Eloise HorsfieldSPAIN’S foreign minister has backed calls for Europe’s rescue fund to be boosted to one trillion euros.
Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo also called for sweeping changes to the structure of the eurozone, and urged the ECB to increase bond purchases.
It follows demands by Italy’s prime minister Mario Monti for the new European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to be doubled in an effort to restore investor confidence in southern European debt.
“The European Central Bank can do much more than it has done: it has bought European debt equal to just two per cent of GDP while the Bank of England has done 20 per cent,” Garcia-Margallo said.
Spain is currently falling into a double-dip recession, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasting that Spain’s economy will contract by 1.7 per cent this year.
Ratings agency Moody’s recently downgraded Valencia’s credit rating by two notches over fears about mounting debt, while nine other region’s including Andalucia risk a similar fate.
None of the northern European.Scandinavian professional parasites aka politicians dares to to talk about the monstrous elephant in the room – corruption.
All those who live or have lived in southern Europe know only too well just how corrupt these countries are. Yes there is corruption in the northern lands as well but nothing on the scale of the south.
We now hear that Greece is naming over 4000 fatcats who hav’nt paid any tax at all – why did’nt they make this public 2 years ago, which is’nt like demanding international arrest warrants and seizure of assets.
And now we have the Spanish demanding that the mugs of the north must buy their worthless paper.
No rational person living in northern Europe can have anything but contempt for their self seeking (I’m all right Jack) politicians.
When I hear that the EU is to send in inspectors to root out all the corrupt practices of the southern countries before any more hard earned money from the north is tranferred south, then and only then will I feel that the problem is being sorted.
In Greece the Orthodox church receives hand outs evry year from the ordinary Greek taxpayer – when it is the wealthiest institution in that country.
In Spain the Catholic church can be donated money which comes off your tax bill. It just happens to be one of the wealthiest institutions in the world.
Thank goodness the German taxpayer will not stand for this neither will the Dutch, my friends in both countries are livid with anger at the perrenial rip-off by the south.
If a single Euro bond is set up you will hear the sound of greedy hands rubbing together – the free ride continues.
the germans will do as their ruler tells them to (they are good at following orders)
The corruption here will never end because its endemic and goes from the top down . Germany will pay for the rest of europe to live “free”
one cheque book defeats two world wars
…… wouldn’t bet on it Sam, this crisis has stirred up a lot of duhduh that otherwise would have just kept floated under the surface without stinking up the place too much.
Unlike Spain there is a very informed public in Germany that isn’t very happy about money transfers down south without countability = why and what for.
While the why isn’t real clear and the what for is almost too clear by now.
Every German knows by now that all the monies send here were used for what ?? Build a bubble ?
While German Industry had record profits over the Euro years, the German worker/voter hasn’t had a real salary rise in the last 10-15 years, this constitutes a big part of the Euro problem, the Club Med Countries had up to 10% p a. which means competitiveness between North-South, which in turn means in the future it will be quite hard for Luigi and Pepe when they are up against Hans and Franz costing the same while productivity …….
So the whole Euro dilemma is a huge Catch 22 for the German Industry (the puppet masters of Merkel & Co) while they are more then willing to sent German tax-money down south the Politicians who want to keep playing puppet need the vote, so have to be cautious ………
Now for the real fun part – how to create jobs in Spain ………