Poland, with a population of 40 million or 8% of the EU is not the land locked and Russia loving Hungary that Brussels may easily pretend doesn’t exist. The October electoral triumph of the Eurosceptic, if not anti-EU, Law and Justice party (PiS) under the extreme right wing politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a rampant populist, decisively […]One more country to test the EU project: Kaczynski’s Poland
January 14, 2016 by 1 Comment
Poland, with a population of 40 million or 8% of the EU is not the land locked and Russia loving Hungary that Brussels may easily pretend doesn’t exist. The October electoral triumph of the Eurosceptic, if not anti-EU, Law and Justice party (PiS) under the extreme right wing politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski, a rampant populist, decisively […]EU responds to terror fallout by eroding borderless Europe and molesting the refugees
November 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The very title of the Press release which the extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council of the European Union issued after its 20 November meeting, is quite indicative of the multiple fractures that the Union suffers after the terrorist attacks, which took place in Paris on 13 November 2015. The title reads as follows: “Conclusions […]Why impoverishment and social exclusion grow in the EU; the affluent north also suffers
October 22, 2015 by 2 Comments
The European Union which mobilizes its warships to keep the flows of poor and destitute refugees and immigrants out of its supposedly prosperous interior, at the same is impotent to offer to its own citizens not a prosperous life but not even a secure economic and social environment. According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical service, […]A new crop of EU ‘Boards’ override the democratic accountability and undermine the EU project
September 21, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Wednesday 16 September the European Economic and Social Committee, an authentic representative of the European organized civil society, adopted an opinion aimed at improving the democratic function and the accountability of the EU decision-making bodies. The EESC acted at the request of the European Parliament. Actually, the Lisbon Treaty contains untapped potential to bring […]Two major EU projects falter; the Schengen Agreement now freezes and Eurozone fails to resolve the Greek enigma
September 17, 2015 by 2 Comments
The usually so cool north Europeans seem to have lost their composure when the first waves of refugees and immigrants reached their borders. Germany and Austria within a few days made full immigration policy u-turns and finally closed their borders. Both Chancellors, Angela Merkel in Berlin and Werner Faymann in Vienna, said last week they […]The refugee crisis brings to light EU’s most horrible flaws and nightmares
September 16, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Monday, the EU Interior Ministers convened in Brussels in order to discuss about the quotas of the 120.000 refugees proposed by the European Commission (EC) but didn’t manage again to come to a common decision. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary belong to the group of countries that are against the latter proposal which […]EU migrant crisis: Germany, France and UK to show the way. Will the rest of the EU follow?
September 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The recent migrant crisis keeps on plaguing Europe and our good EU leaders and officials strive to find solutions to tackle it. Jean Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission (EC), will present today his plans for sharing asylum seekers among the 28 EU countries. It will be a crucial day for Juncker’s Commission because […]Drowning in the Mediterranean this summer? Many happy returns
August 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This month the European Commission approved 23 multiannual national programs “under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF). The total funding for the agreed programs is approximately €2.4 billion, for the period 2014-2020… 22 national programs were already approved in March, and an additional 13 programs will be approved […]The third bailout agreement for Greece is a done deal amid European economies full of problems
August 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
After a very long session that lasted nearly 25 hours, the Greek government through 222 MP’s said a clear YES to the terms of the third bailout agreement. This strong positive vote provided to Euclid Tsakalotos, the Greek Finance Minister, the necessary tools to seal the deal with his counterparts, which realized late last night at […]Why France, Italy and the US press Germany to accept a cheaper euro and pay for Greece
August 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Since last March the European Central Bank has being pumping at least €60 billion a month into Eurozone’s financial system, under its ‘expanded asset purchase program’, aimed at reviving the stagnating price level and energizing the sleepy real economy. The objective is to bring inflation close to 2%; the target rate set by ECB’s monetary […]EU seems to fail its moderate migration promises postponing them for end 2015
July 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The European Union’s Interior Ministers convened last Monday on migration but didn’t come to the preferred outcome which was set by the EU leaders only one month ago, in June. Many EU member states opposed to the proposed, by the European Council (EC), distribution of the 40.000 asylum seekers coming from Greece and Italy within […]ECB: Euro area should smooth out the consumption and income shocks of its members
June 4, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Tuesday Brussels celebrated the return of the Eurozone inflation to positive grounds after five straight months of deflation (negative inflation). Some EU Commission economists, among others, assume that three positive decimal points of change of the level of consumer prices in May (0.3%), can signal the return of the economy to growth. Under an […]Why is the EU launching a doomed policy in stopping immigrant waves? What are the real targets?
May 21, 2015 by Leave a Comment
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 […]EU’s core members are eyeing larger parts of arms trade and of world map
May 14, 2015 by 1 Comment
Last Friday, 8 May, the European Commission released two documents setting a path for defense and security cooperation within the EU. The reports will be presented in an upcoming discussion by the competent 28 Ministers on 18 May and the Heads of State and Government in the European Council of 25 June. The two documents […]Counting unemployment in the EU: The real rate comes to anything between 16.1% and 20.6%
April 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Eurostat, the EU statistical service, repeated with more recent figures its memorable work on the real unemployment rate, that appeared for the first time in 2014 based on data for the third quarter of 2013. This time the Eurostat researchers worked with data for the last quarter of 2014. The new results they produced refer […]Will Eurozone be able to repay its debts? Is a bubble forming there?
April 23, 2015 by Leave a Comment
This newspaper has been very reluctant in endorsing the widely accepted view that Eurozone has left behind its stagnation if not recession phase. The reason is that despite the GDP increases by a few decimal points – not more than three – of a percentage unit, inflation kept falling for more than twelve months until […]Why do thousands of migrants need to be drowned for Brussels to wake up?
April 22, 2015 by
The European Union is once more hit by migration. Last Sunday, around 800 illegal immigrants are believed to have died when their ship sank on the way from the Libyan coast to the Italian Island of Lampedusa. As a result, the EU foreign and interior ministers gathered in Luxembourg earlier this week to discuss about the migration crisis […]Youth and children in Europe set the new perspectives for the decades to come
April 20, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The share of children of less than 15% in a population is a powerful and polyvalent indicator. For one thing, it accurately predicts the strength or the frailness of the country’s most valuable asset for the next decades, which is its human capital in productive age. The obvious value of the related statistics led Eurostat, […]Does the West reserve the fate of Libya and Syria for others? How does this relate to the EU’s Neighborhood Policy?
April 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Last Monday the High Representative and Vice-president of the European Commission Federica Mogherini delivered the opening speech, in the ministerial meeting of EU’s Southern partners, in the context of the European Neighborhood Policy that took place in Barcelona. At some point she noticed that out of the 38 foreign ministers who were supposed to participate […]Can the national and age groups pockets of unemployment cause irreparable damages to Eurozone?
April 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment
It’s a bit awkward to consider a drop of the unemployment rate by one decimal point of a percentage unit as economic growth, and call it a reversal to the positive region, as some Brussels dignitaries and bureaucrats do. Incidentally, the euro area unemployment rate fell to 11.3% in February, down from 11.4% in January […]Can Greece’s democratic institutions keep it in Eurozone?
March 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Paris, Washington and Brussels categorically reject the idea of a Grexit, while Berlin is still loudly insisting that the Eurozone can weather at a cost Greece’s secession. Behind closed doors though, the German decision makers are also not at all sure about that. Greece’s exit from Eurozone has lately become the talk of the town […]Juncker’s Investment Plan in desperate need for trust and funds from public and private investors
March 13, 2015 by 3 Comments
Last Tuesday the EU Finance ministers gathered in Brussels to decide for the fate of Juncker’s Investments Plan. The news is quite promising for EU Investments since all ministers agreed to support this Plan by setting up the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI). Italy also announced its contribution by pledging to invest 8 billion […]ECB’s billions fortify south Eurozone except Greece; everybody rushes to invest in euro area bonds zeroing their yields
March 9, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Even without having spent yet a single euro the European Central Bank’s program of sovereign bond buying of €60 billion a month has had an enormous impact on world financial markets. It suppressed the euro dollar parity from the unbearably high levels of 2014 (1.39 on 9 March 2014) to 1.08510 last Friday, the lowest […]Paris, Rome, Brussels and Frankfurt to confront Berlin over growth and the Athens enigma
February 2, 2015 by 1 Comment
After the Commission’s taciturn approval of the excess deficits in the government budgets of France and Italy last October and the decision of ECB in Frankfurt to print one trillion euro two weeks ago, the ongoing arduous handling of the new Greek singularity of Alexis Tsipras by Paris and Rome may consolidate their prevalence over […]“For my children Italy will be an innovation lab and not a museum”; the Sting reports live from World Economic Forum 2015 in Davos
January 21, 2015 by Leave a Comment
The World Economic Forum 2015 just started earlier this morning amidst the ice cold Swiss Alps. After facing the train delays in Klosters Platz and all the increased security control, we were all queuing to sit at the Congress Hall of Davos Congress centre. The first most important session for World Economic Forum 2015 yet to come just finished […]Is the EU competent enough to fight human smuggling in 2015?
January 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment
That the European Union is facing its big problem of exorbitant illegal immigration is not news. How can it be in a gigantic region of 28 countries spreading around the Old Continent? And most of all one of the top five coastline lengths in the world with some 70,000 km coasts bordering the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and […]How much time has the ‘European Union of last chance’ left?
November 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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
November 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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 […]
Italy’s rescue operation Mare Nostrum shuts down with no real replacement. EU’s Triton instead might put lives at risk
November 4, 2014 by 1 Comment
The European Union’s border control agency Frontex officially launched a mission in the Mediterranean Sea to face the mass attempt of migrants from Africa and the Middle East to reach Europe by boat. And this was not the only official news about this emergency last week. After rumours and denials Italy confirmed last Friday that its […]EU to finance new investment projects with extra borrowing; French and Italian deficits to be tolerated
October 30, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The EU Commission has correctly translated the ideas emanated from the Brussels’ European Council of 23-24 October and accordingly adjourned confrontation with France and Italy over budgetary deficits and extra investment spending for 2015. European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen responsible for financial affairs and the euro seems to have read very carefully the Conclusions […]Can privatisation be the panacea for the lack of growth in Europe?
October 15, 2014 by Leave a Comment
An interesting topic was treated last Monday evening in Brussels and the European Sting was present to listen to some ideas on how to boost growth in the European Economy in a pragmatic manner. It would be unfair to say that the idea on the table of the discussion was original or innovative but nevertheless it […]Is Germany yielding to pressures for more relaxed economic policies?
October 9, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Not surprisingly, European Commission’s quarterly review on ‘Employment and Social Situation’ and its “Annual Report on European SMEs 2013/2014” which were published last week, both conclude that economic recovery is still quite uncertain, while small and medium businesses are always in contraction, constituting the main impediment to growth. Despite all that, and as if economic […]Back to the basics for the EU: Investment equals Growth
September 18, 2014 by
It was only last Saturday when the European finance ministers gathered in Italy to decide how to bring back growth, a long-plaguing hoarse of the EU economy. They came to the conclusion that more investment programmes are needed to help the financing of infrastructure projects and development of the economy. Not a single project proposed […]
