Euro

Author: Adriaan Schout

  • The French Squeeze

    There are signs that the economies in the eurozone are picking up in various ways. Recent figures of the ECB on Target2 (the capital account of the eurozone countries within the ECB) show remarkable signs of improvement. The claims of the triple-A countries Germany, Finland and the Netherlands on the problem countries are going down.…

  • Why Economists Should not always Ask for Centralisation

    Many say that the eurocrisis is not about the euro but about financial markets. Whatever the precise cause: it seems to be a purely economic crisis. Of course, the financial sector was a motor behind the crisis, but there have been other drivers too. National conditions – such as high private debts, corruption and inflexible…

  • Dijsselbloem as Eurogroup President – Curse or Blessing for the Netherlands and the Euro?

    Finding suitable chairpersons for EU meetings is extremely difficult.  Since ‘presidents’ can be politically quite threatening they should preferably come from small countries. They should be rather gullible and non-threatening people. As our euro notes prove, the EU has no shared values and that makes chairing particularly difficult. The design of the euro notes was…