The cost of education in Europe

Looking back at the past of human history, debt crises, defaults, financial "haircuts" and debt restructuring are cases proved as old as public borrowing. The first recorded debt default can be traced back to ancient Greece in 454 BC, when ten of the thirteen city-states of the Delian Alliance, borrowed large amounts of money from the common treasury at the temple of Delos, only to later announce failure to repay their debt and proclaimed the first official default in world history, while eight of them initiated negotiations for debt restructuring.

The first signs of contagion of the Greek debt crisis throughout the Eurozone made their appearance at the end of June. There had intervened the celebrations for the conclusion, on July 21, of the agreement with the E.U. to support Greece and the temporary calming down of the markets, after which Italian and Spanish bond yields rallied anew, rekindling fears of contagion to the hard core of the Eurozone.

May comes to a close with a negative record of 368 dead civilians in Afghanistan, 18 more than those in August 2010, the most violent month of the previous year. 82% of the casualties are attributed to Taliban attacks and only 12% to NATO attacks, according to the U.N.

Following Bin Laden's death, the situation in the country remains critical and American efforts to approach the Taliban in order to reach further agreement are proving fruitless, as only 1.700 of 40.000 have accepted to enter negotiations.

Inspite of all this, mainly financial reasons are pressing President Obama to suggest a plan of gradual withdrawal of military forces from the region and to attempt to end the longest-running war in American history.

A big part of the Debt, approximately 92 billion euros, is owned by european banks, resulting in a danger of chain reaction inside the EU, in case of a Greek “accident”. Many of the French and German Banks are being exposed to the Debt, while the Greek banks top the list, as their exposure totals approximately 55 billion euros. This exposure, along with the lack of cash funds, are the basic reasons for the continuous downgrades of the european banks, from the International Rating Companies.

Meanwhile, the facts from the BIS, concerning the last three months of 2009, a time in which the, newly elected, Prime Minister G.Papandreou announced the economical “collapse” of the country, show a gradual release of the Greek Debt from the banking system. While, in the middle of 2008, the banks owned 216 billions, they are nowadays left with a sum of 100 billions, which are, on the one hand, extremely risky to be released or, at the other, too expensive to be secured as the insurance prices remain high.

Looking back at the past of human history, debt crises, defaults, financial "haircuts" and debt restructuring are cases proved as old as public borrowing. The first recorded debt default can be traced back to ancient Greece in 454 BC, when ten of the thirteen city-states of the Delian Alliance, borrowed large amounts of money from the common treasury at the temple of Delos, only to later announce failure to repay their debt and proclaimed the first official default in world history, while eight of them initiated negotiations for debt restructuring.

Poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water are assessed by Europeans as the single most serious problems facing the world as a whole, according to the results of a Eurobarometer survey conducted in June and published on Friday.

At a time when the international economies are plunged deep into global recession, the issue of quality in education and the acquisition of specialized qualifications is being proposed as a main asset of protection against unemployment and job precariousness, according to a recent report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). "Despite strained public budgets, governments must keep up their investment to maintain quality in education, especially for those most at risk," stresses the report by the Secretary-General of the Organization, Angel Gurría.

Despite the aforementioned inducements, according to the most recent data in relation to the state of education and training in in Europe, a significant number of European countries choose the underfunding of education, in comparison to other public sectors, namely Greece, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia, whose annual educational expenses amount to less than the average figure set by the OECD. In contrast, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Austria have become the leading countries in Europe for investment in education, while others emphasize on different levels of the education system.

Almost one month has passed since the day that opposition forces captured the capital of Libya, Tripoli, whilst the news were broadcasted all over the globe and hailed by numerous western governments as the definitive end of the Gaddafi regime. But a month later, fierce battles are still raging in different parts of the North African country.

An interesting fact came to light from the quarterly report published by the Bank for International Settlements BIS on Sunday (18/9) in relation to the countries which were found more exposed to the Greek debt during the first quarter of 2011.