Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, hardened by adverse weather and isolation as all his compatriots, when in Brussels last summer, delivered two lessons to EU bureaucrats and dignitaries, softened by indoor life. He taught them how to treat fraudulent bankers and who to fish mackerel. Yesterday tiny Iceland accomplished its teaching course […]Tiny Iceland teaches the West how to treat bankers
December 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, hardened by adverse weather and isolation as all his compatriots, when in Brussels last summer, delivered two lessons to EU bureaucrats and dignitaries, softened by indoor life. He taught them how to treat fraudulent bankers and who to fish mackerel. Yesterday tiny Iceland accomplished its teaching course […]The financial crisis always prefers the south of Eurozone
December 12, 2013 by 1 Comment
It’s very interesting to study how incomes and consumption in the worst hit countries coped with the financial crisis and the concomitant severe austerity measures imposed by the ‘troika’ of auditors/lenders. The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund formed this ‘troika’ in 2010, to deal with the risk of insolvency […]EU legislation protecting home buyers approved in Parliament
December 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Resolving banks with depositors’ money?
December 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Tomorrow’s Ecofin council, marking the last 2013 meeting of the 28 EU ministers of Finance, constitutes the final opportunity of the member states to strike an agreement in order to finalise the construction of the European Banking Union. What is still missing for the establishment of the EBU is of course the full Single Resolution […]Is poverty and exclusion the necessary price for EU’s recovery?
December 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At least one out of every four EU citizens is at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The relevant percentage was 24.8% in 2012. However, given that this variable has been increasing steadily since 2008 by some decimal points every year, the measurement must have exceeded the 25% benchmark in 2013. These figures were published […]Rehn very reserved about growth in Eurozone
December 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Olli Rehn, the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro delivered a speech in the European Parliament, entitled “The recovery of the European economy”. In doing that, he couldn’t resist the temptation to reveal the truth that the recovery of the European economy which timidly appeared […]Commission offers discount on fines to banks for competition infringements
December 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Today, the European Commission fined 8 major banks a total of € 1.7 billion for participating in cartels rigging interest rate benchmarks in markets for financial derivatives covering the European Economic Area (EEA). According to the Commission, four of these firms participated in a cartel relating to interest rate derivatives denominated in euro, and six […]SMEs and micro firms sinking together with south Eurozone
December 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Only 0.2% of the non-financial companies are large (more than 249 employees), the rest are either micro firms (up to 10 employees, 92.5%) or small and medium enterprises (10 to 249 employees, 7.3%). Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union, regularly publishes data on enterprises broken down by size classes, which provide information on […]Mixed news about the Eurozone economy
December 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to a flash estimate released by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, Eurozone annual inflation was 0.9% in November, slightly higher than 0.7% in October. Excluding the items under the categories of energy, food, alcohol & tobacco, the November inflation rate is thought to have been 1% after 0.8% in October. Price developments in the […]The EU banking union needs a third pillar guaranteeing deposits
November 29, 2013 by 1 Comment
Daniele Nouy, secretary-general of the French Prudential Supervision Authority for banks, candidate to head Europe’s Single Supervisory Mechanism for lenders, speaking at the European Parliament last Wednesday stressed that, the “EU supervisor would be hampered if the two other pillars of banking union (recovery and resolution mechanism and deposit guarantee system) were not set up”. […]EU Commission indifferent on Court of Auditors’ recommendations
November 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Only a few days after the European Court of Auditors, the independent audit institution of the Union, said that EU money is spent with “little interest in the results achieved”, the Commission published its own assessment on the effectiveness of EU spending, alleging that the “EU budget (is) increasingly an investment tool”. The ECA is […]Not much of a help the new EU Directive on pensions
November 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Labour mobility within the European Union is considered as the main decompression mechanism of social and economic pressures, created by differences in growth rates between member states. Looking for a job or working in another EU country has been praised by politicians and Brussels bureaucrats as the best way to increase the overall competitiveness of […]The EU accuses Russia of bullying Ukraine to change sides
November 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It took four days to European Union two presidents to grasp the magnitude of the Ukrainian full U-turn, with Kyiv signing the Moscow led customs union, after cashing in the advance of EU’s financial aid. The unprecedented complete turnaround of Ukraine’s foreign policy took place last Thursday and the President of the European Commission José […]EU to gain the most from the agreement with Iran
November 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The fall of oil prices right after the European Union negotiators, working on behalf of the E3+3 group, reached an agreement with Iran, was the first and infallible sign that this was a step towards the right direction, at least for the energy importing countries. In the Geneva negotiations, the West was represented by Catherine […]Galileo funding: A ‘small’ difference of €700 million
November 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A ‘small’ difference of €700 million appears in the funding of the European GPS Galileo-EGNOS programme for the 2014-2020 period. After the funding of the project got the green light in the plenary of the European Parliament, the legislators issued a Press release with a reference to its cost saying, “the programme’s €6.3 billion budget […]Eurozone banks to separate risky activities: Can they stay afloat?
November 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday EU Commissioner Michel Barnier, in an interview to the German financial newspaper ‘Handelsblatt’, said that the European Commission has decided to go ahead and propose legislation to safeguard Eurozone’s banking system, along the lines of the recommendations of the high-level expert group, chaired by Erkki Liikanen, governor of the Bank of Finland. The main […]EU sets ambitious targets for the Warsaw climate conference
November 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The UN climate conferences are the kind on international tribunes, where the European Union can present its opinions with pride. It’s not only that the EU has unilaterally set a target to cut down green-house emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, but also because this programme is on track to achieve targets. On […]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 […]Parliament seals 2014 EU budget and the spending ceiling until 2020
November 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Finally, the European Parliament, after obtaining from the Council (that is the member state governments) what was possible to squeeze out in these times of widespread austerity, yesterday approved both the 2014 budget and the 2014-2020 financial framework, which sets limits on EU’s spending for the next seven years. Yesterday, the Budgets Parliamentary Committee voted […]The financial future of Eurozone on the agenda of Friday’s ECOFIN council
November 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The agenda of the Economic and Finance Ministers’ Council (ECOFIN) of 15 November in Brussels is very heavily loaded. The ‘Taxation of savings incomes’ and the ‘Revision of the Anti-Money Laundering Directive’ may be major issues, but the first reading of Commission’s proposal for the creation of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) will haunt […]A sterilised EMU may lead to a break up of Eurozone
November 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Ahead of the ‘The European Employment Forum’ which takes place in Brussels today and tomorrow and according to its organisers is ‘the annual networking forum for everyone involved in employment and enterprise within the EU and beyond’, there was an increased activity over the burning issue of jobs and unemployment in Europe. To this effect, […]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 […]2014 budget: The EU may prove unable to agree on own resources
November 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The last fight in the ‘war’ over EU’s proper budget for 2014 is bound to take place this Monday 11 November, after the European Parliament got what it wanted for the 2013 budgetary exercise. For this year’s budget the unpaid bills of 2012 and 2013 totalling at €11.2 billion were at stake, having been now […]The Commission favours the cultivation of more GMOs in Europe
November 7, 2013 by 1 Comment
The delay in the process of negotiations for the conclusion of the EU-US trade agreement seems to have opened the opportunity to clarify some thorny matters between the two largest trading partners of the world. One of them is surely the cultivation on EU soil of Monsanto’s genetically modified ‘Pioneer 1507’ maize seed. Apart from […]Renewed pressures on Berlin to adopt growth policies
November 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the European Commission in Brussels announced that euro area growth prospects are sluggish, and downgraded the projected rate of GDP increase for 2014, from 1.2% to 1%. Also yesterday President Manuel Barroso, while speaking in Saint Paul’s Church in Frankfurt, where the first democratically elected Parliament of Germany was convened, called on this country […]Court of Auditors: EU budget money is there to be spent not to create value
November 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Court of Auditors, the independent audit institution of the EU, today signed off the 2012 EU Budget, but it added a lot of asterisks and remarks over the Union’s payments for last year, singling out inappropriate, ineligible and illegal spending. A first and general comment by the ECA is that “Looking at the […]Eurozone to enter the winter…
November 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Euro area annual inflation and its main components (%), October 2012 and May – October 2013. On many occasions during the past few months the European Sting has concluded that the ongoing deceleration of inflation in Eurozone is a bad omen. Last time it was on Friday 1 November when Eurostat announced its flash estimate for […]Eurobarometer: Not a single answer about what the Banking Union will cost to citizens
November 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At a critical time for the future of Eurozone, with the Banking Union still pending – the most important project since the euro – and the Eurobarometer survey failed to ask the citizens of the 18 euro area member states about that. Of course this is not a grave omission of the people who drafted […]Banks promise easing of credit conditions in support of the real economy
October 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to European Central Bank’s quarterly bank lending survey, euro area lenders responded that during the fourth quarter of 2013 they plan a marked easing of credit standards on loans to enterprises (-5% after +5%), “which is the first such a positive expectation on record since the fourth quarter of 2009”. The ECB says that […]This crisis cannot be confronted with statistics
October 30, 2013 by 1 Comment
Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union, announced yesterday the launch of a new series of annual publications, entitled “Smarter, greener, more inclusive? – Indicators to support the Europe 2020 strategy”. According to the relevant Press release, “The purpose of this publication is to provide statistics to support the Europe 2020 strategy and to […]Eurozone economy desperately needs internally driven growth
October 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With economic growth in Eurozone proving to be weak, uncertain and widely varying between member states, government spending has become the only possible source of a much hoped for resumption of economic activities. On the other hand, stock exchanges have gained a lot since the beginning of the year, in a way that is not […]Warmongers ready to chew what is left of social protection spending
October 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Before the EU having even started a serious discussion about the historical issue of political unification or having decided to enact a European Banking Union containing some traces of risk sharing between the haves and have-nots, the forthcoming, “December EU summit must make clear that the European dimension is more relevant in defence and security […]EU Parliament: The surplus countries must support growth
October 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
During the last two days the European Parliament intervened very actively, not only in the economic and budgetary policies of EU proper, but also in the way the 28 member states are formulating their fundamental financial choices, while drafting the 2014 government budgets. For one thing, this morning the plenary House is debating and presumably […]
