While the case for Spanish and Portuguese EC membership is largely political, for membership to be a political success it must also be an economic success. Indeed it is economic factors which have ensured that six years after the applications were made, negotiations have not been concluded and...

Despite the broad upswing in the euro area, it cannot be precluded that high public debts in some countries could spiral out of control if interest rates increase again. To analyse the relevance of this danger, a debt sustainability analysis is carried out using a narrow range of relatively...