WDEV Dossier: Euro quo vadis?

It is time for Greece to say goodbye to the euro
Sometimes there is turmoil in the markets because a government threatens to do what is best for its citizens. This seemed to be the case in Europe last week, when the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that the Greek government was threatening to stop using the euro.
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Portugal on its way to the slaughter house
After some hesitations, the Portuguese government announced that it would seek support from the EU and the IMF. It did so in the face of systematic downgrading of Portugal's creditworthiness by US rating agencies and rapidly mounting interest rates.
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The tyranny of the central bankers
The European Central Bank (ECB) announced earlier this month that it was raising its overnight lending rate by a quarter of a percentage point to 1.25%. This is very bad news for people across the euro zone countries and possibly the rest of the world as well. Furthermore, it reveals the democratic deficit of fundamental decisions about economic policy.
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Economists split over state insolvency mechanism
Possible mechanisms for coping with debt crises and preventing them from occurring need global scope and a careful balancing of issues related to sovereignty and the functioning of the international financial order, experts said at a seminar. The seminar was titled "The Resolution of Debt Crises: The Policy and Research Agenda".
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Ireland: The implosion of a miracle
Three years ago, Ireland was still presented as an economic miracle well founded on the neo-liberal policies of low corporate taxation and lax banking regulation. Today, the miracle is in shambles. Relatively high growth rates had been grounded.
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The Baltic Future of Greece
Latvia and Estonia show us what Greece may look forward to if it follows the advice it gets from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union. As noted previously, Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record, losing more than 25% of GDP, a recent study shows.
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Greece: A European Crisis Needs European Solutions
A group of economists has written an open letter to European policymakers criticising their collective failure to address the Greek crisis as a European crisis. It sets out the various causes of the Greek crisis, of which poor fiscal management by that country is only one, and points out the European dimension of the problems. It calls for decisive and coordinated policies by European and national actors to stem the crisis.
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