Germany’s and Italy’s Relations with Southeastern Europe

Alessandro Roselli
Additional contact information
Alessandro Roselli: Cass Business School

Chapter 6 in Money and Trade Wars in Interwar Europe, 2014, pp 138-154 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract It has already been mentioned that in the mid-1930s, 7 out of 19 clearing agreements concluded by Germany were with Central and Southeastern Europe countries. These countries were either born as a consequence of the redrawing of the map of Europe after the First World War or had become independent of the Ottoman Empire in an earlier time, and they all had suffered badly during that war. After the war, international stabilization loans were extended under the auspices of the League of Nations in order to sustain their economies, stabilize their currencies, and, in some cases, help with the settlement of refugees following the huge dislocation of peoples. Equivalent to £80m (around $380m) in total, these loans were granted between 1923 and 1928 to Austria, Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary, in addition to the Free City of Danzig and Estonia. But these countries were hit by the international banking crisis that erupted in Central Europe in 1931; furthermore, the Depression contributed to a huge fall in the prices of agricultural products, the export of which was their main source of foreign exchange — particularly for the countries of Southeastern Europe. Their antiquated methods of production made their agriculture prey to American competition. In Western Europe, French self-sufficiency and the British Imperial Preference agreed upon in Ottawa in 1932 (which privileged trade with Commonwealth countries) closed two major markets to Balkan exports.

Keywords: Exchange Rate; Central Bank; Custom Union; Trade Deficit; Trade Surplus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-32700-0_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137327000

DOI: 10.1057/9781137327000_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().