It seems that a confrontational paranoia is engulfing our world. The British Prime minister is waging an aggressive campaign (which may end up being self-destructive) against the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for the Presidency of the Commission. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is encountering this British challenge with an all-out offensive having organized a continental […]Europe might not avoid new partitioning on Ukrainian crisis
June 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment
It seems that a confrontational paranoia is engulfing our world. The British Prime minister is waging an aggressive campaign (which may end up being self-destructive) against the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for the Presidency of the Commission. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel is encountering this British challenge with an all-out offensive having organized a continental […]Who threatens the lives and livelihoods of Ukrainians?
May 6, 2014 by Leave a Comment
People who fail to recognize that the stalemate in Ukraine cannot be resolved unilaterally by military force are not only very dangerous but are political, if not common law, crooks. For example, the appointed by the Maidan ‘regiments’, Interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a lieutenant of the corrupt ex-Prime Minister Jylia Tymoshenko, while in Odessa […]Greece returns to markets at a high cost to taxpayers, after four years out in the cold
April 10, 2014 by 1 Comment
The time that Greece has been waiting for, for quite a long time (4 years) is about to come. Athens is now floating in the capital markets a sovereign bond issue of about €2.5 billion and already unofficial offers from investors have reached €16bn. A very hefty multiple coverage so far of 6.4 times. The book of […]Britain and Germany change attitude towards the European Union
December 4, 2013 by 1 Comment
Two different developments, completely unrelated with each other, at least in the first reading, took place yesterday and may shape the future of the European Union in the near future. In the first instance the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, on official visit to China, had a quite unpleasant morning yesterday being badly molested by the […]Who is culpable in the EU for Ukraine’s defection to Russia?
December 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The 350,000 to 500,000 people who protested yesterday, even violently at times, in the centre of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, belonged, theoretically, to the three opposition parties, which had organised the rally. Unquestionably however, all Ukrainians believe that President Viktor Yanukovich – who decided at the last minute to turn down an Association Agreement with […]Commission deepens criticism on German economic policies
November 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the European Commission, on the occasion of the presentation of its reports on the ‘European Semester 2014’, the “Annual Growth Survey’ and the ‘Third Alert Mechanism Report’ on macroeconomic imbalances in EU member states, seized the opportunity to deepen and elaborate on its criticism, directed against the economic policies applied by Germany. Also yesterday, […]Renewed pressures on Berlin to adopt growth policies
November 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, the European Commission in Brussels announced that euro area growth prospects are sluggish, and downgraded the projected rate of GDP increase for 2014, from 1.2% to 1%. Also yesterday President Manuel Barroso, while speaking in Saint Paul’s Church in Frankfurt, where the first democratically elected Parliament of Germany was convened, called on this country […]CDU-SPD agree the terms for EU’s Banking Union
November 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With the talks on the formation of a coalition government, involving Angela Merkel’s CDU and the German socialists of SPD having progressed as far as to cover the issue of Eurozone’s bank resolution mechanism, it seems that the main elements of an agreement over the completion of the European Banking Union are now in place. […]The 28 EU leaders don’t touch the thorny issues
October 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The 28 EU leaders presently meeting in Brussels, seem to have chosen the ‘illegal migration’ and the ‘European pride’ issues as the main items on their agenda. This is the best way to avoid the burning social and economic issues, which torment “the richest continent” of the world, as the President of the European Parliament […]Germany: A grand coalition may trouble employers and bankers
September 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The very likely formation of a grand coalition government in Germany, led by the CDU-CSU Christian democrats, under Chancellor Angela Merkel and comprising the SPD socialists, will not be without tangible results in at least two crucial fronts. The wages of Germany’s hard working millions and the long overdue rearrangement of Eurozone’s banking system, are […]Brussels waits for the Germans to arrive
September 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
European Council president Herman Van Rompuy in a four short lines announcement congratulating Angela Merkel on her victory in yesterday’s elections repeats her name twice, plus once in the title. This is rather too much in a fifty words official statement. The announcement written in the usual official language avoids celebrating the CDU-CSU victory but […]Merkel’s triumph will make Berlin more unbending
September 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Angela Merkel’s personal triumph in the German elections yesterday will not change the European political scenery much but it will certainly affect the way some things are done in Brussels and probably in Berlin, if the socialists of the SPD finally join the winning Christian democrats of CDU-CSU in a grand coalition government. In any […]Europe united in not supporting a US attack on Syria
September 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Linas Linkevičius, whose country is currently holding the rotating president of the EU Council, during the workings of last Saturday’s informal meeting of the 28 Foreign Affairs ministers in Vilnius supported so openly and provocatively the US positions on Syria, to the point that only his tiny and deeply anti-Russian country […]Convincing the Germans to pay also for the unification of Eurozone
August 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
What Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, said about the uncertainties that an eventual new hair-cut of the Greek state debt may trigger doesn’t exclude this possibility. She stressed that it may set off a “domino effect of uncertainty” and scare off possible investors. But the country has already performed a voluntary hair-cut on the privately […]The strong version of the EU banking union gains momentum
June 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The creation of a real European Banking Union, built to serve all Eurozone member states on equal terms found yesterday a new strong supporter. Yves Mersch, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and former Governor of the Central Bank of Luxembourg speaking yesterday at the UniCredit Business Dialogue in Hamburg, […]Counting spillovers from the fast track EU-US free trade agreement
June 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In a day when the US economy got good marks from the IMF for growth and the appropriate monetary easing by the Fed, last Friday 14 June the Foreign Affairs (trade) Council of the European Union also gave the green light to the European Commission to enter into formal bilateral trade negotiations with the United […]EU Commission challenges Berlin by proposing breakthrough legislation on banks
June 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In an inspired speech last Friday, in Helsinki the European Commissioner Michel Barnier, speaking at the 4th Annual Economic Forum, made crystal clear that the Commission has not abandoned the target of a strong and effective European Banking Union. He stressed that “We cannot have a genuine Economic and Monetary Union without a Banking Union”. […]Commission: New proposal for centrally managed bank resolution
June 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission is about to honour once more its title as ‘Guardian of the Treaties’. This fundamental Commission’s mandate obliges the EU’s executive to always promote more rather than less Union. In this respect after the French President Francois Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in Paris last week, to support a […]Paris agreed with Berlin over a loose and ineffective banking union
May 31, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Safeguarding the basics of the Franco-German unity, which functions as the powerhouse of the European Union, had another victim. The French President Francois Hollande and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed yesterday in Paris to undermine the effectiveness of the European Banking Union. Instead of a strong central and financially independent bank resolution authority in […]Mood changes in Europe in favour of growth and jobs
May 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Economics is primarily a social not a mathematical science. Forgetting that may lead mathematicians to create toxic investment products like complicated derivatives, which have no other purpose than to cheat people. This misunderstanding may also lead executives like László Andor, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, to talk about ‘labour market’ as if […]Germany to help China in trade disputes with Brussels
May 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The visit of the new Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China and party secretary of the State Council, Li Keqiang to Germany paid tangible dividends. After meeting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel he got an official and public promise from her that Berlin will intervene in the Brussels procedures, to cool down […]Why growth is now a one way road for Eurozone
May 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Eurozone trade in goods with the rest of the world in March 2013 left a record surplus of €22.9 billion, according to an announcement released by Eurostat, the EU statistical service. Yet the single euro money area is stuck in a long-term recession and high unemployment trap, without visible prospects for an exit. Francois Hollande, […]Italy solves the enigma of growth with fiscal consolidation: The Banking Union
May 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The new Italian Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, after his government got full approval from the country’s legislators in two days and two trips to Berlin and Paris, managed to confirm the reputation of Rome as the catalyst of historic European developments. The Treaty of the European Union was signed in the eternal city. In less […]Light at the end of the Eurozone tunnel
April 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Dr Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German minister of Finance, drew yesterday his chauvinist rhetoric one step further, by denying the proposal that an increase of consumption demand in his country, could help the exports of the ailing Eurozone countries like Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and others. His outright denial was unfair, because he was in the […]EU–US: What is the real exchange in a Free Trade Agreement?
February 14, 2013 by 1 Comment
The usually slow-moving European Commission over issues like free trade agreements, this time didn’t lose its time and President Manuel Barroso announced yesterday that, “the European Union and the United States have decided to initiate internal procedures to launch negotiations with the aim of reaching a ground-breaking free trade agreement: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment […]
