Economic and Financial

It constitutes a moralizing fig leaf hiding increasing inequalities. The rejection of an excessive recourse to increasing public debt is often formulated in a language condemning the practice in the name of an “unfair” transfer of its repayment on the shoulders of future generations. Is this criticism necessarily well grounded? In order to pass judgment, it is necessary to define the parameters that establish a level of excess indebtedness. These parameters vary according to the characteristics of the debtor, whether it be an individual, a corporation or a State. In the latter case – which we examine here – it is necessary to determine further whether the State enjoys full monetary sovereignty and whether its debts are expressed in its…

The lessons to draw from the American poll are a major challenge for the cohesion of the European Union. The results of the American elections embody numerous lessons among which one of the most significant may be the health of democracy in the United States, as demonstrated by the record level of voter participation despite the widespread Covid19 pandemic that was neutralized through a massive recourse to absentee and postal balloting. If the 145 million votes expressed testify to the implication of the elector after four years of an “atypical” presidency, the results point, nevertheless, to an outcome that allows both candidates to boast achieving “historical” scores. So, even if the result is undeniable, it leaves behind a thoroughly divided…

“Errare humanum est – perseverare diabolicum” On September 24th the European Commission published a Communication entitled “A Capital Markets Union for people and businesses-new action plan” (1). This is the fourth iteration of a process initiated in the early 2000’ under the name of the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP). It received a vigorous impulse at the outset of Commission President Junker’s mandate in 2015 with the proposal to create a “Capital Markets Union” (CMU) among the then EU 28 Member States; it was further updated in a 2017 review. If over the last 20 years progress has been made, mainly in attempts to harmonize or at least coordinate rules implemented by national regulators under a shared rule book, one…

The article of Pierre Defraigne “Who will pay the bill for the coronavirus” (La Libre Belgique 18/03/20) is, as usual with this eminent specialist of European affairs, both pertinent and coherent insofar as it identifies precisely the major policy areas that must be managed at EU level if the Union wishes to justify its existence and consequently ensure its survival. Nevertheless, I cannot endorse P. Defraigne’s rigorous analysis because it appears to me as a mere (useful) development of the arguments advanced over the last 50 years surrounding the EU project. Indeed, I believe that we have reached a point of rupture in which the accumulation of tensions in several key areas, considered up to now separately, are intermingling,  making…

The EU summit, which has just concluded, will celebrate the “satisfactory progress” made in the Brexit negotiations and leave self-satisfied European leaders to enjoy year end celebrations with the feeling of having accomplished their duty! The cracks in the EU unanimity on the sensitive matters of migration and further deepening Eurozone integration will keep alive the hopes of extreme Brexeteers that the worst consequences of Brexit will be avoided by an eventual collapse of the EU itself. While there will be little respite in Brexit negotiations with the focus on the “transition period” starting early in the new year, other priority preoccupations, in particular reforming the Eurozone, are being pushed back to next June after the hoped for formation of…