The Londoner

Europe clearly has bipolar disorder. Its summits demand a single-minded focus on austerity, to correct past budget excesses. Then many of its politicians, most especially France’s Francois Hollande, reject such notions out of hand and seem determined to return to the fiscal profligacy that created today’s financial crisis. Neither course is very helpful. The latter spendthrift route has already proved unsustainable, a verdict recently reached by the credit rating agencies in response to President Hollande’s seeming embrace of the old ways. The former austerity risks a vicious cycle in which fiscal restraint creates economic decline, which enlarges deficits and evokes still more restraint. Greece’s latest agony, as well as recession elsewhere on the continent, speak loudly to this dysfunction. Europe and France in particular need a different mix. Recent news certainly makes clear the fruitlessness of austerity alone. The Eurozone broadly has sunk deeper into recession. A

Comparing a future independent Scotland to other places is all the rage. Visions of Scotland as a new Ireland or new Iceland have come and gone, their reputations as thriving small countries shredded by banking meltdowns and financial collapses. Comparisons with Nordic states are ongoing but sometimes require a shoehorn to make them fit. The recent ‘ Edinburgh Agreement ’, which laid the groundwork for a referendum on Scottish independence in 2014, has unleashed a fresh set of comparisons - this time between Scotland and other places with independence movements. Foremost amongst these is Quebec which is deemed to be similar to Scotland because it has already experienced independence referenda. However, the independence movement in Quebec differs from that in Scotland in at least two fundamental ways: creating a new country is not the same as restoring the independence of an old one and Scotland has no equivalent of the language issue that was so definitive in Quebec.

The Irish have an expression, "to put on the poor mouth" -- meaning to exaggerate the severity of your circumstances in order to gain sympathy, charity, and perhaps forbearance. In the aftermath of the collapse of Ireland's construction bubble in 2007, the country did exactly that and received a package of loans from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that will last until 2014. For years, Dublin has sought to ingratiate itself to the European authorities, arguing privately that it would default on its loans absent a deal on the 64 billion euros of banking debt that past governments had run up. At long last, Ireland is beginning to move beyond putting on the poor mouth. The country's prime minister, Enda Kenny, recently graced the cover of Time , accompanied by the headline "The Celtic Comeback," and the Financial Times called Ireland's finance minister one of the best in Europe. The nation's largest banks c

By Guillermo Ortiz F  or many observers who lived through the constant debt-rescheduling processes of Latin American countries in the 1980s it is difficult to regard the latest episode of the Euro-Hellenic drama without experiencing a sense of déjà vu. Last week, once again, a new plan was devised by the troika of the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank to keep Greece funded and avoid default in the short term, while its economy continues to plummet with no end in sight. After two rescue programmes, along with the largest debt restructuring in history, Greece remains insolvent and eurozone leaders refuse to recognise the need for a new approach. To achieve solvency, a serious debt-relief plan, conditional on structural reform, should be implemented to shift the emphasis from fiscal austerity to recovering economic growth and restoring market confidence. It is time for the IMF to assert a commanding role away from Eu

Britain should “pare down” it relationship with the European Union then put it to a vote in a referendum, the London Mayor Boris Johnson said today. Mr Johnson said returning Britain to a “single market” relationship with the European Union was both “essential and deliverable”, but said if voters did not like it they could opt to leave the EU altogether. He said it was “high time” that the British people had a chance to vote on the issue. In the next few weeks David Cameron is expected to set out his approach to Britain’s relationship with Europe in a key note speech. He is expected to announce a referendum on Britain’s relationship with Europe after the 2015 election but is resisting calls for an in/out question. But in remarks which are unlikely to be welcomed either in Downing Street or Brussels, Mr Johnson said he believed Britain should abandon the goal of being “at the heart of Europe” and instead demand a “common sense” relationship. This would see the UK involved in

(Reuters) - Swiss bank UBS AG is nearing a deal to settle claims some of its staff manipulated interest rates and could reach agreement with U.S. and British authorities by the end of the year, a person familiar with the matter said on Monday. UBS is expected to pay more than $450 million (279 million pounds) to settle claims some of its employees submitted false Libor rates, the New York Times reported earlier. Britain's Barclays Plc was fined $453 million in June for manipulating Libor benchmark interest rates, and remains the only bank to settle in the investigation, which led to the resignation of the bank's chairman and chief executive. U.S. and UK regulators, which released their settlements with Barclays at the same time, are working together on the UBS investigation and could release an agreement by the end of the year, although the timing could slip into next year,

Cameron was brutally clear when he foresaw the need to intensify EU union . Such concerns may force a UK exit. As brave europhile Brits walk in fear of Brexit and Tory Eurosceptics and their UK Independence Party cousins inhale the sweet smell of success, other Europeans watch with bemusement how Britain, after decades of obstreperous membership of the European club, may finally pick up its armoured handbag and go. The recent history of Europe has accustomed us to reversals, but few have materialised as fast as this: the secession of the UK from the European Union , once a topic for post-prandial jousting, is now a hot potato on Europe’s political menu. Whether Brexit should be dreaded or welcomed as the exit of a poisonous flatmate has become a matter of serious examination in European capitals. Would British withdrawal badly weaken the economic and ideological foundations of the single market, allowing excessive statism a free rein? Would a British departure dea

All my life I've been a Europhile . My dad worked for a Belgian company. I was a high school exchange student to Switzerland in 1958. My first posting as a Foreign Service officer was as vice consul to Rotterdam . I lived in Brussels for five years in the 1970s as head of Scott Paper Company's European marketing operations. I take my family to Europe frequently and maintain a wide range of work and other activities there. Through all the vicissitudes of mid-night negotiations, I admired the dedication and vision of the negotiators who were building the European Union . I believed in the vision of a united Europe and welcomed the advent of the Euro as a major step along the way. When the recent crisis first broke three years ago, I welcomed it, thinking that surely it would be a catalyst for Europe to move to full financial integration and to greater political integration on the way toward realizing the vision of a truly united Europe. I was wrong, and I have come to real

Istanbul — “ The Magnificent Century ,” a Turkish-made soap opera depicting harum-scarum adventures in the imperial household of Suleyman, the eponymous Magnificent, reaches farther than the Ottoman Empire did in the mid-16th century. Its domains extend from France to the Ukraine, the Czech Republic to Japan, with 150 million viewers in its thrall. In Turkey, the series brings Wednesday nights to a halt, claiming one third of the country’s entire television audience. Yet it faces one small pocket of resistance that could prove its undoing: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan hates it. Erdogan took time off at a ribbon-snipping ceremony for a provincial airport recently to describe the series as a travesty. It was wrong, he suggested, to reduce an illustrious history to a saga of household intrigues. Suleyman spent “ 30 years on a horse ,” he said, implying that the sultan would have had little time left to rip off so many bodices. “We alerted the authorities,” Er

1778 On February 6, 1778, France and America concluded an alliance by signing two treaties, a treaty of amity and commerce and a military alliance.  The nations exchanged ambassadors, and France and England were soon at war.  Parliament soon passed bills calling for reconciliation with America and sent a peace commission to Philadelphia to try to achieve a settlement.  The Americans, however, refused to accept the commission and declared that any person who met with the commission would be branded an enemy of the United States.  Congress responded that the only basis for reconciliation would be a full withdrawal of all British troops from American soil and recognition of American independence.  The war would continue. The Battle of Monmouth In May Sir Henry Clinton replaced General Howe and, hearing that a French fleet was en route to America, decided to move his army back to New York.  The Americans reoccupied Philadelphia on June 18, and Washingto

They fought side by side with the Germans during World War II , but Finnish war veterans say they were no enemies of the west - they simply wanted land back from the Russians. Ninety-two-year-old Tauno Viiri still has vivid memories of the first day of what would be known as the Finnish Winter War. The Finns had been expecting a Russian attack, but the Russian artillery assault that occurred November 20, 1939 was devastating. "The whole southern sky was ablaze, like thunderballs all over it," said Viiri, who immigrated to Canada in the 1950s and now lives in Vancouver. "An awful din. I've never seen anything like that - I've seen thunderstorms, alright, but this was quite different." The Russians, whose army outnumbered the Finns by two to one, thought Finland would be a pushover and expected to be marching through the streets of Helsinki in two weeks

By George Friedman Last week was spent obsessed with Gaza. In the end, nothing changed. A war was fought without an Israeli ground assault but with massive air and rocket attacks on both sides. Israel did not have the appetite and perhaps the power to crush Hamas. Hamas did not have the power to compel Israel to change its policies but wanted to achieve a symbolic victory against Israel. Both decided that continued fighting made little sense and allowed the Americans and Egyptians to bless a settlement. Everyone from Iran to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood played a role, and then the curtain on this act went down. It will come up again. It was not trivial for those who lived through the conflict, but in the end it changed little. In this context, focusing on Catalonian elections would seem frivolous, but it is the nature of geopolitics that the quiet and odd may have more significance in the long run than the events that carry noisy headlines. Catalonia is a reg