Excellent piece by Peter Sutherland in today’s FT:
An honourable tradition of the European Union is that of turning a crisis into an opportunity…
The past three months have provided painful lessons to the leaders of the eurozone about the design flaws of the single European currency…
Without the single currency, Europe would be an economic wasteland. The cost [...]
I debated the issue on BBC’s Hardtalk with Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute and Italian politician Emma Bonino. Interview by Zeinab Badawi.
Watch it on BBC iPlayer
For those outside the UK who cannot access BBC iPlayer, watch it on YouTube.
Part 2
Part 3
I debated the future of the euro with Josef Joffe, the editor of Die Zeit, on the Riz Khan show on Al Jazeera English on 20 May 2010.
“Fears grow about weaker euro” is the headline in today’s FT.
But what’s to fear?
For a start, the euro is hardly “weak”. It is back to where it was 18 months ago and is still much stronger than it was, for instance, in 2002, when it was worth less than 90 US cents.
But more importantly, a [...]
Once-poor countries such as Greece and Ireland were long countries of emigration. Then came the long economic boom, and they became countries of immigration – spectacularly so in Ireland’s case. But now boom has turned to bust, and people are increasingly emigrating again, as a recent BBC documentary highlighted.
As Emmet Oliver pointed out in Ireland’s [...]
Amid all the euro-phobes' schadenfreude about the euro-zone's travails, it is remarkable that the pound is plunging – not just against the US dollar, but also against the much-maligned euro.
If markets get panicky about the UK government's deficits, we may regret our not-so-splendid isolation from the euro-zone.
By Tim Finch of IPPR. Excellent. Read it here.
Christopher Caldwell is an intelligent and educated man. His columns for the FT are often perceptive and original. But his views on immigration in Europe, presented in his new book, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West", are paranoid and delusional.
Caldwell's book is a cocktail of projected fears: Europe is [...]
Three, perhaps 4, boats laden with migrants people heading from Libya to Italy sink. As many as 300 people could be dead.
Europe's border controls claim more lives. The official response? We need tougher controls.
After the Omnibus Appropriations Bill signed into law by President Obama
scrapped a pilot programme that allowed a small number of Mexican
trucking companies to carry cargoes north of the border – as NAFTA
requires – Mexico has responded by slapping tariffs of up to 45% on 90 American agricultural and industrial imports.
Renault is to move production [...]
The Guardian, 4 February 2009. Free movement of labour makes economic and moral sense. Without it the EU would unravel
Free movement of labour makes economic and moral sense. Without it the EU would unravelRead my article in today's Guardian
The latest Transatlantic Trends survey of attitudes towards immigration in America and Europe finds that 47% of Europeans and 50% of Americans think immigration is more of a problem than an opportunity.
But young Europeans (aged 18-34) are much more positive about immigration than older ones. In both the US and Europe, the better educated [...]
Photo by Sergio Betancort © Prisacom S.A. From El Pais.com
They came from North Africa and reached Europe: the Canary Island of Lanzarote, Spain
Net immigration to the EU – immigrants less emigrants – was 1.9 million in 2007, according to Eurostat. Since the EU population is just shy of 500 million, the immigration rate was 0.38%.
Spain had the highest level of net immigration: 702,000; Italy was second, with 494,000; Britain third, with 175,000. The Netherlands experienced net emigration, [...]
In a bid to reverse the brain drain out of Europe and attract talented foreigners to come work here, the EU is proposing to introduce a Blue Card visa, in a deliberate echo of the US’s much-coveted Green Card.
The Green Card grants the holder the permanent right to live and work in America.
The [...]
From the country that elected a former Nazi as president comes another outrage:
In an extraordinary on-air outburst, Klaus Emmerich, the veteran
Austrian television pundit, declared: “I would not want the western
world to be directed by a black man.” When invited to retract, Mr
Emmerich stood by what he had said, adding that “blacks aren’t as
politically civilised” and [...]
What bank investors need from authorities is clarity. A concerted,
pan-European drive to inject capital might provide it. As US fund
manager John Hussman has suggested, that injection could be achieved
via a “super-bond”, countable as capital and subordinate to customer
deposits, but ranking ahead of both shareholders and even senior
bondholders in the event of bankruptcy. That super-bond would [...]
Europe’s war against immigration is immoral and unwinnable. It’s time for a radical rethink.
Read the full article in today’s Guardian
