A new Cyprus bailout deal worth 10 billion euros was announced today by EU leaders which involved shutting down one of the country’s largest banks. The deadline for such a deal was set for today by the European Central Bank. Eurozone finance ministers have agreed a 10bn-euro bailout deal for Cyprus to prevent its banking [...]

The bank holiday in Cyprus that was supposed to end Thursday has been extended again which has done little to ease the anxiety of Cypriots desperate to withdraw their savings for fear of having them taxed. Unrest has been breaking out around banks with people protesting for “dignity” and voicing opposition against any plans to [...]

Over the weekend the European Union inaugurated its embargo on Iranian oil, the most wide-reaching impediment to the Iranian economy of the recent sanctions. The EU as a market is bigger than the United States, so this is significant for Iran. And oil accounts for 80% of Iran’s total exports. Monday marks the first day [...]

The EU has come up with a plan, to be discussed at this week’s summit, to dramatically consolidate fiscal policymaking power in a Eurozone leadership figure, without authorizing the kind of fiscal transfers that would smooth over imbalances and make the currency union a true “United States of Europe.” The EU would gain far-reaching powers [...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande met yesterday in Berlin, in what was kind of an awkward summit. But they did appear united on one point: that Greece must keep their promises and stay in the Eurozone. Both spelt out their concern that Greece should remain a full member of the common [...]

This must be the day when everything gets sewn up into neat little packages. The Greek government has announced a deal has been reached to secure their second bailout, though one junior partner has not confirmed agreement. The head of the European Central Bank is saying a deal has been done as well. Mario Draghi, [...]

Greek bailout talks have deadlocked again, but at the moment the culprit is not the hedge funds seeking a higher payout on the distressed debt they bought, but the “troika” of the EU, ECB and the IMF. They gave Greece a Monday deadline to accept bailout terms. And those terms, frankly, are totally insane. The [...]

When Standard and Poor’s downgraded nine European countries last Friday, they said plainly that European leaders were blinding themselves to the full crisis: We also believe that the agreement [the latest euro rescue plan] is predicated on only a partial recognition of the source of the crisis: that the current financial turmoil stems primarily from [...]

The 17 countries of the Eurozone formally backed a new deal for fiscal management, one designed to “save the euro” but which can only help if a host of other measures fall into place, including any plan to actually boost growth on the southern periphery. The European Council released this communique on the agreement. Because [...]

Earlier in the week, I wrote about how David Cameron wanted to use his leverage as a non-Eurozone member of the EU to wring concessions as a condition of signing treaty changes. At the EU summit, he presented his aims: basically, softening a financial transaction tax that the other countries in Europe want, and other [...]

Now that the troika – the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – has manhandled the Greek political system, they will probably turn their attentions to Italy. Despite the deal reached a couple weeks ago to “save the euro,” Italian bond spreads (the difference between German and Italian bond rates) keep [...]