After the British government officially slipped back into a recession on Wednesday the conservative Daily Telegraph calls for a more aggressive growth strategy: "The austerity programme does command the confidence of the markets, and that remains crucial. It is this that allows the Government to borrow at attractive rates, which in turn gives the Bank of England the freedom to keep the cost of borrowing low. It would be madness to jeopardise that during such a hesitant recovery. That does not mean the Chancellor should simply be sitting tight and waiting for lift-off. We have argued consistently for a more aggressive growth strategy involving targeted tax breaks and a serious assault on red tape to help instil business confidence. If companies - especially large corporations - started investing the cash they are hoarding, and banks began to lend again, it would do much to stimulate recovery. Mr Osborne must continue to focus all his energies on creating an economic climate in which they feel able to do so." (27/04/2012)

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

ECB President Mario Draghi called for a "growth pact" for the Eurozone on Wednesday. In the French election campaign this call has been hailed as a turning point, which according to the business paper Cinco Días is an overstatement: "The presidential candidate François Hollande sees this as a sign that his ideas are gaining ground. But Draghi's statement does not hail a radical change in direction. What he means when he talks of a growth pact has nothing to do with Hollande's plans. ... The term 'growth pact' may sound new, but in fact it's nothing that the central banks haven't already repeatedly called for: the governments must introduce reform, and the longer they wait, the greater the damage will be. Euro bonds, major investment programmes and incentives from Germany can help, but they won't change the fact that France needs reforms. If Hollande the candidate ignores this fact, Hollande the president will be the first to get a nasty surprise." (27/04/2012)

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

The Romanian government has exceptionally declared 30 April a public holiday this year. The Ministry of Tourism hopes to use the four-day weekend to encourage tourism. Rupert Wolfe Murray of the Contributors blog portal is sceptical: "The ministry wants to push Romania as a tourist destination. It has spent a good deal of money trying to do this in recent years without achieving results. ... The ministry is employing an army of inspectors in 42 Romanian regions who are supposed to do something about the quality of hotels and bed and breakfasts. But all they are doing in reality is arbitrarily imposing fines. ...The British owner of a bed and breakfast had to pay because a bedcover was touching the floor. Another hotel owner had to pay 2,000 euros because he was using an ecological sewage system - something the officials had never heard of. ... They still have the communist mentality that [tourism] businesses are all speculators, thieves and slave drivers. The idea of encouraging tourism - instead of putting a brake on it - is alien to them." (27/04/2012)

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