ECB president Mario Draghi, however, has outdone himself. Even prior to candidate president François Hollande’s official proposal of a “Growth Compact”, the ECB president took over the initiative by offering his own version to the European Parliament. As could be expected, the ECB’s version of such a “Growth Compact” is based on the idea of structural labour market reforms, thereby making explicit reference to the German Hartz reforms.
S&P’s downgrade of a bunch of European sovereigns was no surprise. What was somewhat surprising — and which went unmentioned in almost all the news stories I’ve read — was why S&P has gotten so pessimistic. (Paul Krugman)
The EU’s response to the most serious crisis of our lifetimes is failing. The austerity-only path we have embarked upon is a road to recession with deeper unemployment, welfare losses and increasing social frictions.
Le Monde.fr - Pour le prix Nobel d’économie, le pouvoir non démocratique des financiers et des agences de notation impose à la Grèce ou au Portugal des politiques de rigueur à l'efficacité incertaine et même dangereuse