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It was high time that the European Commission tried to arrest the over-exploitation of European consumers by a handful of banks and credit card providers. This week Joaquín Almunia, Commission’s Vice President responsible for competition policy, and Michel Barnier, EU Commissioner in charge of internal market and services presented one draft regulation and one directive amendment, […]
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 […]
Last Saturday the ministers of Finance of the G20 council agreed in Moscow to tackle global tax evasion by adopting a 15-point OECD Action Plan, which supposedly will give governments the domestic and international arms they need to combat tax Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS). The responsible European Commissioner for tax issues Algirdas Šemeta […]
With EU – China bilateral trade volume at more than €1 billion a day and both ways investment flows at around €20bn a year, accusations and complaints over state subsidies, dumping and other trade distorting practices exchanged between the two giant partners seem unimportant. Yet the recent proliferation of the anti-dumping and anti-state-subsidies measures adopted […]
From both sides of the Atlantic Ocean two European Commissioners, Michel Barnier from Washington and Vivian Reding from Heidelberg, while addressing yesterday quite different audiences, sent out converging messages criticising the US. They both expressed novel views vis-à-vis EU–US relations in general, which can be interpreted as hardening of Commission’s position in reference to on-going […]
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, visited the European Union yesterday and was received by its two presidents. The Icelander first went to the Berlaymont, the Commission’s headquarters. There he was rather surprised. It was the first time that Manuel Barroso was so blatant, almost rude, with a visiting PM. Commenting on the […]
The European Commission and more precisely the European Commissioner Michel Barnier fights a battle in two fronts over the financial sector’s future. One internal with Germany on EU banking union and another one external with the US on common rules for banks. Understandably in both fronts he has the full backing of the Commission and […]
At a time when the Mediterranean Sea is not at its most peaceful times the European Commission presented a study which finds that the “establishment of maritime zones, including Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), in the Mediterranean would benefit the EU’s Blue Growth and wider sustainability agendas”. The study is entitled “Costs and benefits arising from […]
It will be increasingly difficult for Germany to repel the creation of a strong and centrally controlled Single Resolution Mechanism for failing banks, the other pillar of the European Banking Union. Yesterday Vítor Constâncio, Vice-President of the European Central Bank expressed his full and unconditional support for the relevant Commission’s proposal. Understandably the first pillar […]
The most valuable asset of Eurozone households, their homes, continue losing large parts of their value in this unending economic crisis, which has brought to knees more than half of euro area countries. It’s a tragic combination. People after losing their jobs watch their homes to lose value every day, and if they have a […]
The institutionalisation of the Single Resolution Mechanism to deal with failing banks, a new tool to complement ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), two cornerstones in building the European Banking Union, cannot be accomplished correctly, if member states were allowed directly or indirectly to support with public money their failing or about to fail banks, in […]
It was not a coincidence that the Governing Council of the European Central Bank suddenly decided unanimously last week to further relax its monetary policy promising more and cheaper loans to all banks, exactly at a time when the US central bank, the Fed, is about to start calling back the trillions of dollars it […]
That the German automotive industry is one of the strongest in the world is not news. Most Europeans are rather content in the idea that Europe is well represented in the fierce global automotive arena, not because we are or will ever be shareholders of Mercedes or Volkswagen, but rather because when we see an […]
If what the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said yesterday to EU’s legislators is read together with the inspired speech the European Commissioner Michel Barnier, delivered in Rome’s Palazzo Farnese (the French embassy in Italy), then the conclusion is that the European Union cannot be a source of problems as the extremists […]
Goldman Sachs, the US financial giant, may be right in predicting more expensive euro parities with the American dollar around 1.37 within six months, largely higher than the current levels of 1.28-1.30. The European Sting has been pointing for a long time to Eurozone’s foreign account surpluses and the standard inflows of investments into the […]
If the plane of a European Union head of state or government, while passing over a Latin American country, had been forced to land by the country’s military and civil authorities, and then searched for 15 hours, say by the Bolivian police and secret agencies, the entire EU political establishment would have climbed at the […]
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 […]
The rare and openly confirmed unanimity of European Central Bank’s Governing Council that interest rates should remain at their present or even lower levels for a long time, didn’t only gave a cause for celebrations in all European bourses, but it also induced some analysts to comment that Eurozone’s recession may be more persistent than […]
The European Parliament yesterday gave its final go ahead for the introduction of the Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) to be applied in the 11 Eurozone member states, which had initially accepted this Commission proposal. The European Parliament has a consultative role on tax matters. Consequently now it’s up to the 11 participating countries in this […]
In a long-awaited decision, Joaquín Almunia, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for Competition Policy, accused thirteen western giant investment banking groups and two support bodies that those banks created a trust, setting prices in the over the counter trade of Credit Default Swaps and Derivatives, a multi trillion business. The Commission’s investigation covers […]
It took a new wave of publications by major European media (Der Spiegel, Guardian) about the bugging of EU’s and EU member states’ offices in the US by the American secret services, to wake up the European Union leaders. Yesterday all three European Union presidents and at least two Commission vice presidents issued statements asking […]
Last Friday 28 June the Commission welcomed the selection of route for the Azeri natural gas flow to Europe that the Caspian country’s producers made on that same day. Of course it is the ‘Southern Corridor’ through Greece and Albania and under the Adriatic Sea to Italy, then to many EU countries. It’s the Trans […]
Yesterday the European Sting observed that the European Council of 27-28 June had no purpose. The truth is that the two crucial issues which haunted all the EU institutions for months were solved elsewhere. Firstly, the agreement on the draft directive for bank resolution and recovery was struck at the Ecofin council during the first […]
With major breakthroughs in two key policy areas, the European Banking Union and the EU budgets for the period 2014-2020 materialising in the early hours of Thursday 27 June, the 27-28 June Summit of the 27+1 EU leaders couldn’t offer anything more. It degraded into a procedural affair. In relation with those breakthroughs the European […]
The much-advertised agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on EU’s proper budgets for the next seven years seems to be more like wishful thinking rather than reality. Some days ago the Irish Presidency of the European Council issued a Press release saying that the EU Parliament agreed on the overall spending […]
Azeri officials are visiting Athens today to announce their choice of the ‘Greek corridor’ for the flow of their natural gas towards the central European Union countries, to reach them after crossing also the Adriatic Sea in a deep water pipeline to Italy. Let’s folow the facts. Very early last Monday morning the European Sting […]
As the European Sting informed its readers last Saturday, the Banking Union divided deeply the entire European Union. For the first time the Ecofin Council, in a Press release issued after its meeting, made no reference at all to the most vehemently discussed item in its agenda that is the “Rules for Bank Recovery and […]
Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan was in Brussels on Friday 21 June for a good reason. The giant state oil and gas company of his country, Socar, has reportedly agreed with the Greek authorities to acquire the National Natural Gas System Operator (DESFA) S.A. of Greece, owner and operator of the country’s natural gas […]
As the European Sting predicted the ‘Friday battle at Ecofin’ Council was not about the specific country recommendations of the Commission, or about the seven-year extension of the loans to Portugal and Ireland, nor on the direct bank recapitalisation instrument. It was the very issue of the creation of the Banking Union and its core […]
The withdrawal yesterday night of the junior partner, the DHMAR (Democratic Left) political party from the Greek tripartite government coalition poses again the effectiveness problem of the overall economic strategy Eurozone applies to counter its sovereign debt sustainability problem and exit a two years old recession. The obstacles are political, social and also of economic […]
The crucial character of this Friday’s Ecofin Council can be seen in the size of the Commission’s preparative memo. More than 3,000 words were needed for it. The text of yesterday’s Press release contains everything, from the specific economic policy recommendations to countries with excessive deficits, the entry of Croatia, the €10 billion capital increase […]
During the past few weeks there is a noticeable change of climate in Brussels towards a more relaxed attitude over economic policies. On Monday the President of Eurogroup and minister for Finance of Holland, Jeroen Dijsselbloem asked in a letter his 16 colleagues in view of their Luxembourg meeting, to reduce the sovereign debt […]
The creation of a real European Banking Union, built to serve all Eurozone member states on equal terms found yesterday a new strong supporter. Yves Mersch, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and former Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg speaking yesterday at the UniCredit Business Dialogue in Hamburg, […]
