Category: Telescope

So far, the media and political analysts have been unanimous: Brexit represents an uncertain and dangerous future only for the UK. Our readers know that we have always been more circumspect about this. Now that the first phase of negotiations has been completed (at the end of last year) and the second phase is about […]

Brexit seemed to have opened up the long-awaited project of redefining the functioning and objectives of the European machine. But today Brussels prefers to boast about the UK’s difficulties, and, thinking of itself as unavoidable, it is undertaking to unearth all its bottom drawer projects. Hence, over the heads of the citizens, a whole bunch of […]

As happens every year, LEAP/E2020 presents in January a panorama of the “up & down” main trends[1] of the coming year. Besides the intellectual added value of this contribution, which of course reflects many of the analyses our researchers made over the last few months, LEAP/E2020 aims to enable a better perception of priorities within […]

We can not help going back to the Middle East this month, simply because what is happening now looks so much like we had been anticipating for several years and announced at the beginning of 2017 in our list of “up and down trends”: Saudi Arabia’s emergence as a new strong player in the region, […]

End 2017/early 2018, all major Western Central Banks will be putting a final stop to the 2008 crisis-related unconventional monetary policies, namely the famous quantitative easing policies (QEs) which enabled to provide liquidity to those banks which saw their mutual confidence for borrowing collapse in the aftermath of the subprime crisis. Fiscal QE in rich […]

We anticipated this in May[1]: good news abounds in the eurozone, notably for the economic matters, with a “recovery” making Mr. Trump and Mrs. May jealous[2]. This even encourages the ECB to consider reducing its quantitative easing programme earlier than expected, namely in January[3], before halting it in September 2018. Investments go up, unemployment declines[4], […]

Here after, we will try to sketch out the landscape of a series of elections awaiting us until the end of 2017 (in chronological order). Each of these elections reflects the challenges facing Europe by 2019; challenges which come not just from national or regional voters. The success to reconcile voters’ expectations, government bets and […]

To strengthen the eurozone, the European Commission has just launched the idea of creating products backed by European sovereign debt, a proposal which could be more an alternative than a precedent for the Eurobonds. On May 31, 2017, the European Commission presented its analysis on the “deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union”[1], which had […]

May 19 – Iran: presidential election A serious opponent is now threatening the chances of re-election of the reformist Hassan Rohani. This man is the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raissi, reinforced by the great geopolitical tensions surrounding Iran: war against Saudi Arabia in Yemen, involvement in the Syrian conflict, Israeli threats of aggression, risk of questioning the […]

The financial crisis followed by the debt crisis has led to a substantial change in the mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB) and to more political provisions. The ECB has acquired implicit mandates to safeguard the euro but also an economic policy which all go far beyond the original objective of price stability. The […]

This anticipation is not very original but it must nevertheless be faced with all the lucidity required. It is hardly a hypothesis, but rather a certainty: the allied European far rights will constitute the most consistent and therefore powerful parliamentary group in the next European Parliament, whatever their results in the previous national elections. What […]

February 15-16 / Astana: Next round of peace talks on Syria The peace in Syria initiative launched by Russia, Turkey and Iran in the wake of the December 29 ceasefire agreement continues. The capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, will be hosting a new meeting on February 15 and 16, to which the United States, the United […]

Crypto-currencies, of which Bitcoin is the most popular, are “virtual” currencies devoid of any physical reality, possessing an electronic form and functioning by using cryptographic methods. They are used specially as a means of payment in an innovative decentralised peer-to-peer system. With the Bitcoin and the other crypto-currencies, one can buy everything from food products, […]

Since November 8, 2016, India has created a monetary revolution of a magnitude never seen, both by the size of the population concerned and the depth of the transformation induced. By demonetising the biggest notes of 500 and 1000 Rs (rupees), the Indian government is trying to reintegrate into the official economy the state’s gigantic […]

We have claimed at great length in previous issues of the GEAB that neither of the two election candidates – Clinton or Trump – would be a good thing for the United States. The verdict has now been passed and it is Trump who will be elected president. Among all the uncertainties that remain, we […]

Both in the United States and around the world, this news has been making some noise: since October the 1st, the internet is finally “free from US tutelage.” Is it, indeed? It is true that a decisive step has just been reached, since the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), a central internet […]

In short, the answer is, not much. But let’s elaborate! As our team noted in the September issue, Brexit unleashed a large potential to reorganise Europe with, as it happens in transitions, huge opportunities but also great dangers. But citizens of several countries at the heart of Europe find themselves stuck in unnecessary and dysfunctional […]

The world has been seeking a substitute for its reliance on the dollar since 2008. The dependency has been so strong, that it has taken almost a decade for a solution to be drafted. Strangely, this solution came from an institution perceived by some as obsolete, until China took the trouble to bring it back […]