Erstellt am: 16. 9. 2011 - 15:14 Uhr

EU Finance Ministers "panic stricken to the point of paralysis"

Reality Check: The Euro crisis gets deeper every day, Scheibner money laundering allegations, Denmark's new government, land grabbing and the world food shortage

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" - so said Franklin D. Roosevelt in his inaugural address as president of the United States in 1933, right at the depth of the great depression. His words seem chillingly relevant today, as prophecies of doom, gloom and destruction roll around the financial markets and around the meeting of finance ministers in Poland. There's no doubt that the debt crisis is bad, and there's also no doubt that no one is exactly sure what the best solution is.

The banks are scared, the politicians are terrified, and in the words of our EU correspondent, Vanessa Mock, the Finance Ministers are "panic stricken to the point of paralysis". She told Hal Rock that, despite all the fear (or perhaps because of it), in true EU style, no one can agree on anything, and the more pressure is put on, the less they seem to be able to do.

On Wednesday, the head of the World Bank, Rober Zoellick blamed all the Euro zone countries for failing to prevent the crisis, and the rating agency Moodys, downgraded two major French banks. The US is worried that the Euro crisis wil re-infect the American economy, which is on a tentative recovery from its own crash.

On Thursday, the head of the IMF, Christine Legarde, warned that a much bigger crisis could be around the corner if European governments don't get spending under control. She said "We are certainly living through times of great economic anxiety", which must go down as one of the great understatements of the year.

Today, the US Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, is attending the Finance Ministers' meeting, apparently in the hope of being able, metaphorically, to knock some heads together and get some decisions made. However, his plans for "leverage" - basically pumping money into the banks rather than as direct bailouts, is unlikely to go down well among the Europeans. They might just be able to agree about that.

Meanwhile, on the streets of Greece, there fear has largely given way to despair, as Marica Frangakis, is an economist at the Nicos Poulantzas Institut in Athens and a member of the Greek section of Attac - told Chris Cummins,

If the meeting in Poland fails to bring any concrete results, yet more panic will spread, more confidence will be lost, the markets will fall further and the crisis will spiral downwards again. Maybe Roosevelt had a point. If we're ever going to get out of this mess, the fear will have to be overcome first.

Bribery, corruption, money laundering and the Eurofighters

Amid a shower of corruption allegations relating to the black-blue coaltion, the spotlight is now falling on former Defence Minister Herbert Scheibner. The authorities are currently looking into allegations of bribery and money laundering in connection with the controversial purchase of Eurofighter jets in 2002, when Scheibner was head of the Defence Ministry. Joanna Bostock asked Walter Gehr of whistleblowing.at whether all these allegations are coming out together by coincidence.

A new government in Denmark

Social Democrat, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, will be Denmark's new Prime Minister. Her centre left coalition overturns over a decade of rule by the centre right, and she will be the country's first woman prime minister. Our Copenhagen correspondent, Martin Breum, told Hal Rock what we should expect from Denmark's new leader.

The politics of food production

Hunger is still a major world problem, but according to many analysts the only thing stopping us from having enough food for everyone is politics. Dr Jennifer Franco told Chris Cummins how the practice of "land grabbing" is upsetting the balance of food production.

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