The European Sting is Your democratic, independent and top quality political newspaper specialized in European Union News. Unique Features: iSting & Harry Sting
This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Briony Harris, Senior Writer, Formative Content Angela Merkel talked about climate change, Germany’s plan to ditch coal and the breakdown in communication at Davos. “We intend by 2030 to have 65% generated by renewables,” she said. Germany’s Chancellor […]
The EU leaders finally came to a conclusion after three long days of tough negotiations where German Chancellor’s suggestion to appoint Frans Timmermans as next European Commission president has been turned down by Italy and eastern countries. The solution was given with the nomination of a woman and particularly German Defence Minister Ursula von der […]
The EU leaders are expected to meet again on Sunday to discuss about who will be taking over the EU top jobs, while France and Germany seem unable to agree who will be the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker. Last week’s EU summit didn’t conclude on the matter, something that exerts extra pressure onto the bloc’s […]
This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum. Author: Beth A. Brooke-Marciniak, Global Vice-Chair, Public Policy, EY What do you need to innovate in the Transformative Age? You need diversity. You need men. And you need women. Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but it […]
This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. German Chancellor Angela Merkel debated the future of Europe with MEPs and the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, on Tuesday. “Tolerance is the soul of Europe and an essential basic value of the European idea”, Mrs Merkel said. This soul has been […]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report last week mentioning that limiting global warming temperature to 1.5°C is the only choice to ensure a more sustainable and equitable society compared to the 2.0°C. This assessment came out less than two months ahead of COP24 Katowice summit where all parties have to finalize […]
Once more, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, is trying to pool together her deeply divided cabinet and country and formulate a common proposal for a Brexit deal with the EU. In the latest development, the ‘Leave’ campaign ministers and the Bremain group are reported by 10 Downing Street to have agreed on a ‘business […]
Last Friday, the ‘America first’ President Donald Trump repeated his threats to impose a super tariff on imports of European cars, obviously having in mind the German automotive industry. His latest menace came only hours after the European Union moderately retaliated to the US aggressive trade action, by levying additional import duties on American goods […]
The divisive effect on Europe that Donald Trump’s trade war has generated, takes on new dimensions now. Only the European Sting highlighted this aspect, when the President of ‘America first’ fired the first shots, igniting the trade skirmishes. The differences, about how to respond to the US trade aggression, between the French President Emmanuel […]
A rare service Donald Trump is currently doing for the Europeans is that he offers them a platform for important common action to be undertaken by the French President Emmanuel Macron and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They are both visiting the White House this week, but expect quite different reception from Trump; pompous state […]
This article was exclusively written for the Sting by a Brussels-based passionate reader of German origin with significant experience in EU affairs. The fact that the refugee crisis is dividing Germany is no news. Just a few days ago, CDU[1] – member of the Bundestag[2] Bettina Kudla criticized Merkel’s asylum policy on Twitter, labelling it as […]
For a long time now the European Union is accused by the rest of the world for the severe austerity and recessionary economic policies it follows, also imposing them on crisis stricken euro area member states like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. This is so despite the fact that the Eurozone economy as a whole […]
Greece is obliged by today or the latest tomorrow Friday morning to submit to its Eurozone partners a new program with more severe austerity and deeper reforms, if the country wants to stay in the Eurozone. Alas, this is exactly the program the Greeks rejected last Sunday in a referendum. In case the Athens proposal […]
Today’s Eurogroup summit of the 19 euro area heads of state and government is convened by Donald Tusk, the President of European Council in order to bluntly present Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM with a final ultimatum; ‘comply or leave the Eurozone’. Of course this initiative was not Tusk’s, given that his mandate is rather […]
Last weekend the leaders of the G7 countries in reality acknowledged their impotency or probably unwillingness to effectively confront the expansion of the destructive and unlawful activities of the “too big to fail” banks and the shadow banking sector. After that, they decided that Ukraine and Greece have to go on bleeding in order not […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Despite the fact that the Minsk ceasefire agreement is holding more or less well and the bloodshed in eastern Ukraine has stopped, the Americans seem quite unhappy. They insist on the need to supply the Ukrainians with heavy armaments to continue the war, this time clearly against Putin’s Russia. Let’s follow the facts. On 25 […]
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 […]
The frantic search of the Greek government – pressed at home by an accelerating bank run which culminated last Friday with €1 billion withdrawals in a few hours – to achieve an agreement with its Eurozone partners ended up in an almost total retreat of Athens in front of its creditors. The Greek minister of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Germany and France are alarmed at the prospect that the Americans could turn Ukraine into an unbelievable inferno, by overtly delivering heavy armaments to Kiev. In such an event implications on Europe’s security will be vast. The French President François Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel rushed to Moscow last Friday and met the […]
The discussion about what is needed to get the European Union out of its economic stagnation is gaining momentum in many European capitals and Brussels, probably at the exception of Berlin. The German government still believes that Europe’s growth drivers are working, if not perfectly at least adequately, and rejects all initiatives to revive the […]
Last Monday, the Greek government scheduled an early Presidential election before the end of the year, which according to the constitution is to be held in the Parliament. If the Parliament proves unable to elect a new President of the Republic (180 votes are needed in a house of 300) a new legislative election must […]
Early next year the world is going to watch the culmination of the battle between Mario Draghi the President of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt am Main and Wolfgang Schäuble, the powerful German Minister of Finance based in Berlin. In this affair Draghi represents the will of the advanced world financial markets, including the […]
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 […]
This time the Europeans did it without the Americans in Ukraine. They managed to convince Russia to guarantee unobstructed natural gas supplies for the war-torn country and the EU for ‘at least’ during this winter. They did it last Friday in Milan, northern Italy, during the EU-Asia leaders meeting. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel took […]
The whole world knows that the European Union has for decades been powered by a strong force; the Berlin – Paris axis. At times, when this relationship broke down, the EU came to a standstill. Obviously now this is again the case. Towards the end of last month the newly appointed French Prime Minister, Manuel […]
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 […]
The Russian convoy of 280 lorries loaded with humanitarian aid (food, water, electricity generators, etc.) crossed the borders without Kiev’s permission last week and delivered on Friday 22 August its cargo to Luhansk, a key position in the warfare between the government special forces and the pro-Russian separatist rebels who still hold the city. The […]
The European Sting - Critical News & Insights on European Politics, Economy, Foreign Affairs, Business & Technology - europeansting.com 