Why the euro threatens to be the EU’s Krakatoa

Published on 14 August 2022 and earlier published on www.brexit-watch.org on 13 July 2022 under the above headline and photograph, a Photo of Anak Krakatau by arief adhari/EyeEm from Adobe Stock]

BREXIT HAS BEEN largely botched so far, as has so much else by the present government. Remainers, several now emanating from their mausolea, claim […]

How Germany can get railroaded within the European Central Bank’s Governing Council

Published on 5 August 2022

Germany has been resistant to many measures of the European Central Bank, not least the size of its bond-buying programmes and its latest ‘Transmission Protection Mechanism’ approved at the main meeting of July 2022. The aim of the ‘TPM’ is to avoid ‘fragmentation’, meaning the yields on the bonds issued by […]

The ECB confirms the status of the Eurosystem: a parasite serving only the needs of the Eurozone public sector

Balances of banks sitting in the Eurosystem and percentage of respective country’s GDP

Published on 10 May 2022 and as previously published by irefeurope.org but with more detail behind the numbers

The European Central Bank (ECB) held its latest Governing Council meeting on 14 April 2022 and issued its normal press release. It issued its longer ‘Combined […]

The European Stability Mechanism is a dead letter with inadequate firepower

The subscribed and paid capital contributions of the 19 ESM members

Published on 7 April 2022 where the underlying article was published for the first time on www.brexit-watch.org on 6 April 2022

The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is the main Eurozone bailout fund should further members be unable to access capital markets directly: the ESM would finance […]

Some forgotten Benefits of Brexit that need to be known

Most of my contribution appeared on Facts4EU.org

Published on 11 February 2022

On the second anniversary of the UK’s leaving the EU, it was worth relecting on what had been gained, even if Theresa May and now Boris Johnson could claim very little credit for it.

Here were my First Eleven of benefits, which made up the bulk […]

IREF January 2022 Newsletter – Euro financing, a strategy for EU survival

First published on en.irefeurope.org

Published on 8 February 2022

In recent times, the EU authority has been challenged by Romania and Poland, both of whom have asserted the primacy of their domestic laws over EU treaty law in certain areas.   Hungary is also a well-known thorn in its side.  Given these threats, and the reputational sleight of […]

New EU taxes are vital to cover the cost of its ‘invisible’ Coronavirus Recovery Fund debts – but at what cost to member states?

This article was first published on brexit-watch.org

Published on 4 February 2022

Facts4EU.Org has revealed that the EU, in Christmas week, floated the concept of new taxes to bring in an amount of €380 billion between 2026 and 2030, of which €85 billion would flow to Brussels. €247 billion of the new taxes are carbon-related, and €133 […]

Invisible Eurozone liabilities require action by global financial regulators

TARGET2: scale of invisible Eurozone liabilities demands action by global financial regulators

Published on 12 December 2021

We recently had a blog published by Politeia about the lack of transparency in the accounting for the debts of EU/Eurozone member states. The member states’ contingent liability to backstop the debts of the EU is an example. Member states […]

Rising Debt, Greater Risk – The EU’s invisible accounting system

Published on 10 December 2021

The Eurosystem’s balance sheet now shows that its assets of €12 trillion exceed the Eurozone’s 2020 GDP of €11.4 trillion. This is attributable to the emergency response to Covid by the European Central Bank (ECB), who both created the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (the PEPP), extended the programme of unsecured loans […]

Technical blog on the Eurozone’s Hidden Debt: A Dangerous legacy of EU governance – Politeia

Published on 23 September 2021

You can DOWNLOAD HERE the technical blog that accompanies the Politeia article on extrapolating lessons for the Eurozone, UK and global banking systems from the proposed merger of UniCredit and Monta dei Paschi di Siena.

The case raises difficult questions about whether any meaningful re-capitalization of banking systems has occurred since the […]