EUROPEAN UNION WORLD

'The euro crisis is not over yet' Top economist warns of dire days ahead for EU

Eurozone Finance and The Origins of the European Crisis

EU bank calls for PUNISHMENT for eurozone countries that ignore Frankfurt as crisis LOOMS

Euro Indictment

 ECB architects destroy pivot role for monetary base

A key argument for targeting high-powered money (the monetary base) is grounded on the belief that, given a firm monetary anchor (in this case a target for high-powered money growth), the market would do a better job of steering interest rates close to the ideal equilibrium path (and in discovery of the natural or neutral interest rate level – a crucial element in the auto-piloting process) than the monetary bureaucracies (central banks).

Very short-term money rates would be highly volatile as was the case under the gold standard regime. The volatility would stem from passing shortages and excesses in the market for bank reserves. The average level of these rates, though, over several weeks or months, should be fairly stable. Anyhow it is the rates for medium-term and long-term maturities which would have the greatest information content.

 SOCIAL RIGHTS IN THE SOVIET DICTATORSHIP: THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO WELFARE FROM STALIN TO BREZHNEV

Stalin Constitution

Stalin’s Constitution and the “All-People’s Discussion”

Perhaps the most prominent aspect of the new Constitution’s discourse on rights was its retreat from neo-corporatism. Gone is the explicit deprivation of rights to entire categories of the population. Article 135 grants the right to vote and be elected to “all citizens of the USSR aged 18 or older, regardless of racial or national membership, faith, educational level, residence, social origin, property status, and past activities.” Articles 132 and 133 proclaim the “sacred duty of every citizen” to perform military service - without reference to who may or may not bear arms. Freedom of conscience, expression, assembly, and association (described both as “freedoms” and “rights”) are now “guaranteed by law to citizens [rather than to “toilers,” as in 1918] of the USSR.” And yet traces of the neo-corporative idiom - and more broadly, of the state’s use of rights as a political tool – remain. Whereas the various freedoms are granted to “citizens,” their exercise must “correspond to the interests of toilers and the strengthening of the socialist system.” Moreover, the all-important material guaranties by the state for the realisation of civil rights are extended to “toilers” rather than to “citizens.” True, “toilers” now meant the troika of officially recognized social groups (working class, peasantry, and intelligentsia), leaving only recalcitrant individuals on the sidelines; but the subtle distinction between “citizens” and “toilers” was not lost – least of all on the toilers themselves, as we will see in a moment.

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THE EU CHARTER AND ITS APPLICATION AND INTERPRETATION

 The EU’s New Human Rights Dimension

A CONCRETE EXAMPLE: EQUALITY AS A RIGHT AND A PRINCIPLE

The Development of Equality as a Primary Principle Guaranteeing Fundamental Human Rights

Equality and non-discrimination have a special place among human rights and they have a special position in the Charter as well. Their special position is established by its dual character. First, it is a principle determining the content and exercise of all other fundamental rights and as such, it is unequivocally acknowledged as a constitutive element of international human rights law. Secondly, it is a right of a specific kind, being a precondition of human dignity. This second meaning, the right to equal treatment, in contrast with the principle of equal treatment, is the subject of broad conceptual discussions.