbalances, such as the gap between large current account surpluses in Germany and deficits in southern Europe.

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Tags: Angela Merkel, Economic governance, EU Commission, EU fiscal policy, European monetary union, eurozone, Van Rompuy
Posted in Economic governance, EU Commission, Euro, Fiscal policy | Permalink

Taking the politics out of pension reform isn’t the answer

July 7, 2010 12:54 pm by Tony Barber

Raising the retirement age and cutting back pension entitlements are possibly the most unpopular measures that any modern European government can take for the purpose of stabilising the public finances. From an individual’s point of view, the advantages seem remote or non-existent and the disadvantages all too immediate. From the point of view of a ruling political party seeking re-election, it’s much the same story. This explains why there is growing interest among European Union policymakers in the idea of “de-politicising” the pensions issue, by making certain changes to pension systems automatic and not subject to endless, acrimonious political struggles.

Take a Green Paper published today by the European Commission. A Green Paper is a document designed to stimulate public discussion, not make firm policy proposals, so the Commission steers a cautious path through the issues. Nonetheless, it observes in one passage: “A number of member-states have demonstrated that a promising policy option for strengthening the sustainability of pension systems is an automatic adjustment that increases the pensionable age in line with future gains in life expectancy.”

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Tags: EU fiscal policy, pension reform
Posted in Economic growth, Fiscal policy | Permalink

Greece to the herd: Don’t assume debt default is inevitable

July 6, 2010 10:53 am by Tony Barber

Financial commentators, like financial markets, move in herds. Is the herd wrong about Greece?

The herd takes the view that Greece will sooner or later have to restructure its debt. According to herd thinking, the €110bn rescue plan arranged for Greece by its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund merely buys some time for the Greek government – and for its European bank creditors. The herd predicts a “haircut”, or loss, for Greek bondholders of 30 to 50 per cent of the face value of their bonds. All this is likely to happen towards the end of 2011 or in early 2012, says the herd.

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Tags: EU fiscal policy, European monetary union, eurozone, Greece, IMF, sovereign debt crisis
Posted in Euro, Fiscal policy | Permalink

Threats to EU single market lurk behind the financial crisis

July 5, 2010 9:47 am by Tony Barber

Since the start of this year, Europe’s financial crisis has been given many labels - a sovereign debt crisis, a banking sector crisis, a crisis of the euro itself. But rarely is it asked whether the European Union’s single market, which is the foundation stone of EU integration in the modern era, is under serious threat.

One person who has asked this question is Mario Monti, the distinguished former EU commissioner for the internal market and competition policy. In May he presented a report on how to reinvigorate the single market to Commission president José Manuel Barroso, who had commissioned it from him last year. It delivered a blunt message. Many Europeans – citizens as well as political leaders – looked at the single market with “suspicion, fear and sometimes open hostility”, Monti said. “The single market today is less popular than ever, while Europe needs it more than ever.”

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Tags: Barroso, EU economic policy, EU single market, Mario Monti, Michel Barnier
Posted in Economic growth, EU Commission | Permalink

The flame of Turkey’s EU membership bid burns ever lower

June 30, 2010 12:55 pm by Tony Barber

Turkey’s bid to join the European Union is expected to make a little progress today. I stress “a little”. In most respects, the cause of Turkish membership of the EU is in worse shape than at any time since EU governments recognised Turkey as an official candidate in 2004.

The progress, minimal though it is, takes the form of an agreement by the EU and Turkey to open formal talks on food security. This is one of the 35 chapters, or policy areas, that a country must complete before it can join the EU. It means that Turkey will have opened 13 chapters in total. Of these, however, only one chapter has been closed. If this is progress, the snail is king of the race track.

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Tags: EU enlargement, EU foreign policy, Iran, Turkey
Posted in Enlargement, EU, EU Commission, Foreign policy | Permalink

Euro’s weakness is a mixed blessing for the eurozone

June 28, 2010 11:13 am by Tony Barber

The euro has fallen by almost 20 per cent against the dollar since last November, and the general view in Europe is that this is good news – indeed, one of the few pieces of good economic news to have come Europe’s way recently. The argument goes as follows: euro weakness = more European exports = higher European economic growth.

Unfortunately, the real world is not as simple as that. Inside the 16-nation eurozone, not every country benefits equally from the euro’s decline on foreign exchange markets. As Carsten Brzeski of ING bank explains, what matters is not so much bilateral exchange rates as real effective exchange rates. These take into account relative price developments and trade patterns, and their message for the eurozone is far from reassuring.

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Tags: competitiveness, Euro, European monetary union, eurozone, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain
Posted in Economic governance, Economic growth, EU, Euro | Permalink

Rocky road ahead for Iceland’s EU membership bid

June 24, 2010 11:08 pm by Tony Barber

After spending three days in Reykjavik and the northern town of Akureyri, just below the Arctic Circle, I am starting to get the feeling that Iceland’s entry into the European Union is anything but guaranteed. I have met government ministers and officials who are eager to steer their country into the EU. But I have met a fairly wide range of private sector businessmen, teachers, students and other Icelanders who are either flatly opposed or at best non-committed.

The most passionate opposition I’ve encountered has come from representatives of the powerful fisheries industry and the less powerful but politically influential agricultural lobby. Here’s what the manager of the national dairy farmers’ association said: “If we entered the EU, our tariffs would have to go. Our home market share would drop by 25 to 50 per cent. The number of farmers would drop by 60 to 70 per cent. EU membership would deal us a tremendous blow, there’s no doubt about it.”

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Tags: EU enlargement, Iceland
Posted in Enlargement, EU | Permalink

White nights of Reykjavik throw little light on EU entry

June 23, 2010 12:07 am by Tony Barber

Will Iceland really join the European Union? I have come to Reykjavik in search of answers. In one sense, it’s the right time to be here: the skies are white for almost 24 hours a day at this time of year, appearing to throw light on everything. But in another sense this promises to be a frustrating trip - Iceland itself doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be in the EU or not.

The opinion polls are not good. After a long period in which a solid majority of about 60 per cent of Icelanders supported EU membership, things have turned upside down in recent months. Support for EU entry was estimated to be as low as 28 per cent in one recent survey, whilst opposition now runs at about 60 per cent. If Iceland is serious about joining the EU, it will have to hold a referendum, so these numbers matter. Right now, however, we are a long way from a referendum – at least two years, and perhaps longer. Much can change.

Enthusiasm for the EU was high when Iceland’s banking system and currency collapsed in 2008, prompting the introduction of a drastic austerity programme conducted under the beady eye of the International Monetary Fund. But Iceland’s dispute with the UK and the Netherlands over how to repay British and Dutch savers who lost their money in Icesave, the failed online Icelandic bank, has changed public opinion.

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Tags: EU enlargement, Financial crisis, Iceland
Posted in Enlargement, EU | Permalink

France’s fiscal troubles weaken case against German austerity

June 21, 2010 11:37 am by Tony Barber

There is a gulf separating Germany from France on how to cure the eurozone’s ills, and it does not bode well.

Germany identifies the eurozone’s chief problems as excessive budget deficits, weak fiscal rules and a general culture of over-spending in the region’s weaker countries. The remedy, say the Germans, lies in austerity measures, tougher punishments for rule-breakers and better housekeeping. Germany is so sure that it has got the answer right that it is introducing a €80bn programme of tax increases and spending cuts – not because the German economy desperately needs such measures, but because the government in Berlin wants to set an example to other eurozone states.

France knows the eurozone has a fiscal problem, but it disagrees with the German view that immediate and drastic austerity measures are essential. The French contend that, if budget hawks win the day, Europe’s fragile economic recovery will fade away and there may even be another recession (as Paul Krugman notes, an example often cited in support of this argument is the “Roosevelt recession” of 1937, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, having just about dragged the US economy out of the Great Depression, inadvertently caused another economic downturn with a premature attempt to balance the budget).

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