It was last Wednesday when the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected a challenge by Hungary and Slovakia regarding their denial on relocating refugees from Greece and Italy. Both countries though do not intend to change their position on the issue. Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos mentioned that there has […]Refugee crisis update: EU still lacks solidarity as Hungary and Slovakia refuse to accept EU Court’s decision
September 13, 2017 by Leave a Comment
It was last Wednesday when the Court of Justice of the European Union rejected a challenge by Hungary and Slovakia regarding their denial on relocating refugees from Greece and Italy. Both countries though do not intend to change their position on the issue. Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos mentioned that there has […]EU and African leaders to jointly tackle the migration crisis across the Mediterranean
September 6, 2017 by 1 Comment
It was last week when the leaders of Italy, France, Germany and Spain met in Paris with the African leaders of Chad, Niger and Libya to discuss on how to manage the influx of migrants through Libya and across the Mediterranean. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hosted the summit and mentioned that refugee crisis is […]China and UK relations post Brexit as EU addresses Chinese takeovers
August 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Chinese acquisitions of European companies have attracted the attention of the EU’s largest economies, who requested from the Commission to play a more active role on deciding whether these takeovers are ‘politically driven’ or not. The president of the EC, Jean-Claude Juncker, in turn, is expected to announce plans on how to manage foreign investments […]Has the EU economy truly revived from the financial crisis?
August 16, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Last week the European Commission published a press release regarding EU’s recovery from the financial crisis where it is mentioned that the EU, after 10 years since that start of the crisis, is back to growth because of the EU influential actions. What is more, it was announced yesterday that Germany’s gross domestic product in […]Refugee crisis update: EU lacks solidarity as migration figures drop
August 9, 2017 by 1 Comment
There has been a significant decrease in July in the number of refugees reaching Italy through the Mediterranean according to data released by the Italian interior ministry last Thursday. The report shows that 11.192 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean last month; only half compared to June’s and last July’s figures. Are migration crisis figures going […]Refugee crisis: Commission proposes a new plan urging EU countries to help Italy
July 12, 2017 by 1 Comment
The EU interior ministers gathered last Thursday in Tallinn to discuss Italy’s problem to deal with migration crisis together with the new Action Plan proposed by the European Commission to support Italy and increase solidarity in the EU. The refugee crisis continues plaguing Europe in 2017 as 101.266 migrants have entered the bloc by sea […]Trump ‘used’ G20 to side with Putin and split climate and trade packs
July 10, 2017 by Leave a Comment
While protesters were dynamically trying to reach the part of Hamburg where the G20 leaders of the largest economies of the world were gathered, the most powerful politicians of the globe were reduced to the status of viewers, in the Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spectacle of rapprochement. Trump also ‘used’ the G20 to tell […]Europe to turn the Hamburg G20 Summit into a battlefield
July 3, 2017 by Leave a Comment
This week’s G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany is expected to become a battlefield from the very first gathering. Chancellor Angela Merkel is to attack the US President Donald Trump, about his rejection of the Paris Climate Agreement. The American will reply with a demand for ‘free and fair trade’ as he ventures it, especially for […]Refugee crisis update: Commission is struggling alone with little help from EU or G7 leaders
June 14, 2017 by 1 Comment
The European Commission has been fighting the migration crisis urging the EU countries for their support to tackle this long-lasting issue but no or little contribution is provided. Last Thursday, the president of the EC prompted the Czech Republic to change its decision regarding their denial on accepting asylum seekers from Greece and Italy under […]Trump’s denial of Paris climate agreement; the US Republicans lash out against the world
June 5, 2017 by 1 Comment
Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the UN Paris Climate Agreement is a major foreign policy step, rather difficult to understand. For one thing, the American environmental industry technologically spearheads the world in this domain. The US is a global leader in electric vehicles production, where mainstream vehicles are one of the major contributors to air pollution. […]Germany caught with selfish double standards in euro area policy
June 1, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Over the past three years the European Central Bank, guided by its President Mario Draghi, has been folowing a super relaxed monetary policy. It has been aiming at reviving uncertain economic growth and dying inflation, by handing out to banks, and through them to the economy, hundreds of billions of euro and at the same […]EU Council agrees to reform the system for motor vehicles but with “restricted” power for the Commission
May 31, 2017 by Leave a Comment
It was last Monday when the EU ministers gathered in Brussels to draft new rules to prevent future emissions cheating from the automotive companies after the VW emissions scandal. The Council of Ministers from 28 countries proposed rules for cutting down the national authorities’ power giving at the same time the ability to the European […]Trump enrages the Europeans and isolates the US in G7
May 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Last Thursday, Donald Trump, at a superb hall in the new glass and steel NATO building in Brussels, delivered an unruly speech, after having pushed aside Prime Minister Dusko Markovic of Montenegro (the related video has become viral) while walking towards the rostrum. He came out with a blatant and derogatory account aimed at 23 […]Will the EU ever tackle the migration crisis despite the lack of political will?
May 24, 2017 by 1 Comment
Despite the fact that migration crisis figures have decreased compared to last year, the disappointing commitment of some countries to fulfil their obligations receiving asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy combined with the worsening situation in the Mediterranean are perpetuating this crisis. The European Commission (EC) continues its hard work towards the completion of the relocation […]The ECB again takes care of the bankers not the people
May 4, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Last week the European Central Bank surprised everybody by letting it be known that interest rates will “remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases”. To be noted, presently, the main refinancing operations interest rate is zero. Of course, the markets […]The London City-EU connection holds despite of Brexit and the ban of LSE-Deutsche Börse merger
April 3, 2017 by Leave a Comment
European Commission’s decision to ban the Deutsche Börse – London Stock Exchange merger, on the one hand solved a long list of problems it could have triggered, in view of and after the Brexit. On the other hand though, this decision has created probably as many issues, because London is the long established low cost […]EU Summit: Why was Poland isolated in opposing Tusk and the ‘multi speed’ Europe
March 13, 2017 by 1 Comment
Until last week’s summit (Thursday and Friday) of the 27+1 European leaders in Brussels, the exit of Britain from the European club was the tougher test for the club’s unity, which everybody was more or less getting ready to face up to. However, the Polish Prime Minister, a stocky middle aged woman, reversed that and […]The widely advertised hazards of the EU not that ominous; the sting is financial woes
March 9, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday, Deutsche Bank’s management surprised everybody quite negatively by asking its shareholders for an €8 billion capital injection. Only hours before that, the London Stock Exchange had almost terminated the long negotiated merger procedure with the Deutsche Börse, the German bourse in Frankfurt. The LSE directors rejected the terms set by the European Commission […]Refugee crisis update: EU fails to relocate immigrants from Greece and Italy
March 8, 2017 by 1 Comment
The European Commission announced last Thursday new measures for an efficient EU return policy together with the progress made and must be done by the EU member states on the EU’s relocation and resettlement schemes by September and beyond. The slow relocation pace of refugees transferred from Greece and Italy to the rest European countries […]EU: Divided they stand on immigration and Trump hurricanes
February 6, 2017 by Leave a Comment
The last Friday’s Malta Summit of the 28 minus 1 EU leaders, on emigration and the future of Europe, was convened amidst a steaming wider political environment within and without Europe. The Council could only agree upon on transferring another €200 million to the one of the at least two Libyan governments, that a small […]Europe led by Germany seems vulnerable to Trump’s threats
February 2, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Trump’s America and Europe are obviously at odds. The question is how far this division will go? Unquestionably, it’s the new tenant of the White House who fuels this unseen before confrontation between the Atlantic allies, attached by a time cherished bonding that has politically and economically shaped the world as we know it so […]ECB: The bastion of effective and equitable Europeanism keeps up quantitative easing
December 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Last Thursday, 12 December, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, was forced to compromise with the Germans during the Governing Council’s regular meeting. He accepted to reduce the monthly injections of cash into the economy (through asset purchases of mainly government bonds) from €80 billion to €60bn, along the lines of the nonstandard […]After the Italian ‘no’ and the Brexit, Germans must decide which Europe they want
December 8, 2016 by Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that Europe is in disarray. The long standing malaise of high unemployment and economic stagnation has already mutated into critical political problems. The mutations of the European political ecosystem take various, unseen before forms. In the northern EU countries they invariably appear as extreme right or even semi-fascist political parties, inflated […]The Italian ‘no’ and France’s Fillon to reshape Europe; Paris moves closer to Berlin
December 5, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the Italians chose to rebuff Prime Minister Matteo Renzi by voting ‘no’ in the referendum he proclaimed, supposed to introduce certain amendments to the country’s constitution. Officially, the question is whether to institute a more responsive and effective legislative system in the customarily politically unstable Italy. The three opposition parties strongly supported the ‘no’ […]Trump and Brexit: After the social whys the political whereto
November 14, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The economic, social and political gaps between the power hubs of New York and Washington on the one hand and the American Mid-West and Southern states on the other is equal to the space dividing London from the rest of Britain. These distances probably compare to the vacuity separating earth from the moon. This is […]The migration crisis is slowly melting the entire EU edifice
October 5, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Last Sunday Hungary voted against the EU mandatory migration plan of accepting 1,294 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece but the referendum’s outcome was considered invalid because it didn’t reach the required threshold of 50%. Hence, it has no legal consequences and Hungary is obliged to follow the EU rules, which implies that the member […]What if Trump wins the November election and Renzi loses the December referendum?
September 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment
After the Brexit, it became apparent that a large or probably the largest part of citizens/voters in the western world are questioning, if not strongly protesting against globalization, having felt its onerous consequences. The free movement of people, goods and capital is not any more a perceptibly good thing for the average man in the […]Merkel refuses to consider the North-South schism of Eurozone
August 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The European leaders who form the EU ‘directoire’ may get together as many times as they like, but still appear incapable of solving the club’s existential problems. Last Monday the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the French President Francois Hollande and the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi met in Naples to relaunch Europe, after the Brexit. […]Deutsche Bank: the next financial crisis is here and the lenders need €150 billion from taxpayers
July 14, 2016 by 1 Comment
Last Monday David Folkerts-Landau, the chief economist of Deutsche Bank, the ailing largest lender of Germany, in an interview with the prestigious newspaper ‘Die Welt’ stated that European banks must be subsidized with €150 billion in rescue money to recapitalize. Obviously, it will be the taxpayers to once more provide the capital the euro area […]Has the treacherous theory about the ‘French patient’ finally prevailed?
May 30, 2016 by 1 Comment
The overwhelming labor reforms that the French government is currently finding very difficult to introduce, are also posing a crucial dilemma for the entire Eurozone. The ‘liberalization’ of the labor market has already traumatized Italy and the rest of the south European countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal. The northerners have already ‘solved’ this problem, […]Another doomed EU attempt to interfere in Libya?
May 26, 2016 by 1 Comment
Last Monday, the Italian coastguard rescued a round number of 2,000 immigrants and refugees in the central Mediterranean off the Libyan waters. In those fifteen operations the Italian coastguard was aided by two ships of the country’s navy, another two ships operated by the medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières – MSF) […]No hard drivers in sight to remodel the stagnating affairs of the EU
April 21, 2016 by Leave a Comment
It’s a tautological statement to say that the euro area is an economy which barely moves ahead, towards producing more jobs and incomes for the tens of millions of the unemployed and materially deprived. However, it seems that it’s worse than that. Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, said it plainly in […]Brussels terrorist attacks: Schengen in danger once again while leaders gather Europe’s multiple broken pieces
March 23, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The terrorist attacks that took place yesterday in Brussels have devastated not only Europe but also the rest of the world. The heart of Europe was hit in a very harsh way by the Islamic State. These tragic events in Brussels airport and metro station have caused the lives of so far 34 people and […]
