This week could have become a historic one for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The Meeting of the International Trade Committee taking place yesterday and today, just a few weeks after the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade passed a key resolution that was de facto giving the green light to the trade agreement. Postponed vote Last week, […]TTIP update: postponed vote and INTA meeting shuffle cards again
June 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This week could have become a historic one for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The Meeting of the International Trade Committee taking place yesterday and today, just a few weeks after the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade passed a key resolution that was de facto giving the green light to the trade agreement. Postponed vote Last week, […]The West – the EU and the US – is writing off Turkey’s Erdogan
June 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
For the first time in the history of the EU-Turkish relations the European Parliament openly and loudly welcomed last week the heavy losses of the governing party in a general election. The MEPs actually rejoiced on “the most inclusive and representative parliament in Turkish modern history, reflecting the country’s diversity”, forgetting that it’s a hang […]The G7 adopted dangerous views about Ukraine and Greece
June 11, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last weekend the leaders of the G7 countries in reality acknowledged their impotency or probably unwillingness to effectively confront the expansion of the destructive and unlawful activities of the “too big to fail” banks and the shadow banking sector. After that, they decided that Ukraine and Greece have to go on bleeding in order not […]TTIP wins first crucial EU test: MEPs give in to the trade agreement
June 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The long and much discussed Transatlantic Trade an Investment Partnership question in Europe might have reached a new phase, and all the stagnation of the past months seems now to make way for some evolutions. The European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade passed a key resolution last Thursday, backing the EU-US free trade agreement. Although it still needs to […]A few, or rather two, trade and economic alliances may rule our brave new world
June 1, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission President together with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave a Press conference following the 23rd EU-Japan Summit which took place in Tokyo on 29 May. The focal point of the meeting was supposed to be the free trade agreement (FTA) between the two sides. However the EU dignitary spoke […]Spanish and Polish voters are crying out for an imminent European change while US urge now Germany to change route
May 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The election outcomes in Spain and Poland last week were enough to cause even more uncertainty and turbulences to the already shaken European economy. The European leaders and especially Germany is facing another thorn while they struggle to come to a deal with Greece, which focuses on the austerity policy that is constantly followed by the […]Big world banks to pay $ 4.95bn for cheating customers; Is it a punishment or a gentle caress?
May 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last week five of the world largest banks, JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and Union de Banques Suisses were fined by the American magistrates a total of $ 4.7 billion for rigging interest rate benchmarks. The banks had been setting those standards by themselves for five years after 2007. In another case the […]“TTIP can boost the European project”; the Sting reports live from EBS 2015 on TTIP
May 15, 2015 by Leave a Comment
As many were expecting, discussions over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) had a high priority at this year’s European Business Summit 2015. Almost immediately after the kick-off of the prestigious summit last week in Brussels, which completed its 15th anniversary this year, an interesting EU-US trade agreement tailor made session was launched. “Is the TTIP compatible […]EU’s core members are eyeing larger parts of arms trade and of world map
May 14, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Friday, 8 May, the European Commission released two documents setting a path for defense and security cooperation within the EU. The reports will be presented in an upcoming discussion by the competent 28 Ministers on 18 May and the Heads of State and Government in the European Council of 25 June. The two documents […]TTIP 9th Round marked by American disappointment: Will some optimism save this trade agreement?
April 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The ninth round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks between the United States and the European Union concluded last Friday in New York City. As said to reporters by EU Chief Negotiator Ignacio Garcia Bercero at the closing press conference, the delegations from the two sides discussed “all three pillars of the negotiations: […]The EU threatens to occupy Libya militarily; is another colonial war brewing?
April 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment
It was really deplorable to watch the 28 EU leaders who gathered in Brussels last week after the hecatombs of drowned emigrants, to solemnly discuss aggressive military operations on the soil and the sea ports of their Mediterranean neighbours. They decided to use military force and thus kill people, in order to forcefully reverse the […]Can Obama attract Iran close to the US sphere of influence?
April 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The best indications about the fairness of a deal are that all the parties directly involved in it can claim victory, and when it comes to the detailed terms they feel they didn’t get exactly what they wanted. This is exactly what happened after the six major world powers (the P5+1 group of countries, the […]EU-US to miss 2015 deadline and even lose Germany’s support in TTIP’s darkest week yet
March 31, 2015 by 1 Comment
What many TTIP supporters were afraid of – and many acute observers were expecting – was announced officially last week: The EU and United States will likely miss a 2015 deadline to conclude what would be the world’s biggest-ever free trade deal. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told reporters […]Have Europe’s Ukrainian wounds begun to heal?
March 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The wounds the Ukrainian civil war has inflicted on Europe have now stopped bleeding and if not begun healing at least they claim no more fatalities. The Minsk II agreement is holding well and the Europeans, most of them, have made clear to the Americans that there is no chance of starting a new war […]Can the US-Iran rapprochement change the world?
March 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The United States global gendarmes and the Shiite Iran were brought together in a common fight against the Islamic States murderers in Iraq and Syria, thus opening the way for a wider understanding between the two until recently sworn enemies. The American government saw one more major geostrategic advantage in the rapprochement with Tehran. And […]Only the Americans are unhappy with the ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine
March 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Despite the fact that the Minsk ceasefire agreement is holding more or less well and the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine has stopped, the Americans seem quite unhappy. They insist on the need to supply the Ukrainians with heavy armaments to continue the war, this time clearly against Putin’s Russia. Let’s follow the facts. On 25 […]Mobile World Congress 2015 first to debate EU’s new stance on Net Neutrality and Roaming Charges
March 7, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Did you really think that Christmas 2015 would be the perfect chance to travel abroad in Europe, do your shopping in London or Paris and call your folks back home for wishes at zero roaming cost? More so, did you really think that Christmas 2015 would be the perfect chance for you to Skype with your pal without […]“Leaked” TTIP document breaks post 8th negotiations round silence and opens door to critics
March 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The 9th round of the Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations is a bit more than one month and a half away, but the evolutions of the last days are certainly bound to influence and shape future talks. Last week a leaked draft of what the European Union would like to exclude from a new trade […]The West and Russia accomplished the dismembering and the economic destruction of Ukraine
March 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment
With the Minsk Agreement the West and Russia finally got what they wanted or close to that from Ukraine, not minding much about leaving the miserable country in ruins, its map ruthlessly chopped and the economy in a perfect chaos. On the one side the EU or rather Berlin and Paris plus Washington and on […]Greece and Ukraine main items on EU28 menu; the course is set
February 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The world community will be watching very closely today’s gathering of the 28 leaders of the European Union in Brussels. The reason is that its agenda includes two crucial issues; the economic fate of Greece and a discussion on the outcome of a conference in Minsk, Belarus for the future of Ukraine. Yesterday afternoon both […]The eighth round of TTIP negotiations concludes in Brussels amid scepticism and new fears
February 10, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The eighth round of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), negotiations between the European Union and the United States, concluded last Friday in Brussels. It might be that the entire world is looking towards Ukraine and all media are focusing on the severe crisis between the former Soviet Republic and Russia, but it seems that […]Europe, US and Russia haggle over Ukraine’s convulsing body; Russians and Americans press on for an all out civil war
February 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Germany and France are alarmed at the prospect that the Americans could turn Ukraine into an unbelievable inferno, by overtly delivering heavy armaments to Kiev. In such an event implications on Europe’s security will be vast. The French President François Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed to Moscow last Friday and met the […]“We have to do a better job of creating alternatives to violent extremism”, US Secretary of State John Kerry from Switzerland; the Sting reports live from World Economic Forum 2015 in Davos
January 27, 2015 by Leave a Comment
There was probably no need for Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, to welcome an “old friend and supporter” of the foundation by mentioning the magnitude of the current geopolitical crises, for us to understand what John Kerry’s speech would have been focused on. Almost everybody at the small […]‘Internal security’ or how to compromise citizens’ rights and also make huge profits
January 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Only days if not hours after the Charlie Hebdo tragedy in Paris, some governments and many politicians in Europe called for more and tougher internal security measures. Undoubtedly, such action would compromise the civil liberties of European citizens, but those governments and politicians don’t seem to mind. It seems that for them, further sneaking citizens’ […]Breaking news: Juncker’s Commission mutant trojan horse is on the loose in Strasbourg
January 14, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday in Strasbourg the Parliament, allegedly, took a decisive stance against GMOs in Europe after so many years of letting the matter linger. Almost all European media came out to congratulate the vote that gives the right to the local governments of the member states to “opt-out” and be able to ban “locally” GMO production […]Can Kiev make face to mounting economic problems and social unrest?
January 5, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The time of truth for the European Union’s strategy on the Ukrainian question finally came. Brussels is about to let the poor country not only be dismembered, but what will be left of it will be pushed into an economic and political inferno. As it happens, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker essentially ‘ordered’ Kiev to “bring […]The British “nonsense”, the relaxed Commissioner and the TTIP “chiaroscuro” at this week’s Council
December 19, 2014 by Leave a Comment
“The EU and the US should make all efforts to conclude negotiations on an ambitious, comprehensive and mutually beneficial TTIP by the end of 2015”, was the first conclusion of the first day of the 18-19 December EU Council. That our EU leaders are in an unprecedented rush to conclude the “notorious” trade deal with the […]Is a full course lunch, a new Commissioner and 2 million anti-TTIP citizens what you would call a “Fresh Start”?
December 10, 2014 by Leave a Comment
It was last Monday that Mrs Cecilia Malmstrom, the newly appointed EU Commissioner for Trade, paid a visit to Washington to meet “our American friends”, as she calls them. That is to say, “Mike“, Mr Michael Froman, US Trade Commissioner and his team. To her surprise “our American friends” provided her with a full course lunch rather than […]The financial war touches Frankfurt and Berlin
December 8, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Early next year the world is going to watch the culmination of the battle between Mario Draghi the President of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main and Wolfgang Schäuble, the powerful German Minister of Finance based in Berlin. In this affair Draghi represents the will of the advanced world financial markets, including the […]How much more political is the new EU leadership? Does this include personal bend?
December 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Judging from their first days in office, the new leadership of the European Union appears functioning on a much more ‘political’ platform than their Barroso-Rompuy predecessors. Actually Jean-Claude Juncker the one month old President of the European Commission had cautioned us all about that in his inaugural speech. Nevertheless, nobody had thought that Donald Tusk, […]Iran nuclear talks’ deadline extended: the match is still open for many
November 25, 2014 by Leave a Comment
One year and one day has passed since the Joint Plan of Action (JPA) was forged in Geneva, on November 24 2013, between Iran and the P5+1 Countries. The interim agreement went into effect on January 2014, and its first extension deadline was set to 24 November 2014, the date that was originally seen as […]UK’s Cameron takes the field to speed up TTIP talks. Will “rocket boosters” work?
November 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment
In the last few months negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) seemed to have slowed down significantly. TTIP talks have never been too lively but it looks like the growing critics and the loud protests of late summer and early autumn made the whole process reach a sort of deadlock. The huge interests, […]The West definitively cuts Russia off from the developed world
November 17, 2014 by 1 Comment
Last weekend’s G20 Summit in Brisbane Australia in a direct way ineradicably mapped the abyss now dividing the West from Russia. American and European leaders including Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and David Cameron threatened Russia with more sanctions, meant to completely cut her off from western markets and besiege her economy, if Moscow doesn’t stop […]
