It was dishonest of Draghi not to make good on what he had pledged last week, in the eyes of the liberal business paper Diário Económico: "He began by saying that he would do whatever it took to save the euro, but then he did nothing. ... How normal this has become at the EU institutions: first they study the problem then wait and see what happens. ... The markets don't like encoded messages or people who say one thing and then do another. But this is precisely the way the EU politicians do things: declarations of love for the euro but nothing to back them up. ... The credibility of the EU institutions has been destroyed. This ECB decision was clearly influenced by pressure from Germany and once again Germany's orthodox financial approach has won the day. ... As far as Germany is concerned it would be a sacrilege for the ECB to buy bonds. Draghi wanted to take this path, but has pulled back. Now the bank will only intervene after crisis countries ask the fund for help." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis, » The row over debt mutualisation

With his catastrophic communication policy Draghi has gambled away the ECB's credibility, the liberal daily De Tijd criticises: "What got into Draghi? Does he really think that he can get away with telling investors - those of London City, mind you - that 'whatever it takes' will be done to save the euro one week, only to go back on his words the next? Someone has to tell this Italian that investors are a very excitable bunch. By making promises in London that he couldn't keep, Draghi has destroyed the credibility of the ECB. And that's a bad thing. ... The yields on Spanish bonds rose to 7.17 percent yesterday as a result of Draghi's blunder. Draghi will no doubt find this highly irrational once more. But faced with such wretched communication skills it's entirely rational that the investors are running scared." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis, » Spain in the banking crisis, » The row over debt mutualisation

ECB chief Draghi does well to make countries take their fate into their own hands, writes the liberal-conservative daily Corriere della Sera: "With their downhill run the markets are punishing Draghi for not keeping his promise. But the markets are wrong. ... An unlimited ECB aid programme for Italy and Spain of the kind Paul Krugman and many other experts around the globe are calling for would be in contradiction of the EU treaties. ... Unconditional ECB support would also torpedo the debt ceiling that the countries in question have agreed to under the pressure of rising borrowing costs. Because political Europe stubbornly refuses to act jointly in the crisis, the power of decision Draghi lays claim to has advantages that may be rewarded by less jittery financial markets. Firstly, he is leaving all the doors open to the ECB and secondly, he is reminding the political leaders of a key truth: saving the euro depends not just on the ECB but also on the governments and their voters." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis, » Spain in the banking crisis, » The row over debt mutualisation

The ECB has indicated that it is willing to buy massive amounts of government bonds of crisis countries - but only once they have officially applied for help. This decision will have major repercussions for Spanish society, the left-liberal daily El País fears: "For Spain, the consequences are clear. Now that the door of direct intervention by the ECB has closed, the government will have to think about applying for help from the bailout fund and when the best time to do so would be. … After the banking rescue the government insisted that the Spanish economy wouldn't need a second bailout. But now the conditions for refinancing Spain's debt make it seem inevitable that the government will have to apply for help from the ECB, breaking yet another of its emphatic promises. ... It's difficult to avoid the perception that the single currency will be maintained at the expense of draconian measures in Spain and Italy, with unforeseeable consequences for society." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis, » Spain in the banking crisis, » The row over debt mutualisation

It was a wise move by ECB chief Mario Draghi to present a roadmap for the purchase of European government bonds, writes the liberal business paper Financial Times Deutschland, hoping that Germany won't thwart his strategy: "Just harmony then? That would have been nice, so as not to compromise the psychological impact of Draghi's announcement. But it met with resistance from Germany, yet again from the head of the Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, who it seems was the only one in the ECB Governing Council to vote against Draghi's plan. But not only Draghi's nose is out of joint. It is indeed unwise to break the ranks of the Governing Council in this situation. Weidmann is fanning mistrust where he should be fostering confidence, the central bank's main goal in the summer break. ... Now it depends on how Weidmann acts in the weeks to come. If he torpedoes the plan, he will erode the credibility of the entire initiative. And hopes for even a halfway calm late summer on the markets will be dashed." (03/08/2012)

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Kofi Annan on Thursday announced his resignation as the joint special envoy to Syria of the UN and the Arab League. Annan's mission is not only a failure, it has also aided the Assad regime, the Christian-liberal daily Salzburger Nachrichten comments: "The Syrian conflict will forever remain a chapter of shame for the international community. If it had gathered all its force together naturally Assad would have been timely put in his place. But conflicting interests have prevented this. Kofi Annan's resignation as UN special envoy to Syria is above all an admission of failure. His mission only bought more time for the regime in Damascus and served as a cover for an immorally inexcusable policy of turning a blind eye to the butchery. The divided world powers have allowed the local rebellion in this key state in the Middle East to turn into a wildfire. The internationalisation of the Syria conflict can no longer be avoided." (03/08/2012)

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All available articles from » Helmut Müller
Who's saying what » Civil war raging in Syria

Although the referendum by means of which the Romanian parliament sought to impeach President Băsescu has failed, Băsescu will remain suspended until at least September 12. The reason: the Constitutional Court postponed its ruling on the validity of the referendum on Thursday because the Interior Ministry had announced it had doubts about its own figures on those eligible to vote. The news portal Hotnews asks just what is going on: "As a rule the judiciary doesn't work on assumptions but on the basis of facts and evidence. However this is ridiculous. The Interior Ministry has stressed repeatedly that there are 18,292,414 people eligible to vote in Romania. Now, all of a sudden - and without presenting a shred of evidence - it refuses to confirm this figure. Why? We are not being told. ... If [the governing alliance] USL presented electoral lists on which ten percent of those enumerated had died or emigrated, the Constitutional Court's decision would make sense. But as things stand? We accept this confusing information without batting an eyelid and block the country for six whole weeks. In this time our country will go down the drain - and we Romanians along with it." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Power struggle in Romania

Panagiotis Roumeliotis, Greece's former representative to the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview with the New York Times last week that the IMF was aware that the austerity programme it stipulated for Greece in 2010 was impossible to realise. The weekly Epikaira calls former Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou to account: If it was known back then "that the programme wasn't enforceable, can it be possible that Papandreou didn't know it too?The weekly Epikaira calls former Greek Prime Minister Giorgos Papandreou to account: "If the journalists back then already knew that the programme wasn't enforceable can it be possible that Papandreou didn't know it too? No. Unfortunately his brainless co-workers convinced him back then that he the fate of the Eurozone was in his hands. They put a pistol in his hands, and instead of turning it against the oppressors of his country he used it to commit political suicide and lead Greece to its economic demise. Papandreou must now give convincing answers to the statements made by Roumeliotis. Otherwise his silence will be proof of the crime that was committed against Greece." (02/08/2012)

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All available articles from » Michalis Ignatiou
Who's saying what » Greece puts the Eurozone to the test

Czech President Václav Klaus signed a law on Wednesday according to which his successors will be directly elected by the people with the next elections at the beginning of 2013. The political scientist Jiří Pehe discusses the merits of the two men who lead the polls, the former heads of government Jan Fischer and Miloš Zeman, and warns against continuing to govern in the style of President Klaus: "There is no sign that anyone will be able to compete with them. So people should be clear on which of the two they vote for if they face each other in the run-off election. Zeman would offer continuity with the current president - both in political terms and regarding his narcissistic self-adulation. Everybody who favours Zeman should be clear on that. For the future of democracy, Fischer is clearly the better candidate. ... But it would be truly bad if the 60 percent who want neither of the two simply refused to cast their ballots. One can always opt for the lesser of two evils. In this case that is definitely Fischer." (03/08/2012)

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The extreme-right Jobbik party has been in the headlines for negative reasons several times in recent weeks. In the eyes of the left-leaning daily Népszava, with this coverage Hungary's third-strongest party has continued to discredit itself: "What sort of brazen effrontery does it take for Jobbik to press ahead with its demand to have criminals registered according to their ethnic origin on the international day of commemoration of the Roma Holocaust [on August 2] of all days? And that at a time when it has emerged that the party's pitiful vice-chief, Csanád Szegedi, has Jewish blood in his veins. After his attempt to bribe the person who uncovered his Jewish background he must now resign from the party. Szegedi was also the one who had said a few years ago that gypsies are a biological weapon of the Jews. That would have been the perfect time to ban Jobbik, but the cowardly Socialists and Liberals in power at the time didn't have the guts to do it. ... It's high time Orbán kept his promise and gave Jobbik those 'two slaps in the face' that he had wanted to give [Jobbik's now banned paramilitary arm] the Hungarian Guard." (03/08/2012)

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Japan has long years of experience in fighting a serious financial crisis, but Europe still won't learn its lesson from this, laments Karolis Urbonas of Vilnius' Social Dynamics International institute in the daily newspaper Vilniaus diena: "The Japanese crisis from 1990 to 1995 bore all the hallmarks of today's crisis: the private sector was highly indebted, real estate prices were inappropriately high and despite very low central bank rates no one wanted to take out loans. … Japan's government realised that the textbook theories didn't work and sought alternatives. The logic was simple: If the privates sector doesn't take loans and monetary policy measures remain ineffectual (lower interest rates, money printing) then the state itself must borrow money and invest it in creating demand and boosting the economy. ... The proposals coming from Europe and the US for solving the crisis, such as printing money and lowering interest rates to almost zero, are ineffective. The only way out of the balance sheet crisis is state intervention." (02/08/2012)

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All available articles from » Karolis Urbonas
Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

For two years now politicians, the media and economists have been warning of the collapse of the euro. But how bad is the situation in reality, asks the Amsterdam professor of media science Frank de Vree in the left-leaning weekly De Groener Amsterdammer: "In this financial crisis the media and politicians seem to have given in too quickly to a crisis rhetoric fed by the greed for sensational news. This gives broad scope to extreme positions and party interests, one hype follows the next and debates turn into cacophonic events. And as so often in the economic sphere, crisis reports turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. If everyone calls out that the situation is getting worse, then it gets worse. While the mechanisms and forces that cause the shocks on the financial markets or benefit from them for the most part remain unclear, we citizens have lost track of what's going on. We don't know what the real situation is or whether everyone is a loser in this crisis, as we are being led to believe. What remains is a sense that we, as Europe, have become the plaything of uncontrollable or at least invisible financial forces and processes." (03/08/2012)

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Who's saying what » Ways out of the debt crisis

According to statistics released on Wednesday, for the first time over 200,000 people in the Republic of Ireland have been unemployed for longer than twelve months. The conservative daily the Irish Independent puts the high figure down to the burst of the real estate bubble and sees little chance of the situation improving: "Those who drift into long-term unemployment find it extremely difficult to find jobs again, even when the economy does begin to recover. Many of the long-term unemployed lose the habits and behaviours which are necessary to hold down a job and run the risk of becoming not just unemployed but unemployable. This must not be allowed to happen. Many of those who are now long-term unemployed worked in the construction industry before the property bubble burst. Most of the 180,000 construction jobs that have disappeared over the past five years are not coming back any time soon. Far more likely is that construction employment will continue to shrink and that even when the economy does begin to recover any rebound in building jobs will be extremely modest." (02/08/2012)

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Before her concert in Warsaw on Wednesday, the pop star Madonna showed a short film about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The move was meant as a conciliatory gesture to Polish conservatives who had criticised her performance on this national holiday. Nevertheless the concert remains a scandal, Cardinal Stanisław Nagy insists in the national Catholic daily Nasz Dziennik: "There was a celebratory mass on Krasiński Square [in Warsaw], a military procession, a moving veterans' parade, a group of boy scouts, the legendary minute of silence and a patriotic mood, even though August 1st is a day of national mourning. And everything would have been fitting and uplifting if it hadn't been for the shameless note of discord caused by the concert given by this scandalous figure with a provocative name. It is impossible to imagine a greater provocation in view of the feelings of patriotism and pain that are associated with the tragedy of the Uprising." (03/08/2012)

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All available articles from » Stanisław Nagy

The Olympic Games are a nothing but a waste of money according to Pierre Guerlain, professor of American studies at the University of Paris-Ouest-Nanterre. In the left-liberal daily Le Monde he laments: "Taxpayers across the world finance these supposedly high-performance sports, to the detriment of investments that could go to help the poor, the unemployed and the homeless. We follow 'our' athletes and their hopes for medals, their gains of a tenth of a second in some race or another. Drugs abound in every type of sport, not only in China and Spain, and not only in cycling and swimming. Their effects, along with the drug of nationalism, shift the focus to completely trivial performances whose only goal is to secure the profits of businessmen of all kinds who sell the stadiums or the drugs, the sports equipment or the energy drinks, and to swell the supposed prestige of nations." (03/08/2012)

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All available articles from » Pierre Guerlain