Last Monday, the very important China-EU Leaders’ Meeting took place through videoconference due to the COVID-19 pandemic, between China’s President Xi, the President of the EU Council Michel and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. There is no doubt that after the wide criticism regarding the EU’s mistakes during June’s China-EU […]
“China needs to convince the EU that it is worth having an investment agreement” but not the EU to convince China? China-EU Leaders’ Meeting 2020 calls for mutual “transparency, reciprocity and respect”
People talk less now than during the Cold War, says Merkel at Davos
This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Briony Harris, Senior Writer, Formative Content Angela Merkel talked about climate change, Germany’s plan to ditch coal and the breakdown in communication at Davos. “We intend by 2030 to have 65% generated by renewables,” she said. Germany’s Chancellor […]
Brexit: Six more months of political paralysis or a May-Corbyn compromise?
Last Thursday in Brussels the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May felt it was necessary to tell the 27 EU leaders, who had gathered there to meet her, that “Britain is a serious country”. Until some months ago such an observation from a British PM would have been unimaginable. Until very recently nobody […]
Ukraine’s Poroshenko implicates NATO in his duel with Putin
Ukraine, once the breadbasket of central Europe and now the miserable wartorn offspring of the breakup of the ex USSR, keeps confirming her reputation for being a deeply divided country and society. The current governing oligarchy under President Petro Poroshenko supported by the West, having succeeded under obscure conditions the Moscow controlled administration of Viktor […]
The German automotive industry under the Trump spell
Last week, the White House invited, or better summoned, the leaders of the German automotive industry to Washington D.C., in order to confer on the ‘problem’ of the missive imports of German cars in the US. The American President Donald Trump, in his belligerent line aggressively reshaping the American foreign trade policy with China and […]
France, Germany challenge Trump’s America on Iran and the reign of the dollar
Last week, the French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged the US President Trump by deciding to create a real European army. This week, the two European leaders said they are seriously working on the project to build a financial/trade-clearing mechanism, meant to override the American sanctions against Iran. In both […]
German egotistic inward turn to badly hurt Europe after Merkel’s exit
Angela Merkel’s era in Germany definitely comes to an end. It coincides, not necessarily in a causal manner, with the extreme right and xenophobic rising tendencies in the country’s political and social structures. These developments will put not only Germany to a political limbo but they will also freeze the progress of the European Union […]
Populist Eurosceptics helped by Trumpists seriously threaten the EU edifice
The confrontation between the populist Italian government and the European Union’s leadership has already left a clear trail on the European ground that permits us to project the itinerary of this conflict in the future. The Italian government is an unorthodox coalition of the extreme right wing party Lega, under its rebellious leader Matteo Salvini […]
Window for a Brexit deal: Brussels to think again May’s proposal
This is the first time the British Prime Minister Theresa May can tell mainland Europeans, she can guarantee her Tory conservative Party won’t topple her over her Brexit proposal. The reason is that, last week, she marked a triumph at the annual conference of the governing Party at Birmingham. Obviously, the burning subject of the […]
The new North America trade deal USMCA punishes German cars
The North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is dead. Long live the new United States, Mexico, Canada Agreement (USMCA). The three North American nations will continue trading goods of a value of at least $ 1.2 trillion yearly between them. The US President Donald Trump had termed NAFTA as the worse trade deal his country […]
Who can unlock the stalled Brexit negotiations? UK Premier sticks to her proposal
The Brexit cataclysm comes to its apex. On the one side is Prime Minister Theresa May, and on the other around 50 unrepentant Brexiteer Tory MPs. The sides are about to cross swords within and without Parliament. Reportedly, May could pass her own – not so mild but negotiable in Brussels – version of Brexit […]
Migration crisis update: mutual actions and solidarity needed as anti-migrant policies thrive
An EU summit is taking place today in Salzburg, Austria where the EU leaders will discuss about the immigration crisis in the region and Brexit deal negotiations. The Parliament’s request to the member states regarding Hungary’s breach of the EU founding values is creating turbulences to the unity and solidarity of the Old Continent. The […]
10 Downing street: Another desperate attempt to unite Britain on Brexit
Once more, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, is trying to pool together her deeply divided cabinet and country and formulate a common proposal for a Brexit deal with the EU. In the latest development, the ‘Leave’ campaign ministers and the Bremain group are reported by 10 Downing Street to have agreed on a ‘business […]
EU migration crisis again accentuates lack of unity and solidarity among member states
Almost nothing was achieved between the EU member states at the mini migration summit which was convened in Brussels last Sunday. Despite the German efforts, there was no common ground among EU leaders. The latter was mainly due to the fact that Italy’s new anti-migrant government is against the “first country responsibility” rule which obliges […]
Germany takes cover from Trump in Eurozone and decides to pay for it
Nobody in Germany doubts it any more that Donald Trump’s America is not a friendly country and market any more, or a guarantor of European security, as was the case for the last 70 years after WWII. To ward off any confusion about that, the German ambassador to the US made a clear statement. Peter […]
G7 summit: Trump Vs. G6 leaders on trade and climate change
US President Donald Trump continued yesterday his fierceful critic to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the aftermath of last weekend’s G7 summit which took place in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada with the seven largest advanced economies in the world to discuss about gender equality, women’s empowerment, clean energy, and economic growth that works for […]
At last Germany to negotiate the costs for a really cohesive Eurozone
Finally, Germany blinked. Chancellor Angela Merkel at last decided to clearly respond and, up to a certain degree, uphold French President Emmanuel Macron’s ideas, about reforming the Eurozone, in order not only to save it from unraveling, but, if possibe, to make it more cohesive and stronger. In an interview to last Sunday’s issue of […]
Macron in St. Petersburg didn’t oppose Trump on Iran, in Putin’s presence
Emmanuel Macron, the French President, who has regained the European political initiative for his country, traveled to St. Petersburg, in Russia last Thursday. This was not an official state visit though. Macron just decided to participate in St. Petersburg’s annual International Economic Forum (SPIEF). A high end business delegation accompanied him. Macron met Putin only […]
Is Germany closer to Russia than the West? Nord Stream II and Iran count more
Last Friday, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, rushed to Sochi, the Black Sea seaside Russian resort to meet Vladimir Putin. It was the first visit by a Western leader to meet him at home, after his fourth inauguration on 7 May as President of the vast country, this time for six more years. Looking through […]
Draghi joined Macron in telling Germany how Eurozone must be reformed
Mario Draghi the President of ECB, speaking at the European University Institute in Florence, on 11 May 2018, must have been under the influence of the idealistic aura of this Florentine learning institution. He went as far as proposing political policies, bravely overstepping his role as central banker of Eurozone. Draghi asked for an effective […]
Europe split in confronting the US sanctions on Iran, Washington isolated
Donald Trump, the ‘America First’ President in withdrawing from the Iranian nuclear non-proliferation deal, doesn’t seem to be honoring his lead electoral motto. It seems that he is serving more the interests of Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent of Israel. Riyadh has much at stake in its inimical interaction with Iran. Israel on […]
Macron crowned king of Europe in Washington D.C.; just a working meeting with Trump for Merkel
A rare service Donald Trump is currently doing for the Europeans is that he offers them a platform for important common action to be undertaken by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They are both visiting the White House this week, but expect quite different reception from Trump; pompous state […]
The West cannot ignore Russia; dazed Germany sitting on the fence
After the missile attacks by the Western trio of US, Britain and France against Damascus and other positions in war torn Syria, the Russian overlords and Assad regime in that part of the world, continues pursuing their agenda, as if nothing happened. From a certain angle truly nothing has changed regarding the military and political […]
The missiles fired against Damascus, Syria divided Europe deeply
Last Friday night till the early hours of Saturday morning the US-France-Britain alliance attacked the Assad/Putin regime of Damascus, with a precipitation of missiles. Seemingly though, the hits have had a greater political impact on Europe than in Syria itself. Germany and Italy, the other two major European Union countries with strong interests in the […]
Italian elections: a long political limbo is ahead
The outcome of the Italian general elections of last Sunday was disappointing leaving the country and the European Union in shock. The win of the two anti-establishment parties together with the fact that no single party managed to get the mandate of an overall majority leaves the country in a political uncertainty where a coalition […]