The European Sting is Your democratic, independent and top quality political newspaper specialized in European Union News. Unique Features: iSting & Harry Sting
Yesterday the European Parliament rejected by 650 votes to 15 the new Regulation on seeds for sowing. The draft law was introduced in the legislative by EU Commissioner Dacian Cioloș. Undeniably, the extent of the negative vote is an indication that ‘something is rotten in the state’ of Berlaymont. The Romanian Commissioner even refused to […]
The Council of the European Union responsible for Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer affairs couldn’t avoid recognizing that the social scenery in the EU is deteriorating fast as 26.8 million jobseekers unable to find a job and 25% of the European population at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Mind you that more than […]
Written by Javier Perez, President of MasterCard Europe It was that time of the year again. At the end of February, Mobile World Congress opened its doors in Barcelona for a week. This year’s edition saw the presentation of a myriad of innovative solutions in the mobile space. Some of the new devices and solutions […]
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 […]
Predictably, the Right2Water campaigners while presenting yesterday in the European Parliament their ‘citizens’ initiative’, met opposition from some MEPs only when they crossed the line of the usual pompous but vacuous words about ‘universal rights’ and laid down their meaningful demand to ban privatization of water supply. It turned out that the organisers of the […]
According to a Eurobarometer survey published earlier today, the prospects of the European tourism industry for the 2014 season are ‘robust and resilient’. More people than in 2013 choose to spend holidays outside of their own country but within the EU. Only 11% of Europeans will not go away for a holiday this year. More […]
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 […]
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 […]
It was high time that the European Union authorities took action to protect home buyers from the insatiable appetite of banks. Mortgages constitute the standard tool for households to acquire, usually, their first home. For consumers this is a very long term engagement, especially for wage earners. Given the fact that mortgages may span up […]
In three months, from July to September this year, inflation in Eurozone fell from 1.6% to 1.1%, with a brief stopover of 1.3% in August. The European Sting has been sounding the alarm for months now, over this fast deceleration of consumer goods prices. This trend is present all along this year, starting from […]
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, presented on 30 August a statistical survey on the euro area headline inflation and its four main components. Together with it Eurostat published a valuable table showing the weight of each of the twelve items that compose the inflation index and its four main components. By the same token however […]
At a time when the financial sector in the eyes of the wider public all over the world, and more so in Europe and the US, is to be held responsible for the real economy crisis and the unemployment burst, the European Commission dares to approve the acquisition of NYSE-Euronext (NYX) by the InterContinental Exchange. […]
How many times were you out with friends and wanted to show them a new cool video on Youtube through your smart phone but buffering was unbelievably slow? What about the time you had a cheap pay-as-you-go subscription and you wanted to save money using Viber to call your friends for free instead of giving […]
At a time when very few European consumers decide to look for a mortgage to buy a new home and the European lenders very sparingly grant such loans, the European Commission found the opportunity to launch its new initiative on a Mortgage Directive, supposedly to better protect consumers. Under the experience of the past four […]
The summer giant of European tourism woke up again from its winter hibernation and is about to favour the crisis and unemployment stricken southern regions of the Old Continent and not only. For a brief period of one week or so the entire population of countries in the misty and grey north travel southwards to […]
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 […]
The mighty European services industry offers more jobs and employment despite the ongoing financial crisis. Tourism, being the largest service sub-sector offers a strong support base to the recession stricken Eurozone economy. Yesterday the European Commission published a Eurobarometer survey on the tourism industry, with very encouraging findings. According to this survey, “Tourism’s robust and […]
The downwards trend of Eurozone’s inflation rate is an infallible witness of the strong competitive base of home production on both fronts, that is manufacturing production and services. According to Eurostat, the EU statistical service, “The euro area annual inflation rate was 2.0 % in January 2013, down from 2.2 % in December 2012. A […]
Yesterday, the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee discussed for the first time, the much advertised joint announcement by the EU and the US, to start negotiations for the conclusion of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement. As the European Sting predicted the FTA negotiators would be confronted with two very old and very thorny issues. According […]
The horsemeat scandal is still running free all over the European Union. Yesterday, a pompously named EU Commission group entitled, “Standing Committee of the Food Chain and Animal Health” (SCoFCAH), unanimously agreed in an extraordinary meeting, that the measures proposed by Commissioner Tonio Borg are adequate to counter the health and the fraud problem related to […]
European consumers suffered three blows yesterday. After having being informed that their beef burgers contained uncontrolled horse meat and secondly that the EU is ready to allow in American GMOs and animal products with hormones, came the Commission to recognise, that safety rules in the non-food product markets are inadequate. On this last issue the […]
Every now and then, at irregular time intervals, the European food production chain is shaken by scandals that make consumers feel quite unprotected against the greed and the remorselessness of some producers and traders. Everybody understands that there are huge holes in the control and the food products labelling system, probably except the competent (?) […]
European Union consumers will be very careful with their Christmas gifts shopping lists this year, says an in-depth analysis of Wall Steer Journal’s Europe Edition, based mainly on data from a relevant survey of Deloitte LLP. With unemployment reaching unheard before levels above 25% in Greece and Spain and skyrocketing in other weak EU economies, the […]
