Showing posts with label EUROPEAN UNION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EUROPEAN UNION. Show all posts
Friday, July 19, 2013
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Nigel Farage Laughs Heartily at EU's Nobel Peace Prize
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Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Monday, December 6, 2010
IMF urges EU to boost bail-out fund to stem crisis
The International Monetary Fund has called on the EU authorities to boost their rescue fund and step up bond purchases to insure against a fresh financial crisis in the eurozone periphery.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Telegraph
“The recovery could still stay the course, but this scenario could now easily be derailed by the renewed financial market turmoil,” the IMF says in a report for eurozone finance ministers today, according to Reuters. “The sovereign and financial market storm affecting the periphery constitutes a severe downside risk.”
The IMF said the EU’s €500bn bail-out machinery was not enough to cope with the magnitude of the threat as Spain and even Italy start to come under pressure.
“There is also a strong case for increasing the resources available for this safety net and making their use more flexible, including for the purpose of providing more effective support to banking systems,” it said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, will present the report on the economy of the 16 countries using the euro at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers and Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president, on Monday.
The fund said the ECB’s bond purchases should be “expanded” to restore calm. The ECB bought Portuguese and Irish bond markets last week, forcing down spreads dramatically in a “short squeeze” against speculators in small illiquid markets. This merely buys time.
It is does not solve the structural problem that a large part of the eurozone faces a huge financing need yet has lost reliable access to capital markets. The ECB has so far ruled out mass purchases of Spanish and Italian bonds, bowing to a de facto German veto.
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Telegraph
“The recovery could still stay the course, but this scenario could now easily be derailed by the renewed financial market turmoil,” the IMF says in a report for eurozone finance ministers today, according to Reuters. “The sovereign and financial market storm affecting the periphery constitutes a severe downside risk.”
The IMF said the EU’s €500bn bail-out machinery was not enough to cope with the magnitude of the threat as Spain and even Italy start to come under pressure.
“There is also a strong case for increasing the resources available for this safety net and making their use more flexible, including for the purpose of providing more effective support to banking systems,” it said.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF, will present the report on the economy of the 16 countries using the euro at a meeting of eurozone finance ministers and Jean-Claude Trichet, the European Central Bank president, on Monday.
The fund said the ECB’s bond purchases should be “expanded” to restore calm. The ECB bought Portuguese and Irish bond markets last week, forcing down spreads dramatically in a “short squeeze” against speculators in small illiquid markets. This merely buys time.
It is does not solve the structural problem that a large part of the eurozone faces a huge financing need yet has lost reliable access to capital markets. The ECB has so far ruled out mass purchases of Spanish and Italian bonds, bowing to a de facto German veto.
Read Full Article
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Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Ireland's Debt Servitude
Telegraph
Stripped to its essentials, the €85bn package imposed on Ireland by the Eurogroup and the European Central Bank is a bail-out for improvident British, German, Dutch, and Belgian bankers and creditors.
The Irish taxpayers carry the full burden, and deplete what remains of their reserve pension fund to cover a quarter of the cost.
This arrangement – I am not going to grace it with the term deal – was announced in Brussels before the elected Taoiseach of Ireland had been able to tell his own people what their fate would be.
The Taoiseach said afterwards that Brussels had squelched any idea of haircuts for senior bondholders: a lack of “political and institutional” support in his polite words: or “they hit the roof”, according to leaks.
One can see why the EU authorities reacted so vehemently. Such a move at this delicate juncture would have set off an even more dramatic chain reaction in the EMU debt markets than the one we are already seeing.
It is harder to justify why the Irish should pay the entire price for upholding the European banking system, and why they should accept ruinous terms.
I might add that if it is really true that a haircut on the senior debt of Anglo Irish, et al, would bring down the entire financial edifice of Europe, then how did any of these European banks pass their stress tests this summer, and how did the EU authorities ever let the matter reach this point? Brussels cannot have it both ways.
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Citizens of Europe Rage Against the Machine
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Nigel Farage: Why We Would be Better Off Out of This Chaos
UK Express
IS it time to leave the European Union, would we be Better Off Out? As the Daily Express courageously insists: Of course we would.
Over the last 20 years I have been promoting the very simple idea that our country would be doing itself, its people and the rest of the world a great favour by returning to self-governance. And this is why.
We would be Better Off Out financially by simply not paying the £48million a day to the European Union. This would be money better spent at home with priorities set by our elected representatives, rather than returned in part with European conditions.
We would be Better Off Out financially minus the dead weight of regulation that makes the life of our businesspeople a misery.
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RELATED ARTICLE:
Citizens of Europe Rage Against the Machine
RELATED VIDEO
Farage to EU: Who the hell do you think you are?
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Monday, November 29, 2010
Default! Say the Irish People
Jody Corcoran
Irish Independent
A SUBSTANTIAL majority of the Irish people wants the State to default on debts to bondholders in the country's stricken banks, according to a Sunday Independent/Quantum Research poll.
The finding that 57 per cent favour and 43 per cent oppose default reflects a growing view among policymakers and opinion formers that the State simply cannot support the debt burden it has taken on.
The telephone poll of 500 people nationwide has also found that a majority of around two-thirds opposes the headline measures in the Government's four-year plan.
Following Fianna Fail's loss of the by-election in Donegal last week, the findings will add to political uncertainty as an austerity Budget approaches on December 7.
As Ireland awaited the fine details of the international bailout, which are expected tonight, it was learned last night that the Irish delegation negotiating with the EU-IMF last week raised the issue of default.
"The Europeans went completely mad," a senior government source said.
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Citizens of Europe Rage Against the Machine
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Italian students storm Tower of Pisa, Colosseum
(Reuters) - Italian students stormed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Rome's Colosseum and blocked roads and railways Thursday in protest against university reform planned by Silvio Berlusconi's struggling government.
The measures, currently before parliament, include spending cuts and time limits on research.
Thousands of students marched in cities around Italy and occupied university buildings. One was injured during clashes with police in Florence, news agencies reported, but demonstrations were largely peaceful.
"We will block this reform," students chanted outside parliament buildings, waving smoke flares and banners.
They breached security at the Tower of Pisa, flying banners from the summit, and jumped over entrance turnstiles at the Colosseum.
The protest was the latest in a wave of demonstrations against austerity measures in Europe. In London, thousands of people rallied Wednesday against a rise in university fees.
The unrest is a further blow for Berlusconi's troubled government, already undermined by a weak economy and a succession of scandals, and facing two confidence votes in parliament on December 14 that could trigger early elections.
Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini says the reforms, which are aimed at saving several billion euros by the end of 2012, will create a more merit-based system.
But opponents say universities already have a funding shortfall of 1.35 billion euros next year and the planned cuts will further weaken Italy's higher education system.
The government was defeated in a parliamentary vote on Thursday on an amendment to the reform. Berlusconi no longer has a built-in majority in the lower house of parliament because of coalition infighting.
Gelmini said the amendment would be of little significance, but said she may withdraw the reform, due for a final vote on November 30, if more substantive modifications are passed.
Pier Luigi Bersani, leader of the main center-left opposition Democratic Party called for it to be scrapped immediately.
"Let's start discussing how we can correct the distortions of this law and how we can find resources to support the right to study and research," he said.
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Sunday, November 28, 2010
Citizens of Europe Rage Against the Machine
Austerity measures drive 100,000 protesters to the streets of Ireland, another 100,000 in Italy as Europeans continue to rage against the international banking machine.
Eric Blair
Activist Post
The international bankster machine seeking to colonize Western nations through debt is now meeting resistance from Greece, to France, to Ireland, to Italy, to Spain, to Portugal, and to the U.K.
These new protests in Ireland and Italy follow a crippling 2-week strike in France where citizens took over fuel refineries and other vital infrastructure, more strikes in Greece which took over the Acropolis, and a massive student protest in the UK that caused physical damage to government buildings. All of these protests were sparked by governments reducing benefits or increasing fees and taxes on a population that had little to do with the private gambling of banks.
These European protests are intensifying as the international bankers move to collect their "pound of flesh" through austerity and sale of public assets. As Europeans are becoming acutely aware of the dubious plan to loot them and the anger at their corrupt elected officials for bowing to banks has reached a boiling point. In all cases the governments are enforcing austerity measures on the people after the private banks over-leveraged themselves to the breaking point, threatening to bring down entire nations.
For years the bankers churned out easy credit to these nations while they invested public and private funds into worthless credit default swaps and derivatives. As if orchestrated to perfection, they pulled the plug on those toxic assets, essentially bankrupting the more fragile developed countries, followed by calling their debts due. Now they're demanding that European governments be forced into IMF bailouts that impose drastic austerity measures on the populace.
By forcing tax increases and reducing benefits for the citizens of sovereign nations, the IMF is essentially rewriting their laws. Well, it appears that the citizens of Europe have had enough. The massive protests, strikes, and riots that have swept through the streets of many European countries have resulted in growing calls to reject the bailout money used to prop up failed banks and corrupt governments. The Irish people prefer to default on the debt which drove the EU 'completely mad'.
The protesters are getting support from someone who is experiencing the outcome of resisting public bailouts of private banking debts. The President of Iceland recently remarked that they're in much better shape than Ireland because they let the private banks fail and their currency naturally devalued, allowing them to regain some competitiveness relative to their neighbors:
Nigel Farage speaks with such confidence against the EU, as he should, given that a recent mainstream media poll showed 99% of UK citizens want out of the Euro. The battle against the banking cartel is clearly happening with Europe as the spearhead. As Europeans continue to fight back against corrupt international banksters, lazy Americans continue to live with a much lower standard of living and do nothing to challenge the system.
The rage in Europe and quiet streets in America is causing the euro to fall against the dollar. The dollar was all but declared dead in the lead-up to the Fed's QE2, but now the eurozone debt crisis has taken center stage. The European Council is set to meet again this December to amend the Lisbon Treaty to essentially legalize more bailouts. Some insiders are calling it an impossible mission to get all European countries to agree on fair amendments. The outcome of these December meetings will assuredly be pivotal in determining whether the euro "experiment" will survive.
If it crumbles, so then does the structure for a global currency. Indeed, the front lines in the battle to conquer plans for a global currency and the end of sovereign nation states is being waged by the angry citizens of Europe. Bravo comrades, keep up the fight!
RECENTLY by Eric Blair:
Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in Tyranny
Eurozone Debt Crisis 2.0: Dollar Sucks Less Than Euro, Again
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Live Superfoods It is time to Wake Up! You too, can join the "Global Political Awakening"!
Print this page
Activist Post
The international bankster machine seeking to colonize Western nations through debt is now meeting resistance from Greece, to France, to Ireland, to Italy, to Spain, to Portugal, and to the U.K.
These new protests in Ireland and Italy follow a crippling 2-week strike in France where citizens took over fuel refineries and other vital infrastructure, more strikes in Greece which took over the Acropolis, and a massive student protest in the UK that caused physical damage to government buildings. All of these protests were sparked by governments reducing benefits or increasing fees and taxes on a population that had little to do with the private gambling of banks.
These European protests are intensifying as the international bankers move to collect their "pound of flesh" through austerity and sale of public assets. As Europeans are becoming acutely aware of the dubious plan to loot them and the anger at their corrupt elected officials for bowing to banks has reached a boiling point. In all cases the governments are enforcing austerity measures on the people after the private banks over-leveraged themselves to the breaking point, threatening to bring down entire nations.
For years the bankers churned out easy credit to these nations while they invested public and private funds into worthless credit default swaps and derivatives. As if orchestrated to perfection, they pulled the plug on those toxic assets, essentially bankrupting the more fragile developed countries, followed by calling their debts due. Now they're demanding that European governments be forced into IMF bailouts that impose drastic austerity measures on the populace.
By forcing tax increases and reducing benefits for the citizens of sovereign nations, the IMF is essentially rewriting their laws. Well, it appears that the citizens of Europe have had enough. The massive protests, strikes, and riots that have swept through the streets of many European countries have resulted in growing calls to reject the bailout money used to prop up failed banks and corrupt governments. The Irish people prefer to default on the debt which drove the EU 'completely mad'.
The protesters are getting support from someone who is experiencing the outcome of resisting public bailouts of private banking debts. The President of Iceland recently remarked that they're in much better shape than Ireland because they let the private banks fail and their currency naturally devalued, allowing them to regain some competitiveness relative to their neighbors:
“The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Mark Barton today. “These were private banks and we didn’t pump money into them in order to keep them going; the state did not shoulder the responsibility of the failed private banks.”UK's Libertarian politician, Nigel Farage, once viewed as a fringe player, is now getting international recognition for forewarning his European comrades about the troubles in the system. He's quickly becoming a hero to the banker resistance as his credibility reaches new heights for being proved right -- much like his U.S. counterpart Congressman Ron Paul. His rants in the European Parliament are going viral on YouTube as the people are waking up to their servitude to banks and a lack of true democracy and sovereignty.
Nigel Farage speaks with such confidence against the EU, as he should, given that a recent mainstream media poll showed 99% of UK citizens want out of the Euro. The battle against the banking cartel is clearly happening with Europe as the spearhead. As Europeans continue to fight back against corrupt international banksters, lazy Americans continue to live with a much lower standard of living and do nothing to challenge the system.
The rage in Europe and quiet streets in America is causing the euro to fall against the dollar. The dollar was all but declared dead in the lead-up to the Fed's QE2, but now the eurozone debt crisis has taken center stage. The European Council is set to meet again this December to amend the Lisbon Treaty to essentially legalize more bailouts. Some insiders are calling it an impossible mission to get all European countries to agree on fair amendments. The outcome of these December meetings will assuredly be pivotal in determining whether the euro "experiment" will survive.
If it crumbles, so then does the structure for a global currency. Indeed, the front lines in the battle to conquer plans for a global currency and the end of sovereign nation states is being waged by the angry citizens of Europe. Bravo comrades, keep up the fight!
RECENTLY by Eric Blair:
Endgame Legislation: Lame Duck Session Ushers in Tyranny
Eurozone Debt Crisis 2.0: Dollar Sucks Less Than Euro, Again
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Live Superfoods
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EU approves $113 billion bailout for Ireland
 |
| AP – Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan arrives for a round table of eurozone finance ministers at the EU... |
BRUSSELS – EU nations agreed an euro85 billion ($113 billion) bailout deal for Ireland on Sunday to help the debt-struck country with its banking crisis, and sketched out new rules for future emergencies in an effort to restore faith in the euro currency.
According to a statement by the Irish government, the country will take euro10 billion immediately to boost the capital reserves of its banks. Another euro25 billion earmarked for the banks will remain in reserve.
The Irish government's public finances will receive euro50 billion, to be drawn upon as necessary.
The statement said the International Monetary Fund, the 16 eurozone nations and the European Commission will be involved. Britain, Sweden and Denmark will offer bilateral loans.
"It provides Ireland with vital time and space to successfully and conclusively address the unprecedented problems that we've been dealing with since this global economic crisis began," said Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen at a press conference in Dublin.
"Most importantly of all, if we didn't have this program, we would have to go back to the markets, which as you know are at prohibitive rates," Cowen said. Yields on Ireland's 10-year bond rose in the past week to euro-era highs.
Of the euro85 billion, Ireland will contribute euro17.5 billion of its own money — transferring cash from its pension reserves, previously prohibited by EU law, to help fill the gap in its government finances.
The statement says the average interest rate Ireland will pay on its loans is 5.8 percent. This total reflects higher rates to be charged by EU sources, and lower rates from IMF and national donors.
Greece is paying 5.2 percent interest on its own bailout from May. Ireland's aid package includes loans that range from 3 to 7 1/2 years, longer than the Greeks' three-year deal.
The European Commission granted Ireland an extra year to bring down its deficit to within the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP. It will now have until 2015, compared with 2014 previously.
EU officials say they have also agreed on a permanent mechanism that would allow a country to restructure its debts after 2013 once it has been deemed insolvent.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Eurogroup, said private creditors would only be forced to take losses if eurozone ministers agree unanimously that the country has run out of money.
He said that if a country is merely facing a crisis of liquidity it would get financial help similar to the bailout agreed for Ireland.
European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said private sector involvement "is fully consistent" with existing policies of the International Monetary Fund.
___
Pogatchnik contributed to this report from Dublin. Associated Press Writer Robert Wielaard in Brussels contributed to this report.
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Friday, November 26, 2010
Euro slides as Portugal bailout pressure builds
Portugal is under pressure to accept an EU bailout in order to stop the eurozone debt contagion spreading to Spain, according to German press reports that pushed the euro to a two-month low.
Bruno Waterfield
Telegraph
The European Central Bank is pushing Portugal to become the third eurozone country to accept an EU-IMF “rescue” because of concerns that a Portuguese debt crisis will sink its Iberian neighbour Spain.
The EU and eurozone fears that Spain, Europe’s fifth largest economy, is too big to bailout and that a Spanish crisis would tear down the European single currency.
Major European stock markets fell sharply, unsettled by the news and talk of the EU bailout fund being doubled. Spain's Ibex led the way losing 2.3pc, while bourses in London, Paris and Frankfurt were down between 1.3pc and 1.7pc. The euro hit $1.3204, its lowest since late September.
Borrowings cost in Portugal and Spain climbed, with yields on the countries' 10-year bonds near record highs.
“If Portugal were to use the fund, it would be good for Spain, because the country is heavily exposed to Portugal,” unnamed sources told the Financial Times Deutschland.
The rumours mirror similar leaks and briefings three weeks that Ireland was seeking an EU bailout and despite denials from all parties the reports were later confirmed.
Portugal, like Ireland before it, has denied it is being pressured by euro zone countries and the ECB. “This news article is completely false, it has no foundation,” said a government spokesman.
But Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portugal’s finance minister, has hinted euro zone are pushing Portugal to accept a bailout and the loss of sovereignty that allows the EU and IMF to take over a country’s fiscal policy.
Read Full Article
RELATED ARTICLE:
Eurozone Debt Crisis 2.0: Dollar Sucks Less Than Euro, Again
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Live Superfoods It is time to Wake Up! You too, can join the "Global Political Awakening"!
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 |
| Portugal General Strike - AFP image |
Telegraph
The European Central Bank is pushing Portugal to become the third eurozone country to accept an EU-IMF “rescue” because of concerns that a Portuguese debt crisis will sink its Iberian neighbour Spain.
The EU and eurozone fears that Spain, Europe’s fifth largest economy, is too big to bailout and that a Spanish crisis would tear down the European single currency.
Major European stock markets fell sharply, unsettled by the news and talk of the EU bailout fund being doubled. Spain's Ibex led the way losing 2.3pc, while bourses in London, Paris and Frankfurt were down between 1.3pc and 1.7pc. The euro hit $1.3204, its lowest since late September.
Borrowings cost in Portugal and Spain climbed, with yields on the countries' 10-year bonds near record highs.
“If Portugal were to use the fund, it would be good for Spain, because the country is heavily exposed to Portugal,” unnamed sources told the Financial Times Deutschland.
The rumours mirror similar leaks and briefings three weeks that Ireland was seeking an EU bailout and despite denials from all parties the reports were later confirmed.
Portugal, like Ireland before it, has denied it is being pressured by euro zone countries and the ECB. “This news article is completely false, it has no foundation,” said a government spokesman.
But Fernando Teixeira dos Santos, Portugal’s finance minister, has hinted euro zone are pushing Portugal to accept a bailout and the loss of sovereignty that allows the EU and IMF to take over a country’s fiscal policy.
Read Full Article
RELATED ARTICLE:
Eurozone Debt Crisis 2.0: Dollar Sucks Less Than Euro, Again
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Thursday, November 25, 2010
'The Euro Game Is Up! Who the hell do you think you are?' - Nigel Farage
RELATED ARTICLE:
Eurozone Debt Crisis 2.0: Dollar Sucks Less than Euro, Again
Powerful EU Nations May Reform "Mission Impossible" Treaty in Secret
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