Contracts, Schmontracts

The elephant in the room is actually being talked about. Or the elephant in the china shop, if you want to take the German metaphor invoked today by one jurist at the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, where the country’s top...

The bustup between the European Commission and International Monetary Fund got nastier today when Olli Rehn, the commission’s pointman on the economic crisis, said he is feeling … well, all wet. “I don’t think it is fair and just that...

The words “grave economic catastrophe” aren’t commonly among the crafted Swabian pronouncements of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble when he discusses the European debt crisis. But they did emerge Tuesday evening in Berlin as he fielded questions from Christian Democratic...

If you want to send a clear message to the German public, the place to do it is apparently Shanghai. As in Shanghai, China. A week before Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann gives his views on Mario Draghi’s euro-saving OMT program...

French President Francois Hollande wants “stronger governance” and “strengthened economic policy coordination” in the euro zone — as long as France isn’t governed or coordinated by it. France’s embattled leader performed this logical backflip last night after putting out a...

What was Europe’s debt problem is starting to look like Europe’s taxation problem. Words emerging from a one-day European Union summit in Brussels show EU leaders aren’t focused just on spending and deficits: they announced an investigation into “aggressive” use...

Europe has a new plan to help get the younger generation their first job. The “New Deal for Europe” offers under-25s in Mediterranean countries any job they’d like, just so long as it’s in catering, and in Germany. The “New...

… wasn’t the banner headline on this week’s Pew Research Center survey of European public opinion, but isn’t as far from reality as you might think. True, the Pew numbers, derived from a March poll in eight European Union countries...

Yesterday, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi sent the euro falling and eyebrows rising when he suggested he was ready and willing to begin charging banks to park cash in a deposit facility in Frankfurt. A negative deposit rate, as...

Yesterday was the big German parliamentary decision on aid for Cyprus, and the burning question was whether Chancellor Angela Merkel would hold her coalition together or, as in past Bundestag crisis-management moments, rely on opposition votes to pass the package....