In 2007 Ireland’s sovereign debt was 25% of the country’s GDP. After the financial crisis – and €140 billion later – in 2012 it reached 120% of the GDP at €190bn. Yet the Dublin government this week celebrated the Irish ‘exit’ from the EU-ECB-IMF troika’s surveillance programme, that brought the 4.5 million people nation to […]How the Irish people were robbed by banks, the Commission and their own government
December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In 2007 Ireland’s sovereign debt was 25% of the country’s GDP. After the financial crisis – and €140 billion later – in 2012 it reached 120% of the GDP at €190bn. Yet the Dublin government this week celebrated the Irish ‘exit’ from the EU-ECB-IMF troika’s surveillance programme, that brought the 4.5 million people nation to […]Bank resolutions set to remain a national affair
December 12, 2013 by 1 Comment
Negotiations over the drafts of three key directives destined to mark the future of Eurozone, namely the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive, the Bank Deposits Guarantees Schemes and the Single Resolution Mechanism remain so elusive, that every minister of Finance when leaving Brussels last Tuesday night set the focus on what his or hers home […]Who is culpable in the EU for Ukraine’s defection to Russia?
December 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The 350,000 to 500,000 people who protested yesterday, even violently at times, in the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, belonged, theoretically, to the three opposition parties, which had organised the rally. Unquestionably however, all Ukrainians believe that President Viktor Yanukovich – who decided at the last minute to turn down an Association Agreement with […]The Commission unsuccessfully pretends to want curbing of tax evasion
November 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission, after having facilitated for decades the tax avoidance and evasion practices of multinationals with the ‘Parent-Subsidiary Directive’, yesterday decided to just reduce the size of the extra-large loop holes the big multinationals use for years to avoid and evade taxation. With a Press release issued yesterday, the Commission almost recognised that it […]Eurozone guarantees all banks with…taxpayers’ money
November 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
Last Friday the ECOFIN council made up by the 28 EU ministers of finance, confirmed that a permanent arrangement for the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) and the single resolution fund (SRF) meant to deal with failing banks, will be agreed on before the end of the year covering the period after 1 January 2015. In […]Berlin cannot dictate anymore the terms for the enactment of the European Banking Union
November 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Last Friday 8 November, the European Central Bank (ECB) published its opinion on the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) and Fund, fully supporting the European Commission’s position on their enactment, needed to accomplish the European Banking Union. The opinion is in direct contrast with the positions held by Germany, because it contains the following three essential […]Financiers can turn the world into a dirty and dangerous place
November 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
Despite the fact that the civil society is fed up with the absolute indifference of the financial sector about what happens in the real economy, the western political elites continue to nurture the insatiable appetite of the banking system for more book profits. In view of that, the European Economic and Social Committee issued yesterday […]The Banking Union may lead to a Germanic Europe
October 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A careful reading of the text of conclusions of last European Summit, the 28 EU leaders undersigned yesterday night after two days of discussions in Brussels, proves that they don’t really care about the implementation of their own June 2013 decision to combat unemployment and social exclusion, as the European Sting reported last morning. However, […]G20: Less growth, more austerity for developing countries
October 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
IMF – World Bank’s annual meetings and the G20 Finance ministers and central bank governors gathering in Washington D.C. this weekend proved two things; first that the world is more divided now, in the aftermath of the financial crisis and second and more important that the labouring millions of the globe in developing and […]Preparing for developing countries the ‘Greek cure’
October 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
IMF economists, Kalpana Kochhar and Roberto Perrelli, in their study entitled “How Emerging Markets Can Get Their Groove Back”, posted yesterday by iMFdirect, give a rather frightening response to this question. They conclude that “we estimate that emerging market’s “potential” growth needs to be revised down”. IMF Economic counsellor and director of the Research Department, […]Draghi cuts the Gordian knot of the Banking Union
October 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, had three messages to send yesterday to Eurozone’s political leaders. He did that while answering journalists’ questions, after the regular monthly meeting of the Governing Council, which left the basic interest rate unchanged at 0.5%. For the first time Draghi puts a big question mark over […]Draghi: A bridge from Brussels to Berlin
September 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Past the German elections, the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, must have left free to take some steps forward in his quest for the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, and promote the defragmentation of Eurozone’s financial markets. Speaking yesterday in a hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of […]Germany may prove right rejecting Commission’s bank resolution scheme
September 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Commissioner Michel Barnier, responsible for financial services, had a rough time yesterday at the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) of the European Parliament, when he told the legislators that the Commission will press ahead with its proposal about the creation under its own roof of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for Eurozone’s failing banks. […]OECD: Mind the financial gap that lies ahead
September 10, 2013 by 1 Comment
A rather disappointing picture of the world economy drew OECD Deputy Chief Economist Jorgen Elmeskov last week, when he said that “The gradual pick-up in momentum in the advanced economies is encouraging but a sustainable recovery is not yet firmly established. Major risks remain”. If it was not for China’s predicted growth during the last […]New chapters in EU-China trade disputes
September 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
This year there was no summer recess for the European Commission Directorate General for Trade (DG TRADE) and more precisely for the Directorate C which is competent for Asia. China kept the department’s bureaucrats busy all along this August, because on the 7th and the 16th of this month the Directorate produced two major cases […]Why Obama asks approval from Congress to bomb Syria?
September 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
The fact that the American President Barack Obama unexpectedly decided to “seek authorisation for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress”, in order to launch an attack against the Syrian government forces, is the first direct and open recognition of the limits of the American military and political supremacy, after the […]Convincing the Germans to pay also for the unification of Eurozone
August 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
What Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said about the uncertainties that an eventual new hair-cut of the Greek state debt may trigger doesn’t exclude this possibility. She stressed that it may set off a “domino effect of uncertainty” and scare off possible investors. But the country has already performed a voluntary hair-cut on the privately […]The EU condemns Faroe Islands and Iceland to poverty
August 21, 2013 by 1 Comment
When Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Prime Minister of Iceland, visited Brussels last month, he tried to teach the European Union a lesson about the scientific analysis on fishing stocks of North Atlantic. Seemingly, European Commissioner Maria Damanaki responsible for Maritime and Fisheries Affairs didn’t learn anything. Yesterday, she decided to adopt trade measures against Faroe Islands […]EU Commission retracts on the Chinese solar panel case
August 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In an unexpected move the European Commission announced on Wednesday 7 August that it “…continues anti-subsidy investigation on solar panels from China…”, and this only a few days after Commissioner Karel De Gucht, responsible for foreign trade had announced on 27 July that the issue had been concluded ‘amicably’ between Brussels and Beijing. In contrast […]EU and China resolve amicably solar panel trade dispute
July 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Exactly ten days after the European Sting predicted on 19 July that most likely EU and China would soon settle their long time dispute on solar panels, Commissioner De Gucht confirmed last Saturday: “We found an amicable solution in the EU-China solar panels case that will lead to a new market equilibrium at sustainable prices”. In […]China hopes EU Commissioner De Gucht drops super anti-dumping tariff on solar panels
July 19, 2013 by 2 Comments
With EU – China bilateral trade volume at more than €1 billion a day and both ways investment flows at around €20bn a year, accusations and complaints over state subsidies, dumping and other trade distorting practices exchanged between the two giant partners seem unimportant. Yet the recent proliferation of the anti-dumping and anti-state-subsidies measures adopted […]The EU learns about fishing and banking from tiny Iceland
July 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, visited the European Union yesterday and was received by its two presidents. The Icelander first went to the Berlaymont, the Commission’s headquarters. There he was rather surprised. It was the first time that Manuel Barroso was so blatant, almost rude, with a visiting PM. Commenting on the […]Berlin to pay at the end for Eurozone banks’ consolidation
July 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The most valuable asset of Eurozone households, their homes, continue losing large parts of their value in this unending economic crisis, which has brought to knees more than half of euro area countries. It’s a tragic combination. People after losing their jobs watch their homes to lose value every day, and if they have a […]Azerbaijan chooses Greek corridor for its natural gas flow to EU
June 26, 2013 by 1 Comment
Azeri officials are visiting Athens today to announce their choice of the ‘Greek corridor’ for the flow of their natural gas towards the central European Union countries, to reach them after crossing also the Adriatic Sea in a deep water pipeline to Italy. Let’s folow the facts. Very early last Monday morning the European Sting […]Eurozone: Avoiding a new Greek accident
June 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The withdrawal yesterday night of the junior partner, the DHMAR (Democratic Left) political party from the Greek tripartite government coalition poses again the effectiveness problem of the overall economic strategy Eurozone applies to counter its sovereign debt sustainability problem and exit a two years old recession. The obstacles are political, social and also of economic […]China confirms anti-state-subsidy investigation on EU wine imports
June 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, only a few days after the European Commission decided to impose provisional anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese solar panels imported in the EU, the Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the European Union issued a Press release where the spokesperson of the Mission confirmed that the Ministry of Commerce of China, in response […]Commission’s action against imports from China questioned
June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to European Commission’s procedures, the legal dead line for a decision to be taken on the imposition or not of provisional tariffs on European imports of Chinese solar panels, expires tomorrow 5 June. It must be noted however that the EU Trade Spokesman John Clancy, when issuing a Press release on 27 May noted […]Germany’s fiscal and financial self-destructive policies
June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
IMF Mission’s “Concluding Statement” (Article IV Consultation) on the German economy which was published yesterday, contains almost the same basic recommendations as the European Commission’s assessment aired at the Semester Press Conference in Brussels on 29 May. Both reports had references to Germany’s over stretched fiscal consolidation (meaning unneeded austerity) and the need to increase […]When is Berlin telling the truth about the EU banking union?
May 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In a rare but not quite unexpected move, the German Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble has reportedly wrote a letter to his colleague, the Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler, proposing that their two ministries cooperate in supporting the Eurozone countries under distress. To do this, he tells his government fellow, they should use […]Commission threatens Chinese firms with trade penalties
May 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
European Union Trade Commissioner, Karel De Gucht, announced yesterday that, “The European Commission has today taken a decision in principle to open an ex officio anti-dumping and an anti-subsidy investigation concerning imports of mobile telecommunications networks and their essential elements from China”. Without naming individual firms this Commission decision is directly targeted against two international […]A comprehensive strategy for Eurozone’s long term growth gains momentum
May 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
European Commissioner László Andor responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion delivered an inspired speech entitled “Countering the crisis: fixing Europe’s monetary union and upgrading EU employment policy“, during an event at the London School of Economics. His idea about the European project is included in the very title of this speech that is connecting […]Draghi: Germany has to spend if Eurozone is to exit recession
May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Mario Draghi, in a historic speech delivered yesterday in his home country, bravely surpassed the limits of his office as President of the European Central Bank, and upon receiving an honorary degree in political science, from the Luiss “Guido Carli” University in Rome, he warned the European leaders that in order to safeguard the European […]Commission and ECB prepare new financial mega-tool in support of SMEs
May 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday the two most important institutions of the European Union, the European Commission and the European Central Bank, separately unveiled their intentions to seriously engage in an effort to create a new policy tool in support of the Union’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and defragment Eurozone’s financial markets .The Commission issued an announcement entitled, […]
