Category: Europe
Labour reform in Spain: Spanish practices
SPAIN’S new government is learning to be wary of microphones. Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister, was caught by one claiming his labour reform would provoke strikes. Luis de Guindos, the economy minister, was overheard calling it e…
Greece and the euro: Flaming February
THE pattern has become familiar: a late-night austerity vote in the Greek parliament, a riot in the square outside. This time, the violence went further, as gangs of hooded youths set ablaze almost 50 buildings in the city’s histo…
German services: Protected and inefficient
WHEN Mario Monti became Italy’s prime minister, German pharmacists fretted. Not for what he would do in Italy but because, as Europe’s competition tsar, he tried to liberalise professional services such as law, medicine and phar…
Labour reform in Italy: Dangermen
A PLAQUE marks the spot in Rome where Professor Massimo D’Antona was assassinated in 1999 by the Red Brigades. D’Antona was killed because he was working, for a centre-left government, on plans for greater flexibility in Italy’s labour market. Ma…
European financial regulation: Laws for all
WHEN Michel Barnier, a former French foreign minister, became European commissioner for the single market two years ago, he pledged that “every financial actor, financial market, financial activity and product” would be properly regulated so that t…
The media in Russia: Echo no more?
A wise fool meets a future president
ON THE tightly controlled Russian airwaves, Ekho Moskvy, a liberal radio station, has always stood out. Despite being two-thirds owned by Gazprom Media, an arm of Russia’s state gas giant, it ha…
France’s presidential election: The declaration
SELDOM has so much suspense built over a foregone conclusion. On February 15th Nicolas Sarkozy announced on television that he would run for re-election. François Hollande, his Socialist rival in the two-round presidential election in April and May, m…
Charlemagne: Running against Merkozy
HELMUT KOHL helped François Mitterrand when he was trying to win a referendum on the Maastricht treaty in 1992. Nicolas Sarkozy supported Angela Merkel when she sought re-election as German chancellor in 2009. So it is normal, Mrs …
Charlemagne: 1789 and all that
TRYING to coerce a group of sovereign states to follow common rules is ultimately doomed. Leagues and confederacies are like feudal baronies: breaches lead to anarchy, tyranny and war. That was Alexander Hamilton’s case for a stro…
Finland’s new president: A conservative first
AS GUARDIANS of the EU’s longest border with Russia, the Finns tend to make prudent choices. So they did in the second round of their presidential election on February 5th. Sauli Niinistö, a centre-right former finance minister, …
