Today is the 10th anniversary of the agreement that launched the single currency. However, residents of the first 12 EU states that adopted the Euro didn’t begin using Euro banknotes and coins until 1 January, 2002.
When the euro was launched there were plenty of people who thought it would crash and burn. Ten years on, its role as a global currency is secure, even if it hasn’t achieved everything its founders hoped such as higher living standards (per capita income) and less divergence between national economies. But it has achieved macroeconomic stability and financial stability when reflecting to the recent credit crunch.
There are now 15 European countries who are members of the Eurozone, with a common currency, the Euro, and a single interest rate set by the European Central Bank (ECB). They make up 72% of the EU’s GDP. Click here for the Eurozone in figures.
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The International Monetary Fund has come out with its latest set of forecasts of the world economy. The report says at one point:
“The IMF staff now sees a 25 percent chance that global growth will drop to 3 percent or less in 2008 and 2009—equivalent to a global recession.”
Since when is 3% growth equivalent to a “global recession”? According to my textbook, periods of negative GDP growth are called recessions.
By this “new’ definition, the world economy has been in recession 1980-83, 1990-93, 1998, and 2001-2002. In other words, 11 out of the last 28 years. There are no negative years of world growth.
Here are the IMF’s latest world growth numbers, and forecasts out to 2013.
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The Dutchies can expect three challenging football matches next summer during Euro 2008 held in Austria and Switzerland! Today, faith has drawn Holland together with World Champion Italy, World Champion runner-up France and Romania (who ended ahead of Holland in the qualification group) in the same group. At least “we” know what to expect with these opponents.
Holland boss Marco Van Basten added: “That really is a hard one. The Romanians posed us so many problems in the qualifiers, and before that we will have Italy and France, but at least we know what we are up against.”
The good thing about this drawn up is that we can expect three exciting matches in which Holland don’t has the make the game itself. Which is a good thing since there will be lots of space to ball around for us as well. Let the football craziness begin!
The full Groups are:
Group A Group B
Switzerland Austria
Czech Republic Croatia
Portugal Germany
Turkey Poland
Group C Group D
Holland Greece
Italy Sweden
Romania Spain
France Russia
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Here some additional musing on my previous entry (The new radar screen of VCs) which elaborates on today’s hotness of Europe’s economy!
Amongst others, owing to increasingly favourable macroeconomic conditions and the rise of Web 2.0 enabled initiatives; youngsters are flocking throughout Europe to start their first entrepreneurial advances.
Those youngsters have one thing in common, they all posses the passion and drive to utilise upon undiscovered consumer needs and enable uncontested market space. A narrow selection of twenty-five young entrepreneurs active in Europe can be found here.
BTW. Also checkout the special reports published by The Economist on European Business (February 2007) and The European Union (March 2007).
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What’s currently on the radar screen of Venture Capitalists (VCs)? In short, finally, they are starting to look beyond China and India respectively: Central and Eastern Europe.
At the very moment, first, there is Central and Eastern Europe. At least $500 million is sitting in fund targeting the Central and Eastern European region and much more is foreseen. This growth is enabled by a few success stories such as Skype and Last.fm, and in turn, this has triggered a new wave of fresh and new European entrepreneurial spirit. Furthermore, the accession of ten new European Union members from Central and Easter European countries has spurred investments across the region. The previous locked up energetic talent in this region has now gained equal access - as their Western European counterparts - to European capital markets and legislative protection.
In addition, as BusinessWeek pointed out earlier VCs are even having their eyesight beyond the traditional BRIC and Next Eleven (N-11) countries for example out of all places, Colombia, Latin-America. A multitude of young, bright and entrepreneurial minded people is ready to take the country up on the economic ladder. BusinessWeek typified Colombia as an extreme emerging market. It take guts and political sensitivity to start investing there but it can reap endless possibilities.
Here you can find a list of the top 500 European hot growth companies. Another listing can be found here. The latest and greatest news on European Private Equity & venture capital can be found here.
Some more great webpages to keep you updated on any activity at the European VC front can be found here. European Venture Capital & Private Equity Journal; FT European Venture Capital Report; Venture Capital in Europe (Book); and Profitability of venture capital investment in Europe and the US (Research Paper).
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The Northern Europeans are the happiest, according to a biannual European social survey conducted by Corrado & Aslam, Cambridge University.
The Danes are topping the list while Italy is on the bottom. The Dutch are fifth which is quite representative I guess! The sample size of the study was 20,000 responses spread over 15 European countries.
The major factors influencing happiness according Corrado & Aslam (2007) are the quality of social interactions with others and confidence and trust in national government and institutions. Check out this website for more technical information on the European happiness survey.
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As expected, London Business School (LBS) lead for the second consecutive year Financial Times’ ranking list of best European b-school. LBS is ranked top in both the full-time and Executive MBA programme. For the Dutchies among us, Erasmus University, Rotterdam ranked 7th in best European full-time MBA programme and 17th overall.Not that I am planning to pursue a MBA challenge after graduating for my Master degree, in 1,5 years from now. *sigh*, that sounds really long, right? Although, as I noticed, according the last half year time really flies these days so 1,5 year becomes suddenly really short, isn’t? 
Over the long run I might consider doing a MBA, especially because it seems like a great investment to justify. Consider a tuition fee of £41.970,- (not including living expenses) in light of the average salary three years after graduation, as a LBS-er of $126.590,-. Even with today’s currency exchange rate it still looks good. -P Well, up till now, I still think I do not need a MBA for achieving my (ultimate career related) dreams. Maybe that will change in the future when having achieved these dreams…haha..Out for now!
The complete FT ranking can be found here.
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Brussels is full of monuments to the “builders of Europe”. There is the Schuman district, the Monnet circle, the Spinelli building. It may now be time for a Stelios Square or a Boulevard O’Leary. For in recent years, Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Michael O’Leary, the two pioneers of Europe’s low-cost airlines, have done more to integrate Europe than any numbers of diplomats and ministers. They have helped to create a new generation for whom travelling to another European country is no longer exotic or expensive, but utterly commonplace.
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Today is the 10th anniversary of the agreement that launched the single currency. However, residents of the first 12 EU states that adopted the Euro didn’t begin using Euro banknotes and coins until 1 January, 2002.
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