EU banking unionPolitical Union Eurozone limits
  • What a banking union means for Europe
    Essay by Philip Whyte, 05 December 2012
    What a banking union means for Europe
  • Alice in euroland: What political union for the single currency?
    Insight by Philip Whyte, 09 October 2012
    Alice in euroland: What political union for the single currency?
  • Has the eurozone reached the limits of the politically possible?
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 12 July 2012
    Has the eurozone reached the limits of the politically possible?
  • Greece and Portugal should both go gracefully
    Opinion piece by Simon Tilford
    Financial Times, 12 May 2011

    Even as the ink is drying on Portugal's European Union and International Monetary Fund bail-out agreement, evidence is mounting that last year's bail-outs of Greece and Ireland have failed. Far from improving their access to the financial markets, Greece and Ireland face record borrowing costs.

  • Debt restructuring will not end the euro crisis
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 09 May 2011

    Even as the ink is still drying on Portugal’s EU/IMF ‘bail-out’ agreement, it is becoming clear that Greece’s 2010 bail-out has failed to improve the sustainability of its public finances.
  • Is Germany flipping the bird at Europe?
    Opinion piece by Katinka Barysch
    The Guardian, 22 April 2011

    It would have caused a chuckle among British tabloid readers. In Germany (and Greece) it caused a storm. On February 22 2010, the German news magazine Focus published a cover that depicted the Aphrodite of Milos with an outstretched arm making a very rude gesture at its readers.
  • The eurozone's grand bargain: Political pain without economic gain?
    Bulletin article by Philip Whyte, 01 April 2011

    Ever since the eurozone crisis broke out in late 2009, European leaders have sought to reconcile two mutually incompatible objectives: the need to restore market confidence in the zone's indebted periphery; and the unbending refusal of creditor countries in the core to turn the zone into a 'transfer union'.

  • Is Germany really rebalancing?
    Bulletin article by Simon Tilford, 01 February 2011

    Germany has rightly been criticised for its dependence on exports and its huge trade surpluses. In normal times, when economies are growing healthily, trade imbalances pose less of a problem.

  • Can Greece be saved?
    Insight by Katinka Barysch, 20 January 2011

    Will Greece have to restructure its debt? Among most West European economists and investors, this now seems to be a foregone conclusion.
  • Euro crisis: In defence of investors
    Insight by Simon Tilford, 17 January 2011

    The eurozone’s fiscal position is better than the US and UK, and the crisis-hit members of the currency union are doing more to strengthen their public finances than either of these countries.
  • Reflections on Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa and the euro
    Insight by Charles Grant, 13 January 2011

    At the end of last year, Europe lost Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an eminent central banker and economist, and one of the founding fathers of the euro.