Eurostat, the EU statistical service, released yesterday some mixed data on Eurozone economic prospects. For one thing, euro area (EA17) unemployment rate was reported at 12.1% in November 2013, stubbornly stable at this high level since last April. The EU28 unemployment rate was 10.9%, stable since last May. However, retail sales marked a good upturn […]Search Results for: Poland
Eurozone: A Sluggish economy offers no extra jobs
January 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, released yesterday some mixed data on Eurozone economic prospects. For one thing, euro area (EA17) unemployment rate was reported at 12.1% in November 2013, stubbornly stable at this high level since last April. The EU28 unemployment rate was 10.9%, stable since last May. However, retail sales marked a good upturn […]‘Habitual residence’ rules deprive EU workers from social benefits
January 14, 2014 by 1 Comment
With a timely move the European Commission published yesterday a guide on the application of the ‘Habitual Residence Test’, in this way permanently blocking what has been termed as social ‘benefit tourism’. By the same token, the Commission also erased the rightful expectation of people who are employed as ‘posted workers’ in another EU member […]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 […]Job vacancy data reveal better prospects for Britain, stagnation in Eurozone
September 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Job vacancy statistics is not a widely used analytical tool despite the fact that is follows more accurately a number of vital social and economic variables, like the robustness of growth or the steepness of fall of economic activity. They are also indicative of the structural effectiveness of labour market workings, of the efficacy of […]Eurozone: Uncertain future with unemployment ravaging the South
October 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Unemployment in Eurozone remained unchanged last August at 12% in relation to July, when it had slightly receded, compared with the 12.1% in June. This marginal reduction of unemployment in July was hailed as an indication that Eurozone is about to abandon its long term recession, an estimate also based on a marginal increase of […]EU regional differences betray an unjust arrangement
October 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Predictably, regional statistics on employment, incomes and the risk of poverty could mirror in a more accurate way, how the economic crisis has affected the more deprived and the moret affluent regions of the European Union. National averages can serve well the comparative analysis between EU’s member states. Regional data however would go deeper in […]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 […]Forget about growth without a level playing field for all SMEs
November 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Less than 24 hours after a widely advertised Press conference held by Barroso, Rehn and Andor, where all of them were talking about “strengthening the recovery”, recovery in Eurozone was reported as fading away, being one decimal point away from total freezing that is zero, or numerical death. It is as if reality wanted to […]The Commission tells Berlin it is legally obliged to help Eurozone out of stagnation
November 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The time has come and the European Commission gave to Germany in writing, what has been so far aired orally. In this respect, Brussels tells Berlin that it is legally obliged to abandon its egotistic austere and protective policies and help itself and the entire Eurozone enter again in a sustainable growth path. Let’s take […]Who is culpable in the EU for Ukraine’s defection to Russia?
December 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The 350,000 to 500,000 people who protested yesterday, even violently at times, in the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, belonged, theoretically, to the three opposition parties, which had organised the rally. Unquestionably however, all Ukrainians believe that President Viktor Yanukovich – who decided at the last minute to turn down an Association Agreement with […]EU security and defence industry prepares positions for ‘producers’ and ‘customers’
December 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The fast track sovereignty concession in the sphere of the economy, that the European Union and more so the Eurozone has recently scheduled for the coming years, with the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, was yesterday mirrored in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. The EU leaders who met in Brussels yesterday for […]While EU Open Days 2013 discuss the 2020 strategy, Microsoft shares a glimpse of EU 2060
October 15, 2013 by 1 Comment
As we move towards the middle of October, the most important annual events in Brussels start taking place one after the other. Last week it was the turn of the 11th European Week of Regions and Cities under the annual open dialogue forum series called Open Days 2013. The event offered the opportunity to EU […]The miserables and the untouchables of the economic crisis
April 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Facts and prejudices about work
April 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Union and more so the Eurozone countries change fast into service sector economies, increasingly favouring the transfer of the heavy production burden of industry and agriculture to the developing economies. This is not necessarily a negative development given that labour in services is generally less demanding, at least physically, and it is rather […]Poverty and social exclusion skyrocket with austerity
May 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Proportion of the population at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion, 2011 Social exclusion and poverty has been a constant danger for a very large part of our modern western societies. It is understandable that while the economies grow this danger recedes and the opposite is true in recession. To measure however the danger of social exclusion and […]EU Commission accuses Germany of obstructing growth and the banking union
May 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission at the Semester Press Conference in Brussels yesterday confirmed in the most official way, what was already known. Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal, are getting an extension of the deadline to correct their fiscal deficits by one year and France, Poland, Slovenia and Spain by two years. This Semester conference comes in […]Europe rethinking its severe austerity policies
June 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]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 […]Azerbaijan chooses Greek corridor for its natural gas flow to EU
June 26, 2013 by 1 Comment
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 […]Trade surplus up production down in Eurozone
January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Despite the apparent slow-down of the world economy and the drop of external demand for Eurozone products the first estimates by Eurostat, the EU statistical service, show a hefty trade surplus of €13.7 billion for the 17 countries single money zone in November 2012. Not all news however was positive for Eurozone in November. Industrial […]The EU patent space and Unified Court are born
February 20, 2013 by 1 Comment
Yesterday, during the Council of the European Union meeting, twenty-two member states opened a new page in the history book of the EU, by signing the international agreement for establishing a Unified Patent Court (UPC). Once the agreement enters into force, the signatory countries will form a unified area in terms of patent law. Since […]Commission’s spending totally uncontrolled
March 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A few weeks ago the European Court of Auditors established that the money spent on EU projects to enhance energy efficiency (€5 billion since 2000) did not achieve targets. More recently, the CoA also found that “The effectiveness of EU funding for municipal waste management (€10.8bn in the period 2000-2006) infrastructures was limited, due to […]The EU Diplomacy in North Korea promotes peace or war?
April 8, 2013 by 2 Comments
It was last Friday that the seven EU embassies located in Pyongyang received a formal warning by the North Korean regime to evacuate the premises and leave the country as soon as possible. As it was explicitly stated by the world’s most obscure totalitarian regime, the local authorities could not guarantee their safety after the […]EU summit: Are the London Tories planning an exit from the EU?
November 23, 2012 by 1 Comment
It’s not the first time that the European Union leaders are divided between the paymasters and the receivers. However during their last Summit of Thursday and Friday 22 and 23 November the 27 heads of states and governments were divided in more than three groups and left the conference room blaming each other, for the […]eGovernmnet for more efficiency, equality and democracy
November 20, 2012 by 1 Comment
At the fifth Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Malmö, (Sweden) the 27 EU ministers, responsible for administrative affairs, outlined a joint vision and policy priorities on how to developing smarter online public services for citizens and businesses by 2015. The EU Commission hailed this agreement and commented that eGovernment is a key step towards boosting Europe’s […]Britain in and out of the EU
January 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
On the agenda of the Economic and Finance Ministers Council, the Ecofin, which is to take place in Brussels tomorrow there are two ground-breaking items. First on it is the Single Supervision Mechanism (SSM) for the EU banking industry, meant to audit and supervise over the 200 “systemic” banks of the Eurozone, under the guidance […]The EU Commission to fight unemployment tsunami with a…scoreboard
January 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday László Andor, European Commissioner responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion delivered a speech to an ETUC (European Trade Union Confederation) conference on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the organisation. The speech was entitled, “Europeans want and deserve a monetary union with a human face”. This is a decent description of […]EU crisis aggravates structural differences, threatens cohesion
February 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
According to a Eurostat analysis of EU27’s household final consumption expenditure, the Baltic countries and Greece are still suffering most from the economic and financial crisis. The two authors of the report, Christine Gerstberger and Daniela Yaneva, stress that consumption is a key indicator of citizens’ well-being, with housing, energy, transport and food accounting for […]
