It seems that as the days pass, more and more officials are openly discussing a Greek exit from the euro. Now that this sort of momentum is building it is impossible to see any other course of action. I first wrote about a Greek exit here all the way back in May 2011. It was [...]

As I read some of the latest news about the Greek election and the attempts to form a government I am struck by the following quotes: “We cannot make true our dream of a left-wing government“, says Alexis Tsipras of SYRIZA and that “Foreign creditors are now more open to renegotiate“. Meanwhile, “Should Greece stop [...]

In my last post (What Is The Cost To Europe Of Individual Actions?) I looked at the apparent movement of money out of Greece and into potentially safer locations. That is, of course, only one form of individual action. This weekend has seen another sort of individual action which has the collective power to cause [...]

Your author has just returned from a short weekend trip to Berlin. This is not my first visit, but it was my first time with a group of people that are mostly German, live in the city and know it well. In other words, I was able to see and learn much more than the [...]

This week provided a stark reminder that “markets” are not as perfect as we might hope. The double-whammy of the Dutch government falling and Nicolas Sarkozy narrowly losing the first round presidential vote sent markets sharply down. Yet, for those of us that follow politics and policy, weren’t these reasonably predictable events? The polls had [...]

Life has been treating me well recently (summer is coming, I have a new business venture to concentrate my mind on, several people have commented that I have “lost weight” and family members have recently visited me) and it hard to imagine things being much better (save for a Victoria’s Secret model calling me for [...]

Several of my recent posts have related to the “skills mismatch” in Europe. In these times of high unemployment it seems right to do so and I clearly recall the emphasis placed on education during the eSkills launch a few weeks ago (I wrote about it here). There are, however, two sides to every story. [...]

It would seem as though luck and central banking might not have much in common, but today I am going to argue that these factors may be about to create a very big problem for the eurozone. If we cast our minds back to this time two years ago, the UK was gearing up for [...]

At last week’s e-Skills launch in Brussels (I wrote about it here) I was witness to a wonderful example of the will to win. Attending as a delegate was a girl of 24. She was very pleasant and interesting to talk to. I was first introduced to her by another delegate, “She has an amazing [...]

It has been a few weeks since I last wrote about the eurozone crisis and the news has gone very quiet. The Greek problem seems to be solved, yes? We should all relax, yes? Well, umm, not yet, no. For what it is worth, your author is still amazed that the Greek debt problem has [...]

Your author was in Brussels on Monday for the launch of the 2012 e-Skills week by the European Commission. The event was split into three sessions and for me, session number three lit up the day. This is possibly problematic since the session only had one genuine policy person in it, the rest were people [...]

Thursday 15th March is the awards ceremony for the 2012 video challenge launched by the European Economic and Social Committee. At the time of writing, I don’t know who the winner is, but there were some very good entries (my favourites are here). Your author acts as an occasional consultant to EU affairs organisations and [...]

Over at the Economic and Social Committee they have been running a video contest. The closing date was last week, but now the public voting has opened. If you are a facebook user, then you can vote! If you vote, you might win an iPad! For what its worth, these are my favourites: Zinnekes Prague [...]

Think back a few weeks to the last European Summit. By all accounts the idea from Angela Merkel that there should be some sort of oversight by Europe in Greece on how they spend bailout money and restructure their public finances was not viewed well. It was anti-democratic. And, to a certain extent, it was. [...]

While Greece may be the birthplace of mathematics and all those symbols used by financiers to build models, I am starting to wonder whether the ability to count is a lost art in Greece. This has been forming in my mind for a while, but recent evidence has pushed my thinking over the line. Recently [...]

Since my last post a few days ago (The Digital Policy Landscape Seems To Be Moving) the European Council has convened and pushed European digital policy even further forwards. With the hoo-ha going on in advance about whether Greece should have some form of European fiscal Tzar overseeing their spending habits, your author was not [...]

It seems to your author that the digital policy landscape has been moving significantly in recent days and weeks, possibly for the better. Firstly, and this is a biggie, Google has simplified and streamlined it’s privacy policy. It seems that there were seventy of them before, but now it is down to one that seems [...]

Readers that are unfamiliar with the soap opera that is politics in Malta, may be unaware that there is something of a political crisis underway. I shall refrain from boring you with the details, but let’s just say that it is less of a storm in a teacup and more of a squall on a [...]

The events of the last couple of days have proved to be very predictable and a little depressing… For several weeks it has been known that there were possible downgrades coming from the ratings agencies for a number of eurozone member states. In the end, it turned out to be nine that went south. In [...]

A recent op-ed for Project Syndicate caught my eye. Written by Shimon Peres, President of Israel, it struck me just how accurate he is. The main thrust of the piece is that a study of history will not help a politician these days. There is so much going on, things are moving so quickly and [...]

It has been quite a while since I made a written forecast of any sort about the economy. In fact, the last one I could find dates back to July 2009 (2016: The End Of This Recession?). In that post, I said that, “My own personal guess is that we have another two or perhaps [...]

The euro crisis is really, really, really bloody complicated. I think most sensible people can agree on that. Just read any recent coverage of it in the Economist or perhaps Martin Wolf’s blog at the FT and it is clear that there are multiple layers upon multiple layers to deal with. To try and put [...]

Since the decision by David Cameron at last week’s summit to have no part in a new treaty, the media has been full of opinions about whether it was a good or bad thing. I find it hard to believe that anyone knows the real impact or cost, and it may take years – or [...]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. While European finances and economies crumble, the battle rages on between Europe and nation states. Witness this week’s Merkozy agreement (for what it is worth, I love that name!). One of the features of their pact is that there will be no eurobonds. This has [...]

A story on the BBC website caught my eye this morning. It seems to suggest that the prospect of a German debt devaluation is appealing to some in the German government. Close followers of the eurozone debt debacle will remember the ‘leak’ from the German team negotiating with Greece some months ago that Greece might [...]