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Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the EC, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and Shinzō Abe, Japanese Prime Minister at the EU-Japan Summit (Brussels, July 6, 2017). Copyright: European Union; Source: EC – Audiovisual Service; Photo: Etienne Ansotte Last week, right before the kick-off of the Hamburg G20 Summit, the European Union and Japan announced […]
One year after the UK has decided to quit the EU, the first effects of the “leave” vote on the financial sector are becoming visible. Japanese brokerage giants Nomura and Daiwa Securities Group have decided to pick Frankfurt as their new base for European operations, and will soon begin relocating staff from London to Germany. […]
Skyline of the City of London, Europe’s largest financial centre. (Source: EC – Audiovisual Service / Photo: Jack Taylor) Last week the European Commission unveiled it is taking further steps to develop the Capital Markets Union, a plan to support growth and investment in the Old Continent. The project, which aims at creating a single […]
After months of silence and no progress since the negotiations were officially put on hold, last week the TTIP reappeared on the main pages of the international press. According to US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership indeed would not be dead as of yet, and the US would be “open” […]
Last week the Council of the European Union finally adopted a regulation granting visa-free travel for Ukrainian citizens. Thanks to the formal adoption by the bloc, Ukrainian holders of a biometric passport can travel to an EU country for up to 90 days out of any 180-day period for business, tourism or family purposes. And, […]
Last week the European Commission has communicated its decision to formally accept commitments by US tech giant Amazon to end an EU antitrust investigation over contracts with e-book publishers. The Seattle-based company has proposed to drop some clauses in its contracts that required publishers to inform about terms offered to the company’s competitors and to […]
Last Saturday, the leaders of the European Union met for the first time after UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, officially opening the Brexit process, and Britain was not invited. The purpose of the EU27 special summit was indeed to discuss guidelines for divorce negotiations with the UK ahead […]
Last week, trade was one of the hottest topics on the European economic scene. The European Union and Australia made substantial progress towards the conclusion of a free trade agreement which has been on the table for years. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Australia’s Minister for Trade, Investment and Tourism, Steven Ciobo, announced they […]
Last week, the European Commission has proposed a new set of rules to give national antitrust authorities more power and resources against anti-competitive practices. The proposed rules, which followed a public consultation that was launched last year, are intended to make the bloc’s national competition agencies more autonomous but also more reactive against multinational firms […]
The last few days, amid the political storm that the Dutch elections have generated, the Brexit question has seen important events as well. Last week the Queen has given her assent to the Brexit bill, and have formally cleared the way for Prime Minister Theresa May to start talks to leave the European Union. PM […]
The European Parliament passed a motion last Thursday calling on the European Parliament to temporarily reintroduce visa requirements for US citizens. The non-binding resolution called on the European Commission to end visa-free travel in response to Washington’s refusal to grant visa-free access to people from five east European countries. Despite being only a temporary solution, […]
There’s just one month left for UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, according to her plans, and the European Union quantifies an exit bill for the first time. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has declared last week that the UK could face a “very hefty” bill for Brexit. […]
After seven years of talks and remarkable twists, the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was approved by the European Parliament last week. The EU lawmakers formally backed last Wednesday the landmark free trade deal which aims to eliminate up to 99% of tariffs on exported goods with Canada, by a vote of 408 to […]
EU Regulators have found last week an agreement on new rules concerning online content portability, allowing EU citizens to access online subscription services with no restrictions while travelling within the Union. The new rules will practically end the so-called “geo-blocking tactics”, and will enable European consumers to access services such as Netflix, Sky’s Now and Spotify […]
The European Union and Mexico have officially decided last week to accelerate negotiations on a new trade agreement and have set two additional rounds of trade talks in the first half of 2017. The European bloc and the Northern American country have long standing economic relations, but they are facing a very delicate moment, amidst […]
The 2017 edition of the World Economic Forum will be remembered for long. This year’s event carried indeed a lot of attractiveness, not only because for the first time a head of state from the People’s Republic of China was invited to the alpine city of Davos, or because the world is preparing to welcome […]
With an official statement, the European Commission last week published its proposal to reform the existing European online privacy rules. Companies such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Google will face tougher rules on the tracking of users under a wider update of the e-privacy directive, which will also impact cookies regulation. The EU says the new […]
Last week, unexpected news casted more shadows over the already complex Brexit negotiations matter. Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s ambassador to the European Union, abruptly resigned and left his cabinet several months before his mandate was due to an end. Officially, Mr. Rogers left his position “to give time” to his successor to take charge of the […]
It was already a well-known fact that the UK had a bumpy road ahead before a post-Brexit deal with the European Union could ever see the light, but last week’s news are now showing that reality could be even more complex than that. Britain’s ambassador to the European Union, Sir Ivan Rogers, warned British ministers last […]
Last week was a historic one for the long and delicate debate of the European Union-Ukraine relations. EU officials have indeed come to a deal that could see the citizens of the former Soviet republic travel to the European bloc without a visa. This decision also applies to Georgia. Both the Caucasian country and Kiev have been […]
It was not a surprise or an unexpected twiddle, when last week Google like a fine-tuned clockwork delivered its formal reply to the European Commission, regarding the Android antitrust case. With a blog post on Thursday, the US tech giant has officially dismissed the third set of formal charges by the European Commission, saying that […]
Last Thursday Google officially responded to the antitrust charges by the European Union relating to its shopping search and AdSense. Having been given an extra week to formally respond to allegations by the Commission, Google produced the strongest reply of its give-and-take history with European Regulators. The US technology giant this time is hitting back […]
Last week came to be a crucial one for the long-standing dispute between the Russian energy giant Gazprom and the European Union. Gazprom will work on a compromise with EU regulators and will finalise a deal to end a five-year antitrust case avoiding fines and any other imposed term, according to official declaration. The news […]
At the morrow of the Brexit vote, back in late June this year, one of the first warnings on the possible disastrous effects of the UK leaving the European Union was all about the banking sector. The entire British financial sector was in the eye of the storm and the world’s main media outlets started to […]
Despite the huge protests and the many critics of the past two months, the 15th round of TTIP negotiations took place as planned last week in New York City. With the American elections getting closer and a growing scepticism in the local European parliaments, many saw the EU-US trade deal as almost dead. Now it […]
When earlier this year Microsoft snapped up the world’s headlines by announcing it would have acquired LinkedIn with a colossal $26.2 billion deal, everyone was already preparing for the shockwaves this move would have generated. Last week, US cloud computing company Salesforce.com openly urged European Union regulators to block the acquisition over unfair competition concerns. […]
The trade ministers of the European Union, after their plenary meeting in Bratislava last Friday, may not have found a way to revive the interest around TTIP, but surely all agreed on one thing: negotiations on the EU-US free trade agreement will almost certainly not be finished before the end of Obama’s presidency. The key […]
After having been the stage for a critical European Union Summit, the very first one in a 27-member-States shape, Bratislava is now preparing to harbour a delicate meeting of the bloc’s trade ministers next week. The agenda will be formally all focused on the existing trans-Atlantic trade agreements, the TTIP with the United States and […]
Last week will not only be remembered for the world-record fine imposed to Apple by the European Union and the Hutchison-VimpelCom merger in Italy. There was also space for some important news on net neutrality. The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC), which is the regulating agency of the telecommunication market in the […]
According to a number of media outlets of the Old Continent, the closing weeks of this summer will try to bring a major reform in the European publishing industry. As revealed last week by the Guardian and the Financial Times, the European Commission is working on a plan to give news publishers the right to demand […]
The European Commission announced last Thursday that is taking “further steps” in investigation against Google, officially accusing the company of having restricted consumer choice by blocking rivals in online search advertising. Although it sounds like there’s absolutely nothing new about this new complaint against Google, the latest antitrust charge filed by the Commission, which is […]
Last Saturday NATO’s Summit in Warsaw concluded after two days of tight discussions between member states on how to address current threats and react to new challenges. Two years have passed since the 2014 NATO Summit in Wales, but the many evolutions of the past 24 months made the Polish meeting a crucial one in the […]
The EU tells the bare truth to the UK that there is no such thing as easy divorces
Post Brexit vote, the British leaders have rather been adamant in saying that there will be no mixed solutions and in-betweens ahead: “Brexit” will mean nothing else than “Brexit”. Last week, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the world that EU leaders are determined not only to follow that line, but also that the ride could […]