Keeping the flag flying for the euro
Published on 2th September 2023
This piece appeared as a Comment in the Daily Express. It is about the implications of the European Stability Mechanism being so weak, given that it is the main backing for the euro:https://www.express.co.uk/comment/expresscomment/1799489/EU-latest-news-euro-against-pound-euro-collapse
Digital currencies – bitcoin, stablecoin, Britcoin et al – makes your head spin. […]
Published on 5th September 2023
The Daily Express picked up on my article pubished through IREF about the European Stability Mechanism:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1797868/eurozone-euro-eu-france-credit-rating
The ESM’s firepower – to back the debts of Eurozone member states and thereby to act as the backstop for the currency itself – depends upon its having backers of sufficient size and with high enough […]
Bruges Group book summary
Published on 5th September 2023
The Campaign for an Independent Britain published this piece that the UK’s debt is not larger than the EU’s as the Daily Telegraph had claimed, if the EU member states’ shadow debts and contingent liabilities are factored in:https://cibuk.org/eurozone-debt-dwarfs-that-of-the-uk/
My figures on the EU are drawfrom my book ‘The shadow […]
As presented at the IES-IREF Summer University in Aix 20-22 July 2023
Published on 27th July 2023
I made a presentation at the IES-IREF Summer University in Aix-en-Provence about an aspect of my book, ‘The shadow liabilities of EU Member States, and the threat they pose to global financial stability’.
The relevant aspect is the build-up of off-balance […]
The ESM and its image
Published on 26th July 2023
As previously published on IREF Europe: https://en.irefeurope.org/publications/online-articles/article/the-european-stability-mechanism-hangs-by-a-thread-on-frances-credit-rating/
Introduction
The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) backstops the euro. Its nominal size is €705 billion but its lending capacity is lower at €500 billion, and the main condition attached to that is that the member states guarantees of the ESM’s solvency […]
Published by The Bruges Group on 29 June 2023
Published on 7th July 2023
The German Federal Audit Office (‘Bundesrechnungshof’) has warned that the Bundesbank may need a bailout due to losses on the EUR650 billion of bonds it bought as part of the Eurozone’s equivalent of Quantitative Easing. The Daily Telegraph reported on this on 26 […]
Published by Brexitwatch on 23rd June 2023
Published on 26th June 2023
We are well off out of the EU’s dysfunctional system, but much remains to be done to extinguish its vestiges in the UK.
You can download the pdf version of this article here.
Thanks to Brexit the UK has managed to dodge a bullet: the risk of […]
Published on 25th June 2023
I am delighted to feature here the recent paper by Barney Reynolds, ‘Plain Sailing for the ECB? Look out for the rocks!’, Politeia, 2023 – https://www.politeia.co.uk/plain-sailing-for-the-ecb/
You can download it here.
Barney was co-author with myself and Professor David Blake of Managing Euro Risk: Saving Investors from Systemic Risk (Politeia, 2020, ISBN 978-1-9163575-1-8).
His […]
Total EU public sector debt is shrouded in mystery
Published on 29th May 2023
The totality of the public sector liabilities of EU and Eurozone member states is clouded in obscurity. The key measure tracked by Eurostat – ‘General government gross debt’ – is circumvented to such an extent that, based on year-end 2021 figures, debts of […]
EU public sector entities harbour a debt mountain
Published on 26th May 2023
The EU member states contain numerous public sector entities with borrowing powers, and whose debts fall outside the definition of member state debt as reported by Eurostat. The responsibility for the debts tracks back, one way or another, to the member state but the […]