Suchergebnisse

Many Europeans today ask why the European Community chose the bold strategy of pursuing an Economic and Monetary Union at a time when a number of political and economic issues had not yet been resolved. Many economists like to think that the economic case for EMU was weak and that the decision was taken strictly on political grounds. As someone who had the privilege of being involved in the early preparatory efforts, I would argue that this is a misreading of history. I believe there was both a strong economic case for moving towards a single currency and a rare political opportunity for implementing it around 1990.

In this statement the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) is advocating a conditional relief of Greek's government debt based on Greece meeting certain targets for structural economic reforms in areas such as its labor market and pensions sector.The authors argue that the position of the European institutions that debt relief for Greece cannot be part of an agreement is based on the illusion that Greece will be able to service its sovereign debt and reduce its debt overhang after implementing a set of fiscal and structural reforms. However, the Greek economy would need to grow at an unrealistig level to achieve debt sustainability soley on the basis of reforms.The authors therefore view a substantial debt relief as inevitable and argue that three questions must be resolved urgently, in order to structure debt relief adequately: First, which groups must accept losses associated with debt relief. Second, how much debt relief should be offered. Third, under what conditions should relief be offered.