How Poland Came to Be a Major EU Power

"Faced with these developments, Warsaw has learned that it can exert influence by bridging differences between Paris, London, and Berlin. Poland is still a balancing power, but not one at the Big Three’s disposal.

Moreover, Poland’s success in this role is fueling speculation that any further breakdown in relations between France, Germany, and the UK will allow it to emerge as a partner to one of the Big Three—or even as a leader in its own right."

"Yet the biggest challenge for Poland now is to articulate more clearly what it wants. Other states are tired of hearing that it is an emerging power within the bloc. They want to know what this new power expects. In this sense, Warsaw has been a victim of its own rapid ascent, and must scramble to develop a rationale for its new status."

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/?fa=51958

Looking back on the Global, European and Greek (post-2008) crises

"How did the EU profit from Greek indebtedness all these years?

The implicit contract between Greece and the European Common Market, as the European Union was called back in 1980, was simple: Greece would open up its borders to northern European imports and Northern Europe would transfer surpluses to Greece. The hope was that, in the process, investment funds would also flow into Greece to support local industries thus “balancing” out Greece’s trade and capital flows vis-à-vis Europe. However, the reality was that the funds that flowed in simply inflated asset prices while, catastrophically, they came hand-in-hand with the collapse of Greek industrial facilities which were quickly purchased by northern European companies, closed down, and turned into warehouses for their imports (e.g. the white goods industry that was purchased by Siemens which then used “badge engineering” tactics to sell imported refrigerators in Greece, under Greek labels). When in the 1990s the Eurozone was being concocted, and interest rates collapsed Euroland-wide, the process sped up massively and Greece’s hitherto risk averse and debt-hating households began to borrow more, purchasing German and other northern European goods as if there was no tomorrow; funded by the flow of northern European cash that was actively seeking higher returns in the European Periphery, often resorting to predatory lending of households and governments alike."

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/08/17/looking-back-on-the-global-european-and-greek-post-2008-crises-interview-with-d-polymenopoulos/

The Death of Direct Bank Re-capitalisation: Europe’s (newest) day of shame

 "When a bank needs capital injections, the first thing that happens is that the national government provides the capital needed to raise the bank’s minimum capital ratio (T1) to 4.5% of its assets. After that, a sequence of haircuts must follow. First to be haircut are the shareholders and bondholders and then come the uninsured depositors (i.e. the Cyprus model is enacted). Beyond that, the ESM and the national government pout more money in the bank, with the latter participating at a rate of 20%, which can later be reduced to 10%. (...)

Mr Olli Rehn, the EU’s economic overlord, has said it himself, in describing this scheme as an attempt not to decouple the two crises but, rather, to “dilute the link” between them. It is like telling a hanging man that you will not cut the rope choking him but that you will remove a couple of layers of string from it."

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/06/21/the-death-of-direct-bank-re-capitalisation-europes-newest-day-of-shame/

[WSJ] IMF Admits Mistakes on Greece Bailout

"The International Monetary Fund has admitted to major missteps over the past three years in its handling of the bailout of Greece, the first spark in a debt crisis that spread across Europe.

In an internal document marked "strictly confidential," the IMF said it badly underestimated the damage that its prescriptions of austerity would do to Greece's economy, which has been mired in recession for the last six years.

But the fund also stressed that the response to the crisis, coordinated with the European Union, bought time to limit the fallout for the rest of the 17-nation euro area.

The IMF said that it bent its own rules to make Greece's burgeoning debt seem sustainable and that, in retrospect, the country failed on three of the four IMF criteria to qualify for assistance."

"The paper added that the targets and the underlying macroeconomic projections weren't revised to reflect what was actually happening in Greece for 18 months, until December 2011.
The IMF had originally projected Greece would lose 5.5% of its economic output between 2009 and 2012. The country has lost 17% in real gross domestic output instead. The plan predicted a 15% unemployment rate in 2012. It was 25%.

Slowing the pace of austerity would have helped Greece's economy, but wasn't politically possible, the fund said."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324299104578527202781667088.html

Europe needs a hegemonic Germany

Ciekawe rozważania o roli Niemiec w Europie w najbliższym okresie.

Should Germany then try to emulate America? Germany does not have the capacity to do what the United States accomplished from 1980 to 2008; that is, to operate as a gigantic vacuum cleaner sucking into its territory other nations’ net exports, at the cost of ever expanding deficits. Nor should German taxpayers be expected to reflate the bubbles that burst in 2008 (in their own banks, in and around the Greek state, in Irish and Spanish real estate markets etc.). Burst bubbles should be allowed to remain… burst. But meanwhile a hegemonic Germany would find ways to channel the huge pools of stagnant savings into productive investments in the Periphery where they shall produce the incomes that must pay down debts and maintain the level of intra-European demand German companies need to remain competitive both within and without Europe.

http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2013/02/22/europe-needs-a-hegemonic-germany/

Obliczenia na szczyt unijny

Nie tylko ja już dawno zgubiłem się w tych wszystkich rachubach (300 miliardów Pana Premiera itd.). Koledze Rafałowi ktoś to wyjaśnił, niech Kolega Rafał wyjaśni i Tobie:

http://rafalhirsch.blogspot.com/2013/02/sciaga-na-szczyt-unijny.html

Unia bankowa

1. Unia a sprawa Polska ver. 1 

"Wejście do unii bankowej z obecną strukturą właścicielską naszych banków spowodowałoby, że będziemy ponosić koszty ratowania ich central w strefie euro – uważa Stefan Kawalec, prezes Capital Strategy."

http://www.obserwatorfinansowy.pl/badania-i-raporty/kawalec-lepiej-udomawiac-banki-niz-wchodzic-do-unii-bankowej/?skad=newsletter20121212

2. Unia a spraw Polska ver. 2

"Polska przystąpi do unii bankowej, bo to leży w naszym interesie. Dla Polski niezwykle ważne jest, żeby przystępować do takich instytucjonalnych porozumień jak unia bankowa, ponieważ jesteśmy w innej sytuacji niż Wielka Brytania, która nie zamierza wchodzić do strefy euro – uważa profesor Danuta Hübner, przewodnicząca Komisji Rozwoju Regionalnego w Parlamencie Europejskim."

http://www.obserwatorfinansowy.pl/tematyka/finanse-publiczne/polska-bardziej-potrzebuje-unii-bankowej-niz-ona-nas/

3. Dla najlepszych raport, gdzie zebrane jest 16 opinii ekonomistów (polecam choć jakaś przeczytać) w tym temacie:

http://www.voxeu.org/sites/default/files/file/Banking_Union.pdf

"there can be no piecemeal approach to banking union, in that centralising supervision alone at the supra-national level, while leaving bank resolution and recapitalisation at the national level could have an adverse effect. Second, that a banking union should be part of a larger reform package that addresses sovereign fragility and the dangerous entanglement of bank and sovereigns. Another important recommendation of the book is to address the potential conflict between immediate crisis resolution whilst at the same time ensuring that the appropriate structures are in place to enable the many long-term institutional reforms that are now so clearly needed. "