Title:
Britain Gets a Government, as Europe Gets a Plan to
Save the Euro
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
European Union officials agreed on a debt rescue
plan in May. They also got a message from Britain's
new governing parties. William Hague, the new
British foreign secretary, said: "It was not
difficult to agree between us that neither party is
in favor of handing any more powers to the European
Union."In the British elections, the Conservatives
won the most seats in parliament but not a majority.
So they and the Liberal Democrats formed Britain's
first coalition government since World War Two.
Gordon Brown resigned as prime minister. His Labor
Party held power for thirteen years, the last three
under him. In his place moves David Cameron of the
Conservative Party. At forty-three he is Britain's
youngest head of government since eighteen twelve.
Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats is his deputy.
Their new government will have to deal with
Britain's own debt crisis. The budget deficit is
about twelve percent of the economy. David Cameron
has promised nine billion dollars in budget cuts as
a start. Both parties agreed to make no proposal for
Britain to join the sixteen countries that use the
euro. Markets eased after the announcement of a
nearly one trillion dollar rescue plan. It involves
loans, debt guarantees and other support to euro
area countries with heavy debts. Some of the money
will come from the International Monetary Fund. The
E.U. monetary affairs commissioner said the debt
crisis is a serious threat. The crisis in Greece has
threatened to spread to other countries and has led
to protests and violence over spending cuts. But
now, interest rates for borrowing by troubled
countries like Greece and Portugal have fallen
sharply.Many people blamed the Greek crisis for the
sudden drop in American stock markets in May. It may
have played a part. But officials told Congress they
were still investigating the causes of the so-called
flash crash. Major stock exchanges have agreed to
develop a plan to prevent a disorderly market like
that again. The idea is to slow trading in a
coordinated way. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
fell nearly one thousand points in minutes, then
largely recovered. The plunge renewed debate about
the risks of electronic exchanges and high-speed
computer trading systems. And that's the VOA Special
English Economics Report. You can comment on this
report at voaspecialenglish.com.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
