All News
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Ukraine: Debt and bizarre ideas
The re-elected U.S. President Donald Trump views the war in Ukraine differently from his predecessor. He does not care about the support of a country that has been unlawfully invaded, just as he is does not care about the defense of a parliamentary democracy against an autocrat. Whether it is…
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Sri Lanka: Hamilton Bank blocks debt restructuring
In the context of multiple crises, Sri Lanka had to suspend its repayments to foreign creditors in spring 2022. Since then, the Southeast Asian Island state has conducted various debt restructuring negotiations. In June 2024, Sri Lanka reached an agreement with the majority of its public creditors, including the German…
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CAPITAL WINS – DEMOCRACY AT RISK PART II: INTERWOVEN POWER STRUCTURES IN INTERNATIONAL DEBT RESTRUCTURINGS
Sri Lanka has voted – but the new left-wing president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has limited room for political maneuver. He took office promising to renegotiate the loan program with the IMF and the ongoing debt restructuring negotiations. However, just two weeks after taking office, he backed down and accepted a…
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CAPITAL WINS – DEMOCRACY AT RISK PART I: SRI LANKA’S NEWLY ELECTED LEFT-WING PRESIDENT BACKS AWAY FROM HIS DEBT AGENDA
Sri Lanka has voted. However, high debt service payments and strict IMF conditions severely restrict the newly elected president's scope for political action – with serious social consequences and the risk of undermining the population's trust in democracy. Elections After Two Years Of Interim Government More than two years after…
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Hamburg Sustainability Conference: involving private creditors in debt relief through national legislation
Together with the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation and the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, erlassjahr.de organized a session at the first Hamburg Sustainability Conference (HSC), that was hosted among others by the German government, the city of Hamburg and UNDP and was meant to be one of the summits on the road to the fourth…
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#RejectFinanceBill2024 protests in Kenya – When austerity leads to human rights violations
"Tumechoka!" - "We are tired!" For days, thousands of Kenyans across the country have been protesting against the planned tax increases on essential goods and services. Under the hashtag #RejectFinanceBill2024, young people in particular have called for peaceful protests on social media such as TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).…
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CREDITOR COORDINATION IN DEBT RESTRUCTURINGS: REPORT ON THE EXPERT ROUNDTABLE “BRINGING ALL CREDITORS ON BOARD!”
The first debt restructurings in countries of the Global South following the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that the coordination of the many different creditors hinders a rapid and sustainable solution of debt crises in view of the significantly more complex creditor profiles. A pattern can be seen both in the…
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Out now: Global Sovereign Debt Monitor 2024
Compared to the years during the COVID-19 crisis, in some countries of the Global South the debt situation has slightly eased. For most countries there, however, the debt situation remains tense. In 130 of the 152 countries surveyed in the Global South, the debt situation is at least slightly critical;…
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THE WINNER TAKES ALL – THRICE!? SRI LANKA’S RESTRUCTURING WITH PRIVATE CREDITORS
After Sri Lanka defaulted in spring 2022, the country entered into debt restructuring negotiations with its creditors. The majority of Sri Lanka's private creditors then joined together in a creditors' committee and submitted a restructuring proposal to Sri Lanka in October 2023. In the legal dispute with Hamilton Reserve Bank,…
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SHADY CHARACTERS IN THE LEGAL DISPUTE BETWEEN SRI LANKA AND HAMILTON RESERVE BANK
A lawsuit between the Sri Lankan government and the Hamilton Reserve Bank has been ongoing since June 2022 and was last paused. After the moratorium granted by the court expired at the end of February 2024, Sri Lanka has again applied for the trial to be suspended for a further…
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