Brussels to relax 3pc fiscal targets as revolt spreads

EMU officials in Brussels want to see specific details on how Spain will reduce its budget deficit to 3% of GDP in 2013. Given the 2011 deficit was 8.5%, EMU officials do not believe Spain, nor should anyone else. The targets will not be met. Moreover, some in Brussels accuse Spain of artificially inflating the 2011 deficit so as to better meet its interim target. Those are contradictory accusations actually. If the deficit is artificially inflated, it should be easier to make the targets.

Index closes 0.6%, or 35.92 points, higher at 6,282.76, after suffering bi

Spain's original deficit target for 2012 was 4.4%, then revised to 5% then 5.3%. The last revision brought the target all the way up to 6.3%. So how is Spain doing? Via Google Translate Libre Mercado says Spain recorded a fiscal deficit of 8.56% of GDP in the first half

Emile Roeme, a socialist running on an anti-Brussels, anti-austerity plan is likely to become the next prime minister of the Netherlands. On the extreme right, populist Geert Wilders wants the Netherlands to withdraw from the eurozone completely. The centrists who support the nannyzone feel squeezed in the middle, and their days appear numbered.

The implosion in Spain continues, with the budget deficit heading in reverse, now revised up to 9.4% of GDP. Spain's original deficit target for 2012 was 4.4%, then revised to 5% then 5.3%. Yet another revision brought the target all the way up to 6.3%. So how is Spain doing? A few flashbacks will explain. On April 10 I optimistically wrote Inconsistencies in Spain's Budget Suggest Deficit will be 7% not 5.3%

A RECENT survey by the French research institute IFOP found that in the eyes of the French, Angela Merkel represents those values that are commonly associated with Germans (serious, disciplined, hard-working, sincere and so on). The study, which was commissioned by the German embassy in Paris, also reported that 62% of respondents thought that France should learn from German economic and social policies—although I am not sure about the framing of that question in French.

I remain in "awe" of the amazing arrogance of politicians and news writers who simply cannot take "no" for answer no matter how many times it is spelled out. The horrendous "eurobond" idea simply will not go away, even though Merkel and the German supreme court buried it long ago. Even if Merkel was willing to give in on the idea, Finland and Austria wouldn't, and more importantly neither would the German supreme court.