Europe
Europe
Fair Observer provides insightful and informed analysis about important European issues, events and trends.
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Andrew Pollen and economist Edward Hugh find an unexpected link between Europe's ageing population and its ongoing financial crisis Developed country societies have been steadily getting older ever since the coming of the industrial revolution. But now they are ageing more quickly as birth rates in many developed countries continue to remain well below replacement rate and life expectancy continues to rise. Median ages in several countries are now around the 45 year mark, and during the late 2020s will even near the 50 year barrier. According to UN data, the proportion of the world's population aged over 65 is set to more than double by 2050, rising to 16.2% from 7.6% currently. The...
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Andrew Pollen and economist Edward Hugh find an unexpected link between Europe's ageing population and its ongoing financial crisis Developed country societies have been steadily getting older ever since the coming of the industrial revolution. But now they are ageing more quickly as birth rates in many developed countries continue to remain well below replacement rate and life expectancy continues to rise. Median ages in several countries are now around the 45 year mark, and during the late 2020s will even near the 50 year barrier. According to UN data, the proportion of the world's population aged over 65 is set to more than double by 2050, rising to 16.2% from 7.6% currently. The...
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Why the world should care about the European debate on bank capital requirements. The European Union’s finance ministers are furiously debating a piece of legislation known as CRD4/CRR (the acronyms stand for the fourth Capital Requirements Directive and the Capital Requirements Regulation). The measure is intended to implement the Basel III accord on bank capital, leverage, liquidity and risk management, which was adopted at the global level by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision in late 2010. There are two main unresolved issues. First, the legislation’s departures from the Basel III Accord; and second, whether individual member states should be allowed to impose core...
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In order to win the next round of the presidential election against Hollande, Sarkozy needs to win back the votes he lost from his own center-right, Orléanist base. According to the latest polls, Sarkozy is shy of just over 4% of votes, in order to retain his presidential seat. Where he finds the missing votes will be the determining factor in his fight for survival against Socialist frontrunner Francois Hollande next week. However, gaining votes from outsider parties is not his only challenge; between the ebbs and flows of his courtship of the far right, he has also lost the attention and the patience of his own center-right, Orléanist base. Considering the events of the past...
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360° Analysis / Politics / Europe / BRICBy Mark N. KatzRussia depends on its gas exports to Europe, almost as much as Europe depends on them. Many Western analysts fear that European dependence on Russian energy supplies is leading to increased European political dependence on Russia. The argument runs that the more Europe depends on Russian energy, the more it will have to bow to Moscow’s political demands due to the possibility that Russia could otherwise cut off the flow of energy. Russia’s abrupt reductions of energy exports to Ukraine and Belarus in recent years — which despite their short duration, dramatically affected Europe — are seen as the harbingers of what Moscow can do, or simply threaten to do, to any...
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Is the Occupy movement in Frankfurt the beginning of a civil society that occupies itself with the “hard facts” of finance, or is it loosing track? The activists’ discourses focalise on how a better financial world could be designed. Their demands remain decoupled from the current debates about bailout funds and the distribution of risks. “Intellectual incest is what you get if problems are discussed over and over only in the same small circles”, says Erik Buhn. The 28-year-old student is part of the “Occupy: Frankfurt” movement that has garrisoned the green space in front of the European Central Bank since last October. For Erik, the debt and...
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Come election time, is “firing the coach” always the best idea? The growing possibility that Nicholas Sarkozy can lose the second round of the presidential election in France, suggests that the political consequences of the economic crisis in Europe are bad for both leftist and rightist governments. Electorates are "firing the coach", as sport teams do when their performance worsens, even though many people might realize that the coach or prime minister is not always fully responsible for the economy’s performance. Together with Pedro Magalhaes, we organized an international academic conference on this topic at Georgetown University a few days ago. You can click...
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By Violeta Krasnic Twenty years after the end of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war, the overwhelmingly majority of women war crime survivors are yet to receive justice. Twenty years ago in April, war broke out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as the main act in the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In Sarajevo, the capital that once proudly hosted the Winter Olympics, 11,541 red chairs on the main street mark the grim anniversary; one for every citizen killed during the almost four-year-long siege on the city, the longest in recent history. This was the bloodiest conflict to take place on European soil since World War II. When it ended in 1995, the toll was staggering: two million displaced, 100,000 dead, and...
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360° Analysis / Politics / Europe / AsiaBy Jürgen RothAn analysis of Gazprom’s kaleidoscope of blackmail for exercising influence in Eastern Europe. In 2006, Elmar Brok, member of the European Parliament for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), raised the alarm about Gazprom’s expansionary efforts. Before that, Gazprom had announced that it would partly shut off its gas supplies to Europe if its plans for expansion in Europe were blocked. “Brok warned that the Russian energy company was pursuing a strategy not only to become the EU's biggest energy supplier, but also to gain control over the supplier networks and transit rights to ensure that “nothing happens without Gazprom.” More than a fourth of all the...