Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing interview (ARTE TV)

Yesterday, December 10th 2013, French-German TV station ARTE TV aired an interview with former president of France, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.

The whole interview is in English, the language they also used during the 1970s when both had regular consultations (by phone & at meetings).
The interview is accompanied by footage of stations of their career and also by file footage describing the economic situation after the war in France and Germany.

Although ARTE TV published dates for rebroadcasting this interview again, it's perhaps more convenient for German and French viewers to watch the full video again. It's however very unfortunate that ARTE TV obviously blocks access to this video from other countries than France & Germany.

Full video (90 minutes):
SCHMIDT UND GISCARD D'ESTAING - EINE MÄNNERFREUNDSCHAFT (German version)
[update] Schmidt und Giscard d'Estaing - Teil 1 (ZDFInfo, Youtube, video, 43 minutes) [/update]
VALÉRY GISCARD D'ESTAING ET HELMUT SCHMIDT (French version)

Trailer zu Helmut Schmidt und Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (Youtube trailer, video, 4 minutes)

related:
The euro should either be made growth and employment friendly as fast as possible, or it should be dismantled (Professor Christopher Pissarides, LSE blogs, Dec 13th 2013)(via @pierrebri)
Helmut Schmidt conversation with David Marsh, Hamburg December 2013 (omfif.org,pdf, 7 pages)
(via @pierrebri)

Slovenia: bank stress test results

Bank of Slovenia and Slovenian government announce results of stress tests 

(bsi.sl, pdf, English, 4 pages) (via @GovSlovenia)

Statement by Vice President #Rehn on the publication of results of stress tests of #banks in #Slovenia http://t.co/FkDz2Si5aT
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) December 12, 2013

Statement by the President of the #Eurogroup on #Slovenia: http://t.co/BzuugSSsMw
— DG ECFIN (@ecfin) December 12, 2013

Slovenia says it can fix banking sector without international aid http://t.co/GpKi2ln5AU
— DW - Business (@dw_business) December 12, 2013

A.D. 2013: Deflation is back in Europe

Although the Germans still are convinced there is no danger looming:

Bundeswirtschaftministerium sieht keine Gefahr einer Deflation (Reuters, Nov 8th 2013)

(source: http://thomsonreuters.com, by Vincent Flasseur/Reuters)

outright deflation arrived in some countries of the euro area:

Greece:

by Vincent Flasseur/Reuters (via @ReutersFlasseur)

http://thomsonreuters.com

Details by Greece's statitics agency ELSTAT:

#ELSTAT PR: Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (2005=100.0) ( November 2013 ) http://t.co/FYEIXUSLso
— ELSTAT (@StatisticsGR) December 9, 2013

#ELSTAT PR: Consumer Price Index (2009=100.0) ( November 2013 ) http://t.co/LMEtt0PeIw
— ELSTAT (@StatisticsGR) December 9, 2013

 Cyprus:

Cyprus slips into deep deflation in November... http://t.co/YCGBhIiKUO
— Cyprus News Agency (@cnainenglish) December 5, 2013

Debt /GDP trajectories for EA countries will be added later, but you can imagine it doesn't look good 

(revisit for updates)

Slovenia:

In the 3rd quarter of 2013, services producer prices decreased on average by 0.4% both at the quarterly and at... http://t.co/Hma4h6fSq5
— Statistics Slovenia (@StatSlovenia) December 12, 2013

closing in:
Portugal: 

The CPI 12-month average rate was 0.4% in November http://t.co/NpHfo2gjiA
— INE Portugal (@pt_INE) December 11, 2013

Ireland:

Prices rise by 0.3% in the year to November http://t.co/sVKJmd1qVH
— CSO Statistics (@CSOIreland) December 12, 2013

Sweden: (EU, not euro area) 

Inflation rate 0.1 percent http://t.co/P8ic7WZ5Cv
— Statistics Sweden (@StatsSweden) December 12, 2013

Poland: (EU, not euro area) 

Price index of consumer goods and services in the fourth quarter of 2013 was 100.0 as compared to the third quarter of 2013 (prices remained on the same level).

             source: Central Statistics Office, Poland (Jan 15th 2014) 

Price index of consumer goods and services in November 2013  decreased 0.2%, as related to October 2013.

             source: Central Statistics Office, Poland (Dec 13th 2013) 

Latvia: 2013 During the year, consumer prices have dropped by 0.4% (Statistika Latvijas, Jan 13th 2013)  

A look back in history (Germany, early 1930s, short version by Wikipedia)

Brünings policy of deflation

revisit earlier blog post: The forgotten catastrophe... Deflation [EZR, December 2011]

(including analysis by Paul Krugman)

recognizing that deflation is in fact dangerous:

If inflation fell "below 1% in a persistent way, then we should of course be extremely concerned" - Otmar Issing, ECB chief econ, May 2003
— Pierre Briançon (@pierrebri) December 5, 2013

France: The Consumer Prices Index decreased by 0.6% in January 2014; it rose by 0.7%, year-on-year
                 (Insee, Feb 20th 2014)

reactions by ECB officials:

Ecb's Makuch Says Does Not See Strong Deflation Pressures, Does Not See Deflation Ahead
— cigolo (@cigolo) December 10, 2013

More ECB action not ruled out but not needed for now: Coeure http://t.co/dS2Ll6OeLm
— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) December 11, 2013

related articles:
Eurozone 'sleepwalking into a decades-long deflation trap’ (Telegraph, Dec 28th 2013)