Last Wednesday the European Commission presented a ground-breaking communication for a “European Industrial Renaissance”. With it, the EU’s executive arm “is urging Member States to recognise the central importance of industry for creating jobs and growth and to mainstream industry-related competitiveness concerns across all policy areas”. The truth is, however, that industry doesn’t play the […]Commission launches ‘Industrial Renaissance’ initiative
January 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Last Wednesday the European Commission presented a ground-breaking communication for a “European Industrial Renaissance”. With it, the EU’s executive arm “is urging Member States to recognise the central importance of industry for creating jobs and growth and to mainstream industry-related competitiveness concerns across all policy areas”. The truth is, however, that industry doesn’t play the […]Commission sets moderate greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030
January 23, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the European Commission took the middle, not ambitious path, on the burning issue of climate protection. It chose to propose rather conservative targets for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and energy production from renewable resources, easy to achieve and not demanding extra efforts in the investments front. To this effect, early yesterday, José Manuel […]Commission: Raising the social issues that can make or break the monetary union
January 22, 2014 by 1 Comment
For the first time the European Commission recognises that the severe austerity measures enforced in the crisis hit Eurozone countries in the south of Europe, in Ireland and elsewhere, have undermined not only the well-being and the level of social protection there, but undercut also the very ability of those member states to regain non-cost […]Income inequality threatens the socio-political structures in developed countries
January 21, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of IMF, is not renowned for her social concerns and sensitivities. Yet, while speaking last week at the National Press Club, in Washington DC, about “The Global Economy in 2014”, among other important policy proposals for the world to exit the era of the “seven weak years”, she didn’t forget to […]Is it impossible to place the banks under control?
January 18, 2014 by 1 Comment
Within the next few weeks the European Commission is expected to announce a proposal for a structural reform in the banking sector. The declared target is to make sure “that banks do not remain or become too-big, too-complex or too-interconnected to fail”. In announcing its intentions on this grandiose plan, the EU’s executive arm states […]EFSF/ESM boss tells half truths about Troika’s doings
January 16, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Klaus Regling, the Chief Executive Officer of the European Financial Stability Facility and Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism, went to the European Parliament and was questioned by MEPs, about the anti-crisis role and operations of the ‘Troika’, a construction made up by the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International […]Europe bewildered by radicalisation and terrorism
January 15, 2014 by 3 Comments
Today the Commission will present a Communication entitled “Strengthening the EU’s response to radicalisation and violent extremism”. Despite the fact that the relevant Press release announcing the news stresses that “Traditional law enforcement techniques are insufficient to deal with the evolving trends in radicalisation”, the whole affair is dealt with rather as a police and […]The European Parliament x-rays the troika’s doings
January 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Parliament launched an investigation on the functioning and the legitimisation of the troika, made up by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The three institutions between them undertook to bail out, guide and audit the economies of four Eurozone member states which reached a point of no […]‘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 […]Facilitating the access to finance and risk capital for SMEs and midcaps
January 13, 2014 by Leave a Comment
As they say better late than never. The EU Commission decided to relax the rules regulating the granting of state aid to SMEs and midcaps. This initiative relates to easing the terms of high risk equity financing of companies with perceived high-growth potential during their early growth stages. In normal financial circumstances high risk capital […]No better year for the EU’s weak chain links
January 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Parliament issued a Press release this week with the ambitious target to inform us all about what is bound to change in our lives this year, resulting from the application of EU laws. It mentions the mercury ban in thermometers and some new rules in recycling of electrical and electronic equipment, the legislation […]2014 will bring more European Union for the big guys and less for the weak
December 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
During 2014 Europeans will be confronted with at least two major developments. Firstly, the completion of the political control of the EU financial market will materialize during the next year, after the adoption, before March 2014, of the Resolution Board a body like the EU council, which will decide which banks will fail. A second […]German and French bankers looted the Irish and Spanish unemployed
December 30, 2013 by 1 Comment
According to a Commission‘s new ‘on-line state aid to banks benchmarking tool’ published on 20 December, between October 2008 and December 2012 the EU member states provided €591.9 billion (4.6 % of EU 2012 GDP) of capital support (recapitalisation and asset relief measures) to the financial sector (banks). It was not only that. The same […]More state aid to big firms, no special provisions for the SMEs
December 27, 2013 by 1 Comment
Rules for state aid covering research, development and innovation investments (R&D&I) are already relaxed in the European Union, in order to facilitate growth and job creation. Mind you that in this case the bending of competition rules is not confined to very small businesses, the SMEs and mid cups, but covers the entire constellation of […]EU leads the torn away South Sudan to a new bloody civil war
December 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It’s the definition of the utmost hypocrisy that the European Union now laments the woes of ordinary people caught in the civil war that plagues South Sudan as from last week. Many years ago, Brussels as an agent of a number of European governments, ‘invested’ some millions in a civil war to create this puppet […]Berlin ‘orders’ the EU Parliament to compromise
December 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
As expected the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz strongly criticised the agreement reached in the European Council by the 28 EU leaders, on the plan for the enactment of the Banking Union. He said, “The slower and inefficient a system is, the more expensive it will be”. However the Federal Minister for Finance […]Who would pay and who is to gain from the EU-US free trade agreement
December 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Challenging the factual reality, that the ‘gains’ from the currently under negotiation EU-US trade agreement would come mainly from deregulation in the fields of health, safety, environment, financial and data security, the European chief negotiator Garcia Bercero insisted that: “the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is not and will not be a deregulation agenda”. […]More taxpayers’ money for the banks
December 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Within 24 hours, after the European Sting published on Thursday an article entitled, “Fair completion rules and the law of gravity don’t apply to banks”, and the responsible EU Commissioner Joaquín Almunia, Vice-President of the EC blessed as legitimate the rescue of the Dutch bank and insurance company SNS REAAL by the country’s exchequer with […]Eurozone close to agreeing on a Banking Union
December 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the small hours of yesterday night, the ECOFIN Council agreed on a general approach over the single resolution board (SRB) and a single fund for the resolution of banks in Eurozone. These are the main tools of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), which constitutes the second pillar of the grandiose European Banking Union project. […]Fair completion rules and the law of gravity don’t apply to banks
December 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There is no end to EU Commission’s approvals of state aid and government bailouts of hundreds of EU struggling banks, as if the extensive fair competition legislation of the Union is valid for every other sector of the economy at the exception of banks. In the latest incident, the EU competition authorities actually looked the […]How the Irish people were robbed by banks, the Commission and their own government
December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In 2007 Ireland’s sovereign debt was 25% of the country’s GDP. After the financial crisis – and €140 billion later – in 2012 it reached 120% of the GDP at €190bn. Yet the Dublin government this week celebrated the Irish ‘exit’ from the EU-ECB-IMF troika’s surveillance programme, that brought the 4.5 million people nation to […]The Parliament sets the way for the European Banking Union
December 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
The final shape of the European Banking Union will be served as dessert on the dinner table of the 28 EU leaders on Thursday night. According to the invitation letter that Herman Van Rompuy addressed to the heads of states and governments on the European Union “Over dinner, the focus will be on economic and […]Eurozone hasn’t escaped the deflation danger
December 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed its own inflation rate estimate for November at 0.9% in the Eurozone; that is two decimal points higher than in October. However, this doesn’t mean that inflation took the upward path neither does it indicate that growth has already started pressing consumer prices to higher levels. It must be […]A day that Berlin and Brussels would remember for a long time
December 17, 2013 by 1 Comment
It was not by accident that the President of the European Central Bank Mario Draghi chose the right time to ring the danger bell against a “bad Banking Union”, while speaking yesterday in the Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. Obviously, he wanted to be heard by the new German government which is expected […]Advocate General ‘outlaws’ Data Retention Directive
December 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The shallowness that the European Commission shows, while asked to protect the basic civil rights of EU citizens and companies, was ostentatiously proven in the case of the Data Retention Directive. According to the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Cruz Villalón, the Directive doesn’t provide the basic guarantees that […]EU: The Member States to pay for national banking problems
December 16, 2013 by 1 Comment
According to information released by global media, this week the European Union is about to conclude the discussions on its major new project, the Banking Union, with an arrangement providing that the cost of eventual bank resolutions and recoveries is to burden the country or countries where the bank in question is conducting its business. […]Commission facilitates the activities of ‘merchants of labour’
December 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With unemployment skyrocketing in all but few countries of the European Union, the Commission found that the timing is right to facilitate the internal mobility of labour in the Union, in a clear cut attempt to exploit the EU’s unemployed of the south and the east and squeeze the wage levels in the north and […]Tiny Iceland teaches the West how to treat bankers
December 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the Prime Minister of Iceland, hardened by adverse weather and isolation as all his compatriots, when in Brussels last summer, delivered two lessons to EU bureaucrats and dignitaries, softened by indoor life. He taught them how to treat fraudulent bankers and who to fish mackerel. Yesterday tiny Iceland accomplished its teaching course […]EU legislation protecting home buyers approved in Parliament
December 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It was high time that the European Union authorities took action to protect home buyers from the insatiable appetite of banks. Mortgages constitute the standard tool for households to acquire, usually, their first home. For consumers this is a very long term engagement, especially for wage earners. Given the fact that mortgages may span up […]ECOFIN: Protecting bankers and tax-evaders
December 11, 2013 by 2 Comments
It is customary for the European Union, when the club cannot arrive at a decision acceptable by everybody, the outcome is a distorted compromise. Of course, the burning issue of the resolution of failing banks could not depart from this rule yesterday at the ECOFIN Council, with the 28 ministers of Finance discussing this issue […]The Eurogroup offered a cold reception to IMF’s director for Europe
December 10, 2013 by 2 Comments
Yesterday’s Eurogroup was devoted rather to the…IMF than to the burning issues of Eurozone, like bank recovery and resolution and deposit guarantee schemes. Probably the reason for this change was that Reza Moghadam, the IMF’s European Department director, was present and his main criticism of Eurozone’s economy was that it suffers from “weak banks and over-indebted […]Resolving banks with depositors’ money?
December 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Tomorrow’s Ecofin council, marking the last 2013 meeting of the 28 EU ministers of Finance, constitutes the final opportunity of the member states to strike an agreement in order to finalise the construction of the European Banking Union. What is still missing for the establishment of the EBU is of course the full Single Resolution […]Only a few months away from the single European patent space
December 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In a major breakthrough development for EU’s internal market, the EU Justice Ministers agreed yesterday on a Commission proposal, to complete the legal framework of one pan-European patent universe. The key point in this draft regulation is that the rulings of the Unified Patent Court will be recognised in the legal systems of all signatory […]
