Search Results for: german banks
While awaiting Mr Draghi’s 6th September statement, a reminder: “It is the German banks, stupid!”
, 04/09/2012
In April 2011 I wrote a piece, entitled “It is the German banks stupid” in which I claimed that the primary reason why Europe was allowing a preventable debt crisis to engulf the Periphery had to do with the sorry state of the German banks and with the determination of the German government to do […]
Greek debt restructuring and the reason Germany's banks are delaying it
, 26/04/2011
Why is the inevitable Greek sovereign restructure being delayed? Who is playing King Canute? The German banks, is the three word answer. Why do they care? Is it because they are so terribly exposed to Greek sovereign debt. No, that is not it. All up, German banks are owed around €20 billion by the Greek […]
It's the (German) banks, stupid!
, 16/04/2011
Or what’s behind Germany’s hesitant statements on Greek debt restructuring, Ireland’s move against subordinated bondholders and the ECB’s stance on interest rates
Merkel’s tenure condemned Germany to wealth-fuelled decline & the EU to debt-fuelled stagnation – JACOBIN
, 28/09/2021
Angela Merkel’s tenure will be remembered as Germany’s, and Europe’s, cruelest paradox. On the one hand, she dominated the continent’s politics like no other peacetime leader — and is leaving the German chancellery considerably more powerful than she had found it. But the way she built up this power condemned Germany to secular decline and […]
Angela Merkel’s austerity condemned Europe and Germany to decline – The New Statesman
, 28/09/2021
At the height of the eurozone crisis, one of Angela Merkel’s close advisers explained to me her driving ambition: to bequeath to her successor a stronger chancellery than she inherited. If so, as Merkel prepares to retire, she should be delighted. Germany’s trade surpluses, and thus political clout, are far greater now than when she took office […]
Why the Deutsche Bank merger with Commerzbank must be stopped – HANDELSBLATT (English & German)
, 27/03/2019
The official story is one of creating a national champion, a German bank large enough to compete with American investment banks. The truth is far less heroic and a lot more sordid than that. Here is why Demokratie in Europa is campaigning against this merger. Both banks are zombies. Commerzbank has gone through eight years […]
My candidacy in Germany for the European Parliament – Press Conference speech
, 26/11/2018
Germany is experiencing a paradoxical crisis. Germany is, on paper, flooded by… money. The federal government is in surplus. A tsunami of foreign money is flooding German banks. Families are saving. And even corporations hoard huge amounts of savings. So, why is the political centre not holding? Why are the major parties bleeding? Why is […]
Why Germany neither can nor should pay more to save the eurozone – IFO Munich Seminar, 11 June 2018
, 17/07/2018
“I wanted a Germany that was hegemonic and efficient, not authoritarian and caught up in a European Ponzi scheme. That was in 2013.” Excerpt from the Munich Seminar. This CESifo group Munich seminar took place on June 11, 2018 in Ludwig-Maximilian University, in Munich, in the Grosse Aula of the Ludwig-Maximilian University. The euro crisis has highlighted […]
Germany needs a frank debate, not this tepid election campaign – Op-ed in Deutsche Welle
, 13/09/2017
The Greek people are paying dearly for having been lulled into a false sense of security, writes former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Germans, he says, are laboring under the same illusion today. Complacency is a country’s worst enemy. My compatriots were, once upon a time, lulled into a false sense of having “made it.” I […]
Germany needs a frank debate – Deutsche Welle op-ed (in English & German)
, 12/09/2017
OPINION Yanis Varoufakis: Germany needs a frank debate The Greek people are paying dearly for having been lulled into a false sense of security, writes former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Germans, he says, are laboring under the same illusion today. Complacency is a country’s worst enemy. My compatriots were, once upon a time, lulled into […]
The Eurozone After Brexit – Die Zeit (in English and German)
, 20/07/2016
For the German language version, as published in Die Zeit on 18 July 2016, click here. For the English version (as I wrote it originally)…
Death by Debt: My Response to The German Finance Ministry, by Jeffrey Sachs
, 01/08/2015
Dr. Ludger Schuknecht, senior economist at the Germany Finance Ministry, explains his ministry’s viewpoint regarding Greece. This viewpoint essentially holds that Eurozone countries should live within their means; adjust to their debt burdens; and take their reform medicine as needed. If they do so, they will be successful, as illustrated by Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Greece […]
Behind Germany's refusal to grant Greece debt relief – Op-Ed in The Guardian
, 11/07/2015
Tomorrow’s EU Summit will seal Greece’s fate in the Eurozone. As these lines are being written, Euclid Tsakalotos, my great friend, comrade and successor as Greece’s Finance Ministry is heading for a Eurogroup meeting that will determine whether a last ditch agreement between Greece and our creditors is reached and whether this agreement contains the degree […]
Greece, Germany and the Eurozone – Keynote at the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Berlin 8th June 2015
, 09/06/2015
CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO Thank you for inviting me. Thank you for being here. Thank you for the warm welcome. Above all thank you for the opportunity to build bridges, to pave common ground, to bring harmony in the face of blatant attempts to sow the seeds of discord between peoples whose historic duty […]