The time of the year for possibly the biggest and more prestigious event in Brussels came and the European Sting was present to cover it. Last Wednesday the 15th and Thursday the 16th of May the top European leaders gathered at Autoworld, only a breath’s distance from Berlaymont where the headquarters of the European Commission are based. […]European Business Summit 2013: Where Business and Politics shape the future
May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The time of the year for possibly the biggest and more prestigious event in Brussels came and the European Sting was present to cover it. Last Wednesday the 15th and Thursday the 16th of May the top European leaders gathered at Autoworld, only a breath’s distance from Berlaymont where the headquarters of the European Commission are based. […]Pharmaceuticals conceal drug side effects with the EU’s Court blessing
May 8, 2013 by 1 Comment
When was the last time you heard about a famous drug that had to be withdrawn from the market after it had cost hundreds or thousands of lives to the patients who had been prescribed with? Did you think it was due to an accident or human error during production? How would you feel if you found […]European Commission: the LED lights of your Audi A6 shall save our planet
April 15, 2013 by 3 Comments
How many of you took your stunning black Audi A6 3.0 liter for a ride on the evening of the 11th of April? Do you remember the moment you switched on the LED driving lights and you felt an unprecedented bliss thinking that you are not only rich but you are also protecting the environment? […]Amazon, a pair of shoes and my Data Privacy walks away
April 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Try to remember the last time you shopped from Amazon. Most likely you are another happy consumer that has enjoyed the benefits of e-shopping in terms of service, price and delivery time. It is also highly possible that you already master the plethora of reasons not to get into your car and experience all that […]EU car manufacturers worry about an FTA with Japan
March 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), had expressed reserves over the EU Council and Commission initiative to start negotiations with Japan in order the two sides to conclude a far reaching Free Trade Agreement (FTA). ACEA was founded in 1991 and represents authentically the interests of the fifteen major European car, truck and bus manufacturers […]To Bing or Not to Bing? That is the question
March 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It was earlier today that the Vice-President of the European Commission, Joaquin Almunia, received an open letter signed by a dozen complainants that ask for the strictest possible punishment in the long pending Google Antitrust case. This letter signed by 11 internet companies came as the next strategic move of the fierce Anti-Google lobby that […]Commissioner sings “Volar-e” but the European driver no “Cantar-e”
March 7, 2013 by 2 Comments
It was the last day of February when the European Commission decided to organize a pompous event to test the “amazing” performance of a new electric race car in the Formula 1 Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Its name is Volar-e and I am sure Antonio Tajani, the Commissioner responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship that […]Commission imposes a fine of €561 million on Microsoft
March 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Late in the afternoon of today 6 February, the Commission issued an announcement, signed by Joaquín Almunia, Vice President responsible for Competition Policy, saying that the Commission imposes on Microsoft a fine of €561 million. According to this Press release, the decision came as result of Microsoft’s failure to comply with the legally binding commitments […]Ship Recycling is the Commission’s Titanic
February 20, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was the symbolic date of 12/12/12 that the international NGO, Center for International Environmental Law, decided to publish a legal opinion denouncing as 100% illegal the European Commission’s proposal for a new regulation on ship recycling. This coincided with the legal analysis by the former chief counsel of the European Commission , Dr. Ludwig […]Novartis and Johnson & Johnson to deprive Europeans of their right to Health
February 13, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was the last day of January that the European Commission decided to send a formal complaint against two pharmaceutical giants, Johnson and Johnson and Novartis, over an illegal secret deal that made European cancer patients suffer while it brought huge profits to the American and Swiss multinational accordingly. After the meticulous research of DG […]Facebook and Google to treat Europe as the 51st State of the USA
February 7, 2013 by 2 Comments
On the 4th of February 2013 seventeen prominent US consumer and civil liberties organizations addressed a strong petition letter to highly ranked executives of the American government in Washington and to one American in Brussels, Mr. William Kennard, American Ambassador of the US Mission to the EU. Every European needs to know what all those […]It ain’t over until Google says it’s over
February 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The deadline EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia set to Google to answer the Commission’s investigation expired yesterday and, since no answer had been filled, people in the DG Competition decided to throw a party. They thought that these would be the easiest €4 billion the European Commission had ever made. Mr. Almunia even rushed to brag […]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 […]EU Commission draws the wrong conclusions
January 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to the last Eurobarometer survey on Entrepreneurship, when the Europeans are asked, “What holds them back from starting up a business”, a large majority of EU respondents think that it is difficult to start one’s own business due to a lack of available financial support (79%) and due to the complexities of the administrative […]Basel III rules relaxed: Banks got it all but become more prone to crisis
January 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission through the most competent lips of its member, Michel Barnier, responsible for Internal Market and Services rushed to endorse the new unbelievably generous concession to banks all over the developed world. This time it was the Group of Governors and Heads of Supervision (GHOS), the oversight body of the Basel Committee on […]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 […]Eurozone business activity again on upwards path
January 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Business activity in Eurozone has being deteriorating for the past nine months. Last December however the PMI, index which measures this phenomenon, gave the first indications that the bottom of the dreadful U curve is now behind. In detail, the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the industrial sector, being drafted on data over the demand […]Banks cannot die but can be fined
January 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The oldest Swiss bank was forced to temporarily shut down its US subsidiary yesterday, after its lawyers accepted that it has being helping at least 100 American citizens to avoid taxation. The bank Vegelin, of St Gallen, established in 1741 is accused by the US tax authority, the famous IRS, that it has directed those […]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 […]“Private” sea freight indexes hide Libor like skeletons?
December 22, 2012 by 1 Comment
The almost three centuries old Baltic Exchange is a private and closed platform, where around 60 shipping brokers based mainly in London are contributing voluntarily their cargo prices. On the base of those contributions the Exchange publishes benchmark freight price indexes for a round number of 70 sea routes and vessel categories. The indexes are […]European car industry: The Germans want it all
December 21, 2012 by 1 Comment
That the German cars are gas guzzlers is a fact beyond reasonable doubt, not because they are badly engineered, that they are not, but simply because they are usually powered by engines of many thousands of cm2 cylinders. Those powerful Mercedes, BMWs, Porsches, Audis and even Volkswagens produce hundreds of PSIs, but at the same time they […]Huawei answers allegations about its selling prices
December 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Two major Chinese providers of mobile phone equipment, Huawei Technologies Co. and the smaller ZTE Corporation, according to a Wall Street Journal report are under scrutiny by the European Commission, for allegedly offering their products at dumping prices. This report is still unconfirmed by the EU authorities. Its wording though is very carefully chosen by […]Why Microsoft is a regular to Almunia’s
December 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment
In the years of globalisation, free movements of capital, goods and to a lesser degree of labour, have raised exponentially citizen’s wellbeing in our western economic volume and not only. This achievement has to be totally credited, to the opening of national markets to international competition. At the same time though globalisation has created new opportunities […]Cloud computing under scrutiny in the EU?
December 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Cloud computing seems to function in the same way for the ICT world, as the ocean-going shipping for the real economy, it is highly efficient, can be lucrative and dangerous, demands investments in skills, R&D and infrastructure, depends to a rather limited extend on the cooperation between the public and the private sector and suffer […]Why banks escape from competition rules but not pharmaceutical firms
December 7, 2012 by 1 Comment
Antitrust EU Commission services have an excellent record in identifying, monitoring, substantiating with facts and finally punishing cartels and dominant position abuses. This last week two concrete cases stand witnesses to that.Protecting consumers In the first case the European Court of Justice rejected an appeal against a General Court’s decision, which had upheld almost completely […]Is a uniform CO2 emission linked car taxation possible in the EU?
November 25, 2012 by 1 Comment
Motor vehicles have being for decades the easy target of many forms of taxation, especially in post WWII Western Europe. Taxes on acquisition, on ownership, on motoring, on licences are but a few. The initial idea behind, in the minds of politicians who supported the imposition of taxes on cars, was that private ownership of […]eGovernmnet for more efficiency, equality and democracy
November 20, 2012 by 1 Comment
At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö, (Sweden) the 27 EU ministers, responsible for administrative affairs, outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how to developing smarter online public services for citizens and businesses by 2015. The EU Commission hailed this agreement and commented that eGovernment is a key step towards boosting Europe’s […]The vehicles of our future
November 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment
Out of the fourteen altogether topics that the European Union policies and rules cover, the huge automotive sector is affected directly or indirectly by nine of them. Let’s count: Business, Economy-finance-competition, Employment, Energy and natural resources, Environment-consumers-health, External relations and foreign affairs, Regions and local development, Sciences and technology, Transport and travel. The car industry and markets […]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 […]
