Some €180 billion in loans are ‘at risk’ in Central and Eastern Europe. If they went bad, could Western banks afford it? Should the West intervene now?
Nobody knows just how fast these “at-risk” loans are turning into NPLs, just that they are. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which warned of a potential [...]

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Germany is at the heart of a huge plan to prop up crippled EU economies - not that the German people would ever know
I will not vote in today’s European election. Instead, I am doing something much more interesting and relevant to the future of Europe and Britain. I am travelling to Riga to speak [...]

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Worries are intensifying that Latvia’s financial crisis will spread to its Baltic Sea neighbors and to Eastern Europe, economists say.
The situation is revealing fragility at the edges of the European economy and reportedly has sparked fears that a currency crisis could spread to fellow Baltic nations Lithuania and Estonia.
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Latvia’s Problems Prompt Worry About Contagion [...]

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Many European governments’ finances are as risky as Argentina’s were at the height of its worst financial crisis, and the U.K. gives cause to be “extremely nervous,” Harvard University professor Niall Ferguson said.
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The failure of a government bond auction this morning heightened fears that the tiny Baltic state will have to devalue its currency, the lat, which could have a huge impact on the rest of the region and other EU states.
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Latvian debt crisis shakes Eastern Europe
Telegraph.co.uk - Jun 3, 2009
… a sovereign debt crisis after failing to sell a [...]

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A Russian historian blamed Poland for the start of World War II in 1939 when Warsaw rejected Adolf Hitler’s territorial claims, officials said.
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Kovalov said it is “hard to regard these claims as unjustified.”
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Historians have long argued over whether East German leader Walter Ulbricht or his Soviet counterpart Nikita Khrushchev was ultimately responsible for the construction of the Berlin Wall. A newly discovered Russian document from August 1961 provides some answers. By Klaus Wiegrefe more…

Photo Gallery: When the Wall Went Up
SPIEGEL 360: 20 Years After the Wall

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The Germans are responsible for the industrial-scale mass murder of 6 million Jews. But the collusion of other European countries in the Holocaust has received surprisingly little attention until recently. The trial of John Demjanjuk is set to throw a spotlight on Hitler’s foreign helpers.
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Eastern Europeans who believe their countries were occupied by the Soviet Union after the Second World War could soon be barred from Russia under new proposals given official weight by the Kremlin.
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Stratfor.Com requested that I remove the report reference on the second quarter forecast. However, here is another source referencing the “Summer of Rage” in Europe.
Middle-class anger at economic crisis could erupt into violence on streets
Police are preparing for a “summer of rage” as victims of the economic downturn take to the streets to demonstrate against [...]

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CAN Europe pull off America’s trick? The European Union wants to bolster stability and prosperity in ex-Soviet countries on its borders, while improving ties with Russia on other matters. That is pretty much what Barack Obama’s new administration has managed. It has separated the issues where agreement is reachable, such as arms control, from those [...]

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“It is no secret that when it comes to Russia, there are a wide range of views within NATO, from the very cautious to the forward-leaning,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the current secretary general. “Until we narrow that range it will be difficult to engage Russia effectively.”
But Russia, too, he continued, “needs to decide [...]

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One of the main reasons that Western European countries don’t particularly like the United States is that we won’t follow their lead. They are the leader and the United States must follow. We had trouble understanding that in the past, hence the Europeans hated us.
Enter Obama.
By George Friedman
The weeklong extravaganza of G-20, NATO, EU, U.S. [...]

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NATO is celebrating its 60th birthday this week at a summit co-hosted by Germany and France. But the ceremonies cannot disguise the fact that the alliance, despite its successes, is facing huge challenges in Afghanistan and its dispute with Russia. By SPIEGEL Staff more…

Photo Gallery: NATO Turns 60
‘Big Tent Meeting’: A New Outlook for Afghanistan

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