Spain makes it easier to get rid of lazy workers

THE reform of Spain’s Labour Laws has been big news, and not before time. For too long the level of youth unemployment – at almost 50 per cent – has been a national disgrace, with nothing being done to correct the problem, for fear perhaps in the past, of upsetting the smaller,...

European democracy is an oxymoron

THE EU remains enmeshed in its habitual tangle of differing opinions, and Heads of State continue to put their political careers before anything else. So I thought I might distance myself from such kindergarten squabbling, but what did I find whilst ‘surfing the web’, but a re-hash of comments I made in...

Merkozy mark 2

ONE should really give credit – if that’s the right word – to Merkel and Sarkozy for striving so untiringly to get their Fiscal Union Plan back on the rails, even if it means sneaking it in by the back door and with a different name. When David Cameron vetoed the original proposal which would have...

Fiscal union – a plan, or a prop?

A FEW thoughts concerning the ‘Merkozy’ Fiscal Union plan. Let’s start with Greece, the government of which, headed by the EU Commission-appointed Lukas Papademos, is still in deep trouble. The Prime Minister has been warning the Unions, the Bankers, and the public in general, that if Greece fails to...

Is there a future in Europe for the UK?

IT has been mooted at various times that to leave the EU, all Britain needs to do is abrogate the European Act, and although that is broadly true, where would such action leave the UK? Britain, one of 27 members of the European Union, is the third most populous after Germany and France, and under the present...

Has the euro experiment in Spain failed?

SPAIN joined the EEC in 1986 and became a member of the eurozone in 1992. Now, 10 years later, one might consider what the advent of the Euro has meant to ordinary citizens. This newspaper reported last week that everyday necessities, food, clothing, a roof over one’s head, have risen in price 48 per cent...

EU crisis – a saga, or a shambles?

THE EU ‘crisis’, staggering along it’s ill-defined path, appears no closer now to resolution than it was almost 12 months ago. The Greek economy remains in tatters with the EU-imposed government spending its way through the last bail-out without, it appears, any workable plan for the resuscitation of...

Wrecker or scapegoat?

THE BBC, taking its customary left-leaning stance, had, almost as soon as the news of his ‘veto’ filtered back from Brussels, decided David Cameron had mis-handled the meeting. They casually disregarded the fact that he attended with the declared intention of protecting the City from the iniquities of...

Europe: unity or a takeover?

WITH British PM David Cameron condemned by some members of parliament and much of the media, perhaps it would be useful to look at what might – probably will – befall those European countries, the Heads of Government of which appear to be falling over themselves to sign whatever the EU might propose to...

Where lies the blame?

THE ‘contagion’ appears to have spread to Spain, despite the leaders of both main parties agreeing that, although stagnant, the economy is far from moribund. The blame, they say with all the other eurozone leaders, lies with the ‘speculators’ who, like a menace of vultures, move from one corpse to...