European Council blogging: Part Three (11042011)

Previous round-ups of my blog entries were published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March, and Part Two, which took us from 27 to 29 March 2011.

The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).

Part Three consists of the headlines of blog posts published from 30 March to 1 April 2011.


Economic policy

What did the spring summit say and do about economic policy and economic governance? The blog post looked at a few online comments.

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland: Commenting on European Council: Economic policy (30 March 2011)


European Stability Mechanism

This round-up concerned the new and permanent fund to prevent and to redress disruptions in the euro area. Here we took a tour of European press comments regarding the new bailout fund, intended to bring stability to the eurozone.

Grahnlaw: European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in media (30 March 2011)


Finnish rhapsody

A few remarks with regard to the Finnish rhapsody: Most documents are referenced referenced exactly enough to be found in other languages, blog posts and other online comments by others are in the original language and there is always the fall-back option to use Google translation.

The first post in Finnish is a summary of the economic policy decisions of the European Council and an outline of the next steps. It was followed by a presentation of the European Semester, including the preceding proposals from the Commission.

Eurooppaoikeus (in Finnish): EU-maiden talouspolitiikka: Seuraavat vaiheet (31 March 2011)

Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Finnish): EU:n talouspolitiikan eurooppalainen ohjausjakso (European Semester) (1 April 2011)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. European Union Law is a noteworthy blog about EU law by Vihar Georgiev, who also writes a mirror blog in Bulgarian. Real treasures in a field where few have the stamina to keep going.

European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in media

After 'Commenting on European Council: Economic policy', we turn to the permanent bailout system adopted by the spring summit 24 and 25 March 2011.


European Stability Mechanism (ESM)

The new eurozone stability mechanism ESM got a mixed reception in Germany, Reuters Detuschland tells us: Lob und Tadel in Deutschland für Euro-Paket (25 March 2011).

With regard to last minute changes to the new European Stability Mechanism, intended to protect the euro currency from speculation beginning in 2013, as well as other issues, Spiegel Online International presented both the German reasons and European irritation: European Leaders Agree to Euro Rescue Program (25 March 2011).

EurActiv reported on the negotiations leading to the EU's permanent bail-out fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM): EU leaders thrash out deal on permanent euro shield (latest update 28 March 2011)

According to Irwin Stelzer in The Wall Street Journal, ”the euro-zone summiteers seem to have concluded that if at first you don't succeed, continue making the same mistake.” The basic problem is the lack of competitiveness of the southern-tier countries; in: New ESM Won't Solve Euro-zone Woes (28 March 2011).

Adopting the Euro Plus Pact may have been the easy part, implementing it and especially achieving growth are the real tests. An article in the English section of Presseurop about the Europact discusses reactions in different Central European countries: What's in it for Eastern Europe? (28 March 2011).

According to Charles Forelle on the WSJ Real Time Brussels blog, Standard & Poor's downgraded credit ratings reflect nervousness about the new European Stability Mechanism: Greece, Portugal Cut. Thanks ESM! (29 March 2011).

The French Toute l'Europe ran its own European press review yesterday, including links to news and opinion in five languages: Revue de presse : Un pacte, oui mais pour qui ? (29 March 2011).



Ralf Grahn



P.S. On the collective quality blog Europe – 27 etc ”Jamel de L'or” presents a selection of ten ”must read” media in French on European affairs: Médias : Comment s'informer, en français, sur l'actualité européenne ? Highly recommended.