It was last Monday in Cannes when Andrus Ansip, Vice President of the European Commission (EC) for Digital Single Market (DSM), was interviewed in the context of the music industry’s annual Midem event. Supporting the Commission’s view and strategy for a Digital Single Market in the EU Mr Ansip mainly focused on the part of eliminating […]
Changing the EU copyright law won’t bring us much closer to Digital Single Market
The hostilities in south and eastern Ukraine resume; where could they lead?
The resumption of hostilities in south-eastern Ukraine is blamed by the West to the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow reportedly wants to help the pro-Russian separatists who prevail in the Luhansk and Donetsk region to gain control of Mariupol a key port in this area on the Black Sea. However, the heavy fighting that took […]
EU to lead one more fight against climate change at G7 summit
The UN talks that are being held in the context of a 10-day climate conference in Bonn are highly crucial for the preparation of the final agreement that must be signed at the climate summit in Paris in 6 months from now. Therefore, officials from 190 nations are gathered in the German city to discuss […]
The ECB tells Berlin that a Germanic Eurozone is unacceptable and doesn’t work
Last week Eurostat, the EU statistical service, confirmed that Eurozone inflation was stuck at zero percent in April, remaining in the region of deflation. No need to mention what a too low or zero or negative inflation means for a stagnating or even receding economy. Add to that the perilous position of Greece in and […]
Why is the EU launching a doomed policy in stopping immigrant waves? What are the real targets?
For what it’s worth, the Libyan government, the one recognized by Europe and the West, rejected the EU plan to carry out military operations in the country’s territorial waters and soil against the traffickers of immigrants. This reaction by the one of the two Libyan governments is quite understandable, because it’s practically impossible to distinguish […]
Why did Cameron gain absolute majority? What will he do now? Will he vote ‘yes’ in Britain’s in – out EU referendum?
The UK election results came as a shock to many but primarily shook the British public opinion poll experts. All of them failed to even come anywhere near predicting the final results. For Britain, David Cameron’s win means no-change where it counts, the economy, the foreign policy and the home affairs. Regarding the repercussions on […]
European Business Summit 2015: In search of a vision for the future
It only happens once a year in Brussels and the time is now. The European business leaders gather presently in the Belgian and EU’s capital for two days to stage the European Business Summit. It started yesterday Wednesday 6 May and is concluding today. The business leaders are taking stock of the present and plan […]
Eurozone at risk of home-made deflation and recession
Tomorrow Tuesday, 5th April, the European Commission will present its ‘Spring European Economic Forecast’ including assessments and predictions about GDP, inflation, employment and government finance for 2014, 2015 and 2016. Good providence made sure that last Thursday Eurostat released its flash estimate of April inflation standing at the edge of zero percent, up by an […]
Bankruptcy or referendum: which one is going to be first?
The move by Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, to reshuffle its negotiating team will certainly ease the tense in Brussels but is not going to bring the desired deal. The main thorns for unlocking the next tranche are the “red lines” of the Greek government and its anti-austerity policy. Greece is struggling to pay wages […]
The EU threatens to occupy Libya militarily; is another colonial war brewing?
It was really deplorable to watch the 28 EU leaders who gathered in Brussels last week after the hecatombs of drowned emigrants, to solemnly discuss aggressive military operations on the soil and the sea ports of their Mediterranean neighbours. They decided to use military force and thus kill people, in order to forcefully reverse the […]
EU’s new environmental policy on biofuels impacts both the environment and the European citizen
The proposal of the European Commission (EC) back in 2012 regarding the reduction of traditional biofuels as renewable energy sources to 7% of final energy consumption in transport by 2020 seems to have serious chances of being adopted by the European Parliament (EP) since the environment committee was in favor of this proposal during yesterday’s meeting. […]
Have Europe’s Ukrainian wounds begun to heal?
The wounds the Ukrainian civil war has inflicted on Europe have now stopped bleeding and if not begun healing at least they claim no more fatalities. The Minsk II agreement is holding well and the Europeans, most of them, have made clear to the Americans that there is no chance of starting a new war […]
The West and Russia accomplished the dismembering and the economic destruction of Ukraine
With the Minsk Agreement the West and Russia finally got what they wanted or close to that from Ukraine, not minding much about leaving the miserable country in ruins, its map ruthlessly chopped and the economy in a perfect chaos. On the one side the EU or rather Berlin and Paris plus Washington and on […]
Athens searches frantically for a new compromise between politics and economic reality
This week the new Greek government started faltering on all accounts. The young Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who got elected on 25 January under a populist banner to change everything in this crisis stricken nation, proposed Prokopis Pavlopoulos for President of the Republic, an old fox representing the corrupt and incompetent political system which governed […]
Deep chasm still divides Athens and Brussels; can Eurozone use the nuclear arm of liquidity against Greece?
Today the Eurogroup, the 19 Eurozone ministers of Finance at 3 o’clock in the afternoon will start discussing the future of Greece. It’s quite uncertain if a decision will be reached. Late last Saturday the technical consultations for the Monday meeting were concluded in Brussels. The preliminary work was realized by a group comprising Greek […]
Greece and Ukraine main items on EU28 menu; the course is set
The world community will be watching very closely today’s gathering of the 28 leaders of the European Union in Brussels. The reason is that its agenda includes two crucial issues; the economic fate of Greece and a discussion on the outcome of a conference in Minsk, Belarus for the future of Ukraine. Yesterday afternoon both […]
German stock market is not affected by the Greek debt revolution while Athens is running out of time
Greece: The new government of Alexis Tsipras shows its colors
Alexis Tsipras, the new Prime Minister of Greece and leader of the radical militant left SYRIZA party, who won last Sunday’s legislative election with a 36.34% of the vote and fell short of an absolute majority by two seats in a Parliament of 300, presented on Tuesday his new awkward coalition government. He had promised […]
Can Kiev make face to mounting economic problems and social unrest?
The time of truth for the European Union’s strategy on the Ukrainian question finally came. Brussels is about to let the poor country not only be dismembered, but what will be left of it will be pushed into an economic and political inferno. As it happens, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker essentially ‘ordered’ Kiev to “bring […]
Why and how did ISIS and Muslim fundamentalism gain momentum this year?
The European Investment Bank chose the perfect timing at the end of the year to take stock of its support to Egypt, or probably not? On 22 December 2014 EIB published a Press release entitled “Supporting Egypt’s democratic transition: a priority for EIB totalling more than €800 m of projects financed over the last three […]
“Hasta la vista” Google says to Spain and now Europe is next?
“But sadly, as a result of a new Spanish law, we’ll shortly have to close Google News in Spain. Let me explain why. This new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes […]
How much time has the ‘European Union of last chance’ left?
Ahead of the 18-19 December Summit of the 28 EU leaders, the European economy dives deeper in recession and disinflation. Brussels sources estimate that November inflation plunged again to 0.3% from 0.4% in October, widely diverging from the institutional target of below but close to 2%. There is more to it though. According to Eurostat, […]
European Youth Forum warns of a Peter Pan generation as a result of financial crisis and response to it
Rome, 14th November 2014 // The policy responses to the economic crisis which began in 2008 have hit youth hardest, according to a new publication launched by the European Youth Forum today at a high-level event on youth employment in Rome. The publication “Youth in the Crisis: What Went Wrong?”, which examines in depth the […]
The West definitively cuts Russia off from the developed world
Last weekend’s G20 Summit in Brisbane Australia in a direct way ineradicably mapped the abyss now dividing the West from Russia. American and European leaders including Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and David Cameron threatened Russia with more sanctions, meant to completely cut her off from western markets and besiege her economy, if Moscow doesn’t stop […]
ECB to play down IMF’s alarms for deflation danger in the EU
It was last Tuesday when Peter Praet, Member of the Executive Board and chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), reported to two Belgian newspapers that there is limited risk of price deflation in the euro area. The Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) in the euro area and in the EU gained momentum after four […]
EU leaders agree on 2030 Climate and Energy Package: is “flexible” brave enough?
The European Union Heads of State last week reached an agreement on what it was welcomed as “the world’s most ambitious” target yet for cutting carbon emissions. European leaders have defined the headline targets and the architecture for the EU framework on climate and energy for 2030, having signed a pact obliging the EU as […]
Can one FTA and 110 lobby meetings make the dirty oil clean in Europe?
So it happens again. The EU is compromising its own policies to endorse trade and business. What’s wrong with that? Just an equivalent environmental damage of 6 million cars in the European roads by 2020. It was only yesterday morning that the European Commission issued a controversial proposal that undermines its own 2020 targets to […]