It is usual for any EU country while holding the rotating Council Presidency to boast about its achievements. Boasting becomes sometimes unbearable if the Presidency is held by a small or very small member state like Lithuania, the current holder of the presidential seat in the Council. It was exactly like that earlier today when […]Lithuania vs Parliament over 2014 EU budget
September 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It is usual for any EU country while holding the rotating Council Presidency to boast about its achievements. Boasting becomes sometimes unbearable if the Presidency is held by a small or very small member state like Lithuania, the current holder of the presidential seat in the Council. It was exactly like that earlier today when […]How Eurozone consumers spend their income when they have one…
September 2, 2013 by 2 Comments
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 […]Europe turns out more jobs this summer
August 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In July 2013, for a second month in a row, unemployment rates remained unchanged in both Eurozone and the EU28 at 12.1% and 11% respectively, according to a Eurostat Press release issued today. Eurostat is the EU statistical service. The same source notes that, “26.654 million men and women in the EU28, of whom 19.231 […]New phenomena in the EU labour market
August 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Everybody feels that the economic crisis haunting Eurozone increases the divergence between its northern and southern segments. It’s Eurostat however, the EU statistical service, that gave solid proof to this general feeling. Eurostat writer Martin Teichgraber undertook the task to analyse the impact that this crisis has on the labour market, in a paper entitled […]How painful is the Greek tragedy for the Germans?
August 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
When the International Monetary Fund completed some weeks ago its fourth review under the Extended Fund Facility Arrangement for Greece, and approved for this country a new disbursement of €1.72 billion, it performed also a Debt Sustainability Analysis, which is a prerequisite for any IMF loan. According to this DSA, Greece would face a funding […]Eurozone: Statistics don’t tell the whole story
August 27, 2013 by 1 Comment
Government sector deficits in Eurozone after having peaked in 2009-2010 are now not only levelling out but actually decreasing. According to Eurostat, the EU statistical service, in the first quarter of 2013 “ the seasonally adjusted general government deficit to GDP ratio was -3.5 % in the euro area (EA-17) and -3.8 % in […]All talk but no action against fraudulent bankers
August 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission plans to propose on Wednesday 18 September draft legislation against the fraudulent setting and use of financial benchmarks like Euribor, Libor and the Baltic Indices. This comes on top of investigations launched recently in London, New York even in Brussels, where bankers are being criminally prosecuted, and thirteen giant western investment banking […]Eurozone banks are unable to support real economy’s dawning growth
August 14, 2013 by 1 Comment
Industrial production in the European Union is definitively in a virtuous path as statistical data confirm business managers’ assessment, that their order books are as full as they have never been in the past. The same is true for industrial production. According to a press release published yesterday by Eurostat – the EU statistical service […]ECB guarantees the liquidity of the Atlantic financial volume
August 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that the European Central Bank is determined not only to continue supporting Eurozone’s real economy with liquidity at almost zero interest rate cost for as long as it needs to achieve tangible growth, but by the same token it appears ready to succeed the American Fed in keeping the western financial […]Summer pause gives time to rethink Eurozone’s problems
July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The United States Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on his way back to Washington from the G20 meeting in Moscow made a stop-over in Athens on Monday to meet the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Probably this is not major news. However, what Lew said under the Acropolis about his encounter with the German […]New round of bargaining for the 2014 EU budget late in autumn
July 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Council of the European Union and more precisely the Permanent Representatives Committee, echoing directly the dictums of the 28 EU governments – without having consulted with the European Parliament – reached between them an agreement on the 2014 European Union budget. Needless to say that the resources the Council offers to the Union for […]Why Eurozone can afford spending for growth
July 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed once more the excellent health of Eurozone’s economy, at least as far as its international competitiveness is concerned. Low inflation and large surpluses in external trade of goods constitute a solid base for the foreign value of the single money. They also advocate in favour of further relaxation of […]Who and why want the EU-US trade agreement here and now
July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the brief period of one week the European Union and the United States concluded last Friday in Washington the first round of talks for a major Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is their bilateral free trade agreement. The time schedule of this grandiose endeavour is unbelievably short, given the magnitude of the […]EU unfolds strategy on the Egypt question
July 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Union seems to have finally concluded that the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ is a basic ingredient in Egypt’s political future and there will be no long-term viable solution of the present stalemate in this country without it. Despite the fact that the EU’s High Representative Catherine Ashton has adopted, along with the rest of the […]Banks get trillions and the unemployed ECB’s love…
July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
To understand the kind of world we live in it suffices to follow the way the banks make their billions. Let’s start from the repercussions from the great credit crunch of 2008-2009 which still haunt our everyday lives in Europe and the US but no bank has come close to pay the price for their […]Commission to decide on bank resolution issues
July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are planning to challenge once more the supremacy of Germany in the Ecofin Council and bring back the issue of the single bank resolution authority. The clash over the character of this cornerstone building-block of the European Banking Union is some weeks old […]Eurogroup: IMF proposes Germany disposes
July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In yesterday’s Eurogroup, Eurozone’s policy setting council, the 17 ministers of Finance had two important items on their agenda; IMF’s recommendations for the European economy under Article IV Consultation with the Euro Area, and the approval of the next loan trance to Greece. On both accounts the opinion of Germany weighed a lot. In this […]Where is Egypt leading the Middle East and the Mediterranean economy?
July 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that the Egyptian experiment of democratic political and economic transformation of the country by the Muslim Brotherhood has failed in every respect and the West recognised it. No wonder why no western government or the UN termed the intervention of the Egyptian army and the toppling of President Mohamed Morsi, as […]EU-US trade talks go ahead despite Prism and civil rights breach
July 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Apart from the largely hypocritical cries by European politicians mainly in Brussels about civil rights breaches, the only concrete and immediate implications that the American PRISM scandal could have had on EU-US relations refers to the Free Trade and Investments Agreement that the two sides are about to negotiate. For one thing European citizens are […]Parliament: No consent to EU budget until €11.2 billion unpaid bills are settled
July 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Plenary of the European Parliament in a non-legislative resolution accepted the political agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 that is the EU proper budgets for the next seven years. Negotiations over the next MFF commenced last February after the summit of the 27 leaders set the limit for the seven-year EU total […]EU-US trade agreement talks to be affected by American bugs
July 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Bugging EU institutions’ premises and members states’ offices in the US by American secret agencies may seriously affect the progress of negotiations for the conclusion of a Free Trade and Investments Agreement between the two largest trading partners of the world. While the first reactions by EU dignitaries, after the revealing publications by Der Spiegel […]Civil society organisations disenchanted with “Youth Guarantee”
July 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Since 2008, when the EU financial crisis first broke out, 1000 young people join every day the ranks of the unemployed, according to the European Economic and Social Committee. The EESC issued recently a note strongly criticising the Commission’s proposal entitled “Youth Guarantee project”. This proposal was adopted by the European Council of the 27+1 […]An EU Summit without purpose
June 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The most important news from the first day of the 27+1 EU leaders’ gathering (European Council) yesterday was that the Ecofin council of the 27 ministers of Finance managed to come up with an agreement over the bank resolution and recovery, and also that the EU Parliament agreed with the Commission on the Union budgets […]At last a solid base for the European Banking Union
June 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Ecofin Council, regrouping the 27 EU ministers of Finance, struck an agreement at 2.00 o’clock this morning over the much debated ‘bank resolution and recovery’ draft directive. As it usually happens in the European Union the final agreement between member states on crucial issues does not go all the way through, but still offers […]The next 48 hours may change the European Union
June 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A careful reading of the invitation letter the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, addressed yesterday to the 27 EU leaders for their 27 and 28 June 2013 meeting in Brussels reveals a lot about the European Monetary Union. This letter should be read in parallel with the announcement for today’s continuation of […]EU Commission: Banking and energy conglomerates don’t threaten competition!
June 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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. […]IMF v Germany: Eurogroup keeps the fight under control
June 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
As it usually happens in the European Union, a much debated and infested with conflicting interests major issue, like the bank recapitalisation, will not be decided upon in one go but it will remain open for as much time as needed to mitigate differences. Yesterday evening the Eurogroup meeting, which usually precedes the Ecofin Council […]EU budget deal struck with Parliament negotiators
June 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Negotiations for the European Union proper budgets for the 2014-2020 period between European parliament representatives, the Irish Presidency and the European Commission have been concluded. This is the so-called Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, setting the ceiling for EU spending. The agreement will now be submitted to both the Council and the European Parliament for final […]Lies and reality about incomes and wealth in the EU
June 19, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Central Bank in April this year produced a statistical paper on the distribution of real household wealth in Eurozone countries. The study argued that in terms of net wealth the average German household appears much poorer than their counterparts in the crisis hit countries of south Europe, that is Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Italy […]Eurogroup asked to reduce public debts of its member states
June 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurogroup President and minister for Finance of Holland, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, in an unexpected move this week sent his peers a letter to invite them to their 20 June meeting in Luxembourg, asking them to think about taking a decision on a possible recapitalisation of Eurozone banks directly from the European Stability Mechanism, with retroactive enforcement. […]EU Parliament: It takes real banks to fight unemployment and recession
June 17, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Parliament has a unique ability to identify the key issues in the Union’s conjuncture, not only in the political but also in the economic front. Seemingly the close contact of its members with their constituents is at the heart of this special property. Seen under this light, the last Parliamentary debate on what […]No agreement in sight on EU budget
June 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In less than 24 hours the European Parliament answered in force a self-congratulating Press release issued by the Irish Presidency, falsely announcing a major breakthrough in the negotiations over the EU budgets for the next seven years. It’s about the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 that provides for the ceiling of the overall EU spending during […]Commission presents far-reaching anti-tax evasion measures
June 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
As from January 2015 dividends, capital gains and all other financial incomes and bank account balances will be added to the currently existing restricted list of categories subject to the automatic exchange of information between the EU tax authorities, according to a proposal by the EU Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta. Practically today only interest on bank […]
