Past the German elections, the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, must have left free to take some steps forward in his quest for the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, and promote the defragmentation of Eurozone’s financial markets. Speaking yesterday in a hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of […]Draghi: A bridge from Brussels to Berlin
September 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Past the German elections, the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, must have left free to take some steps forward in his quest for the accomplishment of the European Banking Union, and promote the defragmentation of Eurozone’s financial markets. Speaking yesterday in a hearing at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of […]Landmark EU Parliament – ECB agreement on bank supervision
September 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In a ground breaking development opening the way to the European Banking Union, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank undersigned the draft text of an Interinstitutional Agreement providing for the exact procedures related to the enactment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism. The legislative had reserves about the transparency and accountability of the SSM […]Convincing the Germans to pay also for the unification of Eurozone
August 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
What Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said about the uncertainties that an eventual new hair-cut of the Greek state debt may trigger doesn’t exclude this possibility. She stressed that it may set off a “domino effect of uncertainty” and scare off possible investors. But the country has already performed a voluntary hair-cut on the privately […]Summer pause gives time to rethink Eurozone’s problems
July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Commission to decide on bank resolution issues
July 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are planning to challenge once more the supremacy of Germany in the Ecofin Council and bring back the issue of the single bank resolution authority. The clash over the character of this cornerstone building-block of the European Banking Union is some weeks old […]Eurogroup: IMF proposes Germany disposes
July 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In yesterday’s Eurogroup, Eurozone’s policy setting council, the 17 ministers of Finance had two important items on their agenda; IMF’s recommendations for the European economy under Article IV Consultation with the Euro Area, and the approval of the next loan trance to Greece. On both accounts the opinion of Germany weighed a lot. In this […]At last a solid base for the European Banking Union
June 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Ecofin Council, regrouping the 27 EU ministers of Finance, struck an agreement at 2.00 o’clock this morning over the much debated ‘bank resolution and recovery’ draft directive. As it usually happens in the European Union the final agreement between member states on crucial issues does not go all the way through, but still offers […]The next 48 hours may change the European Union
June 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A careful reading of the invitation letter the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, addressed yesterday to the 27 EU leaders for their 27 and 28 June 2013 meeting in Brussels reveals a lot about the European Monetary Union. This letter should be read in parallel with the announcement for today’s continuation of […]Is the European Banking Union an impossible task?
June 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]The Banking Union divides deeply the European Union
June 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 strong version of the EU banking union gains momentum
June 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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, […]EU Commission challenges Berlin by proposing breakthrough legislation on banks
June 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In an inspired speech last Friday, in Helsinki the European Commissioner Michel Barnier, speaking at the 4th Annual Economic Forum, made crystal clear that the Commission has not abandoned the target of a strong and effective European Banking Union. He stressed that “We cannot have a genuine Economic and Monetary Union without a Banking Union”. […]Has Germany rebuffed ECB on the banking union?
June 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The leadership of the European Central Bank took yesterday a step back from its strong presence in the public discussion over the depth and the strength of the under construction European Banking Union (EBU) and more precisely the single bank resolution authority. Both its President and Vice President Mario Draghi and Vítor Constâncio had very […]Commission: New proposal for centrally managed bank resolution
June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission is about to honour once more its title as ‘Guardian of the Treaties’. This fundamental Commission’s mandate obliges the EU’s executive to always promote more rather than less Union. In this respect after the French President Francois Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in Paris last week, to support a […]Germany’s fiscal and financial self-destructive policies
June 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
IMF Mission’s “Concluding Statement” (Article IV Consultation) on the German economy which was published yesterday, contains almost the same basic recommendations as the European Commission’s assessment aired at the Semester Press Conference in Brussels on 29 May. Both reports had references to Germany’s over stretched fiscal consolidation (meaning unneeded austerity) and the need to increase […]Economic recovery won’t tackle youth unemployment problem
June 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurozone unemployment rate rose by one decimal point in April reaching 12.2%, from 12.1% in March. This development does not constitute a strong indication that recession in euro area is getting worse. For one thing the rise of the rate of people without a job is very slight and falls in the margin of the […]Paris agreed with Berlin over a loose and ineffective banking union
May 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Safeguarding the basics of the Franco-German unity, which functions as the powerhouse of the European Union, had another victim. The French President Francois Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed yesterday in Paris to undermine the effectiveness of the European Banking Union. Instead of a strong central and financially independent bank resolution authority in […]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 […]When is Berlin telling the truth about the EU banking union?
May 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In a rare but not quite unexpected move, the German Federal Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble has reportedly wrote a letter to his colleague, the Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler, proposing that their two ministries cooperate in supporting the Eurozone countries under distress. To do this, he tells his government fellow, they should use […]German heavy artillery against Brussels and Paris
May 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In Eurozone the confrontation between ‘austerity lovers’ and ‘relaxationists’ presented a new and course changing sequel last week, with German heavy artillery fire towards Brussels and Paris. The German Federal Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, accused the Brussels Commission and personally the President Manuel Barroso for delaying the realisation of EU programmes to fight youth […]The G7 fails to agree on growth but protects the big banks
May 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Once more the world got together in the G7 group of the industrialised nations and asked Germany to spend more in order to help the rest of the Eurozone and the globe start growing again. The last time was in Washington during the Spring Conference of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, where […]A new arrangement between Eurozone’s haves and have-nots
May 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The next European Council which is to take place in Brussels on Wednesday 22 May will be pivotal for the European Monetary Union (EMU), that is the Eurozone. Despite the fact that according to high-ranking Council officials there won’t be any decision on the EMU this month, there is evidence that the 17 Eurozone leaders […]Draghi, Letta: All Eurozone countries must be able to borrow like Germany
May 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The reduction of European Central Bank’s basic rate from 0.75% to 0.5 % was the less important news from Bratislava, Slovakia, yesterday where the governor of the central bank, Mario Draghi, presented the decisions of the bank’s Governing Council and answered questions from journalists. Not even the possibility of a new interest rate cut soon […]Italy solves the enigma of growth with fiscal consolidation: The Banking Union
May 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The new Italian Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, after his government got full approval from the country’s legislators in two days and two trips to Berlin and Paris, managed to confirm the reputation of Rome as the catalyst of historic European developments. The Treaty of the European Union was signed in the eternal city. In less […]Germany and France only care about keeping their borrowing cheap
April 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The two days of unofficial meetings of the Ecofin and the Eurogroup councils staged in the historic scenery of the Dublin Castle completely missed their targets. For one thing today’s main story, by Suzan A. Kane, on the European Sting proves that the much-advertised target to arrest the €1 trillion tax evasion in the EU […]EU Summit consumed by the banks
March 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Spring European Council made yesterday a timid step towards the introduction of more social content in the austerity programmes currently applied in the EU and a giant leap forward in constituting the EU banking union. The relevance and the practical implications of the texts on each one of those two issues included in the final […]Draghi sees inflationary bubbles
February 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The governor of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, speaking yesterday in the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, in an unexpectedly strong statement said that the euro area is still open to “potential inflationary bubbles”. He then added that “the possible effects of Euro exchange rates on inflation must be monitored […]The new European Union of banks is ready
January 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, speaking in a farewell ceremony to honour the Cypriot Presidency of the European Union during the second half of 2012, made clear that the Commission has made the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the EU banks as its utmost priority and will […]
