Quite unexpectedly, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht announced yesterday night the cancellation of 2nd Round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations in Brussels, due to the US administration shutdown. His counterpart, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman informed him that “due to the ongoing furlough, the US Administration will not be […]American negotiators can’t pay for their trip to Brussels, EU-US trade agreement freezes
October 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Quite unexpectedly, EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht announced yesterday night the cancellation of 2nd Round of Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations in Brussels, due to the US administration shutdown. His counterpart, United States Trade Representative Ambassador Michael Froman informed him that “due to the ongoing furlough, the US Administration will not be […]Parliament to ask for the suspension of EU-US deal on bank data
October 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The members of Civil Liberties Committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament and the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström will discuss on Wednesday 9 October the possibility to ask for the suspension or even the termination of the EU-US agreement on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP). This action will come as a response […]EU deserves the title of the Syrian affair merchandiser
September 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
With the US-Russian agreement on chemical weapons in Syria the world economy and more so Europe avoided a new blow, at a time when the resumption of business activities, especially in the European south, prove to be more fragile than expected. There is no doubt that this development defused the tensions which run high after […]OECD: Mind the financial gap that lies ahead
September 10, 2013 by 1 Comment
A rather disappointing picture of the world economy drew OECD Deputy Chief Economist Jorgen Elmeskov last week, when he said that “The gradual pick-up in momentum in the advanced economies is encouraging but a sustainable recovery is not yet firmly established. Major risks remain”. If it was not for China’s predicted growth during the last […]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 […]Why lay people don’t expect anything good from G20
September 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
If restoring global confidence relied on G20 efforts to fight tax evasion and control money market funds (MMFs), then the earth could end up being a totally unsafe and risky place. Who can deny that it is like that today? Tax evasion grows fast and the same is true for financial profiteering. This last development […]Why Obama asks approval from Congress to bomb Syria?
September 2, 2013 by 1 Comment
The fact that the American President Barack Obama unexpectedly decided to “seek authorisation for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress”, in order to launch an attack against the Syrian government forces, is the first direct and open recognition of the limits of the American military and political supremacy, after the […]What lessons to draw from the destruction of Syria
August 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Three major Middle East countries, Iraq, Egypt and Syria are in a transitory phase or in deadly civil war and all of them being threatened with effective partitioning. After Iraq, the US supported actively by Britain, is now planning an attack to Syria which will certainly lead to a partitioning of the country. In this […]Egypt: The road to hell paved with western advices for democracy
August 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and European Council President Herman Van Rompuy issued an utterly hypocritical joint statement on Egypt. Last week’s massacre of Muslim demonstrators by military and police forces in all major cities of the country was covered with condolences to the families of the dead. The fact that Egypt is […]Does the West play the Syrian game in Egypt?
August 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Americans after having managed to become the target of aggressive rhetoric from all sides of the Egyptian political spectrum they now try to enter again in the picture behind the European Union. To this effect the US Secretary of State, John Kerry and the European Union High Representative, Catherine Ashton issued a joint statement […]Summer pause gives time to rethink Eurozone’s problems
July 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The United States Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew on his way back to Washington from the G20 meeting in Moscow made a stop-over in Athens on Monday to meet the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras. Probably this is not major news. However, what Lew said under the Acropolis about his encounter with the German […]Two EU Commissioners fire at will against the US
July 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment
From both sides of the Atlantic Ocean two European Commissioners, Michel Barnier from Washington and Vivian Reding from Heidelberg, while addressing yesterday quite different audiences, sent out converging messages criticising the US. They both expressed novel views vis-à-vis EU–US relations in general, which can be interpreted as hardening of Commission’s position in reference to on-going […]Who and why want the EU-US trade agreement here and now
July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In the brief period of one week the European Union and the United States concluded last Friday in Washington the first round of talks for a major Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that is their bilateral free trade agreement. The time schedule of this grandiose endeavour is unbelievably short, given the magnitude of the […]The US repelled EU proposals on common rules for banks
July 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The European Commission and more precisely the European Commissioner Michel Barnier fights a battle in two fronts over the financial sector’s future. One internal with Germany on EU banking union and another one external with the US on common rules for banks. Understandably in both fronts he has the full backing of the Commission and […]Banks get trillions and the unemployed ECB’s love…
July 11, 2013 by Leave a Comment
To understand the kind of world we live in it suffices to follow the way the banks make their billions. Let’s start from the repercussions from the great credit crunch of 2008-2009 which still haunt our everyday lives in Europe and the US but no bank has come close to pay the price for their […]Where is Egypt leading the Middle East and the Mediterranean economy?
July 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that the Egyptian experiment of democratic political and economic transformation of the country by the Muslim Brotherhood has failed in every respect and the West recognised it. No wonder why no western government or the UN termed the intervention of the Egyptian army and the toppling of President Mohamed Morsi, as […]Bugged Europe accepts US demands and blocks Morales plane
July 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
If the plane of a European Union head of state or government, while passing over a Latin American country, had been forced to land by the country’s military and civil authorities, and then searched for 15 hours, say by the Bolivian police and secret agencies, the entire EU political establishment would have climbed at the […]EU-US trade talks go ahead despite Prism and civil rights breach
July 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Apart from the largely hypocritical cries by European politicians mainly in Brussels about civil rights breaches, the only concrete and immediate implications that the American PRISM scandal could have had on EU-US relations refers to the Free Trade and Investments Agreement that the two sides are about to negotiate. For one thing European citizens are […]EU-US trade agreement talks to be affected by American bugs
July 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Bugging EU institutions’ premises and members states’ offices in the US by American secret agencies may seriously affect the progress of negotiations for the conclusion of a Free Trade and Investments Agreement between the two largest trading partners of the world. While the first reactions by EU dignitaries, after the revealing publications by Der Spiegel […]The US bugged Europe: Is this news?
July 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment
It took a new wave of publications by major European media (Der Spiegel, Guardian) about the bugging of EU’s and EU member states’ offices in the US by the American secret services, to wake up the European Union leaders. Yesterday all three European Union presidents and at least two Commission vice presidents issued statements asking […]EU Parliament: It takes real banks to fight unemployment and recession
June 17, 2013 by 1 Comment
The European Parliament has a unique ability to identify the key issues in the Union’s conjuncture, not only in the political but also in the economic front. Seemingly the close contact of its members with their constituents is at the heart of this special property. Seen under this light, the last Parliamentary debate on what […]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 […]Commission presents far-reaching anti-tax evasion measures
June 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment
As from January 2015 dividends, capital gains and all other financial incomes and bank account balances will be added to the currently existing restricted list of categories subject to the automatic exchange of information between the EU tax authorities, according to a proposal by the EU Commissioner Algirdas Šemeta. Practically today only interest on bank […]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, […]Everybody for himself in G20 and IMF
April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The G20 meeting of this last weekend evolved in the shadow of the confrontation between the US Secretary of Treasury, Jack Lew and the German Federal minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble. Obviously the subject of this antithesis was the reluctance of Eurozone to apply the American recipe for economic growth. That is the issue of […]Is the West gradually losing Africa?
March 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment
At a time when the West on both sides of the North Atlantic Ocean is consumed with its internal financial problems as in the European Union’s Eurozone or just exhausting the limits of government borrowing as the US does, the BRICS countries are expanding their presence in the world, taking advantage of their economic strength […]EU threatens Japan to suspend FTA negotiations if…
March 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The two Presidents of the EU, José Manuel Barroso of the Commission and Herman Van Rompuy of the Council couldn’t fly yesterday to Tokyo for the EU-Japan Summit, due to the ongoing developments around the Cyprus issue. This was not enough however to impede the beginning of negotiations for the conclusion of a Free Trade […]Is South Korea set to lose from its FTA with the EU?
March 4, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The recent announcement (issued at the highest level by three presidents; Barack Obama, Herman Van Rompuy, Manuel Barroso), that the European Union and the United States were ready to start negotiations, aiming at the conclusion of a far-reaching Free Trade Agreement (FTA), sounded the alarm to other EU’s major trading partners and more so in […]An FTA between EU-US to hurt South Korea
February 25, 2013 by 1 Comment
Ten days ago, Brussels and Washington issued a joint statement signed by three Presidents, namely the US leader Barack Obama, the European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. With it, the EU and the US announced their decision to conclude a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) by the end […]Does the EU want GMOs and meat with hormones from the US?
February 11, 2013 by 2 Comments
The prospective drafting of a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the European Union and the United States is developing into a major issue and as things evolved last week, it seems that this may lead the EU into a new division, between France on the one side and the free trade lovers Britain and […]Can the EU afford a trade war with China?
January 28, 2013 by 1 Comment
Last week the Chinese Ministry of Commerce announced the imposition of anti-dumping duties on two products originating from the EU and the US. Imports into China of the widely used solvents ethylene glycol monobutyl and diethylene glycol monobutyl ethers, produced by a number of European and American companies, will be penalised with anti-dumping duties ranging […]The developing countries keep the world going
January 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The developing countries, led by the industrialised nations of Asia, are playing a fast growing role in the world economy and may soon overshadow the developed triangle of US-EU-Japan. Actually they have already overtaken them in key sectors. According to the UNCTAD’s Handbook of Statistics 2012 the share of emerging countries in “the most heavily […]Eurozone’s sovereign debt not a problem anymore?
January 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Understandably sovereign debt statistics for Eurozone and the EU have become most crucial over the past five years, not only for the implicated countries but also for the global financial community. Until recently a bad spell over Greece’s prospects concerning its government debt could send all and every world market to a downwards spiral. And […]
