Bundesbank President says EU assistance for Greece would be politically impossible

The Telegraph reports that Axel Weber, President of the German Bundesbank and a member of the ECB Executive Board, has said that any EU aid for Greece in response to its economic problems would be counterproductive. He told the German Boersen Zeitung financial paper, “Politically, it would not be possible to tell voters that one country is being helped out so that it can avoid the painful savings that other countries have made”. He added that such a bail-out “is not provided for and, as a general rule, I think such aid, whether it is conditional, or - even worse - unconditional, is counterproductive”.

EUobserver reports that ECB Chief Economist Juergen Stark said yesterday that the state of EU governments’ public finances could lead to further credit rating downgrades and market turmoil. The Commission is expected to give its assessment of deficit cutting measures in four EU member states - Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta - today. The FT reports that Portugal’s government last night unveiled its budget proposals for 2010 aimed at bringing the country’s budget deficit under control, which stands at 9.3% GDP in 2009.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Les Echos, ECB President Jean-Claude Juncker said “I have been arguing for stronger economic policy coordination within the Eurozone for many years, but I never managed to gain support from all Eurozone countries”. He added, “If we want to turn the Eurozone into an influential monetary, economic and political entity, then we must stop giving the impression that we focus only on budgetary consolidation. The time has come for us to set up an integrated strategy to get out of the crisis”.

thanks to Open Europe

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Maltese fisheries and European Union Membership

This is an analysis of the consequences of the agreement reached between Malta and the EU in the fisheries sector, and of the effects of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The analysis is based on the Information Note, “Outcome of negotiations in the area of fishing”, from the Malta Information Centre (MIC), statements by the Hon. Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Hon. Ninu Zammit, and on discussions with Hon. Noel Farrugia, Opposition Spokesman on the same sector.

Malta is the smallest candidate country in area as well as in population size. And if it joins the European Union it will be the smallest Member State. When the Maltese government applied for EU membership in 1990, two years before the Maastricht Treaty, people believed that the European Community - as it was then called - was a sort of economic club of European nation-states. People thought that a huge union would not overwhelm tiny Malta.