...Date: The European sovereign debt crisis Introduction At the beginning of 2010, its emerged that the sovereign debt crisis would drastically spread through the entire European Union since Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy and Ireland, which are jointly known as the PIIGS were in facing the significant increase in their deficit as well as public debt. The events about the crisis were closely tied to Greece since there were doubts about its ability to offset the huge sovereign debt it owed as well as government deficits. This crisis of confidence in Greece resulted in the significant downgrade of the Greek bonds into a junk status as well as the Greek bond yield spreads notably rose (Brutti and Sauré, 2016). The financial unrest gradually spread to the entire European Union zone and the European stocks tumbled, and the euro currency reached 2-year lows. Nonetheless, Greece was not the only stressed economy in The Euro Zone, in fact, it turned out to be a tip of the iceberg since other nations in the European Union were trailing on the Same road. Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland had accumulated huge budget deficits as well as increased public debt to the Gross Domestic product ratios. Portugal had an economic boom that was being sustained by the significantly lower borrowing rates. Nevertheless, it was hit by expeditious wage inflation which adversely affected the local companies’ competition with other foreign firms (CAI and LI, 2012). The sovereign debt crisis in European region has...
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...1. In Greece the banks didn’t sink the country. The country sank the banks. Discuss this view. Which are the main differences between the Greek crisis and the crisis of Ireland and Portugal? The main cause of the Greek crisis is the ongoing disclosure of statistics that were well hidden from the eyes of the public, leaving people in ignorance about their own country and the future. When the figures started to become revealed, breaking up the shocking news about the forgery that lasted for over 30 years, it left the world in wonder – how is it possible to disclose such a thing for so long, and how is it possible that such action remains unpunished? The problems caused by the global recession were compounded by revelations that national statistics had been altered in order to cover the fact that Greece, in terms of debt levels, exceeded limits set down by the EU. The country's debt is already well over 100 percent of GDP and is still rising. According to euro zone rules, total government debt should not exceed 60 percent of GDP. The country's budget deficit in 2009 was almost 13 percent of GDP, more than four times the 3 percent limit allowed in the euro zone. But beyond the debt there is more deficit. What Greeks did when they got all this borrowed money, they gave away incredible sums to citizens, raised the wages to such an extent that it created a serious budget deficit. Inefficient Government? Corrupted mentality? Call it as you like, but it caused consequences that citizens...
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...Topic: PIIGS (European debt crisis) 吳宇綸D0131292 劉昱顯D0131156 王謙 周雋彥D0125599 Contents 1. Introduction 2. Overview of the European sovereign debt problem 3. Relief measures of the European sovereign debt crisis 4. European debt crisis 5. Conclusion 6. References I. Introduction The PIIGS is a group that composed of five countries that have some commonality in location and economic environments. In this case, PIIGS includes Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. The countries which be mentioned are all part of European Union members and have been noted for having weak economics and bad situation of financial problems. In 2008, economic crisis came to all over the world, during the worldwide economic crisis, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain began to come out the grave and serious concern in the European Union refer to the enormous amount of sovereign debt that they were carrying. The problem with the PIIGS is that speculators dropped, compounding their debt issues and the situation might be much more worse. Many European Union members were also unwilling to rescue these struggling nations although when it became very clear that assistance would be needed. The sovereign debt crisis sparked a number of conversations about reforming financial policy in the European Union to prevent similar problems in the future. The members of PIIGS felt displeasure at the negative allusions and some have...
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...The European Debt Crisis In 2009, Greece came forward and announced that their financial management of their economy had gone awry. Greece's revealed their budget to be 12.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in addition, its debt-to-GDP ratio at 120% was twice the limit allowed in the Maastricht treaty. This triggered what is now known as the European Debt Crisis, and led to similar announcements by Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Spain and most recently Cyprus. In the next pages we will attempt to explain the events leading up to the crisis and potential next steps for the European community. On February 7th, 1992 the 13 member nations of the European Council came together to sign the Maastricht Treaty. The treaty was designed to create financial stability throughout the Euro Zone by laying out fundamental fiscal policies for each country to follow. The treaty primarily encompasses four points: 1. Inflation rates: No more than 1.5 percentage points higher than the average of the three best performing (lowest inflation) member states of the European Union (EU). 2. Government finance: Annual government deficit: The ratio of the annual government deficit to gross domestic product (GDP) must not exceed 3% at the end of the preceding fiscal year. Government debt: The ratio of gross government debt to GDP must not exceed 60% at the end of the preceding fiscal year. 3. Exchange rate: Applicant countries should have joined the exchange-rate mechanism (ERM II) under the...
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...This essay will talk about what is currently going in Europe with the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis and the fiscal state the European Union is in, it is important and interesting because it is still current affairs and there are various factors and decisions that have helped the path that the crisis is going in, this essay will look at the crisis but on the implications and problems that European union face as well as what they have faced already and whether the European Central Bank are doing enough to improve the situation and what their plans are for the future. A sovereign bond serves as a floor for interest rates banks charged for loans and for the pricing of other financial contracts and securities. The global financial crisis led to the deterioration of government budgets and finances as nations utilized public expenditures to provide stability and stimulus. The Eurozone suffered because of heavy borrowing practices, property pebbles and living above their means. The Eurozone debt crisis started because Greece who had borrowed heavily in international capital markets over the past decade were turned against by investors this is because Greece in 2009 admitted that they had double the amount of debt that was allowed in the Eurozone limit. Ratings agencies started to downgrade Greek bank and government debt, and there was fear of Greece defaulting and not being able to pay back its debts but the Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou insisted otherwise however this was...
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... 2012 The European Sovereign-debt Crisis Throughout history, debt has been an issue and a concern for many countries around the world. Nations borrowing money, unnecessarily spending, corruption, inability to pay back loans and a variety of other factors have contributed to the devastating and lasting effects of monetary absolution. In recent years, some of the most significant and devastating economic occurrences that have taken place were released to the general public. One that has received a great deal of attention is known as the European Sovereign- debt Crisis or the Euro zone crisis. The European Sovereign Debt crisis is an ongoing financial crisis that has made it impossible for some countries in the Europe to repay or refinance their government debt without the assistance of third parties (Wikimedia). Countries across the European Continent are struggling to find ways to cope with the crisis and the impact that it has taken on debt stricken nations. Europe’s politicians, regulators, and market players are trying different approaches to deal with the problems at hand (Bloomberg LLP). Due to the number of countries that are involved this financial crisis is not only affecting these countries but the entire world. The Euro zone crisis had a variety of origins that grew their roots over a course of many years, but the situation was not released to the general public until back in late 2009 when the concerns intensified. Fears of a Sovereign Debt Crisis arose among...
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...Euro 2 3.0 Key Causes of the European Financial and Economic Crises 3 4.0 The Start and Progression of the European Debt Crisis 5 5.1 Greece 6 5.2 Portugal 6 5.3 Italy 7 5.4 Spain 7 5.5 Ireland 8 5.6 Iceland 9 5.0 Measures Taken (so far) to Combat the Debt Crisis (European Level) 10 6.7 European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). 10 6.8 European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM). 10 6.9 ECB interventions. 10 6.10 Brussels Agreement. 11 6.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the European Union 12 7.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the Global Economy 13 8.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For Global Politics 14 9.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For Pakistan 15 10.0 Implications of the European Debt Crisis: For the Welfare State 16 11.0 Solutions for the European Debt Crisis 16 12.11 Eurobonds. 16 12.12 Restructuring of Eurozone. 18 1.0 Overview: With a nominal GDP of $16,242 Billion in 2010 (20% of global GDP), the European monetary union is not only the world’s largest economic block, but also the foremost integrated economic and political association of nations in history. The economic crisis the Euro Zone currently faces is unique in all of its aspects. While, like all financial disasters, it cannot be traced back...
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...EUROPEAN DEBT CRISIS – ORIGIN, CONSEQUENCES AND POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS F RA N TI Š E K N E M E T H Abstract What is the European debt crisis? As the head of the Bank of England referred to it in October 2011, it is “the most serious financial crisis at least since the 1930s, if not ever.”1 In fact, the European debt crisis is the shorthand term for the region’s struggle to pay the debts it has built up in recent decades. Five of the region’s countries – Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, and Spain – have, to varying degrees, failed to generate enough economic growth to make their ability to pay back bondholders the guarantee it’s intended to be. Although these five were seen as being the countries in immediate danger of a possible default, the crisis has far-reaching consequences that extend beyond their borders to the world as a whole. Introduction The global economy has experienced slow growth since the U.S. financial crisis of 2008-2009, which has exposed the unsustainable fiscal policies of countries in Europe and around the globe. Greece, which spent heartily for years and failed to undertake fiscal reforms, was one of the first to feel the pinch of weaker growth. When growth slows, so do tax revenues – making high budget deficits unsustainable. Greece's economy has struggled since the country joined the euro in 2001. In 2004, it admitted its budget deficit was higher than allowed under rules of entry. By 2008 the government had narrowly passed a belt-tightening budget...
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...The Eurozone crisis (often referred to as the Euro crisis) is an ongoing crisis that has been affecting the countries of the Eurozone since late 2009. It is a combined sovereign debt crisis, a banking crisis and a growth and competitiveness crisis.[8] The crisis made it difficult or impossible for some countries in the euro area to repay or re-finance their government debt without the assistance of third parties. Moreover, banks in the Eurozone are undercapitalized and have faced liquidity problems. Additionally, economic growth is slow in the whole of the Eurozone and is unequally distributed across the member states.[8] In 1992, members of the European Union signed the Maastricht Treaty, under which they pledged to limit their deficit spending and debt levels. However, in the early 2000s, a number of EU member states were failing to stay within the confines of the Maastricht criteria and turned to securitising future government revenues to reduce their debts and/or deficits. Sovereigns sold rights to receive future cash flows, allowing governments to raise funds without violating debt and deficit targets, but sidestepping best practice and ignoring internationally agreed standards.[9] This allowed the sovereigns to mask (or "Enronize") their deficit and debt levels through a combination of techniques, including inconsistent accounting, off-balance-sheet transactions as well as the use of complex currency and credit derivatives structures.[9] From late 2009, fears of...
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... The Eurozone Debt Crisis Most of the people know how it feels to owe money, even if it is only to a mortgage company, or to a four-year college loan provider. But it is a different matter for an entire nation to be deeply buried in debt and unable to repay it. When a country drowns in debt, the government of that country usually seeks austerity as the major remedy of overcoming its debt crisis. Austerity promotes slow growth, and this actually makes the situation even worse due to the fact that world economy has become more open and integrated. In today’s world, there is no nation that exists in economic isolation. Every countries almost all the economic aspects- its education, health service, industries, service sectors, levels of income, and employment is integrated to the economies of its adjacent countries. This linkage plays a very important role in the global movement of goods and services, labor, investment funds, and technology. That is, when a country defaults on paying its debt, it not only affects the country in default, but also initiates a global economic crisis. In my research paper, I will tell the tale of eurozone debt crisis, which has created a global hysteria in the current world economy. In the research that follows, I will start with a brief history of the eurozone, how did eurozone face the debt crisis, and what might be ahead for the global economy, amid the ongoing European financial crisis. Eurozone is a term designated...
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...namely: Cyprus, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. The members of the euro zone are the main the main determinants of the success or failure of the Euro. The decisions made by these made by these respective governments as well as the relations of these countries to each other shape the future of the whole region. The euro zone crisis which started in 2009 was triggered by the withdrawal of investors in the Greece (Nordvig, 2013, p. 7). The credit crunch in Greece later led to the collapse of the housing markets in both Ireland and Spain which later on created a drift in the financial markets of the members in the Euro zone. The euro crisis pointed out major flaws in the European Union’s Economic Monitory Union policies (Dăianu, D'Adda, Basevi, & Kumar, 2014). The turbulence came to an end in 2013 making the region fairly stable and calm seems to have resumed in 2014. In 2013, Greece got an excess budget, lowered the interest rates of their bond, and got a positive gross domestic product (Dăianu, D'Adda, Basevi, & Kumar, 2014). Other countries in the euro zone have also recovered and trends promise a brighter future. The ability of some countries to bounce back from the crisis does not reassure all nations within the euro zone. As a result, they are opting to break from the European alliance. On the other hand, some countries feel only a revision of...
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...Greece – Crisis and Solutions Paper International Economics Greece - Crisis and Solutions June 25, 2013 Content 1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………2 2. Greece joining the Eurozone…...............................................................................3 3. Budget structure that lead to the crisis…………………………………………………………………6 4. Supporting and rescue measures…………………………………………………………………………9 5. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………….11 6. References……………………………………………............................................................13 1 1. Introduction In the last years the severe debt crisis of Greece has posed a large challenge to the member states of the Eurozone. It is threatening the stability of the European Monetary Union (EMU). After having piled up over 300 Billion Euros of debt, in 2010 the market mistrust in Greece dramatically increased, especially as the newly elected government revealed the incorrectness of the financial statistics of previous years. Finally, on the 23rd of April 2010, Greece was threatened by national bankruptcy and requested help of the other Eurozone members and the International Monetary Fund. Although Greece is one of the smaller economies of the Eurozone, its daring default has great effects on the whole community. Now then, what happen if Greece “Grexit”? The Pros are that a return to the old currency like the Drachma would have the effect of depreciate in value, it would become more competitively in...
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...EMS The European Monetary System (EMS) was the forerunner of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which led to the establishment of the Euro. It was a way of creating an area of currency stability throughout the European Community by encouraging countries to co-ordinate their monetary policies. It used an Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) to create stable exchange rates in order to improve trade between EU member states and thus help the development of the single market. Stable money had been a key part of international economic calculations since World War II. However, by the 1980s, opinion about it was much more divided. As a result, not all countries took part in the EMS straight away, and there were deeper splits in the years to come over the role of the EU in setting monetary policy as the EMS was replaced with the Euro. History The EMS was launched in 1979 to help lead to the ultimate goal of EMU that had been set out in the Werner Report (1970). The EMS came about because of the high global inflation and economic stagnation that characterized much of the 1970s. Contributing greatly to these problems was the sorry financial predicament of the United States during this decade. The dollar, which served as a peg for European currencies, was plagued by a ballooning American deficit, the oil crisis, a rapid rise in the demand for gold in world commodity markets, and unemployment and "stagflation" at home. The currency exchange rates of European Community (EC) members fluctuated...
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...Local Economy http://lec.sagepub.com/ The euro crisis Andrew Jones Local Economy 2011 26: 594 DOI: 10.1177/0269094211421748 The online version of this article can be found at: http://lec.sagepub.com/content/26/6-7/594 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: London South Bank University Local Economy Policy Unit Partner Organisation: Centre for Local Economic Strategies Additional services and information for Local Economy can be found at: Email Alerts: http://lec.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://lec.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://lec.sagepub.com/content/26/6-7/594.refs.html >> Version of Record - Nov 17, 2011 What is This? Downloaded from lec.sagepub.com at UNIV OF GUELPH on November 17, 2013 Review article The euro crisis Andrew Jones Local Economy Policy Unit, London South Bank University, UK Local Economy 26(6–7) 594–618 ! The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0269094211421748 lec.sagepub.com ´ ˜ Marco Buti, Servaas Deroose, Vıtor Gaspar and Joao Nogueira Martins (eds), The Euro: The First Decade, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2010; 1048pp: ISBN 978-9279098420, £95 (hbk); Roy H. Ginsberg, Demystifying The European Union: The Enduring Logic of Regional Integration (2nd edn), Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD, 2010;...
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...euro-zone crisis – causes, the crisis and reformation policies (with special reference to greece) the euro-zone ‘The Eurozone’ is the nickname commonly used to describe the member states that use the EU’s single currency, the Euro. The idea of creating a single currency for the European Community was first mentioned in the 1970 Werner report, which led to the establishing of the European Monetary System (EMS), the forerunner of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The Maastricht Treaty (1992) made EMU a part of EU law and set out a plan to introduce the single currency (the Euro) by 1999. The Maastricht Treaty also established certain budgetary and monetary rules for countries wishing to join the EMU (known as the convergence criteria). In 1998, 11 member states (Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria and Finland) undertook the final stage of EMU when they adopted a single exchange rate, which was set by the European Central Bank (Britain, Sweden and Denmark negotiated an opt-out from this final states of EMU). The new Euro notes and coins were launched on 1 January 2002. There are currently 16 EU states in the Eurozone. Greece joined the initial 11 members in 2001, Slovenia joined in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, and Slovakia joined in 2009. Estonia is due to join the Eurozone in 2011. All future members of the EU must adopt the Euro when they fulfil the convergence criteria. Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) ...
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