Well, the Antonio Fazio question seems definitely to have decided that it doesn’t want to go away. The FT today informs us that the European Commission will take legal action before the end of the year against Italy over the allegations that against Fazio ( governor of the Bank of Italy). This threat is, [...]

The always interesting Paul de Grauwe has a piece in the FT today (subscription only unfortunately, but he does collect all his FT pieces on his website here, so it will doubtless appear eventually). Basically he is arguing a view which I agree with: in its enthusiasm for raising interest rates the ECB is overdoing [...]

The Portuguese government has announced plans to reduce its fiscal deficit. The aim is to cut the deficit from an expected 6.2 % of GDP this year to below 3% - the theoretical maximum ceiling permitted under the EU’s growth and stability pact - by 2008. Most of the savings will come by [...]

I like this title. I have, I unashamedly admit, lifted it straight from NTC research (where it was in any event hardly the most creatively original of headers). I like it since it seems to run counter in spirit to all those admonishing lectures we are currently getting about the dangers of ’secondary inflation’ and [...]

Hungary converted itself into the latest country to join the line of EU members awaiting chastisment for failing to enforce budgetary discipline after it became clear that its deficit for 2005 could be almost double official forecasts.
Joaquín Almunia, EU monetary affairs commissioner, told European finance ministers Hungary’s deficit this year was projected [...]

Eurostat reports that 12 EU states exceeded the 3% stability and growth pact limit last year. But let’s start with the good news: 6 states - Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Ireland and Belgium - had a budget surplus in 2004. The three countries with the highest deficits were Greece (6.6%), Hungary (5.4%), Malta [...]

Poland is having elections Next Sunday. They are getting rather less press coverage than the German ones, but one issue does now seem to have hit the news:
Poland could be heading for a referendum on the adoption of the euro in late 2009…. Centre-right group Civic Platform (PO) and the eurosceptic Law and [...]

The economic news from Italy continues to be grim. This week more negative data on consumer confidence and the trade deficit (the biggest since 1992, and it was of course in 1992 that Italy came flying out of EMU).

The ISAE research institute’s consumer confidence index fell to 100.9 in July from 102.9 in June, touching [...]

Obviously, convincing people of hari-kiri type economic policies simply to maintain the SGP (I say ’simply’, but I imagine you understand what I mean) was never going to be easy for a growth strapped Portugal. Well, the finance minister has just resigned citing ?personal and family reasons? as well as fatigue.
“A new Portuguese finance [...]

Hungary risks missing its 2010 target for adopting the euro unless its government reduces the budget deficit and improves policy co-ordination with the central. This at least is the view of the OECD as expressed in its annual report on Hungary out today. According to the OECD:
“the key conclusion is that further reductions in the [...]