Financial Crisis and Sovereign Debt: The European Union between Risks and Opportunities
A key element for understanding the possible developments of the sovereign debt crisis relates to several rounds of non-standard interventions, ranging from the first Security Market Programme to the enhanced Long Term Refinancing Operations, launched by the European Central Bank from May 2010 to March 2012 as a reaction to the exceptional circumstances prevailing in financial markets. In the meantime, the other European institutions prepared and approved a number of legislative changes, intended to enhance the common economic governance and budgetary surveillance. This paper looks at the implications of the “non-standard measures” for the institutional role of the Central Bank in the context of the European Treaty, and examines the new legal acts as instruments to correct and prevent imbalances. The lessons from the Greek case point to more general elements of weakness in the Union, which can only be addressed by an integrated set of significant changes in the EU architecture. Specific attention should be paid to the role played by the rating agencies, and to the opportunity to foresee appropriate supervision by public authorities over them: taking into account that the current regulation seems far from satisfactory, and reforms in line with those enacted in the US would greatly help. The need for solid and sustainable fiscal policies remains key, together with appropriate budgetary and macroeconomic surveillance. The main characteristics to be designed for structured interventions are then described and discussed, with specific regard to the necessary surveillance of the degree of achievement of agreed policies and outcomes, aimed at addressing issues of moral hazard. The Six Pack and the Fiscal Compact Treaty may be seen as important steps in the right direction, but not as definitive solutions. In this context, non-standard interventions – including the ECB measures as well as use of EFSF/ESM fund – cannot go beyond a short-term solution, only temporarily addressing the malfunctioning of securities markets. Their ability to restore an appropriate monetary policy transmission mechanism is linked to successful implementation of other reforms herewith analysed. At a more general level, a change is required toward the observance of rules inspired by social responsibility, properly linked to merit and rigour. All this might result to the approval of new instruments of enhanced integration, not feasible in previous years; or lead, in the opposite case, to critical consequences for the continuity of the Union in its current form.
Driven by the markets? ECB sovereign bond purchases and the securities markets programme
At the height of the European sovereign debt crisis, the European Central Bank decided to purchase distressed European government bonds. Even worse, and more importantly, the ECB is providing direct support of several hundred billions of euros to troubled banks via its normal monetary policy operations by granting them the opportunity to refinance at an interest rate of 1%. This article argues that these purchases will result in common monetary policy being dominated by national fiscal policies. The most worrisome aspect is that the euro area appears to have stumbled into unconventional monetary policies that, once started, will be difficult to exit. In the euro area, properly functioning financial markets are at risk.
Judicial Review, Socio-Economic Rights and the Human Rights Act
INTRODUCTION 1 THE ROLE OF COURTS IN THE PROTECTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS: INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC PERSPECTIVES I. The Indivisibility of Human Rights II. The Protection of Socio-economic Rights in Domestic Courts III. Conclusion 2 THE REGIONAL PROTECTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS: EUROPE I. Introduction II. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) 1950 III. The Protection of Socio-economic Rights in the ECHR IV. The Protection of Socio-economic Rights in EC/EU Law V. Conclusion 3 COURTS, THE UK CONSTITUTION AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT 1998 I. Introduction II. Reading and Giving Effect to ECHR Rights in UK Courts III. Conclusion 4 JUDICIAL REVIEW: DEFERENCE, RESOURCES AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT I. Introduction II. The Constitutional Foundations of Judicial Review III. Public Law, Deference and the Human Rights Act IV. Conclusion 5 FROM NEED TO 'CHOICE' IN PUBLIC SERVICES: THE BOUNDARIES OF JUDICIAL INTERVENTION IN PRIORITISATION DISPUTES I. Introduction II. NHS Rationing: The Role of Courts in Disputes over Access to Medical Services III. Local Authority Resource Allocation Disputes IV. Interpreting Local Authority Statutory Duties Post-HRA V. Conclusion 6 ARTICLES 3 AND 8 ECHR: FAILURE TO PROVIDE AND POSITIVE OBLIGATIONS IN THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC SPHERE I. Introduction II. Anufrijeva, Article 8 ECHR and Maladministration in the Provision of Welfare III. Article 3 ECHR: Respect for Dignity IV. Conclusion 7 ARTICLE 14 ECHR AND THE UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF PUBLIC GOODS AND SERVICES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM I. Introduction II. Socio-economic Entitlements and the Limits of Substantive Fairness in Article 14 ECHR III. Carson's Case: Refusal of Up-rated Payments to Pensioners Abroad 283 IV. Reynolds' Case: The Intensity of Scrutiny in Other 'Status Disputes' V. Equality and Human Rights VI. Conclusion 8 ARTICLE 6 ECHR: JUDICIAL REVIEW, DUE PROCESS AND THE PROTECTION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS I. Introduction II. What is a Civil Right for the Purposes of Article 6 ECHR? III. The Quality of Administrative Justice: The Scope of Article IV. Conclusion