Governance

21 Items

Analysis & Opinions - Foreign Policy

Does Europe Have a Future?

| July 16, 2015

"Despite its past achievements, the EU now suffers from growing tensions and several self-inflicted wounds. The EU is likely to experience repeated crises and internal divisions, and one cannot rule out a gradual and irreversible decline in its cohesion and influence. Because a prosperous and tranquil Europe is in America's interest, this is not good news for the United States."

Analysis & Opinions - The New York Times

The E.U.'s Feeble War on Unemployment

| June 3, 2013

"Banking regulation may not be the most voter-friendly topic. Yet the reality is that the best way to create employment in the periphery is by ending the fragmentation of the financial system that continues to plague Europe. As long as Greek, Portuguese, Spanish or Italian entrepreneurs need to pay a premium of between 4 and 6 percent above what their German counterparts pay on bank loans, how can they possibly start new businesses?"

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Don't Waste Draghi

| November 20, 2012

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) gives the populists' opponents a new weapon: support while structural reform takes hold. As he implied on Thursday, purchases are rewards for the countries implementing good reforms. Conversely, the ECB can stop OMT if it judges national policies to be "deserving" of punitive rates. Draghi should not hesitate to use this power to preserve credibility: while monetary policy operates within democracy, it is not itself be democratic.

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

Why Europe Deserved the Peace Prize

| October 13, 2012

"With all its imperfections, Europe today is the largest single market in the world, featuring effective anti-trust regulations, curtailing economic nationalism, and promoting free trade agreements with counties as far away as Asia and Latin America. New potential members are eager to join, from booming Turkey to crisis-ridden Iceland. Despite all the talk of stalling, Turkish membership will eventually come to pass."

A man is reflected in the Bankia bank HQ in Madrid, May 9, 2012.  Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dodged a question on whether the government planned to nationalize Bankia, Spain's 4th-largest bank and the most exposed to bad loans on real estate.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - CNN

The Pain in Spain That Threatens the Eurozone

    Author:
  • Tim Lister
| May 31, 2012

Pierpaolo Barbieri, Ernest May Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, says that "big, international banks like Santander and BVA are well diversified. Of the others, quite a few need capital — but how much? That's the unknown and Bankia has undermined faith in financial reporting."

A man passes a plaque of a Greek one-drachma coin, which was replaced by the euro in 2002, in Athens, May 22, 2012. Greece gets underway for crucial June 17 elections with the vote seen as a choice on whether debt-stricken Greece stays in the eurozone.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - CNN

Greeks Prefer Europe to its Own Politicians

| May 23, 2012

"From the perspective of Brussels and Berlin, maddening though Athens may be, there is no alternative but to double down on Greece — because a Greek exit would have huge ripple effects through all the Mediterranean economies (and their banking systems). More importantly, structural reform is still worth pursuing — opening up the professions, reforming the public sector, and liberalizing an economy that only benefits insiders are laudable goals."

Supporters of Socialist President-elect Francois Hollande, seen on the video screen at right, celebrate after the results of the second round of the French Presidential elections were announced at Bastille Square in Paris, France, May 6, 2012.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Christian Science Monitor

François Hollande—No More 'Mr. Pudding'?

| May 7, 2012

"Hollande's immediate problem will not be with the US but with Germany — his first foreign destination as president. He has promised to renegotiate a European Union treaty mandating deficit and debt limits. He wants to inject more growth into the pact, but the likely result will be a separate add-on of measures (whose effectiveness remains to be seen), rather than a change in the pact itself (which German Chancellor Angela Merkel firmly opposes)."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel turns to a panel showing a two Euro coin during the presentation of a special edition of the coin at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 9, 2012.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Financial Times

Merkel Can Achieve Fiscal Union in Europe

| May 2, 2012

"Europe's monetary union is neither the joint checking account of a dysfunctional family nor a latter-day gold standard. It was always meant to be a staging post on the road to a federal Europe. Today the biggest threat to its survival is no longer the economic consequences of austerity; it is the political consequences, in the form of populist, anti-European, usually xenophobic fringe parties. Almost everywhere but Germany, such parties are gaining support."