The European Sting is Your democratic, independent and top quality political newspaper specialized in European Union News. Unique Features: iSting & Harry Sting
The worsening of social conditions for the poorer part of the population, in the years of the still ongoing financial and real economy crisis, is an easily predictable development. However it is a revelation and a pity to observe the difference of the degree and the way recession badly affects some, and at the same […]
What happened in Cyprus was neither improvised nor exceptional. Peoples’ bank deposits above the secured benchmark of €100.000 were confiscated according to a very important proposal for a Directive which was forwarded from the Commission to the European Council and the European Parliament last June under the name of “Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE […]
The Eurogroup, the crucial European decision-making body, regrouping the 17 EU ministers of Finance of the countries using the euro, which has led the south of Europe to the worst economic recession after WWII and introduced the haircut on bank deposits, the until this week most secure financial asset, is an informal forum, who’s decisions […]
Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl’s uninsured depositors, with account balances above the €100,000 benchmark, will suffer an almost total loss of their money. The haircut agreed between the Cypriot government and the Eurogroup may reach 80%, while the rest 20% will be returned after the liquidation of CPB’s assets, a procedure that may take years and […]
In the fourth year of the ongoing financial and real economy crisis in Europe, the deterioration of the employment and social situation was an easily predictable prospect. However the increasing pace of this worsening and the widening divergence between member states, as monitored by the EU Employment and Social Situation Quarterly Review for March 2013, […]
The two Presidents of the EU, José Manuel Barroso of the Commission and Herman Van Rompuy of the Council couldn’t fly yesterday to Tokyo for the EU-Japan Summit, due to the ongoing developments around the Cyprus issue. This was not enough however to impede the beginning of negotiations for the conclusion of a Free Trade […]
Amidst the Cyprus banking crisis there was no room in the first page of mainstream media, to analyse and comment on the decision of the Spanish government to impose a haircut (tax), albeit small, on the country’s bank deposits to the tune of €3 to every thousand. In the face of it, the Madrid exchequer […]
The two main advisory bodies of the European Union, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and the Committee of the Regions (CoR) expressed their anguish over the growing distance between Brussels and the Peoples of Europe. Last Thursday on the occasion of the plenary session of the EESC, its President Staffan Nielson invited Ramon […]
The latest and most important rhapsody in the Cyprus tragedy was performed yesterday morning by the twenty-three members of the European Central Bank’s governing council. The text issued by them was very brief and went like this: “The Governing Council of the European Central Bank decided to maintain the current level of Emergency Liquidity Assistance […]
One after the other Eurozone’s major players draw their red lines towards Cyprus, after the country’s Parliament rejected unanimously the agreement struck between the Nicosia government and the Eurogroup in the early hours of Saturday morning 16 March. The agreement was supposed to provide the Cypriot authorities with €5.8 billion from a haircut of 6.75% […]
Not one Cypriot Parliamentarian voted yes for the draft bill proposal, providing for a haircut on all deposits in Cypriot banks. As a result the island’s financial system will remain shut down until Thursday, in the hope that a solution to the stalemate will be found. It was quite a spectacle to see all the […]
It seems that, some only theoretically serious decision-making political bodies, like the Eurogroup, collectively believe they can play with a haircut on bank deposits, as if it was a trivial matter. Unfortunately there is no other explanation. Institutions like the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and of course the German […]
Eurogroup’s decision to impose a haircut on all bank accounts held in Cypriot banks, even on balances bellow the until today “theoretically” guaranteed benchmark of €100,000, may become a boomerang for the entire Eurozone and will certainly set the island once more on fire. Who is to say that this will not have a devastating […]
As it was expected, Eurostat proved to be right in its last week’s estimate that February yearly inflation was less than 2% on the average in the 17 member states Eurozone. As a matter of fact yesterday’s announcement of the EU’s statistical service revealed that February inflation was 1.8%. Inflation rates diverged wildly between the […]
The “Spring Summit” of the 27 EU leaders on 14-15 March unfolding currently amidst the Brussels winter scenery, will be forced to challenge the presently followed economic policy orientation of austerity, under the pressure of major developments. Obviously the Italian elections results and the ensuing political stalemate, set a new background for every political economy exercise […]
Last Tuesday 12 March, when the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, was addressing an invitation letter to the 27 EU leaders for the spring EU Summit of today and tomorrow, he couldn’t know the alarming outcome of European Parliament vote on the austerity EU Budget.This draft Budget features a deficit for the […]
European Commissioner Ollie Rehn, of Finnish origin (not finished, at least not yet), who has become the EU’s champion of austerity, will find it increasingly difficult to defend his Castle of Miser over the coming months. Yesterday, speaking in an interview to a daily newspaper of his country (on demand?), he playfully unleashed thunders against […]
Last Friday the Fitch rating agency downgraded Italy’s long term creditworthiness to “BBB+” from “A-“, with negative outlook. The American firm did that with a delay of many days after the Italian elections, citing as reason the unconventional results of the vote. It is important to note however that capital markets themselves, after the initial […]
Inflation in Eurozone is steadily following a downward path for months now, having already reached levels below the ECB benchmark of 2%, being estimated by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, at 1.8% in February. At the same time, the euro area is bound to be announced in technical recession by 31 March, for having recorded […]
After the minimal or zero success that the Small Business Act (SBA) of 2008 had recorded during the past four years, in failing to ease the life of Small and Medium Enterprises, the European Commission launched yesterday another similar initiative. This time the “Commission wants to simplify life for SMEs by easing the top 10 […]
It was the last day of February when the European Commission decided to organize a pompous event to test the “amazing” performance of a new electric race car in the Formula 1 Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Its name is Volar-e and I am sure Antonio Tajani, the Commissioner responsible for Industry and Entrepreneurship that […]
Yesterday, Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed with its usual second estimate that Eurozone’s economy contracted by 0.6% during the last quarter of 2012. This is not at all a small figure. Given that the Gross Domestic Product in the 17 euro area of 17 countries is close to €10 trillion annually, a 0.6% loss […]
Yesterday in the Ecofin Council in Brussels, a handful of politicians from EU’s member states, away from their constituencies, left to be ‘guided’ by the European Commission in mortgaging to the EU’ bureaucracy their counties’ financial sovereignty, by approving the “two pack” directives. On the same occasion they created the clan of the ‘undead’ banks […]
Next Thursday 7 February the Governing Council of the European Central Bank will gather in Frankfurt in its regular monthly meeting, to discuss monetary policies and take the relevant decisions. Presumably there will be no change of ECB’s main interest rate, which is pegged at 0.75% as from 11 July 2012. Nor any other major […]
A banker, member of the European Central Bank’s executive board, in the brief time of half an hour, during which he delivered a speech on Saturday 2 March, in the context of the European Conference at Harvard, wanted not only to ‘correct’ the Europe’s social contract but also to demolish John Maynard Keynes’s contribution to […]
Slowly, but surely, unemployment in Eurozone keeps rising, posing growing pressures on economic policy planners all over the European Union. The problem has taken devastating dimensions in Eurozone countries applying the EU-ECB-IMF financial rehabilitation programmes (Greece, Portugal and Ireland), or self-imposed austerity measures as in Spain and Italy. More particularly in Greece, Spain, Portugal and […]
The public outcry against bankers at last produced some tangible results in Brussels. According to a ground-breaking agreement struck between the European Parliament and the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union, bankers’ bonuses are capped at the double of their annual salaries. Secondly the capital requirements of the banks are increased to […]
The Italian political stalemate which threatens the financial stability of this country and risks to shake the Eurozone through the contagion effect, has not prompted Germany to relax its tough position vis-à-vis the euro area debt crisis and the severe austerity measures favoured by Berlin. As a matter of fact, Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German minister […]
The large size of the Italian sovereign debt, in the region of €2 trillion and its refinancing torments now the minds of all Eurozone political leaders. The same is true for capital market investors, who showed a remarkable cold-blooded attitude yesterday, after it was certain that no single political party can formulate a viable government […]
The results of the Italian election reminded everybody that Europe has never been a plain political field and, no matter how hard Brussels and Berlin planners are trying to impose solutions of the Mario Monti type, voters are determined to have it their own way. Italian voters by their last weekend’s choices put again the […]
Dr Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Federal Minister of Finance insisted yesterday that Cyprus is not a “systemic” member country of Eurozone. Given that Schäuble expresses authentically and exclusively the paymaster Eurozone and all country bailout programme in the euro area, the plan to save Cyprus from the blunders of its own banks, will be quite […]
Last week, Ollie Rehn, the EU Commissioner responsible for the Economy, while presenting his “winter forecast 2012-14” for the Union, appeared not to bother with the prospects of the rising unemployment and the collapsing prospects for the young. Otherwise it cannot be explained why he said that, “The ongoing rebalancing of the European economy is […]
The theoretically most competitive of all EU markets, namely the large food retailing business, is accused by its suppliers, regrouped in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) of operating a real oligopoly. Despite this very important development, which poses an issue with ground-breaking repercussions on the way our ‘free competition’ economies operate, the European […]
