euro|topics - Europe's financial crisis on a national level

Main focus of Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Europe's financial crisis on a national level

The ongoing pan-European financial crisis is having surprising results at a national level. Political enemies are being forced to take joint action. Struggling political parties are experiencing an upswing in popularity. But a glance at the press shows that no country in Europe stands alone with its problems.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung - Germany

The otherwise feuding Flemish and Walloon communities in Belgium are acting jointly to face the current financial crisis. This offers a shimmer of hope for the country's reform process, writes the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Prime Minister Yves Leterme's Christian Democratic and Flemish party (CD&V) has indicated its willingness to compromise, notes the paper: "Eight months prior to the regional elections, Leterme's party has shown a readiness for both risk and responsibility in declining to dance to the tune of the separatists and opting for dialogue. Leterme and Kris Peeters, the Minister-President of Flanders, were well aware that a failure of the present mediation attempts would cast doubts on whether Belgium can be ruled at all. The move comes at a time when the state budget is threatened with a lack of more than five billion euros, and most Belgians are worried not about this or that regional jurisdiction but about their own well-being in what recent days have shown to be a precarious economic environment." (07/10/2008)

Elsevier - Netherlands

The intervention of Finance Minister Wouter Bos in the credit crisis has led to a marked improvement in the social democratic Labour Party's poll results. The crisis could save the party, writes the liberal-conservative Political weekly Elsevier: "Wouter Bos is winning back the voters' trust. The crisis has provided him with the opportunity to present himself as a leader of the nation, and he has done a wonderful job of it. ... Leadership means facing one's destiny with an open visor. Wouter Bos has done this by making the right decisions at the right moment. ... Otherwise the country would have plunged into a deep political crisis that would have pulled the normal economy ... down with it. Wouter must capitalise on this now, while it is still fresh in the voters' minds. He must prove the leadership qualities of his own party and make a clear choice between the two directions." (07/10/2008)

Rzeczpospolita - Poland

Poland has realised that it does not stand alone in the midst of the current crisis affecting all of Europe. The conservative daily Rzeczpospolita comments: "The financial crisis that began on Wall Street initially meant we had to say goodbye to between 20 and 30 percent of our investment fund profits. Now it seems likely that the stock market situation will have repercussions for the entire Polish economy. If in the coming years the Western European countries are - figuratively speaking - left stranded two metres under water (and unfortunately it looks like this will be the case) we should not deceive ourselves into thinking we will be able to keep our heads above the rest for long. We are not yet facing a recession in the traditional sense of the word - a fall in GDP over two consecutive quarters. But we will not remain a lonely island, for in an economy like ours a deceleration of growth to around 3.5 percent per year is felt by everyone." (07/10/2008)

Népszabadság - Hungary

According to the liberal left-wing daily Nepszabadsag the governments' emergency measures in the financial crisis will have an impact on national budgets: "Everyone knows that the internal regulations of the Eurozone prescribe a progressive reduction of national deficits to the point where they reach zero or even less. If a country has a budget deficit of more than 3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) it is not allowed to introduce the euro - as we have seen with Hungary. Those countries that have converted to the euro and whose budgetary deficits have climbed past three percent of GDP have faced sanctions. ... This stringent approach is probably a thing of the past now. Europe's financial situation is ... much too serious to leave these strict rules intact. It is entirely possible that sooner or later budgetary variations within the EU will be legitimated. ... In today's EU this can 'only' mean easing the strict regulations governing the budgets of member states and adopting a more flexible stance regarding the ban on state subsidies for privately held companies." (07/10/2008)

» To the complete press review of Tuesday, October 7, 2008

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