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The weakest link in the EU right now, aside from Greece, appears to be Italy. As this article from Deutsche Welle spells out, Italy is arguably the sick man of Europe.
What is wrong with Italy? Just to list a few noteworthy issues:
Nearly half of Italy wants to leave the EU according to recent polls,
Italy's banking system appears to be in worse shape than Germany's,
Italy is a major immigration gateway from African, it has big problems with regards to immigration and the protests that go with that,
Their economy has been among the worst in Europe for over a decade, with no signs of turning around.
The Italian PM, Matteo Renzi, has called a referendum in November 2016 for constitutional reform and has promised to resign if he loses. The polls are currently too close to call.
Nearly half of Italy's population wants to leave the EU, the country's economy is among the worst in the eurozone. Can the government solve this? Sandro Gozi, European Affairs Minister, is on Conflict Zone this week. "We need to relaunch the European integration process," the Italian European Affairs Minister Sandro Gozi told DW's Conflict Zone.
Referring to Germany's vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, who said that the EU would go "down the drain" unless more EU states were kept from following Britain's lead, Gozi acknowledged the Union was in a "delicate phase" and could not afford to maintain "the status quo".
But a poll in May of this year showed that 48 percent of the Italian public would like to leave the EU, especially members of the Eurosceptic Five Star Movement. Minister Gozi told Tim Sebastian: "I love too much my country to let my country go towards suicide." And referring to Brexit he said: "I fully respect the British choice, I think that it is a deeply wrong choice." But many Italians have grown frustrated over the EU's failure to look after the refugees and migrants arriving on Italian shores and turning down the country's requests for financial assistance.
Deutsche Bank and Brexit may be the hot issues of the moment, but Italy has the potential to be a more serious problem for the EU than either of them.
Thank you for your informative posts on this subject. I have read each one with great interest. I haven't commented before, because I have talked about this subject until I am blue in the face elsewhere......
We are slowly making our way to the exit door of the EU. They are still coming at us with the occasional threat, but seem to be calming down somewhat. The leader in Scotland is yapping like a little dog about it, but we pay her no heed. The people who really matter in all this are the English. We form the vast majority of the UK, and we voted by a good margin to leave.
In the long term, I feel the EU needs us, more than we need them. It sells vast amounts of goods in my country. If they want a tariff war, then bring it on. We had to leave, because the EU wouldn't listen to our concerns about unfettered immigration.
The very much ex Prime Minister was stupid enough to give us a vote. Well, he got the wrong result from that, and is quitting politics. The new PM Theresa May knows very well the levels of anger and frustration within England, and whether some folks wants to believe it or not, we are leaving the EU.
Thank you, Dave, I appreciate that. I appreciate the courage that the people of the UK have shown in over-ruling their elected leaders and choosing a path that will be difficult and will face huge resistance from the UK and EU establishments, but is the right decision anyway.
I think you guys are putting yourself forward as the true leaders of democracy and freedom in the world right now. It used to be us, but obviously not anymore.
For all of that, you cannot be commended nearly enough.
The UK left an economic bloc of ~$13 trillion, the largest in the world. Still seems like a move to cut off its nose to spite its face but only time will tell.
Obviously the people were not happy hence the Brexit vote to leave the EU. After all, what matters more, the people or the elitist? government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way around.
Obviously the people were not happy hence the Brexit vote to leave the EU. After all, what matters more, the people or the elitist? government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way around.
To address the enormous problems with the EU's banking system, which has not been dealt with in anything close to a sufficient way since the 2008, crash, surely there must be some sort of reforms in the works, right?
Well, no. Instead, they want to relax proposed capital requirements, because having them this high means that European banks are likely not to meet these requirements. So, rather than firm up the banks, they want to lower the requirements.
Apparently no lessons were learned by these people from the 2008 worldwide financial debacle, which they suffered arguably worse than anybody.
Global banking regulators need to make sweeping changes to proposed new rules on measuring asset risk to protect European Union banks against a spike in capital requirements, said Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s financial-services chief. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision should rework planned restrictions on how banks estimate the risk from property loans as well as corporate and infrastructure lending, Mr Dombrovskis, a vice president of the European Commission, said in Brussels on Thursday.
The one requirement that helps to insure the safety and soundness of banks and the banking system more than any other are the capital requirements. These requirements force these banks to keep their liabilities to depositors and bondholders below a certain level, in order to reduce the risk of failure. While typical well-established main-street businesses are usually not able to get unsecured financing if their debt to equity is over 2-1, banks have for many years had debt to equity ratios exceeding 12-1. This is the mechanism for the huge returns on equity that banks earn in good times. But when things turn south, this works against them, and financial crashes and panics ensue.
So as unpopular as the idea is among the well financed banking sect, the answer to this is to reduce risk to depositors and tax payers by requiring higher capital reserves. Even after these proposed increases, banks will still be leveraged over 10-1, which is still quite high.
I would suggest it is not high enough. But the problems in the European banking sector are so pervasive and so severe, that the European bankers and their regulators are balking at the proposal.
Last edited by Ibginnie; 09-14-2020 at 11:10 AM..
Reason: copyright violation
Thank you for your informative posts on this subject. I have read each one with great interest. I haven't commented before, because I have talked about this subject until I am blue in the face elsewhere......
We are slowly making our way to the exit door of the EU. They are still coming at us with the occasional threat, but seem to be calming down somewhat. The leader in Scotland is yapping like a little dog about it, but we pay her no heed. The people who really matter in all this are the English. We form the vast majority of the UK, and we voted by a good margin to leave.
In the long term, I feel the EU needs us, more than we need them. It sells vast amounts of goods in my country. If they want a tariff war, then bring it on. We had to leave, becaude the EU wouldn't listen to our concerns about unfettered immigration.
The very much ex Prime Minister was stupid enough to give us a vote. Well, he got the wrong result from that, and is quitting politics. The new PM Theresa May knows very well the levels of anger and frustration within England, and whether some folks wants to believe it or not, we are leaving the EU.
Your PM was not listening to the people, like Angela Merkel isn't listening to the people. The Brexit was vote all over the media and said you would vote to stay and the U.S. stock market climbed to record levels. After you voted to leave the U.S. stock market plummeted and the liberal media was peddling the end of days. They were wrong on both accounts. Then they were peddling the UK demise. There will be struggles and some here will take pleasure in your struggles pointing to say you should have stayed. But it's divorcing from a bad marriage, divorcing is not fun but in the end it's much better. I just hope the people in the U.S are as smart.
The left here wants let anyone come here including people from war torn countries even though there is no way of vetting them. They ignore what is happening in Europe and ignore that there are people who will kill Americans, just hope your not in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not one of those people who were murdered thought it would be them. For awhile our leaders were calling attacks on the people work place violence, they're not able to get away with as much.
Yes the EU needs you (and Germany) more than you need them. You've survived how long before joining the EU? They need you to bail out poor countries. People here don't understand that even our poor here are better off than many in other countries. Guess what will happen... hint.. "tax the rich".
Think about who EU really want to win in our election and why.
Today at the Conservative party annual conference, UK PM Theresa May has announced that Article 50 will be triggered before the end of March 2017.
She also announced that a "great repeal bill" will be passed, that will remove the UK from EU laws by repealing the 1972 European Communities Act, the law that binds EU law to the British statute book. It will also make all current EU laws domestic laws effective on the formal date that the UK leaves the EU. From there, laws can be passed by the parliament adjusting or repealing those laws however they see fit.
Theresa May has confirmed she will trigger article 50 before the end of March 2017, setting in motion the two-year process of leaving the European Union. The pledge by the prime minister means the UK will leave the EU by spring 2019, before the next general election, with the prime minister also announcing plans for a “great repeal bill” to incorporate all EU regulations in UK law as soon as Brexit takes effect.
Last edited by Ibginnie; 09-14-2020 at 11:11 AM..
Reason: Copyright violation
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