Will the European Union s sovereign debt woes spread to neighbors such as Turkey?

With the onset of the European sovereign debt crisis in 2010, banks appetite for public debt fell again.

Sovereign debt for sustained development

Sovereign debt restructurings with private creditors

The Root of All Sovereign Debt Crises

A New Approach to Eurozone Sovereign Debt

Investors were not worried about default risk on Spanish or Irish sovereign debt, or about Italy s chronically large sovereign debt.

The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is a special purpose vehicle financed by members of the eurozone to address the European sovereign debt crisis.

Need for systemic coherence in managing sovereign debt

The European debt crisis (often also referred to as the Eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis) is a multi year debt crisis that has taken place in several eurozone member states since the end of 2009.

But the proposition that the ongoing sovereign debt crisis on Europe s periphery is a reason to appoint a European is wrong.

LONDON Germany has been leading the opposition in the European Union to any write down of troubled eurozone members sovereign debt.

This means no cross border sovereign debt (or esoteric instruments, such as collateralized debt obligations).

Financial markets have reacted so strongly because investors now comprehend that sovereign debt is the debt of a sovereign that can simply decide not to pay.

Common taxation and Eurobonds should form part of the new fiscal structure, and the European Stability Mechanism should include a debt redemption fund large enough to resolve sovereign debt crises.

Sovereign debt was eventually restructured through the creation of Brady bonds.

Greek sovereign debt has been downgraded to below that of Egypt.

Virtually every emerging market country has experienced recurrent sovereign debt problems.

Table 3 Recent sovereign debt restructurings with private creditors main features

And the evidence confirms that the euro crisis is not really about sovereign debt, but about foreign debt.

Controversies The European bailouts are largely about shifting exposure from banks and others, who otherwise are lined up for losses on the sovereign debt they have piled up, onto European taxpayers.

Currently, they are wrestling with widening sovereign debt problems and high unemployment.

In Europe, risks spreads are rising on Italian and Spanish sovereign debt.

The IMF sovereign debt restructuring mechanism (SDRM) proposal failed to gain support.

Eurozone sovereign debt turned out not to be homogenous with respect to risk.

And how often do we hear about sovereign restructurings of local currency debt?

Eurodad European Network on Debt and Development

What Europe and the IMF have essentially done is to convert a private debt problem into a sovereign debt problem.

Nonetheless, Argentina s latest debt trauma shows that the global system for sovereign debt workouts remains badly in need of repair.

In 2007, Spain and Ireland were models of fiscal rectitude, with far lower debt to GDP ratios than Germany had. Investors were not worried about default risk on Spanish or Irish sovereign debt, or about Italy s chronically large sovereign debt.

NEW YORK When Greece s sovereign debt crisis threatened the euro s survival, US officials called their European counterparts to express bewilderment at their inability to resolve the issue.

ROME The euro contagion triggered by Greece s sovereign debt crisis has now infected Italy.

In mid July 2011, Greece s sovereign debt stood at 350 billion (160 of GDP).

And it probably would require that the EU be able to issue sovereign debt.

Sovereign debt has been a major feature of the international financial system for centuries.

Noted the request of Iraq for the cancellation or reduction of their sovereign debt.

Noted the request of Iraq for the cancellation or reduction of their sovereign debt.

This fact was obscured until recently by the European Central Bank s willingness to accept the sovereign debt of all eurozone members on equal terms at its discount window.

Of course, some believe that the Fed s mass purchases of US debt poses an even bigger risk than Europe s sovereign debt crisis.

The financial and economic crisis is morphing into a sovereign debt crisis in advanced countries.

More broadly, the ECB s marginal lending facility is an indirect means of monetizing sovereign debt.

But the US crisis suggests that political union is no panacea for managing sovereign debt.

Europe's monetary union has been badly undermined by a sovereign debt crisis in past months.

The European Union s internal problems, and its ongoing sovereign debt crisis, are clearly linked to the weakness of its institutions, and, on Europe s periphery, it still confronts feckless democracies.

These countries do not have the excessive budget deficits that many European countries ran up during the last expansion and that are culminating in today s mismanaged sovereign debt crisis.