By Paul GOLDSCHMIDT, former director at Goldman Sachs International, former director at the European Commission, member of the Advisory Board of the Thomas More Institute.

There is a broad consensus that the financial crisis should be addressed at the political level if Governments rather than markets wish to reassert their leadership in shaping the future of the global economy in general and that of the Eurozone in particular.

So far, successive gatherings of the G20, the European and Eurozone Councils or bilateral meetings such as the recent Franco-German summit, have failed to impress markets. Politicians seem at a loss to understand why, despite their efforts and the unquestionable progress made since the Lehman debacle on (...)

By Wolfgang GLOMB, Economist, Former Director of the European Economic and Financial Affairs to the German federal Ministry for Finance, Member of the French-German economic and financial Analysis Council. Integral version of the article published in the french economic newspaper La Tribune, on August 18th, 2011. Available in French.

« Suivre le modèle allemand » est apparemment devenu le leitmotiv du gouvernement français dans la crise de l’endettement en cours. En revanche, la question d’une faillite de la France semble à première vue être absurde. La dette publique française est notée AAA par les agences de notation comme celle de l’Allemagne, la meilleure note qui soit en termes de qualité de la dette. Les (...)

By Paul GOLDSCHMIDT, former director at Goldman Sachs International, former director at the European Commission (1993-2002), member of the Advisory Board of the Thomas More Institute.

Chancellor Merkel had warned that high expectations were not warranted: she has kept her word! Summary of the communiqué in four points:

1) “A financial transaction tax” – Without any further details, this declaration will only raise the level of uncertainty and allow any interested party (including governments) to take positions which might prove difficult to alter once specific measures are proposed. Without a (highly unlikely) endorsement by the G20, this proposal will remain inapplicable but will have, in the mean time, raised (...)

Interview of Jean-Thomas LESUEUR, CEO of the Thomas More Institute, for the website Atlantico.fr, on August 17th, 2011. Available in French. While France and Germany try to agree to find solutions for the european crisis, European peoples and the institutions which represent them seem stood apart. An European custom...

La France et l’Allemagne peuvent-elles trouver des solutions de sortie de crise sans léser l'une de leurs populations ?

Fondamentalement, les décisions à prendre sont pénibles pour tout le monde. Il est impossible de contenter, riches comme pauvres, Français comme Allemands. Il est évident qu’il est assez impopulaire pour ceux qui sont aux manettes de faire des choix qui, d’une manière ou (...)

By Paul GOLDSCHMIDT, former director at Goldman Sachs International, former director at the European Commission (1993-2002), member of the Advisory Board of the Thomas More Institute.

What a dismal spectacle offered by the controversy surrounding the rating agencies! If one should believe the quasi unanimous declarations of the body politic, the rating agencies are the main culprits in the EMU sovereign debt crisis.

Rather than succumbing to a form of hysteria that mobilises no less than the President of the Commission, the French and German Finance Ministers, numerous Members of the European Parliament and others, let us examine the facts.

It is undoubtedly true that Rating Agencies committed significant errors during the (...)