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This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Continuing the PEACE and Interreg programmes after Brexit, as the EU Commission intends, is crucial to peaceful development in Northern Ireland, MEPs say. EU regional funding should be maintained at an adequate level post-2020, says a resolution which was approved by 565 votes in […]
This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. The European Parliament endorsed new measures to modernise the European electoral law last Wednesday. The purpose of the updated electoral law is to boost EU citizens’ participation in the European elections and enhance the European character of the procedure. The new measures were endorsed […]
This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. MEPs urged Venezuela to allow in humanitarian aid, and the EU to release more funds to help Venezuelans fleeing the country, in a vote last Thursday. The European Parliament is shocked and alarmed by the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, which has led to many […]
Last Friday, Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, said from China, where she was on official visit, that in seven weeks she will have a Brexit transition deal with the EU. Surely, nobody believes her. The reason is that her Tory governing party is so deeply split over the Brexit terms, up to the point […]
Jean-Claude Juncker’s was confirmed last Tuesday as President of the European Commission for the next five years. In a secret ballot 422 MEPs who voted for him and 250 against. This goes beyond what David Cameron had imagined, when he decided to fervently oppose this appointment for the top EU job. To be reminded, that […]
Say farewell to the European Parliament you knew and be prepared to work with the new legislature to be constituted after the elections of 22-25 May. This is what the Brussels’s bureaucracy must be thinking these days. The composition of the new Parliament remains a puzzler. If the tendencies the voters have shown in national […]
It was high time that the European Union took care of citizens and companies, usually SMEs, who have suffered economic losses and other damages from infringements of the EU antitrust rules, such as cartels and abuses of dominant market positions. Until now it was very difficult for the victims to substantiate their claims for damages […]
The European Central Bank is deeply worried about the ability of Eurozone’s SMEs to access bank financing at a reasonable cost and under competitive terms. The present business loan stalemate has already bitten into the growth prospects of the euro area, mirrored in the dangerous fall of inflation rate towards the deflation zone and the […]
Last Friday the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) held a public hearing on the implementation of European Union policies to counter youth employment. EESC is a consultative body made up by representatives of Europe’s socio-occupational interest groups and others (employers, workers and various interest groups). It gives its members a platform to express their […]
As expected, yesterday, the European Commission said ‘yes’ to the very first successful European Citizens’ Initiative, organized by the Right2Water campaigners. A ‘no’ reply was unthinkable, just sixty days ahead of the European election. On 1st April 2011, the EU Regulation No 211/2011, under the title of “European Citizens’ Initiative” (ECI), entered into force. According […]
The European Parliament, in a strongly worded and overwhelmingly voted resolution, set a definite condition for the legislature’s approval of the currently under negotiation EU-US free trade agreement (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – TTIP). The condition is that American NSA’s mass surveillance practices be completely stopped. The relevant Press release clearly states that “Parliament’s […]
Contradicting messages are emitted from a statement issued yesterday by the lead MEPs currently negotiating the details of the legislation on the Single Resolution Mechanism and Fund for Eurozone banks with the ECOFIN council. This legislation is set to complete the legal and structural background of the European Banking Union. The other pillar of the […]
The European Parliament once more confirmed its reputation as the authentic channel transiting the social and the economic realities the European people have to endure to decision makers. Yesterday, the MEPs disagreed with the Commission President Manuel Barroso and Dimitrios Kourkoulas, the Greek deputy Foreign Minister speaking for the Council Presidency, that economic recovery was […]
Yesterday the European Parliament rejected by 650 votes to 15 the new Regulation on seeds for sowing. The draft law was introduced in the legislative by EU Commissioner Dacian Cioloș. Undeniably, the extent of the negative vote is an indication that ‘something is rotten in the state’ of Berlaymont. The Romanian Commissioner even refused to […]
Today in Strasbourg the three EU decision making bodies, the Council as represented by its Greek Presidency, the Parliament and the Commission, in a procedure called ‘trilogue’ will try to bridge their differences and come up with a ground breaking agreement to complete the European Banking Union. This is the most important project enterprised by […]
Yesterday’s Eurogroup and today’s ECOFIN councils are convened almost exclusively to discuss the details of the two remaining gaps in the legal and of course the operating framework of the European Banking Union, which are, the Single Resolution Mechanism and the Resolution Fund. The two legislative bodies of the European Union, the Parliament and the […]
This Monday and Tuesday, 10 and 11 March during the Eurogroup and the ECOFIN meetings respectively, the member states will show their willingness to compromise with the Parliament, in order to finalise the legal base of the European Banking Union. This would be the most important EU project after the common currency. The Banking Union […]
Undeniably, the European Banking Union’s prime target is to definitely cut the umbilical cord between banks and sovereigns, through the creation of a uniform supervision and insolvency dealing environment for all Eurozone lenders. Yet, Germany and France insist that the final decision for the resolution of a failing bank must be taken by member state […]
In two parallel actions the European Parliament approved, with stormy majorities, two draft laws; one against money laundering and one more to facilitate the confiscation of fraudulently acquired assets. In the first case, the Economic Affairs and the Justice and Home Affairs committees amended a Commission proposal to list in public registers the ultimate owners […]
The absolute necessity to conclude before May the trilateral negotiations on the functioning of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) for failing banks and clarify the role of the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) (in relation to the control and the use of the Single Resolution Fund), united yesterday all the representatives of three decision-making bodies of the […]
Predictably, the Right2Water campaigners while presenting yesterday in the European Parliament their ‘citizens’ initiative’, met opposition from some MEPs only when they crossed the line of the usual pompous but vacuous words about ‘universal rights’ and laid down their meaningful demand to ban privatization of water supply. It turned out that the organisers of the […]
The importance of the Single Resolution Fund, which is supposed to bear the cost of Eurozone’s failing banks, was underlined yesterday evening by the fact that the President of Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch minister of Finance, baptized the group of people who will govern the function of the SRF as Eurogroup+. The Eurogroup is […]
This afternoon the European Parliament is to hold a public hearing on the universal right to clean water, the first such hearing under the European Citizens’ Initiative, which enables the public to ask the EU authorities to table new legislation, provided the initiative is backed by one million people across seven member states. The ‘right2Water’ […]
Production, reproduction, trade and use of seeds for sowing are highly complex activities with far-reaching implications, affecting the entire agro-food sector. They concern mainly the productivity in the cultivation of cereals and oil seeds; that is, products which play a crucial role in food self-sufficiency and constitute the very base of the entire food chain, […]
Yesterday Mario Draghi, the President of European Central Bank, proposed that the time horizon for the full mutualisation of all bank resolution costs among the EU Banking Union member states, should be cut by half from ten to five years. Also yesterday, in a different occasion, Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the […]
The Commission is now expected to definitely authorize or deny the cultivation on EU soil, of the genetically modified seed of maize 1507 developed by the American company Monsanto, an affiliate of US giant DuPont. This decision will allow EU member states to exercise their freedom to choose, whether or not to allow the cultivation […]
During this past week the European Parliament had been working hard on its position over the bank resolution mechanism (the last building block to complete the Banking Union), in the context of the ongoing negotiations between the legislative and the Greek Presidency of the Council. In two consecutive plenaries the MEPs approved resolutions making a […]
The last building block was laid to its place yesterday, accomplishing the construction of the seamless EU commercial patent and intellectual property protection space and the function of the Unified Court. The relevant regulations will be in force as from 15 January 2015. It has to be reminded that in December 2012, an agreement was […]
Yesterday the European Parliament confirmed its willingness to regulate the EU’s financial sector with determination and the obvious intention of convincing the 500 million European citizens that ordinary people matter more than bankers and derivative dealers. Of course all that is happening ahead of the May European elections. To this effect, the plenary of the […]
Cecilia Malmström, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs presented yesterday the first EU Anti-Corruption Report. The Commission estimates that corruption costs €120 billion a year to the European economy. This could be a very low approximation of reality though, because the vast majority of EU citizens believe that among politicians at national, regional, local and EU […]
According to the European Commissioner Michel Barnier, the Eurozone member states, who participate in the Eurogoup and the ECOFIN councils are ready to soften their position in the negotiations with the European Parliament, to lift the deadlock over the creation of the Banking Union. This is a step forward in resolving the stalemate around the […]
Reading two accounts by two different people, about what happened in the Eurogroup meeting yesterday in Brussels, gives a clear indication of what will be decided in the ECOFIN Council today. Ollie Rehn, Vice-President of the European Commission and member of the Commission responsible for Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Euro, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, […]
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 […]
