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Eurozone Crisis

It seems in the news at the moment that everywhere you turn there’s some form of crisis. The most well known of these is currently the economic crisis, which is something we are all feeling the effects of strongly, but as well as this there’s then the environmental crisis, the energy crisis and now the Eurozone crisis. So what is the Eurozone crisis, and is it something you need to be concerned about?

            The Eurozone is a term used to describe the region of countries using the Euro (currency). This then includes many of the countries of the EU such as Germany, France and Greece, but not all of them (countries like England and Poland still use their own currencies). The Eurozone ‘crisis’ then refers to the plunging value of the Euro caused by the economic crisis and amplified by the multitude of countries using the system. The problem is, that while one country might be coping well with the financial hardships, others that are fairing less well (such as Greece) can end up pulling the value back down making it a vicious cycle and one that is hard to escape from. Germany has been shouldering much of the brunt of the economic turmoil and handing bail outs to Greece, but this not yet enough

Other causes of the Eurozone crisis include too much debt from the member states, a lack of competition between the countries, the differing mechanisms of the various economies tied to one currency, and disagreements coming from the lack of a single authority and so many different member states each with vested interests – a ’17 headed hydra’. Criticisms have been leveled at the very idea of a single currency which some skeptics see as unstable and unfeasible.

This Eurozone crisis however is not a problem that is contained to Europe; rather it is one that affects the rest of the world through investments, debt and trade and that is risking serious global economic decline. I is in every one’s best interests to solve this crisis as soon as possible. Many meetings have been held between the member states of the EU to this end, but as yet no satisfactory solution has been found.

Europe Crisis

Posted under Europe

Europe Crisis

The economic crisis is something which has affected the economy across the globe, and in much of Europe there has been a Europe crisis going on that’s been highly disruptive and concerning for the residents. This Europe crisis has been around for as long as the economic crisis in the rest of the world and largely followed a similar trajectory. That is to say that while the Europe crisis has been very bad for the last year, there is now a respite as sorts as most of those countries are gradually starting to drag themselves out of the recession along with the rest of the world. Here we’ll look at what stage they’re at, as well as at some of the unique challenges that the Europe crisis faces that is either different from or additional to the economic crisis elsewhere.

Of course being a continent made up of multiple countries and economies, not every country in Europe is in exactly the same place when it comes to the Europe crisis and different countries are in different states of repair as they each are influenced by different factors.

Countries such as Germany and France that had strong economies to begin with are doing a great job of pulling themselves out of the current Europe crisis. However Greece for example is suffering from the Europe crisis more than the rest of Europe and is further from making a recovery. Meanwhile other countries such as Spain are showing less recovery from the Europe crisis than they might have hoped. This has lead to fears of ‘contagion’ as the rest of Europe fear that the situation in Greece could spread and rekindle the Europe crisis which would like effect the rest of the world. The Europe crisis is particularly sensitive to the state of countries such as Greece as they are members of the EU and therefore share the Euro – any damage to Greece’s economy lowers the value of the Euro for the rest of the continent.

This has lead to direct comparisons to the problems created by the Lehman Brothers in 2008 and measures are being taken to try and avoid another such collapse and ‘second coming’ of the Europe crisis. As such negotiations are being made regarding a bail out package for Greece provided by the EU which has not been unanimously accepted. Countries that are suffering less from the Europe crisis such as Germany for example are not totally behind the idea to give Greece billions of Euros, particularly as they are currently going through an election where many candidates running for Chancellor are opposing the politically sensitive idea.

However the Europe crisis pans out, it asks some serious questions about the EU and the Euro that are bound to cause further discussion.

Posted under Europe