The events of the past weeks have shown us that the loudest advocates of “rescue” packages for Greece are analysts and economists from the financial sector. Although they usually prefer singing from the hymn sheet of free market liberalism, they are now reciting the lyrics of “supporting” and “rescuing” Greece.
Their sudden clarion calls come in [...]

When Prime Minister George Papandreou announced after the special European Union Council meeting in Brussels last week that the International Monetary Fund is providing “technical expertise” to the government, some commentators inside and outside Greece seemed to be caught by surprise.
They should not have been. There was great speculation during the past weeks over when [...]

‘Greek misery’, ‘Hellenic precipice’ or unwelcome comparisons with Dubai and Iceland, who both cannot repay their debts. Truly, the headlines about Greece since the start of the New Year could hardly be more telling. They are similar to a Greek tragedy. However, the final act has yet to be completed in Athens.
The macro and microeconomic [...]

Griechenlands Finanzen sind völlig marode – doch die Griechen hat das lange überhaupt nicht gestört. Regeln gelten in dieser instabilen Gesellschaft nicht viel. Analyse eines infantilen Gemeinwesens Die Wirtschaftskrise lösen die Griechen zumeist im Kaffeehaus, zumindest sprechen sie dort darüber, ebenso wie über die Politik und den Fußball. Doch das altbekannte, malerische Bild gesprächiger Geselligkeit [...]

Will Greece follow Dubai World into financial turmoil? Is putting matters in this alarmist tone fear mongering or the expression of a conspiracy theory? The flip-side of this question is the no less reassuring issue how realistic the expectation is that eurozone membership will once again protect Greece from itself and/or from speculative attack?
Whoever sought [...]

The German elections for the upper house of parliament, the so-called Bundestag, produced a number of unexpected and even historic results over the past weekend. While many political observers and forecasting institutes were predicting a tightening electoral race during the last days of campaigning, the final verdict of the German electorate proved much more clear [...]

As Germans prepare to go to the polls on September 27, the dynamics of the electoral campaign suggest an open contest with a variety of political outcomes. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, these general elections will test the capability of parties and MPs to react to the emerging diversity of political [...]

As Germans prepare to go to the polls on September 27th 2009, and incidentally Greeks just a week later, the dynamics of the electoral campaign suggest an open contest with a variety of political outcomes. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the forthcoming general elections will test the capacity of parties and [...]

The global economic and financial crises reached south-east Europe in the fourth quarter of 2008. All countries in the region registered a sharp output decline, with Romania, Serbia and Bulgaria particularly affected.
According to revised forecasts by the European Bank for Reconsruction and Development, Bulgaria’s economy will shrink by 3 per cent in 2009. This is [...]

Since the onset of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008, the global economic environment continued to worsen in the first quarter of this year but now appears to be slightly easing in the second quarter. The Balkans is among the regions most adversely affected, reflecting dramatic gross domestic product contraction, sizable fiscal deficits [...]