Skip to main content

Europe risks losing both Italy and the euro

Europe risks losing both Italy and the euro

woman playing with wooden blocks

Europe faces the most poisonous North-South showdown since the creation of monetary union. The raw emotions of Covid-19 have brought matters to a head.

“Social cohesion between European countries is being stretched to the point where the resiliency of the EU and the euro can no longer be taken for granted. The risk is greater now than at any previous time,” says Arnaud Marès from Citigroup.

These are strong words from a crisis veteran who once served as Mario Draghi’s right-hand man at the European Central Bank. He has a warning for EU leaders as they meet by videolink to thrash out a pandemic rescue response worthy of the name. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Italy: Firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law

Italy: Firms shake lockdown using shortcut in coronavirus law The government last week extended non-essential business closures to May 3. But more than 100,000 mainly small- and medium-sized companies have applied to keep going or partially reopen. In principle, a key hurdle for companies to do business should be that they can prove they are part of a supply chain to businesses that are deemed “essential” in a government decree, such as food, energy or pharmaceutical companies. But the government, facing a backlog of applications, has clarified Italy’s lockdown laws to say no companies need to wait for government approval to go ahead. More than 105,000 firms have applied to be considered part of essential supply chains, the interior minister said on Wednesday, in a guideline on its website to clarify the lockdown rules. Of those, just over 2,000 have been turned down and told to suspend their business. More than 38,000 are being investigated and the rest are waiting to be...

German government overreacted on COVID-19

German government overreacted on COVID-19 Christian Drosten, director of Berlin's Institute of Virology at the Charité Hospital, spoke to The Guardian on Sunday, days after the country began lifting some lockdown restrictions. Germany's lockdown started to lift on April 20, with the opening of smaller businesses like car dealerships, bike shops, and book stores. The country plans to start reopening schools on May 4. Drosten said he felt like the government was being pressured to reopen, and that he feared that a blasé attitude toward the relatively tame outbreak in Germany could lead to a new burst of infections.  The basic reproduction number, also known as R0, represents the average number of people a single patient is expected to infect and is a key figure to measuring countries' outbreak. You can read Business Insider's explainer to it here. More: https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-coronavirus-restrictions-so-effective-people-think-overreaction...

Volkswagen factory just reopened

Volkswagen factory just reopened The world's largest carmaker has made 100 changes to the way its plants operate as it tries to restart business without risking the health of hundreds of thousands of workers. Its experience underscores the daunting task ahead for manufacturers as they resume work in a world still reeling from the pandemic. "We have never developed, produced and sold vehicles under these conditions before," said Bernd Osterloh, the top labor representative at Volkswagen (VLKAF). The gigantic Wolfsburg plant is located on the banks of an equally impressive feat of human engineering, the 200-mile long Mittelland Canal connecting sea and inland ports in Europe. Originally built in 1938 to house workers for Volkswagen's factories, Wolfsburg is still home to the group's headquarters and has produced more than 45 million cars since 1945. It's where the iconic Beetle was produced for more than three decades and where the automaker's be...