From the European Commission assessment and recommendations for Greece’s stability and growth plan –
Over the last several years, the external accounts of the Greek economy have deteriorated significantly, with the high and persistent external imbalances mirroring to a large extent, the marked deterioration of the country’s fiscal position. The net international position has markedly worsened [...]

To anyone who wasn’t immersed in the finer details of the Treaty of Lisbon, January was a confusing month.  Lisbon was supposed to put an end to that rotating presidency of the European Union by establishing a permanent Council presidency headed by Herman Van Rompuy and a high representative for foreign policy, in which case [...]

Today’s ratings downgrade by S&P for Japanese public debt has brought further attention to Japan’s huge and growing debt burden.  Yet with each round of concern, there’s always a viable response that says “So what, yields are still low.”  And it’s true; if you were looking for sustainability concerns to be expressed in the level [...]

Some interesting linguistic thoughts from ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet in an interview with Focus –
FOCUS: Has the fact that you have learnt German helped you?
Trichet: It certainly has. At the ECB, we mostly talk in English. But in the corridors you’re just as likely to hear German, French, Italian or Spanish, and many other languages [...]

Haiti is a country with at least 9 million people and GDP of $7 billion (pre-quake).  Think about that size of that latter number in relation to the usual magnitudes that we discuss on this blog.  But anyway, given its long-standing economic plight, Haiti also has extensive relations with international financial and development organizations and [...]

In November of last year, an economic research paper appeared on the website of the European Commission’s Economic and Financial Affairs section entitled The euro: It can’t happen, It’s a bad idea, It won’t last. US economists on the EMU, 1989-2002.  It’s by Lars Jonung and Eoin Drea.  There are 2 ways to read it.

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A bizarre story from Dublin.  Short version: A Slovak agency was running a covert security check at an airport, which is presumably Bratislava.  The test involves planting explosive materials in the bags of unsuspecting passengers.  8 packages in total.  7 found.  One made it on to a plane to Dublin, and was brought home by [...]

For those of you who find the New Year’s celebrations too noisy and might be looking for an alternative use of your time, there’s lots of, er, fun to be had looking through the data in the latest IMF release of the Coordinated Portfolio Investment Survey (CPIS).  This is a survey that the Fund does [...]

What is the threshold for reporting on the health status of the Minister of Finance?  Here’s a study in contrasts between Ireland and Japan.

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In Ireland, the Minister, Brian [...]

As Edward’s post below indicates, the ECB seems to be in a pre-Christmas rush of visibility to set out its opinions on various issues.  Jean-Claude Trichet delivered a speech on the topic of systemic risk at Clare College, Cambridge, today and it’s a nice roundup of the analytical progress so far and remaining challenges in [...]