PPCC. PIsitófilos Creditófagos. Verano 2020

[Derby]

https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-cannot-accept-aspects-of-eu-budget-deal-say-negotiators/

European Parliament ‘cannot accept’ aspects of EU budget deal, say negotiators

Key MEPs fire warning shots over financial plan agreed by leaders.

The European Parliament’s budget team raised concerns over the deal agreed by EU leaders earlier today, suggesting in a statement they will not approve it as it stands.

“Parliament cannot accept the proposed record low ceilings as they mean renouncing to the EU’s long-term objectives and strategic autonomy,” said Johan Van Overtveldt, the chair of the budget committee, and five other MEPs.

Parliament must give its approval for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the long-term budget at the heart of today's deal, to take effect.

Highlighting health, research and climate change as priorities for the Parliament, the negotiators said they would “strive to secure improvements, including higher amounts” for programs such as Horizon Europe, InvestEU, the LIFE environment program and Erasmus+.

“And if our conditions are not sufficiently met we will adopt the programmes on the basis of the existing MFF, as foreseen by the Treaty,” they said, citing an EU law that would see the existing budget extended if there is no agreement by the start of 2021.

The deal is “a flagrant missed opportunity” when it comes to ”modernising the revenue side, making it fairer and more transparent,“ the statement said.

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200721IPR83702/eu-summit-compromise-positive-step-for-recovery-inadequate-in-the-long-term

(...)“The compromise is also a flagrant missed opportunity when it comes to modernising the revenue side, making it fairer and more transparent. The EU is now allowed to borrow funds but there is no certainty on how the debt will be repaid. Parliament has been clear: the recovery should not reduce investment capacities nor harm the national taxpayer. This is why new genuine own resources are the solution to repay the common debt, but the plastic-based contribution will not do the trick alone! We recall our strict demand to that respect: a binding commitment for the introduction of additional own resources as soon as 2021, and still in the course of the MFF 2021-2027. Furthermore, despite the United Kingdom leaving the EU, the insistence on the rebates has been extremely tough and results in a big step back for the European project: instead of being abolished, rebates are kept and even increased.


Additionally, Parliament remains firmly against watering down the mechanism to reduce or suspend EU funding if a Member State disrespects the rule of law, and this issue should not be put off but addressed now. Parliament has stood ready to enter into negotiations under co-decision to continue building a Europe of fundamental rights.


Parliament remains ready to immediately enter negotiations in order to achieve a better agreement for Europe”,

[R.G.C.I.M.]

Lo que faltaba.
Por mí, sí rascan más, mejor.

[Maloserá]

Vuelve el 'soplapollas' que dijo un ilustre forero la semana pasada. Ambrose Evans-Prichard hablando de Europa y el Eurofondo. Hasta dice que tiene simpatía por los países del 'club med' . Solo le falta decir que tiene muchos amigos homosexuales. A mí se me gusta como resumen semanal, en ocasiones, y los artículos que cuelgo suelen recibir gracias de otros lectores. Así que intuyo que habrá otros que os guste. O que os da morbo. Vamos., que no los pongo por provocar.  Lógicamente tenéis que descontar el prisma anglosajón. O incluso podéis tratar de poneros en su lugar. La elección de la foto de Macron es de todo menos casual. A sus lectores les pone esa cara ... francés, bajito, casado con una mujer mayor y con cara de cabronazo. Un pervertido,  vamos, como todo lo que representa, UE incluída.

http://m.email3.telegraph.co.uk/nl/jsp/m.jsp?c=%40OWOpSuQIoGVp%2FKxNjWe%2B0TMPB5A%2FIgjpcBBAxQxV0pI%3D&WT.mc_id=e_DM1268516&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_EIn_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_EIn_New20200721&utm_campaign=DM1268516


Europe's Recovery Fund is an economic pop-gun, but a political howitzer
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

The macroeconomic value of the EU’s €750bn Recovery Fund lies somewhere between modest and trivial. Part of it is reshuffling money that would have been spent anyway. The rest is spread thin over many years.

The significance is political. The fund is a profound change in the structure and character of the European Project. The Commission will have powers to raise large funds on the capital markets for the first time and to direct how the spending is allocated, turning this strange hybrid creature into an even more extraordinary institution.

Where else in the world does a single unelected body have the “right of initiative” on legislation, and the executive powers of a proto-government, and the spending prerogatives of a parliament, all wrapped in one?

It is Caesaropapist, bordering on totalitarian in constitutional terms, mostly unchecked by meaningful parliamentary oversight. Montesquieu must be turning in his grave.

So, yes, it matters. Emmanuel Macron was right to call the deal struck in the early hours of this morning an “historic” moment for Europe. But whether it is also an historic mistake - une fuite en avant, as the French say - remains to be seen.

The pure fiscal component has been whittled down from €500bn to €390bn, and even that figure is not quite what it seems. The money will be stretched out to the mid-2020s, amounting to less than 0.6pc of GDP annually.

A big chunk will go to Eastern Europe, lightly touched by the pandemic so far. Some money is going to regions in Germany or other states well able to finance their own needs.

If the aim is to prevent an asymmetric recovery that leaves Italy and Club Med marooned - and therefore renders monetary union unworkable - it is a blunt tool. There will be an “emergency brake” if states are deemed to be dragging their feet on reforms (policed by the Commission, further increasing the power of Brussels), and a mechanism to cut funding to those breaching the “rule of law”. This will be a big source of coming friction. It is political nitroglycerine on a long fuse.

None of the grants will arrive until next year. The package is therefore useless as Covid disaster relief. In the meantime the European Central Bank is holding the eurozone together by soaking up Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek debt issuance, though with the German Constitutional Court breathing down its neck.

The Recovery Fund will kick in when the ECB’s pandemic QE runs out. That delicate handover will be the first big test of whether Europe has overcome the economic shock of Covid-19, or once again fallen short.

Had there been no deal after marathon talks and a promiscuous exchange of insults it would have a very rough day for the European Project. But what has emerged is not pretty either. There is a new line of emotional cleavage in EU affairs.

The Netherlands and the liberal, Atlanticist, free-market bloc used to hide behind Britain at EU summits, relying on the British Prime Minister of the day to fight their corner and suffer the opprobrium.

There was one consistent theme in the countless summits that I covered as Brussels correspondent. They always nudged forward the Monnet agenda by means of creepage, precedent, and the establishment of facts on the ground. The democratic consent for this erosion of sovereign national control was thinner than EU enthusiasts ever cared to admit.

The UK was invariably ambushed by the integrationist bloc. When the British put up reasonable objections they were accused of holding up progress by insiders whispering en coulisse, and vilified by the fanatical Brussels press corps. Over time this corrosive dynamic had consequences.

The EU “frugals” now have to fight their own corner. They are learning what it is like to be cast as the villains - in this episode as penny-stinting moral reprobates, refusing to come to terms with the higher teleological destiny of Europe.

What is striking about this battle has been the sheer level of abuse hurled at Dutch premier Mark Rutte, the frugal-in-chief. His sin was to question why Dutch taxpayers should be bounced into funding pandemic give-aways that in reality have precious little to do with the virus. Some of the money is earmarked for countries that suffered less damage from Covid-19 than the Netherlands itself.

Mr Rutte has been traduced for asking why the Dutch people should pay for fiscal transfers to Club Med and the Kaczynski-Orban axis with no control by the Dutch parliament over how the money is spent or how recipients behave. The “big three” beneficiaries in the Commission blueprint are Italy, Spain and Poland, and each of them is a red flag for The Hague.

The majority party of the Italian coalition is the Five Star Movement, a melange of techno-Utopian, anti-globalist radicals, who not so long ago were calling for the break-up of the euro and an Italian sovereign default. Every fibre of Five Star’s political body is hostile to the brisk, reformed, and austere Dutch model.

Premier Giuseppe Conte has been toying with tax cuts even as he demands Dutch money, which he does with a strikingly shrill sense of entitlement. Yet Italian state pensions soak up 16.2pc of GDP, according to OECD data. In the Netherlands the figure is 5.4pc. In effect, Dutch taxpayers are told they must cross-subsidise Italy’s luxurious old age.

 

The Spanish coalition includes two Corybnista parties: Podemos and Izquierda Unida. They joined forces with the Socialists this year after securing an agreement that would roll-back the free market reforms of the last decade and let rip on public spending, supposedly to be paid for with a Tobin tax and by soaking the rich. Pensions are 11pc of GDP and rising.

Izquierda Unida is Communist. This is the closest that hard-Left parties have come to real power in a major West European country since the Second World War. And yes, both also called for an end to the euro when it suited their interests.

Poland and Hungary have been in a running battle with the EU over control of the judiciary and for breach of the Copenhagen Criteria, the governance code for EU accession. Neither have been hit hard by Covid-19. Yet they will enjoy a windfall from the Recovery Fund - a bribe to buy them off. Pandemic aid has degenerated into an all-purpose slush fund.

Seen from The Hague, or Stockholm, or Helsinki the recovery plan is a giant racket. Yet Mr Rutte’s demands for some sort of discipline were met with a revealing rebuke from France’s Emmanuel Macron. “You are taking Cameron’s place at the table,” he snapped, demanding to know where that sort of diplomacy led Britain.

Well, Monsieur, it led by indirect steps to Brexit. And is it churlish to point out that David Cameron was right about the Fiscal Compact? Events have shown that it is a deflationary doomsday machine.


Emmanuel Macron has likened Mark Rutte of the Netherlands to David Cameron. CREDIT: OLIVIER MATTHYS/SHUTTERSTOCK


In short, the northern Hanseatic ring of the EU has been steamrolled, and demonised for good measure. This too will have long-tail consequences.

Personally, I have sympathy for the Club Med states as well, a paradox only if you fail to grasp the fatal design flaws of monetary union. They were forced by Brussels (in other words the German finance ministry) to implement austerity overkill and carry out internal devaluations to claw back lost competitiveness, leading to youth unemployment above 50pc in many regions. That is why the likes of Five Star, Podemos, and Izquierda Unida are today in power.

Such is the inevitable and tragic mess that ensues if you lock yourself into a currency bloc that is moving to a different macro-economic rhythm, and is controlled by somebody else. But that is scarcely the fault of the Dutch, Austrian, or Finnish people, and even less so the fault of the non-euro Swedes and Danes.

One can argue that this summit fight is all a storm in a teacup. The Recovery Fund is designed as a one-off episode that does not lead to fiscal union or change the EU’s constitutional structure. Everything reverts to the state quo ante after the pandemic, which is why it is tolerated by hardliners in the German Council of Economic Experts.

But that is not what French and Italian leaders tell their own political constituency. They advertise the fund as a crucial and defining step across the Rubicon. Paris calculates that this machinery will become irreversible once in place. The summit therefore becomes Europe’s Hamilton Moment in practice, if not in theory. Under that hypothesis the stakes are exorbitant.

The economic shock of the pandemic has been asymmetric in its effects, playing havoc with debt dynamics of those states already on the edge. It has brought forward the de facto insolvency of Italy and the eurozone’s southern half.

The Commission expects Italy’s debt ratio to jump from 133pc to near 160pc of GDP this year even in a benign post-Covid reopening, avoiding a truncated L-shaped trajectory, which is far from assured. The North-South gap has been stretched beyond viability.

If the Recovery Fund is a stalking horse for a European debt union - the mutualisation of €6 trillion of Club Med and French legacy liabilities - then it is a very big ask.

It is dangerous practice to push through transforming commitments by means of stealth, legerdemain, and fait accompli. We have not heard the last of the Frugal Five.

[Derby]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1312436/Brexit-news-UK-EU-budget-summit-coronavirus-recovery-fund-latest

‘Lucky escape!’ Brexiteers laud UK’s exit as EU strides towards ‘country called Europe’

THE European Union took another huge step towards a full-blown superstate on Tuesday after five days of bitter wrangling over a coronavirus rescue fund ended in a deal.

(...)Conservative MPs said the pact showed Britain had quit the EU in the “nick of time”.

Veteran Brexiteer Sir Bill Cash said: “It’s huge. They’ve been wanting to do this for decades because it’s only by having tax revenues they can turn the EU into a political union.

“They’ve seized the opportunity of this coronavirus fund to move the integration process forward very significantly.

“Underneath this whole fund, there are very serious implications for the people of Europe in what is an undemocratic forum.”

[sudden and sharp]

Vuelve el 'soplapollas' que dijo un ilustre forero la semana pasada. Ambrose Evans-Prichard hablando de Europa y el Eurofondo. Hasta dice que tiene simpatía por los países del 'club med' . Solo le falta decir que tiene muchos amigos homosexuales. A mí se me gusta como resumen semanal, en ocasiones, y los artículos que cuelgo suelen recibir gracias de otros lectores. Así que intuyo que habrá otros que os guste. O que os da morbo. Vamos., que no los pongo por provocar.  Lógicamente tenéis que descontar el prisma anglosajón. O incluso podéis tratar de poneros en su lugar. La elección de la foto de Macron es de todo menos casual. A sus lectores les pone esa cara ... francés, bajito, casado con una mujer mayor y con cara de cabronazo. Un pervertido,  vamos, como todo lo que representa, UE incluída.
[...]

Sigue trayéndolos, por favor, Maloserá... No hace falta que lo justifiques. Aquí lo leemos todo.


[¿Seguro que no ha puesto "pero..." detrás de "simpatía por los países del 'club med'."?     ]

[Spheratu]

“They’ve seized the opportunity of this coronavirus fund to move the integration process forward very significantly.

“Underneath this whole fund, there are very serious implications for the people of Europe in what is an undemocratic forum.”

Aqui quería yo llegar. ¿Alguien tiene información para desarrollar eso del acelerón del proceso de integración europea?
Se trata del viejo mantra de ppcc de la unión aduanera real?
Es vital empezar a entender la letra pequeña de este resca... de este acuerdo, para ver por donde van a ir los tiros los proximos meses/años.

[JENOFONTE10]

Por otra parte, e intentando ver el tamaño de las orejas del lobo, estaba buscando el tipo impositivo del ENFIA sobre los inmuebles en Grecia que supongo que será una especie de nuestro IBI post-Covid ¿alquien tiene idea de cuánto se paga? prometo que he estado un rato buscando y no encuentro porcentajes medios, ni tramos ni nada para poder comparar

No sé si te servirá de ejemplo:

http://livingingreece.gr/2011/09/19/new-property-tax-greece/

Se ha ido reduciendo estos últimos años... https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2019/07/15/enfia-tax-property-reduction-greece/

All you want to know about the ownership or renting a property
Updated information 2020. From the Greek Law Digest.

The expenses and taxes when buying a property in 2020 [...]

Property ownership Related taxes: Income tax, ENFIA
1a. Principal ENFIA Tax
ENFIA Principal Tax is calculated by multiplying the square meters of the property by the principal tax per square meter (depending on the location of the property, use of the property and other coefficients); thus, determining these tax values per sq. m. is part of a complex process undertaken by experts appointed by the Hellenic Government and it is subject to periodic reviews and changes.
[...]
2.2 Supplementary ENFIA Tax for Natural Persons (Private Individuals)

ENFIA does not only include the Principal ENFIA Tax, but also the Supplementary ENFIA Tax, which is imposed by the following scale (a progressive tax rate) when the value (or accumulative value if more than one properties are owned) of real property assets of individuals exceeds the value of € 200.000 (formerly € 300.000):
[...]
https://cityproperties.gr/ownership-in-greece-income-tax-enfia/

Taxes related to the Succession on Real Estate Property [...]

Renting of Property. Frequently Asked Questions [...]

Saludos.

[Derby]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/european-summit-concludes-full-summary

European Summit Concludes: The Full Summary

Summary

Heads of state have discussed the EUR750bn recovery fund that was proposed by the European Commission

There were a number of hurdles to be taken in the run up to the meeting, such as the size and composition of the recovery fund and the distribution key

After 90 hours of negotiations, the European leaders managed to reach an agreement. The deal is a watered down version of the initial proposal. Concessions were made to win over the ‘Frugals’ (Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria)

After consensus in the European Council, the proposal has to pass the European Parliament and has to be ratified by national parliaments. The majority of the funds will probably be distributed in 2021/2022

(...) Fourfold disagreement

So why did it prove so difficult to reach an agree at the Summit in the first place? Prior to the 17- 19 Summit there was broad support for a recovery package. Heads of state agreed that the COVID-19 crisis is economically affecting Southern member states more extensively compared to Northern states and that individual countries are not to blame for the economic and health toll of this crisis. However, the political route towards a support package proved to be a bumpy one. In a previous article we already argued that there were a number of hurdles to be taken.

First, Frugal leaders argued that countries would have been able to fend for themselves if they have had sound government finances. This is a common feeling for many voters in the Frugal countries. Consequently, in order to be able to sell the deal at home, they took a tough stance on grants. This especially holds for the Netherlands, since elections will be held in 2021.

Second, the governance of the fund was a major issue of disagreement. The Frugals have emphasized the importance of economic reforms, especially for the Southern member states, which in their eyes, have reformed too little in the past decades. Therefore, the Frugals wanted to have a say in how the funds are spend. With the Troika governance of Greece in mind, dependent member states are naturally not too keen on granting veto power to individual countries.

Third, the distribution key was controversial. The initial proposal was based on the size of the economy (GDP), the level of wealth (GDP per capita and) and the historical long-term unemployment. This means that countries with a low GDP per capita and countries with a high historical unemployment would benefit the most. This allocation is not necessarily linked to the economic damage caused by the corona crisis. Under the initial term, Poland for example (a country which is expected to be relatively moderately hit by the corona crisis) would be able to receive on a relative sizeable share of the funds because of its relatively low GDP per capita.



Fourth, including the rule of law in the distribution key was a thorn in the side of Eastern European countries ,such as Poland and Hungary (which is already under increased EU supervision).

(...) The final deal is a considerable rapprochement to the Frugals and the Visegrad countries. The following adjustments have been made:

The overall size of the fund has remained the same but the composition has shifted from EUR500bn in grants to EUR390bn in grants.

The Frugals receive higher rebates on their EU contributions and a bigger role in the governance of the fund.

Disbursement of funds for proposed investment plans have to be ratified by a qualified majority. Member states can object to funds being disbursed within 3 months after acceptance. The final decision is formally up to the European Commission.

As for the rule of law, Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki asserted that there is no direct link between the rule of law and the funds in the deal. The mechanism has yet to be created by a group headed by Chancellor Merkel and is to be accepted by the European Council later on. Since the Council requires unanimity, Poland and Hungary can veto disadvantageous proposals.

(...) Additionally, the EU will work towards reforming its own resources over the coming years through taxation on non-recycled plastic, the carbon border adjustment mechanism, a revised ETS scheme and a digital levy. A more controversial topic is the possible introduction of a financial transaction tax. But the latter will be decided at a later point in time.

(...) Looking forward

For the MFF and recovery fund to come into effect, the European parliament should agree on the package and national parliaments would have to ratify. The working assumption in Brussels is that the ratification process will only be completed at the beginning of 2021. With every country more or less pleased with the result, ratification will probably not cause any issues, but there is a risk involved1 since the ratification requires unanimity. The Dutch elections for example could spur the debate regarding the fund on a national level.

Once the European Commission has raised the capital it will take a while for the funds to be distributed. The majority of the funds will most likely be distributed in 2021/2022. If it turns out to be the case that these funds are not distributed timely, countries can tap into the EUR 100bn SURE facility and if necessary apply for bridge loans from the ESM/EIB.

(...) Two major topics are left out in the open. First, the conditions regarding the rule of law as mentioned earlier. Second, the exact distribution key which was a major topic to begin with. For now we assume that no major changes have taken place there. And even though the final distribution key is unknown at present, a senior Italian official expects2 Italy to receive about EUR 82bn in grants and EUR 127bn in loans according to initial estimates3 . If this proves to be correct, the money has found its way to the countries mostly in need of extra funding (and as a side effect, to the Visegrad countries)

[wanderer]

“They’ve seized the opportunity of this coronavirus fund to move the integration process forward very significantly.

“Underneath this whole fund, there are very serious implications for the people of Europe in what is an undemocratic forum.”

Aqui quería yo llegar. ¿Alguien tiene información para desarrollar eso del acelerón del proceso de integración europea?
Se trata del viejo mantra de ppcc de la unión aduanera real?
Es vital empezar a entender la letra pequeña de este resca... de este acuerdo, para ver por donde van a ir los tiros los proximos meses/años.

Empecemos por el principio: la democracia suele estar sobrevalorada, y el fundamentalismo democrático, aún más.

Dicho ésto, lo que se expresa es falso en fondo y forma: las elecciones quedan delegadas (más aún, pues ya lo estaban) a un nivel supraestatal, dónde los decisores democráticamente elegidos son los representantes que dichos estados elevan a la Comisión Europea.

Que brexiteen los de UK con su no-deal de los eggs, y que lo disfruten, si que el COVID-19 se lo permite.

[Maloserá]

Yo pidiendo disculpas por Ambrosio, y sale Derby con el Daily Express. A calzón quitado...
Por compensar y amenizar este día histórico traigo un artículo de prensa británica proeuropea. Y por seguir con refranes, ya eramos pocos...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/21/greta-thunberg-says-eu-recovery-plans-climate-provisions-inadequate

Greta Thunberg says EU recovery plan fails to tackle climate crisis
Exclusive: Activist says €750bn fund shows leaders not treating global heating as emergency

Greta Thunberg has accused EU politicians of failing to acknowledge the scale of the climate crisis and said its €750bn Covid-19 recovery plan does not do enough to tackle the issue. The climate campaigner said the package of measures agreed by EU leaders proved that politicians were still not treating climate change as an emergency.

“They are still denying the fact and ignoring the fact that we are facing a climate emergency, and the climate crisis has still not once been treated as a crisis,” Thunberg told the Guardian. “As long as the climate crisis is not being treated as a crisis, the changes that are necessary will not happen.”
...

“We are asking our leaders to take care of the most fundamental thing: the safety of us, the safety of people around the world, the safety of our futures,” Neubauer said. “It is worrying on a democratic level when you ask for such substantial things, which seem so obvious, and yet you see how leaders are widely ignoring it, or not considering it to be as important as other things.”
...

“I see the hope in democracy and in people,” she said. “If people become aware of what is happening then we can accomplish anything, we can put pressure on people in power … if we just decide we have had enough then that will change everything.”

[Derby]

Yo pidiendo disculpas por Ambrosio, y sale Derby con el Daily Express. A calzón quitado...

 

[Derby]

https://www.reuters.com/article/eu-summit-santander-botin/santander-chairman-says-eu-aid-agreement-paves-way-for-cross-border-mergers-idUSL5N2ES6DT

Santander Chairman says EU aid agreement paves way for cross-border mergers

The European leaders’ agreement on a massive stimulus plan for their coronavirus battered economies should help kick-start cross-border consolidation in Europe and complete the European banking union, Santander Chairman Ana Botin said.

“What was agreed yesterday (in the early hours of Tuesday) means the opportunity and the probability that we do get a banking union and cross-border consolidation is much higher,” Botin told Reuters in a Zoom call.

“It will require changes, but I think those changes are much more likely today than they were yesterday,” Ana Botin said.

Santander is the euro zone’s second-biggest lender in terms of market value.

Remarks by Botin echoed comments from European Central Bank vice-president Luis de Guindos, who on Monday said that he expected banks to engage in both national and cross-border consolidation within weeks or months.

Consolidation is seen as inevitable among banks in the euro zone to gain scale, but low valuations and different legal frameworks around countries are hampering any such transactions.

Profitability across the euro zone bank sector is low and an economic recession in the region is expected to further dampen the banks’ prospects, partly due to also higher loan-loss provisions related to the impact from COVID-19 outbreak.

“What has happened yesterday on the agreement in Europe is a clear stepping stone for the banking union in Europe. And banking union and free transfer of euros across countries is a pre-requisite for cross-border euro mergers and consolidation,” Botin said.

“I do think it’s the time. I do think European banks need scale,” Botin said, adding that for now Santander was not interested in taking part.

“As of today, no, with the current rules, no. When the rules change who knows. Even then I think there are others who are more likely to be ahead of us,” she said.

The agreement between EU leaders paved the way for the European Commission to raise billions of euros on capital markets on behalf of all 27 states, an unprecedented act of solidarity in almost seven decades of European integration.

“It is really important for Europe, I think it is a game changer, this is really a turn in the road, in the right direction,” Botin said, adding that this “will be seen in time as key step in the construction of Europe.”

Botin also that the agreement had diminished and averted the chances a sovereign risk and fragmentation problem in Europe and that the person, the country, who had taken the lead to make this possible was (Chancellor Angela) Merkel and Germany.

“We could have hoped for something bigger but not for something better,” she said.

[sudden and sharp]

Esto podría explicar la portada del otro día...

Bild, Merkel and the culture wars: the inside story of Germany’s biggest tabloid
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/bild-zeitung-tabloid-julian-reichelt-angela-merkel-germany

Bild’s main attack targets remain Germany’s “Gutmenschen” – the do-gooders, vegetarians, Greens and 1968ers who are treated as parasites and irritants to Germany’s robust economy and middle class. More recently, the paper’s sights have also turned on Merkel and her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “The paper’s constant targeting of Merkel, but also its current take on refugees and all sorts of minorities definitely reproduces rhetorical elements of the AfD,” says Fatma Aydemir, a novelist and columnist for the leftwing daily Tageszeitung, known as Taz. In the absence of serious challenges from within Merkel’s own party, or from other parties – she has been chancellor for 14 years, a tenure surpassed only by Kohl and Bismarck – Bild has attempted to make itself into that opposition. Yet any populist challenger finds itself in the hard position of convincing Germans that Merkel’s very successful form of reactive politics has run out of historical steam. “We are the voice of ordinary people,” claims Reichelt. “If we didn’t exist, they would really think the whole system is against them.”

[grillo35]

mmm, que gustazooooo.....

Redpiso prevé caídas del precio del alquiler de hasta el 15% en el centro de Madrid durante 2020
https://www.idealista.com/news/inmobiliario/vivienda/2020/07/21/785624-redpiso-detecta-caidas-del-precio-del-alquiler-en-el-centro-de-madrid-de-hasta-el-15

En su opinión, los tres principales factores que están detrás de la bajada de las rentas son el freno de los alquileres vacacionales, la menor demanda de vivienda por parte de estudiantes y la menor capacidad de gasto que tienen los potenciales inquilinos. Unos factores que podrían ampliar la caída al 15% en lo que queda de año.

[Lurker]

Esto podría explicar la portada del otro día...

Bild, Merkel and the culture wars: the inside story of Germany’s biggest tabloid
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/16/bild-zeitung-tabloid-julian-reichelt-angela-merkel-germany

Bild’s main attack targets remain Germany’s “Gutmenschen” – the do-gooders, vegetarians, Greens and 1968ers who are treated as parasites and irritants to Germany’s robust economy and middle class. More recently, the paper’s sights have also turned on Merkel and her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “The paper’s constant targeting of Merkel, but also its current take on refugees and all sorts of minorities definitely reproduces rhetorical elements of the AfD,” says Fatma Aydemir, a novelist and columnist for the leftwing daily Tageszeitung, known as Taz. In the absence of serious challenges from within Merkel’s own party, or from other parties – she has been chancellor for 14 years, a tenure surpassed only by Kohl and Bismarck – Bild has attempted to make itself into that opposition. Yet any populist challenger finds itself in the hard position of convincing Germans that Merkel’s very successful form of reactive politics has run out of historical steam. “We are the voice of ordinary people,” claims Reichelt. “If we didn’t exist, they would really think the whole system is against them.”

Alemania parece tener controlado lo que otros países, incluido el nuestro, están sufriendo.

https://quillette.com/2020/02/27/the-two-middle-classes/

"Politicians across the Western world like to speak fondly of the “middle class” as if it is one large constituency with common interests and aspirations. But, as Karl Marx observed, the middle class has always been divided by sources of wealth and worldview. Today, it is split into two distinct, and often opposing, middle classes. First there is the yeomanry or the traditional middle class, which consists of small business owners, minor landowners, craftspeople, and artisans, or what we would define historically as the bourgeoisie, or the old French Third Estate, deeply embedded in the private economy. The other middle class, now in ascendency, is the clerisy, a group that makes its living largely in quasi-public institutions, notably universities, media, the non-profit world, and the upper bureaucracy."

Un artículo imprescindible, en mi humilde opinión.

Cada vez aguanto menos a la 'clerisy' patria, es prácticamente la misma que en otros sitios, pero con un extra de caspa.