The European Sting is Your democratic, independent and top quality political newspaper specialized in European Union News. Unique Features: iSting & Harry Sting
Mario Draghi the President of ECB, speaking at the European University Institute in Florence, on 11 May 2018, must have been under the influence of the idealistic aura of this Florentine learning institution. He went as far as proposing political policies, bravely overstepping his role as central banker of Eurozone. Draghi asked for an effective […]
All along the years after the 2008-2010 financial crisis, which in the European Union took the form banking/government debt breakdowns starting with Greece, there were cries for the creation of a solid Eurozone. In every respect, these calls amounted to demands that super prosperous Germany accepts some degree of risk-sharing with the rest of the […]
The appointment of Jerome Powell as the next head of the US central bank, the famous Fed, is a reassurance to the financial world that the giant lenders will continue being favored by ample and very cheap money. Last Thursday, Donald Trump, the American President didn’t dare to change the cautious approach to monetary policy. […]
The US Department of Justice settled its claims against Deutsche Bank, the biggest German lender, for packaging and selling toxic mortgage securities to uninformed customers prior to the 2008-2010 financial crisis. Initially, the Justice Department had asked for $14 billion, but it seems it settled for a fine of $7.2bn. However, this is not the […]
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 […]
Last Tuesday, a new steep fall of the price of crude oil by almost 5%, triggered another selloff in all the major capital markets of the world. The New York and the European stock exchanges lost anything between 2% and 3% of their capitalization. One may observe that this development is one of many of […]
The descent of prices in the world capital markets continued almost unhindered this past week and only last Friday financial, oil and commodity values gained some limited grounds. Altogether however, the major stock markets have erased trillions off their capitalization since last June, when the dark clouds gathered above the Chinese mega-cities of Shanghai and […]
Last week five of the world largest banks, JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Scotland and Union de Banques Suisses were fined by the American magistrates a total of $ 4.7 billion for rigging interest rate benchmarks. The banks had been setting those standards by themselves for five years after 2007. In another case the […]
Last Tuesday the European Parliament approved the appointment of the Single Resolution Board members. European Sting readers may recall that some months ago this Board emerged as the most powerful institution in Eurozone’s banking sector. Its powers were established by the final agreement between the European Parliament, the European Council and the Commission which instituted […]
How come and despite the fact that bankers systematically and quite openly cheat hundreds of millions of people, usurping trillions from them, and the only ones of that trade that have been locked up in a penitentiary are the bosses of the three Icelandic banks Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, which went bankrupt in 2008? All […]
Last Monday 10 November the Financial Stability Board, an international non-binding body based in Basel which comprises government and central bank officials from G20 countries had a bright idea for the lenders. They admitted that the 30 “too big to fail” major world banks should retain at least 20% of their risky assets in own […]
Yesterday, as expected, the European Central Bank kept its basic interest rate unchanged at 0.25%. As usually, the decision was taken in the meeting of the bank’s Governing Council, the first of 2014. At this almost zero interest rate cost commercial banks get ample liquidity from the ECB and then lend this money to the […]
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 […]
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 […]
