Economy & Business

Slouching Towards a Fiscal Union

By Ben Carliner

It is an old cliché that the European Union only advances in the wake of a crisis. Recently though, it has seemed like every time the EU takes action its response is deemed too little too late.

The Debt Ceiling Crisis and National Security

By Don Snow

It is a central tenet of the right-wing, generally Republican, overwhelmingly pro-TEA Party movement that wields a stranglehold on the U.S. House of Representatives that the central government is not good for much. It does not, of course, put its belief in quite those terms, but nonetheless, that is the libertarian spirit in terms certainly […]

EU and US Face Economic, Leadership Crises

By James Joyner

European leaders have put another Band Aid on the Greek sovereign debt crisis while America’s leaders are trying to stave off a self-inflicted financial default. Meanwhile, pundits are credulous that the leaders won’t actually lead. Tufts international political economy expert Daniel Drezner notes that this affliction is especially strong among his fellow foreign policy wonks: To those who […]

Greek Rescue Package Kicks Can Down The Road Yet Again

By Hugh De Santis

Last Thursday’s bailout of Greece by the principal actors in the sovereign debt crisis –France, Germany, and the European Central Bank – has buoyed the spirits of European credit and stock markets. But the agreement does little more than paper over Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. It neither resolves Greece’s inability to pay its debts nor […]

Euro-Crunch: The Grim Banker is Calling

By Julian Lindley-French

“If there is no relief, we are going straight into the abyss”. So says, Romano Prodi, one-time Italian Prime Minister and President of the Onion’s European Omission. As European Onion finance ministers gathered in Brussels to disagree about what to do over the deepening Eurozone crisis the sheer scale of the crisis and its potential […]

Five Questions with Leszek Balcerowicz

By Alexei Monsarrat

Director of Global Business and Economics Alexei Monsarrat recently interviewed Professor Leszek Balcerowicz on how Greece and Europe will resolve the debt crisis. As Polish Finance Minister in 1989, Balcerowicz instituted a wide-ranging series of economic reforms to transition that country to a market economy. His “shock therapy” is widely cited as the textbook example of how […]

Reconnecting with Europe

By Ana Palacio and Margaritis Schinas

On Wednesday June 29, the Barroso Commission presented the European Union 2013-2020 budget. The negotiations between the member states and the European Parliament have thus begun, and the process will be long and difficult. Long, because the final agreement will have to be decided unanimously in the midst of the worst financial and economic crisis […]

Mapping the Economic and Financial Future

A new Atlantic Council report summarizes two years’ worth of rich and deep discussions from our “Mapping the Economic and Financial Future” speakers’ forum. Our Global Business and Economics Program has partnered with Deutsche Bank on this important initiative to help build the intellectual foundation for understanding the financial crisis, and drive the debate on […]

The Greek Crisis: Past, Present, and Future

By Hugh De Santis

It is hard to see how the Greek crisis can end up as a positive sum game for Greece and the European Union. The Greek electorate will almost certainly not accept the hardship of endless austerity as the price to be paid for the restoration of economic solvency. Nor will taxpayers in Germany, Holland, and other […]