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At the Munich Security Conference of last week, the hottest criticism for the Grand Coalition agreement of Angela Merkel and Martin Schulz, coming from within and without the country was about not spending enough on armaments and security. The American Defense Secretary Jim Mattis focused on that Germany must spend 2% of GDP on defense, […]
The center right and center left German mainstream political parties agreed yesterday evening to form a new grand coalition government. It will be the third time since 2005 the two Christian parties and the socialists jointly govern their country. The socialists will control the Finance, Foreign and Labor ministries, with Martin Schulz, the Social Democratic […]
The migration crisis has been long plaguing Europe but the year passed revealed that the situation is getting better and better with arrivals and deaths to be decreased to a great extent. According to IOM, the UN Migration Agency, 171.635 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea during 2017 compared to the 363.504 arrivals in […]
Last Week, the German center left Social Democratic Party (SPD) decided to cooperate once more with the country’s conservatives, the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister Christian Social Union. They are to negotiate the formation of a grand coalition government, understandably under Chancellor Angela Merkel. This development may now seem the only mathematically possible […]
And now ‘Frau Bundeskanzlerin’ what? The truth is though whatever the future holds for the German political landscape, is no good. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s failure last weekend to form a government, with a viable parliamentary majority has irreparably stained the so far pristine scenery of the country’s politico-economic affairs. The unsuccessful attempts to convince liberal […]
Last Monday, Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, speaking at the Economic Committee of the European Parliament had the opportunity to test the grounds and familiarize himself with the nature of political climate he may come across after the German elections. He had a heated exchange with the head of the AfD group […]
During the past ten years, Germany has become a politically boring country and yesterday’s election is not going to change that, despite the loss of around one million votes for the Chancellor’s party. Angela Merkel’s win came to none’s surprise and the results permit her to embark on a fourth term in the top job. […]
Some political analysts in mainland Europe but many more in Britain and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in the US, have rushed to call 2017 the year that can make or break the European Union. They basically argue that the three crucial legislative elections due in Holland next month, in France in […]
No, it wasn’t just the tiny Wallonia region of Belgium and its 3.6 million French speaking inhabitants who blocked CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). This is an EU-Canada free trade and investment pact that took eight years to the Brussels Commission and the Canadian authorities to draft. It was also the Brexit and the […]
The time has come and the British citizens will have to take the faith of their country in their own hands. In just over a week they will decide whether they want to stay or leave the European Union with the rest of the world to wait the outcome with great anxiety. There have been […]
The migration summit which took place yesterday in Brussels between the 28 EU leaders and the Prime Minister of Turkey was a surprise. The reason is that Ahmet Davutoglou came to the meeting with specific proposals which are able to allow Turkey to take the upper hand and take advantage of the refugee crisis to better […]
Last Monday’s Extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council was meant to give just an update on the ongoing refugee crisis, a few days before the summit between EU and African leaders which in Valletta, Malta today and tomorrow. The Interior Ministers convened thus to discuss about the progress shown so far since the Western Balkans’ route summit […]
Today, Monday 26 May, the morrow of the EU elections, Eurosceptic and extremist newcomers in the European Parliament finally won’t be able to turn the European Union into a different and worse place. At the time when those lines were being typed, reliable result albeit partial, had already confirmed that Eurosceptic and extreme right parties […]
The fierce political race for the top EU job is heading to its climax lately. Roughly one month away from the European elections of 22-25 May and even the pigeons at park Leopold can feel the sigh of each and every of the 766 Members of the European Parliament. Many of them will have to […]
Xenophobics, racists and far right political extremists all over Europe have celebrated a razor-thin win of 50.3% in a Swiss referendum last Sunday, favoring an initiative “against mass immigration”. The vote was introduced by the country’s far right-wing Swiss People’s Party and was meant to block the free entry of EU citizens in the country, […]
Tomorrow’s Economic and Finance Ministers Council (ECOFIN) set to be convened in Brussels, the first under the Greek Presidency, will have the crucial task to decide on the construction of the European Banking Union. In view of that, the European Parliament sent a letter to the Greek Presidency of the Council, rejecting both the legal […]
The Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament reiterated the tough position of the legislative in relation to the Single Resolution Mechanism for failing banks. The SRM is meant to complete within the next four months the enactment of a real European Banking Union, according to the MEPs vision. In order to emphasise the decisiveness […]
During 2014 Europeans will be confronted with at least two major developments. Firstly, the completion of the political control of the EU financial market will materialize during the next year, after the adoption, before March 2014, of the Resolution Board a body like the EU council, which will decide which banks will fail. A second […]
As expected the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz strongly criticised the agreement reached in the European Council by the 28 EU leaders, on the plan for the enactment of the Banking Union. He said, “The slower and inefficient a system is, the more expensive it will be”. However the Federal Minister for Finance […]
The Ecofin council, a regrouping of the 28 ministers of Finance of the European Union, yesterday confirmed the creation of the first pillar of the European Banking Union, by approving the regulation for the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) to be built under the roof of the European Central Bank. This was a rather typical procedure, […]
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 […]
Driven by the stubbornness of the British PM David Cameron, who was effectively supported by the austerity loving German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU Summit of 7-8 February agreed yesterday on the Union’s budget. Theoretically their decision binds EU spending for the seven year period of 2014-2020. The European Parliament however is of a completely […]
The European Sting on Saturday 19 January wrote that, the “The ECOFIN Council is expected on Tuesday 22 January to adopt the Commission’s proposal to authorise enhanced cooperation on the Financial Transactions Tax”. Indeed today 22 January 2013, the Ecofin Council adopted a decision authorising eleven member states to go ahead with enhanced cooperation on […]
Yesterday, José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, speaking in a farewell ceremony to honour the Cypriot Presidency of the European Union during the second half of 2012, made clear that the Commission has made the creation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) for the EU banks as its utmost priority and will […]
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