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 […]The historic accomplishment of a seamless EU patent and intellectual property space
February 6, 2014 by 3 Comments
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 […]Parliament compromises on Banking Union but sends market abusers to jail
February 6, 2014 by 2 Comments
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 […]The EU Commission fails to draw the right conclusions about corruption
February 4, 2014 by 1 Comment
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 […]A new proposal breaks the stalemate over the Banking Union
January 29, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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 […]The mother of all fights about inflation, growth and banks
January 28, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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, […]ECOFIN: Choosing between the re-unification of Eurozone and a stalemate
January 27, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Commission: Raising the social issues that can make or break the monetary union
January 22, 2014 by 1 Comment
For the first time the European Commission recognises that the severe austerity measures enforced in the crisis hit Eurozone countries in the south of Europe, in Ireland and elsewhere, have undermined not only the well-being and the level of social protection there, but undercut also the very ability of those member states to regain non-cost […]Is it impossible to place the banks under control?
January 18, 2014 by 1 Comment
Within the next few weeks the European Commission is expected to announce a proposal for a structural reform in the banking sector. The declared target is to make sure “that banks do not remain or become too-big, too-complex or too-interconnected to fail”. In announcing its intentions on this grandiose plan, the EU’s executive arm states […]Parliament toughens its position on banking union
January 17, 2014 by Leave a Comment
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 […]EFSF/ESM boss tells half truths about Troika’s doings
January 16, 2014 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Klaus Regling, the Chief Executive Officer of the European Financial Stability Facility and Managing Director of the European Stability Mechanism, went to the European Parliament and was questioned by MEPs, about the anti-crisis role and operations of the ‘Troika’, a construction made up by the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International […]The European Parliament x-rays the troika’s doings
January 14, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Parliament launched an investigation on the functioning and the legitimisation of the troika, made up by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The three institutions between them undertook to bail out, guide and audit the economies of four Eurozone member states which reached a point of no […]The Parliament defies a politically biased Banking Union
January 11, 2014 by Leave a Comment
The European Parliament prepares for the fight which is about to begin with the Council, over the negotiations on the creation of the Single Resolution Mechanism and Fund to deal with failing banks. This will be the last step towards the completion of the European Banking Union, the major EU project after the introduction of […]Berlin ‘orders’ the EU Parliament to compromise
December 23, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]Eurozone close to agreeing on a Banking Union
December 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the small hours of yesterday night, the ECOFIN Council agreed on a general approach over the single resolution board (SRB) and a single fund for the resolution of banks in Eurozone. These are the main tools of the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), which constitutes the second pillar of the grandiose European Banking Union project. […]How the Irish people were robbed by banks, the Commission and their own government
December 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]The Parliament sets the way for the European Banking Union
December 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
The final shape of the European Banking Union will be served as dessert on the dinner table of the 28 EU leaders on Thursday night. According to the invitation letter that Herman Van Rompuy addressed to the heads of states and governments on the European Union “Over dinner, the focus will be on economic and […]Commission facilitates the activities of ‘merchants of labour’
December 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With unemployment skyrocketing in all but few countries of the European Union, the Commission found that the timing is right to facilitate the internal mobility of labour in the Union, in a clear cut attempt to exploit the EU’s unemployed of the south and the east and squeeze the wage levels in the north and […]EU legislation protecting home buyers approved in Parliament
December 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
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 […]The EU banking union needs a third pillar guaranteeing deposits
November 29, 2013 by 1 Comment
Daniele Nouy, secretary-general of the French Prudential Supervision Authority for banks, candidate to head Europe’s Single Supervisory Mechanism for lenders, speaking at the European Parliament last Wednesday stressed that, the “EU supervisor would be hampered if the two other pillars of banking union (recovery and resolution mechanism and deposit guarantee system) were not set up”. […]Galileo funding: A ‘small’ difference of €700 million
November 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A ‘small’ difference of €700 million appears in the funding of the European GPS Galileo-EGNOS programme for the 2014-2020 period. After the funding of the project got the green light in the plenary of the European Parliament, the legislators issued a Press release with a reference to its cost saying, “the programme’s €6.3 billion budget […]It’s a week dedicated to all EU budgets; seven days that can make or break the Union
November 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
All EU member states budgets including the EU’s proper one will be under scrutiny this week in Brussels. Let’s start from the Union’s own budget for 2014. Today Monday, a Conciliation Committee, made up by the 28 representatives of the member states and 28 European legislators, has to agree on EU’s budget for 2014. Earlier […]EU-US resume trade negotiations under the spell of NSA surveillance
November 9, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Finally the second round of the EU-US trade negotiations is to be held this week from Monday to Friday 11 to 15 November in Brussels. The round was originally set for 7th-11th October but it was postponed because the Americans couldn’t travel to Europe due to the partial shutdown of the US administration. Of course […]2014 budget: The EU may prove unable to agree on own resources
November 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The last fight in the ‘war’ over EU’s proper budget for 2014 is bound to take place this Monday 11 November, after the European Parliament got what it wanted for the 2013 budgetary exercise. For this year’s budget the unpaid bills of 2012 and 2013 totalling at €11.2 billion were at stake, having been now […]Eurobarometer: Not a single answer about what the Banking Union will cost to citizens
November 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At a critical time for the future of Eurozone, with the Banking Union still pending – the most important project since the euro – and the Eurobarometer survey failed to ask the citizens of the 18 euro area member states about that. Of course this is not a grave omission of the people who drafted […]The Parliament paves the way for the creation of the European Banking Union
October 18, 2013 by 2 Comments
Today, 18 October, is the last day for MEPs to table their amendments with the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Committee, in the process of formulating the legislature’s proposal for an EU mechanism to sort out troubled banks. This is the much debated bank resolution and recovery mechanism and fund. The Committee vote is planned for […]Parliament sets conditions on EU-China investment deal
October 7, 2013 by 1 Comment
A proposal for a resolution on the EU-China investment and market access agreement will be discussed in the October 8 plenary session of the European Parliament. A vote is scheduled to follow on the same day. The resolution, drafted by Helmut Scholz (GUE/NGL, DE), was passed by 25 votes to 2 with 3 abstentions, during […]EU agricultural production no more a self-sufficiency anchor
October 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The last deal to reform the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) this week between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council is a final recognition, concluded that European agriculture is not considered any more as the basic supplier of food for the Union’s 500 million inhabitants. It also recognises that farmers should receive aid […]The Commission offers exit from the EU budget stalemate
September 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission took action yesterday to unlock the double stalemate over the approval of both, the 2014 EU budget and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020. The MFF sets the spending ceiling of all EU bodies at €960 billion for the next seven years. To overcome the dead-end Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski responsible for budgets, proposed […]Water supply a human right but Greeks to lose their functioning utilities
September 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Since April 2012, when the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon was actually launched, one of the more successful such efforts was the ECI “on water and sanitation as a human right”. A citizens’ initiative is an invitation for the EU to legislate in areas within its mandate. It has to […]EU Budgets: Europe hoping for Xmas gifts
September 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Lithuanian Presidency of the European Union’s Council is now under pressure over the approval of EU’s 2014-2020 budget regulation, referred to as the EU’s Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), planned to support EU’s expenses for the next seven years amounting to €1 trillion. The problem is however that the approval of the first EU budget […]Commission challenges Council over EU 2014 budget
September 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Another €460 million should be added to the 2014 EU budget spending said yesterday the European Commission. This is a direct challenge to the Council’s position presented last week in the European Parliament shaping a severely cut down 2014 EU budget. The Commission asks additional funding exactly for those programmes that the Council wants to […]New round of bargaining for the 2014 EU budget late in autumn
July 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Council of the European Union and more precisely the Permanent Representatives Committee, echoing directly the dictums of the 28 EU governments – without having consulted with the European Parliament – reached between them an agreement on the 2014 European Union budget. Needless to say that the resources the Council offers to the Union for […]EU Parliament: ECB accountable for not supporting real economy
April 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Parliament yesterday held the European Central Bank accountable for the lack of dissemination to the real economy of the cheap liquidity the central bank has accorded to commercial banks. The resolution adopted during the Parliament’s annual evaluation of the ECB’s activities, addresses both the ECB’s monetary policy responses to the Eurozone crisis and […]
