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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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Yesterday, Olli Rehn, the Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro delivered a speech in the European Parliament, entitled “The recovery of the European economy”. In doing that, he couldn’t resist the temptation to reveal the truth that the recovery of the European economy which timidly appeared […]
Labour mobility within the European Union is considered as the main decompression mechanism of social and economic pressures, created by differences in growth rates between member states. Looking for a job or working in another EU country has been praised by politicians and Brussels bureaucrats as the best way to increase the overall competitiveness of […]
The European Parliament approved yesterday the EU proper budget for the next seven years, set at €960 billion in commitments and €908bn in payments (at 2011 prices). This is the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 providing the financial resources and setting the expenditure limits for all EU institutions and policies. As a general rule the Multiannual […]
The UN climate conferences are the kind on international tribunes, where the European Union can present its opinions with pride. It’s not only that the EU has unilaterally set a target to cut down green-house emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, but also because this programme is on track to achieve targets. On […]
Finally, the European Parliament, after obtaining from the Council (that is the member state governments) what was possible to squeeze out in these times of widespread austerity, yesterday approved both the 2014 budget and the 2014-2020 financial framework, which sets limits on EU’s spending for the next seven years. Yesterday, the Budgets Parliamentary Committee voted […]
The European Parliament might not get it all from the Council but it managed to bring the 2014 EU budget payments limit at €135.5 billion or €500 million more than the initial Council’s position. Commitments were set at €142.6bn that is in line with the Commission’s budget proposal. The initial Council’s position was to restrict […]
The 17 days, that the extreme right (Tea Party politicians) of the US Republican Party forced the American administration to partially shut down, have already cost the GOP the mayorship of New York and the governorship of Virginia, but have also endangered their country’s trade agreement with their closest economic partner, the European Union. The […]
During the last two days the European Parliament intervened very actively, not only in the economic and budgetary policies of EU proper, but also in the way the 28 member states are formulating their fundamental financial choices, while drafting the 2014 government budgets. For one thing, this morning the plenary House is debating and presumably […]
It’s more than a joke, it’s a clear deception or even an imperialistic attitude of the European Union, towards the countries wanting to join it, to tell them that they pass Commissioner Štefan Füle‘s test of the “five fundamentals”. Of course this doesn’t apply to Turkey or Iceland, because both of them seem to have […]
The European Parliament seemed abruptly awoken yesterday to an ugly reality, by recognising the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe, while discussing the murder of Pavlos Fissas, the Greek social activist slaughtered by the gangs of Golden Dawn. Of course the EU Parliament is not the only western top decision making body to suddenly discover, […]
It might not be much, but the European Parliament’s approval of the modernisation of the Professional Qualifications Directive to promote the intra EU mobility of professionals, is a giant step forward towards more Union, at a time when some countries long for less EU, by undermining the right of citizens for free movement within the […]
The Transport committee of the European Parliament (TRAN) blocked yesterday with 21 votes to 13 an EU Commission’s proposal to rearrange flight times for pilots and cabin crews. If the uninformed reader had only the chance to read just the Press release issued afterwards by the responsible, or rather irresponsible, Commissioner and Commission Vice President […]
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 […]
Yesterday the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council made another blunder and a very bad start in its relation with the European Parliament. After the Lithuanian Vice-Minister Algimantas Rimkūnas presented to the plenary of the Legislative the Council a proposal for the EU 2014 Budget, with which many MEPs strongly disagreed, the Lithuanian Presidency issued a […]
It is usual for any EU country while holding the rotating Council Presidency to boast about its achievements. Boasting becomes sometimes unbearable if the Presidency is held by a small or very small member state like Lithuania, the current holder of the presidential seat in the Council. It was exactly like that earlier today when […]
If what the President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, said yesterday to EU’s legislators is read together with the inspired speech the European Commissioner Michel Barnier, delivered in Rome’s Palazzo Farnese (the French embassy in Italy), then the conclusion is that the European Union cannot be a source of problems as the extremists […]
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 […]
The Plenary of the European Parliament in a non-legislative resolution accepted the political agreement on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 that is the EU proper budgets for the next seven years. Negotiations over the next MFF commenced last February after the summit of the 27 leaders set the limit for the seven-year EU total […]
The most important news from the first day of the 27+1 EU leaders’ gathering (European Council) yesterday was that the Ecofin council of the 27 ministers of Finance managed to come up with an agreement over the bank resolution and recovery, and also that the EU Parliament agreed with the Commission on the Union budgets […]
With major breakthroughs in two key policy areas, the European Banking Union and the EU budgets for the period 2014-2020 materialising in the early hours of Thursday 27 June, the 27-28 June Summit of the 27+1 EU leaders couldn’t offer anything more. It degraded into a procedural affair. In relation with those breakthroughs the European […]
The much-advertised agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on EU’s proper budgets for the next seven years seems to be more like wishful thinking rather than reality. Some days ago the Irish Presidency of the European Council issued a Press release saying that the EU Parliament agreed on the overall spending […]
In less than 24 hours the European Parliament answered in force a self-congratulating Press release issued by the Irish Presidency, falsely announcing a major breakthrough in the negotiations over the EU budgets for the next seven years. It’s about the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 that provides for the ceiling of the overall EU spending during […]
As promised, the plenary of European Parliament overwhelmingly approved yesterday a resolution by 483 votes to 27, and 65 abstentions, accusing with it some core EU countries and “to some extend the Commission” for holding back crucial legislation to promote the financial sector’s reform. The European legislators want the financial sector to serve the real […]
The Irish Presidency, with its self-congratulating and artificially sweetened style, announced once more ‘a major breakthrough’ in the EU budget negotiations with the European Parliament, without the slightest reference to the other side’s position. This obvious neglect of basic reporting rules which goes as far as sidestepping of democratic principles, has become standard in Irish […]
Thank God the European Parliament is there. Today 12 June the Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Committee for Economic and monetary affairs will ask the Commission and the member states, through the European Council, to explain why they are dragging their feet on crucial financial sector reform legislation, in a debate starting at 8.30 this […]
Protection of citizens and businesses web data is still a pending issue in the European Union and internet companies may, probably legally, sell to marketers names, telephone numbers, mail addresses and consumer profiles including personal details. The existing privacy laws are twenty years old and far from effectively protecting our data from being sold and […]
One year ahead of the European Parliament elections and the legislators are showing to the Commission and the Council their teeth, which have been sharpened by the Treaty of Lisbon. Practically nothing can be done in the European Union without the consent of the Parliament. A trilateral agreement (Parliament, Council and Commission) is needed on […]
While the European Council of the 27 EU leaders has only ‘energy’ and ‘taxation’ in its agenda today, with poor results expected on both accounts, the hot issue of the European Banking Union will probably consume most of the time in the side meetings. The enactment of the EBU has become now the main point […]
The European Parliament hardens its stance over the EU budget negotiations with the Council and the Commission. The legislative rejects the proposal of the Ecofin Council for parallel negotiations over the 2013 budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework for the 2014-2020 spending. The three-way budget negotiations include the additional funds needed to pay for the […]
The efforts to reach an agreement between the three most important EU bodies, the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission over the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020, for the Union’s proper spending power, will test not only the cohesion of the EU but also the abilities of the ‘austerity lovers’ to wreak their policy options. […]
