Yesterday László Andor, European Commissioner responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion delivered a speech to an ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) conference on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the organisation. The speech was entitled, “Europeans want and deserve a monetary union with a human face”. This is a decent description of […]The EU Commission to fight unemployment tsunami with a…scoreboard
January 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday László Andor, European Commissioner responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion delivered a speech to an ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) conference on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the organisation. The speech was entitled, “Europeans want and deserve a monetary union with a human face”. This is a decent description of […]Financial transactions tax gets go ahead
January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Sting on Saturday 19 January wrote that, the “The ECOFIN Council is expected on Tuesday 22 January to adopt the Commission’s proposal to authorise enhanced cooperation on the Financial Transactions Tax”. Indeed today 22 January 2013, the Ecofin Council adopted a decision authorising eleven member states to go ahead with enhanced cooperation on […]Capital transaction tax on Ecofin table
January 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Next Tuesday 22 January, the Economic and Finance Ministers Council (ECOFIN) is expected to meet in Brussels. As a main item in its agenda has being tabled the Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). So far only 11 EU member states out of the 27 have agreed to go through with it. The 11 participating EU countries are […]The big five EU telecom operators in dire straights
January 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
British Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia and Telefónica constitute the exclusive club of major telecom operators in the European Union. The very oligopolistic character of the market has prompted the European Commission some years ago to forcefully introduce ground breaking changes in the EU telecom market. Towards the end of 2009 the Commission […]Inflation not a problem for Europe
January 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The downward trend of Eurozone inflation was confirmed yesterday by Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union. According to this source “Euro area annual inflation was 2.2% in December 2012, the same as in November. A year earlier the rate was 2.7%. The EU27 annual inflation was 2.3% in December 2012, down from 2.4% […]Trade surplus up production down in Eurozone
January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the apparent slow-down of the world economy and the drop of external demand for Eurozone products the first estimates by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, show a hefty trade surplus of €13.7 billion for the 17 countries single money zone in November 2012. Not all news however was positive for Eurozone in November. Industrial […]€5 billion of EU energy efficiency project money spent on “comfort”
January 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission does not spare big words and photographic opportunities for Commissioners, whenever launching a new initiative or securing political agreement for a regulation. And they are doing this all the time. It seems like they spent all their energy and resources in conceiving new rules on everything. And of course they always need […]Predatory labour taxation not an issue for the Commission
January 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It’s really unbelievable how easily some European Union Commissioners sidestep the hot issues and make speeches about trivial themes or focus on aspects of secondary interest. Take for example Algirdas Šemeta, the EU Commissioner responsible for Taxation and Customs Union, Audit and Anti-fraud. In a speech entitled, “Making progress on European Tax Policy: Towards more […]Japan to invest in euro values
January 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Japanese minister of Finance Taro Aso early on Tuesday 8 January said his country will invest some of its huge foreign reserves in European Stability Mechanism debt paper. Japan is second only to China in foreign-exchange reserves with $1,274,160 million. Chinese foreign reserves are anything around $3.2 trillion. Almost instantly after the Taro statement the […]Eurozone: Black economy loves the South
January 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Black economy has been traditionally the weak point for a number of European countries in the South of the Old Continent. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta to name only the Eurozone countries with black economy percentages around 20%, are usually on the head of European Commission’s country lists with economic activities outside […]The new EU “fiscal compact” an intimidation for all people
January 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
All the major media of the world announced that as from yesterday 1 January 2013 the European Union has a new Treaty on Stability Coordination and Governance, known as “the fiscal compact”, which aims at imposing fiscal discipline in the Eurozone area, plus any other EU country wishing to join.Theoretically, the ultimate goal of the […]Eurozone 2013: Where to?
December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In 2012, Eurozone not only managed to effectively counter its double-faced, credit and sovereign debt crisis, but also convinced the global financial community, that the single European currency is probably the safest deposit of value. The world responded positively by voting the euro at the region of 132 American cents. A fair price, to keep […]EC v Samsung: A whole year to compile a case
December 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment
It took almost one year to the European Commission to decide that Samsung is potentially abusing its dominant position, in the mobile telephony standard patents. It was January 2012 when the EC issued a statement saying that, “The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics has abusively, and in contravention […]Is there a drug for every disease?
December 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Pharmaceutical firms in Europe have an awkward relation with their customers. The truth is that their selling prices and product licencing are directly or indirectly controlled by the buyers, that is governments, or government control health insurance schemes, offering almost free health services to citizens. As everybody knows governments are not only able to influence […]Google case: A turning point in competition rules enforcement
October 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Enforcing fair competition in the fast-moving digital markets, like in the Google case, is a fight against time. If the antitrust procedures take the long way of legal battles before the European courts, the possible competition law breaches may purport billions to the culpable party. That is why, Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission […]
