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Last week the European Commission ruthlessly wrote the last chapter of the Slovenian financial tragedy. In it, this nation of only two million people was forced by Brussels to save with around €7 billion of taxpayers’ money (a bit less than one tenth of GDP) the overgrown, reckless, aggressive even fraudulent banking system of this […]
Jean-Claude Juncker’s was confirmed last Tuesday as President of the European Commission for the next five years. In a secret ballot 422 MEPs who voted for him and 250 against. This goes beyond what David Cameron had imagined, when he decided to fervently oppose this appointment for the top EU job. To be reminded, that […]
Last Wednesday, one day ahead of the regular monthly meeting of European Central Bank’s Governing Council, Eurostat, the EU statistical service, published a Press release on Eurozone’s near zero economic growth. The relevant passage of that text went like this, “Seasonally adjusted GDP rose by 0.2% in the euro area (EA18) and by 0.3% in […]
Three major international banking firms Crédit Agricole, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase came yesterday again under the watchful eye of the European Commission, for their role in financial sector cartels (interest rates and derivatives denominated in euro). It’s about financial products based on the Euribor (euro interbank offered rate), an interest rate benchmark. This interest rate […]
It was high time that the European Union took care of citizens and companies, usually SMEs, who have suffered economic losses and other damages from infringements of the EU antitrust rules, such as cartels and abuses of dominant market positions. Until now it was very difficult for the victims to substantiate their claims for damages […]
Five Eurozone countries posted negative inflation rate in March (Greece (-1.5%), Cyprus (-0.9%), Portugal (-0.4%), Spain and Slovakia (both -0.2%), while the rate of change of consumer prices ranged between 0.1% and 0.3% in another four euro area members states during the same month. In almost all the rest euro area countries, March inflation appeared […]
It’s amazing how much distanced from reality the EU’s foreign policy must be, under the permanent Council Presidency of Lady Catherine Ashton. There is no other explanation than this, if one takes seriously the agenda of yesterday’s EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg, under the chair of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs […]
The European Central Bank is deeply worried about the ability of Eurozone’s SMEs to access bank financing at a reasonable cost and under competitive terms. The present business loan stalemate has already bitten into the growth prospects of the euro area, mirrored in the dangerous fall of inflation rate towards the deflation zone and the […]
With a brief report, an Expert Group formed by the EU Commission and mandated to study the issue of “a debt redemption fund and eurobills”, undermined the prospect of a Eurobond issuance, by refusing to formulate a policy proposal. This is the story of the long time debated subject of the issuance of common and […]
At the end of the first quarter of the year (end March 2014) the Eurozone economy doesn’t show any signs of change from its subdued state of the last twelve months. The bearish and widely diverging resumption of activities still prevails, after the four-year recession period which theoretically ended at the second quarter of 2013, […]
Contradicting messages are emitted from a statement issued yesterday by the lead MEPs currently negotiating the details of the legislation on the Single Resolution Mechanism and Fund for Eurozone banks with the ECOFIN council. This legislation is set to complete the legal and structural background of the European Banking Union. The other pillar of the […]
Today in Strasbourg the three EU decision making bodies, the Council as represented by its Greek Presidency, the Parliament and the Commission, in a procedure called ‘trilogue’ will try to bridge their differences and come up with a ground breaking agreement to complete the European Banking Union. This is the most important project enterprised by […]
Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, after yesterday’s European Union summit of its 28 leaders convened to examine the situation in Ukraine, termed it as stormy. He added that the sanctions against Russia the 28 decided were very limited but still, given the deep divisions of the leaders, he said those measures were the […]
The seriousness of approach, the magnitude of the interest and the pertinence of the proposal the European Union adopted yesterday to end the stalemate in Ukraine can be seen in the kind of money the EU sets aside for this country. José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission stated yesterday that the Union can […]
Yesterday, the European Parliament voted a series of amendments on a draft update of EU rules on the information and advice offered by insurance salesmen. The Press release issued afterwards by the legislative asserts that “MEPs amended the draft rules on sales of life and non-life insurance products and services to introduce similar information requirements […]
Yesterday, the European Commission after acknowledging that unemployment will continue ravaging more than half of Eurozone in the foreseeable future and predicting for this and next year a 0.1% ‘strengthening’ of the quite anemic growth rate, it found the courage to state that, “Recovery is gaining ground in Europe”. A lot of courage and probably […]
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, published last week data on the evolution of tax revenues for the EU member states. A first reading reveals two very interesting developments. Both are connected to the economic crisis which hit Eurozone in 2009-2010. In 2010 tax revenues decreased as a result of the crisis. However, despite the fact […]
The absolute necessity to conclude before May the trilateral negotiations on the functioning of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for failing banks and clarify the role of the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) (in relation to the control and the use of the Single Resolution Fund), united yesterday all the representatives of three decision-making bodies of the […]
The Commission is now expected to definitely authorize or deny the cultivation on EU soil, of the genetically modified seed of maize 1507 developed by the American company Monsanto, an affiliate of US giant DuPont. This decision will allow EU member states to exercise their freedom to choose, whether or not to allow the cultivation […]
Xenophobics, racists and far right political extremists all over Europe have celebrated a razor-thin win of 50.3% in a Swiss referendum last Sunday, favoring an initiative “against mass immigration”. The vote was introduced by the country’s far right-wing Swiss People’s Party and was meant to block the free entry of EU citizens in the country, […]
The European Central Bank President Mario Draghi had a very difficult job yesterday in bridging the Germanic insistence for monetary austerity with the need of supportive measures for the Eurozone real economy to grow. After yesterday’s meeting, the Governing Council of the central bank left the basic interest rate unchanged at 0.25% but it was […]
Government deficit decreased substantially in the third quarter of last year and reached -3.1% of the GDP in Eurozone. This is just one decimal point away from the 3% benchmark, set by the Treaty of Maastricht and the strict EU economic governance Regulations (the famous ‘two’ and ‘six’ packs). The gap between government income and […]
How is it possible that the good news of the growth of the American economy which has raised its gear, also brings forth crisis and possibly destruction in developing countries? Yet this is exactly what is already happening in our brave new world. The good news is that the US economy now grows at a […]
Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) are long-term placements in real economy business, not right away tradable, realized by investors residing outside the country. They should be sharply distinguished from the highly volatile financial investments on stocks and bonds, which can depart from the country at any moment. The crisis years in the period 2009-2012 don’t seem […]
During the last two days, Friday and Saturday, of this year’s Davos gathering of the rich and powerful, an intense debate about Eurozone’s inflation or rather deflation, divided once again the Old Continent between Germans and…anti-Germans. Ollie Rehn, the Finn European Commission Vice-President and Commissioner responsible for finance and the euro, said that the currently […]
Last Wednesday the European Commission presented a ground-breaking communication for a “European Industrial Renaissance”. With it, the EU’s executive arm “is urging Member States to recognise the central importance of industry for creating jobs and growth and to mainstream industry-related competitiveness concerns across all policy areas”. The truth is, however, that industry doesn’t play the […]
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of IMF, is not renowned for her social concerns and sensitivities. Yet, while speaking last week at the National Press Club, in Washington DC, about “The Global Economy in 2014”, among other important policy proposals for the world to exit the era of the “seven weak years”, she didn’t forget to […]
Yesterday Eurostat confirmed that the euro area inflation rate for December was down to 0.8% from 0.9% in November, dangerously approaching the negative part of the graph. The announcement coincided with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s warning that weak growth in Eurozone is now also threatened by deflation (continuously falling prices leading to real economy […]
The European Parliament launched an investigation on the functioning and the legitimisation of the troika, made up by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The three institutions between them undertook to bail out, guide and audit the economies of four Eurozone member states which reached a point of no […]
Twelve years after the ‘internal market’ initiative launched in 1992, with which the European Union erased the technical, fiscal and any other barrier impeding the internal circulation of goods within the boundaries of the club, and still there are impediments to the free internal circulation of industrial products. The European Commission in order to neutralise […]
Yesterday, as expected, the European Central Bank kept its basic interest rate unchanged at 0.25%. As usually, the decision was taken in the meeting of the bank’s Governing Council, the first of 2014. At this almost zero interest rate cost commercial banks get ample liquidity from the ECB and then lend this money to the […]
Within 24 hours, after the European Sting published on Thursday an article entitled, “Fair completion rules and the law of gravity don’t apply to banks”, and the responsible EU Commissioner Joaquín Almunia, Vice-President of the EC blessed as legitimate the rescue of the Dutch bank and insurance company SNS REAAL by the country’s exchequer with […]
There is no end to EU Commission’s approvals of state aid and government bailouts of hundreds of EU struggling banks, as if the extensive fair competition legislation of the Union is valid for every other sector of the economy at the exception of banks. In the latest incident, the EU competition authorities actually looked the […]
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