EU "Shutdown"

Now that the US shutdown is over, it seems to be time to create our own little budget crisis in Europe. The EU Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union (member states) agreed on a budget for 2013 in 2012 under the assumption that all payments due for 2012 would be paid 2012, which just did not happen. Additionally, the member states decided to start reducing the budget, which lead to a budget which was €2.9 billion below the 2012 one. So the 2013 budget needed amending, and since currently everybody in Europe is a big fan of paying in tranches, it was decided to use several installments for the needed sum of €14 billion. Everything went fine with the first and largest one, but now we seem to have a problem.

European Growth Strategy - Staying The Course for Disaster

A few days ago some EU officials together wrote an op-ed in the WSJ claiming that "Europe's Crisis Response Is Showing Results, well of course it is; but those results just aren't good (via). In this article they had to say the following on growth:

The euro zone's economic prospects have improved over recent months. Modest GDP growth returned in the second quarter of the year. Industrial orders and output have increased, and many countries' sovereign-bond yields have decreased. Unemployment, while still much too high, appears to be stabilizing. Further modest growth is forecast for the second half of this year, and the recovery should pick up speed next year as long as we stay the course.