Regular readers need no introduction to Stuart Holland; co-author of The Modest Proposal, former British MP and aid to Jacques Delors, responsible for starting the conversation about the Eurozone’s need for eurobonds (in… 1993), creator of the European Investment Fund and a staunch advocate of the need to turn the European Investment Bank into the […]
Modest Proposal
How can we govern Europe? Florence, 21-23 November 2014
Conference participants include (in order to presentation): Richard Koo (Chief economist, Nomura Research Institute), Vítor Constâncio (Vice President ECB), Bill Mitchell (Centre of Full Employment and Equity), Frances Coppola (Economist, former banker), Pierre Moscovici (Commissioner for Economic&Monetary Affairs), Yanis Varoufakis (Universities of Athens and Texas at Austin), Thomas Mayer (Senior Fellow at the Center of Financial Studies at Goethe Universität Frankfurt). For the complete program […]
Slovakia adopts our proposal of ECB-purchases of EIB bonds
Our proposal for ECB purchases of EIB bonds has just been adopted by one Eurozone member-state: Slovakia. Here is Reuters’ report. Or read on…
A QE proposal for Europe’s crisis – OpEd in The Economist
The Economist kindly invited me to contribute an op-ed to a ’roundtable’ on what form Quantitative Easing should take place in Europe. For The Economist’s site click here. Or read on…
Today’s Eurozone seen from an investor’s perspective – Keynote (audio)
On 30th October I was invited to address a meeting of German, Austrian and Swiss pension fund managers on how they should make sense of the Eurozone’s current state of play. In this keynote (click below for the audio and the accompanying slides) I present an explanation of the causes underlying the impossible dilemmas pension fund […]
It is time for the ECB to purchase EIB bonds: Bruegel’s Guntram Wolff sides with our proposal
The ECB’s recent dalliance with QE-light is macro-economically irrelevant. For a long while we have been arguing (see Policy 3 of the Modest Proposal) that it is high time that the ECB buys en masse EIB bonds, thus enabling the EIB to issue new bonds as part of a European Recovery Program; an investment drive […]
Centralisation-Without-Representation: A reply to Frances Coppola, Simon Wren-Lewis and Niall Ferguson
[This post was later published by Open Democracy] Behind the European Union’s official ‘line’ that the worst of the Euro Crisis is behind us, a flurry of proposals for institutional changes reveal a deep-seated anxiety about the Eurozone. Indeed, in recent weeks, even the German finance minister, Mr Wolfgang Schäuble, went public with an op-ed […]
Frances Coppola and Simon Wren-Lewis on the ‘Modest Proposal vs Austerian Federalists’
In Whither Europe? The Modest Camp vs the Federalist Austerians James Galbraith and I attempted to chart the evolution of various plans to save the Eurozone. In that survey, we juxtaposed a Modest Camp (that includes our own Modest Proposal), whose philosophy is to promote a minimalist agenda for stabilising the Eurozone and ending its socio-economic crisis before Europe’s future […]
Mr Juncker should look to an EIB-ECB alliance, not to the ESM
Jean Claude Juncker had a good idea but looked in the wrong place for funding it. His good idea was to promote a sizeable investment program (€300 billion) that would help Europe end years of crisis, stem deflation and return the continent to growth. Unfortunately, Mr Juncker thought it a good idea to tap the […]
Revisiting the Modest Proposal: Q&A with a sceptic – Fall 2014 version (*)
As Europe seems resigned to the perpetuation of the Euro Crisis, with its authorities in a state of permanent paralysis (with only the ECB trying, and failing, to stem the debt-deflationary vortex), it seems more pertinent than ever to keep the debate on the Modest Proposal going. If only as a reminder to the powers-that-be that there are immediately […]
CAN EUROPE ESCAPE ITS CRISIS WITHOUT TURNING INTO AN IRON CAGE?
ON THE MODEST PROPOSAL’S POLITICAL, CONSTITUTIONAL AND ETHICAL DIMENSIONS [Image: Rembrandt’s ‘The Abduction of Europa’] This article is a sequel to an earlier piece entitled ‘Why is Europe not coming together in response to the Euro Crisis?’ and is best read in conjunction with this article (co-authored with James K. Galbraith) that compares our Modest […]
ON EUROPE’S RETREATING UNION: DIAGNOSIS AND A PROPOSAL
FRIENDS OF EUROPE, an official publication of the EU, kindly commissioned me to write a short article on the State of the Union after the European Parliament elections, in the run up to the magazine’s 9th October conference of the same theme. You can read the article on the FoE’s website or just continue below
A European New Deal financed by the EIB, with ECB QE-backing, is the optimal policy: Now recommended also by W. Münchau
Faced with deflationary forces in its core, and a lasting depression in the periphery, the Eurozone requires a major investment drive. One of the Modest Proposal’s policy recommendations is that the European Investment Bank (along with the European Investment Fund) embarks upon a massive investment drive (up to 8% of Gross Eurozone Product) without any […]
James K. Galbraith on The Modest Proposal, Europe and Greece
In this Q&A with a Greek journalist, on the occasion of the launch of the Greek translation of the Modest Proposal, James K. Galbraith argues that Italy and Greece can play an important role in changing the terms of the European ‘conversation’, so that rational, minimalist solutions like the Modest Proposal can have a chance […]
The Modest Proposal (in Greek) – presented tonight, in Athens, by Alexis Tsipras, Yanis Varoufakis & George Krimpas
If you happen to be in Athens tonight (Tuesday 17th June), come to the Byzantine Museum (2 V. Sofias Avenue) at 8pm for the launch of the Greek translation of our Modest Proposal for Resolving the Euro Crisis 4.0. It will be presented by Yanis Varoufakis (who will speak to the proposal itself), George Krimpas […]