Friday 13 means in many countries bad luck. France, Austria and seven other countries in Europe are probably agreeing with that now as yesterday, January the 13, the US based ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut France and Austria triple -A rating by one notch to AA+, and downgraded the other seven countries -Spain, Italy, Portugal, Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia and Slovenia two notches. Read the rest of this entry »

Located in the French Riviera, Keyboard Politics is in a “privileged” position to witness all the incredible happenings taking place in Cannes for the G-20 summit. From Menton, in the border with Italy, to Cannes, the area is controlled by a large display of police. Many people had the new experience of having their cars checked in the border what was something rarely taking place since the elimination of border posts among the EU countries. Read the rest of this entry »

After the last weeks when most of the articles in newspapers and blogs were about the financial crisis or the sensational trials in the US and Italy and the freakish wedding of an 85 year old Spanish aristocrat with a 61 year old civil servant, the press today brought us finally some news worthy of being published. Read the rest of this entry »

It was not necessary to be an economist to know that this financial debacle was about to happen. In both sides of the Atlantic politicians have left the banks rule and have been too timorous to face them. In the process, we have had the housing bubble -the US and Spain are two good examples of it-, unemployment at levels that are intolerable and an always growing difference between the haves and the have-nots. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we wrote about the US federal debt and the possibility of a potentially disastrous default were the problem go on unresolved. Today it is the turn of the EU and its financially troubled nations which are on the brink of economic collapse. Read the rest of this entry »

The Arab Spring is bringing unexpected consequences to the EU. The increasing influx of migrants from Tunisia and Libya has created a dispute between Italy, the country through which most migrants enter the EU, and France, the country where most of them want to go due to their knowledge of the language and the many Tunisians already living in it. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a report by Europol, the EU’s joint police body, the economic crisis and the Arab revolutions have the potential to increase the risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union by far-left, far-right and Islamists groups. It has been noted that in the Arab revolutions Islamist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have become observers and had not had influence in the events. Read the rest of this entry »