Currency Changeover in Bulgaria: The Euro Replaces the Lev in January

ul 17, 2025 | Currency changeover in Bulgaria: the euro replaces the lev in January

In an interview with Euronews, Plamen Ralchev says: “The euro is a lifeboat that Bulgaria should board!" The scientist at the University of National and World Economics warns against right-wing populist parties exploiting the currency debate.

The Federal Trust: Join the Euro, Rejoin the EU

Sep 7, 2023 | In this new video, Brendan Donnelly and John Stevens argue that membership of the euro will be necessary to sustain the UK’s re-entry into the European Union after Brexit. They recognise that political leadership will be necessary for such a radical step to come about. But they also argue that British public opinion would be more receptive to leadership on the issue of the single currency than is often assumed.

SPEAKERS

Brendan Donnelly is the Director of the Federal Trust and a former Conservative MEP.
John Stevens is the Chairman of the Federal Trust and a former Conservative MEP.

ABOUT THE FEDERAL TRUST

The Federal Trust is a research institute studying regional, national, European and global levels of government. It has always had a particular interest in the European Union and Britain’s place in it. The Federal Trust has no allegiance to any political party. It is registered as a charity for the purposes of education and research.

Croatia Adopts Euro, Joins Schengen: What Are the Pros and Cons? | DW News

Jan 1, 2023 | Croatia has dropped its currency the kuna to adopt the European common currency, the euro. The Balkan nation becomes the 20th member of the eurozone. Croatia had to meet strict economic conditions to join. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen traveled to Zagreb to mark the occasion. Croatia also became the 27th member of the passport-free Schengen zone, which allows more than 400 million people to move freely through its borders.

Croatia Joins the Euro!

On 1 January 2023, Croatia will become the 20th member of the euro family!

What a Sinking Euro Means for Europe and the US | DW Business

Jul 15, 2022 The euro has taken a major beating against its US peer since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, falling to its lowest level in 20 years. While a weakened euro should worry European consumers, US travelers visiting Europe could benefit.

Euro und Dollar erreichen Parität

ERSTMALS SEIT 2002
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: An den Devisenmärkten ist die europäische Gemeinschaftswährung nun genauso viel Wert wie der amerikanische Dollar. Anleger flüchten sich derzeit in Dollar-Anlagen, da alles andere risikobehaftet scheint.

Nach einigen Tagen Ringen hat der Euro nun die Grenze von einem Dollar nach unten durchbrochen. Damit ist die europäische Gemeinschaftswährung zum ersten Mal seit 2002 wieder genauso viel Wert wie der amerikanische Dollar. Am Mittag kostete ein Euro genau 1,0000 Dollar. Devisen schwanken normalerweise in geringem Maße, deshalb werden ihre Wechselkurse an den Finanzmärkten mit bis zu vier Nachkommastellen angegeben. » | Von Gregor Brunner | Dienstag, 12. Juli 2022

L’euro atteint la parité avec le dollar, une première depuis sa mise en circulation : La monnaie unique européenne est plombée par le risque de coupure des approvisionnements russes en gaz pour l’Union européenne. »

Euro Nears Parity with Dollar as Pound Hits Two-year Low

THE GUARDIAN: Europe’s single currency battered by fears over gas supply from Russia and US interest rate rises

One euro coin placed on top of one dollar bills Photograph: Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock
The euro is on the brink of parity with the dollar as investors fear that an energy crisis will plunge the region’s economy into recession.

The single currency fell to just $1.0003 on Tuesday morning, pushed lower by worries that the scheduled shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline – which transports natural gas from Russia to Europe – for maintenance could be made permanent.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February has triggered fears over Europe’s energy supply and hurt the region’s economies, pushing the euro 12% lower against the US dollar so far this year.

The euro is also being hit by expectations of further aggressive interest rate rises by the US Federal Reserve, which are driving the dollar higher. » | Julia Kollewe and Graeme Wearden | Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Business Live: Euro falls to brink of parity with dollar over fears Russia will cut off gas supplies »

Yanis Varoufakis: Deutschland tritt aus dem Euro aus, wenn ... | Mission Money

Er galt als der große Euro-Schreck während seiner Amtszeit als griechischer Finanzminister! Doch waren die Vorwürfe von Politikern und Medien gegen Yanis Varoufakis wirklich gerechtfertigt? Im Interview mit der Mission Money vertritt Varoufakis spannende Positionen. Deutschland dürfe nicht für Pleite-Staaten haften, fordert er. Und außerdem werde Deutschland aus dem Euro austreten, wenn ein ganz bestimmtes Szenario eintritt....außerdem im Gepäck des Griechen: Zahlreiche Ideen, wie man die Euro Zone retten könnte! Das alles in unserem exklusiven Interview!!!! Hinweis: Das Video verfügt über einen Untertitel.

Would Italy Exit the EU, Quit the Euro? | Al Jazeera English

During Italy's failed bid to form a government last week, the country's economy minister was vetoed by the president because he had previously discussed leaving the euro. But it is not hard to find Italians who believe adopting the currency has been a mistake. So, why is the currency such a sensitive topic in Italy?

Al Jazeera's Nadim Baba reports from Rome.

Euro für alle: Juncker überrascht mit Forderung zum Ausbau der Eurozone und des Schengenraums

Angesichts von Spaltungstendenzen in Europa hat EU-Kommissionspräsident Jean-Claude Juncker eine Ausweitung der Eurozone und des Schengenraums gefordert. "Wenn wir wollen, dass der Euro unseren Kontinent mehr eint als spaltet, dann sollte er mehr sein, als die Währung einer ausgewählten Ländergruppe", sagte der Luxemburger Christdemokrat am Mittwoch vor dem Europaparlament in Straßburg. Der Euro sei dazu bestimmt, die "einheitliche Währung der Europäischen Union als Ganzes zu sein".

Outlook for the Euro, Oil and Stocks after the French Elections

In this short video, Dr Daniel Lacalle explains his view of the EUR/USD short-term, why oil remains subdued despite OPEC cuts and the earnings season so far, with implications on stock markets.

You can comment on this video on Dr Daniel Lacalle’s website here

Euro vs US Dollar. Time to Sell?

DANIEL LACALLE: After the French elections, the euphoria over the euro/dollar exchange rate is more than likely to dissipate. The revaluation of the European currency has been supported by consecutive political catalysts, which have supported the Eurozone project, and the trade surplus supports the euro versus the main currencies with which it trades.

Once political news have passed, and focusing exclusively on fundamentals, supply and demand should prevail. There are several challenges:

The global demand for euros decreases. The latest figures from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) show total cross-border transactions in US dollars of $ 13.9 trillion, increasing by $60 billion in the third quarter of 2016. In turn, transactions in euros fell by $160 billion, to a total $8.1 trillion.

Supply of euros rises. We are in a dangerous time. For the first time in history, central banks are increasing money supply by more than $200 billion a month without any crisis or recession. Of that figure, the European Central Bank is almost a third. At the close of this article, this enormous monetary expansion has already generated 1.2 trillion euros of excessive liquidity.

Confidence in an export model and the trade surplus of the European Union, which makes the reserves of foreign currency of the Eurozone grow steadily, have been the main factors behind the relative strength of the euro. It shows that the European economy is more solid than some inflationists would like it to be.

The evidence that devaluation does not favor exports is clear in the Eurozone. Since the launch of the ECB program, the euro has weakened almost 23% against the US dollar and yet export growth has slowed significantly. In fact, the most sustained increase in exports has been between countries of the euro area itself, that is to say, with no currency effect, while growth in exports to non-euro countries has weakened considerably. However, inflationary alchemists will continue to tell you that devaluing supports exports.

We must not forget the challenge of supply and demand, and of excess liquidity. The European Central Bank is almost 200 bps behind the curve and should be raising rates already. In addition, with such an amount of excess liquidity, which increased by more than €1 trillion since the repurchase program was launched, it is urgent to drain that excess and stop increasing the ECB current balance sheet. There is enough liquidity in the system to continue supporting bond issuances.

It is more than likely that the supply of US dollars will be contained, through the normalization of the US monetary policy, where the Federal Reserve also lags far behind the curve by almost 300 basis points, while global demand of the US currency increases, mainly from emerging countries. While demand for dollars is growing above supply, the reverse is true of demand for euros versus supply.

Therefore, apart from political catalysts, markets are facing a few years in which the euro is more than likely to lose momentum with respect to the US dollar.

We must pay attention to the risk of loss of confidence in the European currency if excessive liquidity continues to rise while money supply is increased. The last thing the EU would wants is to lose the status of the euro as a reserve currency. It must leave alchemist experiments behind and aim to strengthen the demand for euros in global transactions. | Dr Daniel Lacalle | Monday, May 8, 2017

© Daniel Lacalle

All Rights Reserved

Daniel Lacalle has a PhD in Economics and is author of “Escape from the Central Bank Trap”, “Life In The Financial Markets” and “The Energy World Is Flat” (Wiley)

You can comment on this article at Daniel Lacalle’s website here

France Elections, A Risk to the Euro?

DANIEL LACALLE: France is such a socialist country that, in the polls, the four candidates appear each with 20% vote intention. The voter has a “wide” variety of choice: the Socialist, the Social-Democrat, the Communist and the National Socialist.

However, what should amaze anyone is the fact that nearly 40% of the voters are choosing an anti-Euro option.

The rise of anti-Euro populism is not due to “austerity”. And populism is not defeated with more interventionism. France is the proof.

In France there has been no austerity, as the Natixis shows in “A big misunderstanding: The French think that there has been austerity”. Not only has public spending and the state intervention increased to 57% of GDP, with the government controlling major companies and nearly 70% of the economy, France has carried out for years a wrongly-called “expansive” Keynesian policy, despite two decades of stagnation. France is the example of a failure of central planning statism that some blame on the fact that there was not enough of it.

In the face of a misdiagnosis (“populism is due to the -ineexistent- budget cuts”), politicians propose the erroneous solution (“populism must be fought with more interventionism”), and what this does is legitimate the wrong message of magical solutions that lead the voter to prefer the most radical ideas.

Among those magical solutions, there are few things more ridiculous than the populist promise that everything will be great if France gets out of the euro and defaults.

In a delirious interview with Melenchon, the populist ultra-left candidate, he said that he counted on the “atomic bomb”. Stop paying the debt. A genius. “If we stop paying the debt, the economy does not suffer, only bankers suffer,” he said. On the other side of economic schizophrenia, at the far right, LePen’s party claimed that “70% of the French debt is issued before the monetary union, so it can be redenominated in French francs.” And they didn’t blink.

They forgot that their country runs a structural deficit and that it cannot finance that huge amount of expenses if it defaults.

They forgot that more than 40% of the French debt is in the pension plans, social security and savings of its citizens, which would sink their beloved welfare state.

They forgot that, in order to finance public expenditures of more than 1.2 trillion euros (57% of GDP), France needs a secondary market that supports the monetary policy of the Central Bank and a currency that is accepted globally as a reserve.

They forgot that, if France defaults on public debt, the risk premium of SMEs and families in their country soars and credit dries.

They forgot that their local financial system is three times the GDP of France and that, if a default sends it to bankruptcy, they can say farewell to citizens’ deposits.

Every populist always comes up with the brilliant idea of doing what has never worked and thinking that this time will be different. Melenchon and LePen, like the rest, look at Venezuela or Zimbabwe and think that it has not worked because they were not in charge.

They forget that such a destruction is not solved by printing French francs, because it ignores the history and the disaster that inflationary policies were for Europe, always with the same result. Sink the economy, blame the external enemy, inflationism, war and back again.

The fallacy that a country will solve structural problems devaluing the currency is more than dismantled by reality. As if the ECB had not carried a massively expansive monetary policy, within the euro, they believe that the problem is that it is not devalued enough. France has spent ten years with an expansive fiscal and monetary policy, as shown by Natixis, and they think the problem is that it was not enough. That it did not work because the populists were not in power.

Default and devaluation destroy the average citizen, businesses and families, wiping out savings and deposits, cost of imports soar and the ability to finance their beloved State, collapses.

Lessons from the economic history of France:

Between 1790 and 1793, 3,500 million notes were issued in France, the so-called Assignats, which soon lost 95% of the value artificially decided by politicians. Of course, food prices soared with the loss of value of the currency. Finance Minister Claviere blamed the shopkeepers and the “merchants” and promised to force the machines and print more money.

Prices continued to rise inexorably. Money was worth less and less, and therefore, goods and services cost more and more.

And what did the French government do to make up for the mistake? Print more money, raise taxes and confiscate properties, destroying real investment and trade in the face of lack of legal certainty. The Jacobins introduced the “Law of Maximums” prohibiting price increases. Like Kirchner, Maduro … At the same time, they punished with jail and the guillotine anyone who rejected payment with paper money. This just got the shops closed, because owners just did not want those colored papers that were no longer worth anything.

Of course, now it is different. At that time, the state was not in debt more than 100% of its GDP, with more than 40% of that debt in the hands of families, with a structural deficit and a public expenditure of almost 60% of GDP.

But it is what populists want to repeat, with the argument that “this time is different”.

All populist inflationists always talk about the United States and the dollar to justify their monetary mirage and forget to be a global reserve currency, have a functioning secondary market and an attractive and dynamic market-based economy. The US dollar is not the global reserve currency because it is decided by a committee. It is so because the world trusts its economy.

I remember an episode of Game of Thrones in which a character said “he would not mind burning down the kingdom as long as he is appointed the king of the ashes”. That’s the populist strategy. To destroy the economy and proclaim themselves as the only savior, as the solution to their own sabotage. Poor France. | Dr. Daniel Lacalle | First published on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 | © Daniel Lacalle | All Rights Reserved

Daniel Lacalle is a PhD in Economics, fund manager and author of Escape from the Central Bank Trap (BEP), Life In The Financial Markets, and The Energy World Is Flat (Wiley).

This article has been published with the express permission of the author; and I would like to express my sincere thanks to him for giving me permission to re-publish it. It is an excellent article.

Daniel Lacalle PhD is a prolific author. You can check out his books on Amazon here

Economist Paul Krugman Sees Chance of Euro Collapse

Mar.01 -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, distinguished professor of economics at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, comments on the state of the European economy during an interview with Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu and Joe Weisenthal on "What'd You Miss?"

Happy Birthday: Euro Turns 15

It’s 15 years to the day since the introduction of the euro currency in 12 European nations.

The euro was designed as a way of bringing together Europe's economies, but it has had mixed success and has still only been adopted by 19 of the 28 countries in the European Union.

Al Jazeera's Malcolm Webb is in the French capital, Paris, looking back at the euro's history - and what the currency may face in the future.

Joseph Stiglitz: The Euro

In his latest book, Stiglitz, the 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist, asks whether the Eurozone is united or divided by its common currency. Criticizing the European Central Bank for policies, such as austerity, that cause rather than alleviate stagnation, the former World Bank senior vice president and chief economist outlines three possible futures, showing what it would mean for Europe to make structural reforms, adapt a radical new flexibility, or dissolve. Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics & Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics & Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

Euro Currency Sinking Europe Says Joseph Stiglitz

The euro is simply not sustainable and the Eurozone cannot simply look away while its currency sinks the continent, said Joseph Stiglitz, author of 'The Euro'. 'A common currency is threatening the future of Europe,' said Stiglitz. 'Muddling through will not work.' Stiglitz is a professor at Columbia University. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Nobel-winning Economist Stiglitz Slams the Euro in New Book

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz condemns the shortcomings of the euro.

Juncker zu Grenzkontrollen: "Ohne Reisefreiheit ist der Euro sinnlos"

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Reisende in der EU müssen immer häufiger ihre Pässe vorzeigen - die Kontrollen an den Grenzen kehren zurück. Jetzt stemmt sich EU-Kommissionspräsident Juncker dagegen: "Wer Schengen killt, wird den Binnenmarkt zu Grabe tragen."

Noch immer versuchen Tausende Flüchtlinge am Tag, die Europäische Union zu erreichen. Deshalb haben eine Reihe von EU-Staaten an ihren Grenzen wieder Kontrollen eingeführt - die im Schengenraum eigentlich nur in Ausnahmefällen und für kurze Zeit vorgesehen sind. EU-Kommissionspräsident Jean-Claude Juncker hat nun vor den Folgen für den Euroraum gewarnt. "Ohne Reisefreiheit ist der Euro sinnlos", sagte er am Freitag in Brüssel. » | vek/Reuters/AFP | Freitag, 15. Januar 2016

Breaking News: Greece Debt Crisis: Eurozone Refuses Bailout Extension

BBC AMERICA: Eurozone finance ministers have rejected a Greek request to extend a bailout programme beyond 30 June.

Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem said talks on a new bailout had been ongoing on Friday when Greece called a surprise referendum over the terms of any deal.

By doing so they broke off the process, he said. » | Saturday, June 27, 2015