The deterioration of growth prospects is at the core of the financial crisis in Europe. Can Europe successfully form a banking and monetary union? Gateway House interviews Nicolas Véron, a French economist, to discuss the repercussions of the financial crisis in Europe and the potential for Indo-EU cooperation.
As a backlash of the EU’s economic crisis, Catalonia, with an economy the size of Portugal, is demanding to break away from Spain - one of the oldest states in the world; it’s not the only one. Flanders in Belgium too is following suit. How has this come to happen?
The failure of Western military interventions to bring peace raises questions about the effectiveness of human rights and calls for its redefinition. Instead of stigmatizing non-Western democracies that do not necessarily support intervention, the West should initiate an inclusive dialogue with these countries.
Momentous developments are taking place in Europe. In elections in Greece, France and Germany, Europeans expressed dissent against austerity policies adopted by their government to combat the economic crisis in Europe. How will these results affect the future of European policy-making?
The Western sanctions imposed on Iran to force it to abandon its nuclear programme have succeeded in bringing Tehran back to the negotiating table, but they are a tactic, not a strategy. Any long-term policy has to aim for a democratic Iran.
As Europe emerges from economic crisis, a larger challenge remains: finally turning the eurozone into an optimal currency area, with economies similar enough to sustain a single monetary policy. Getting there will be difficult and expensive, but the future of European integration hangs in the balance.
The scope for any process on nuclear talks with Iran to founder on distrust, misunderstanding and political in-fighting in both Tehran and Washington remains formidable. Equally disturbing are the wider political realities. Can the upcoming talks in Istanbul launch a process that can, over time, lead to agreement?
European youth unemployment is unacceptably high. Governments are trying to push young people into work, despite weak demand. Europe faces a choice: It can continue to fiddle with small-scale, ineffective labour market policies for young people, or it can invest in their human capital.
Kostas Botopoulos, Greece’s point-man in money markets, speaks to Gateway House's Akshay Mathur about Greece's bailout process, building consensus within the European Union, the reforms demanded by stakeholders and what it all means for India and the global economy.
At a time when some governments are pushing for a more integrated European Union, the British are becoming more euro-skeptic. This contradiction increases the likelihood of Britain eventually leaving the EU – an outcome that, if current trends continue, is thoroughly plausible.
