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Last December, after the attack in San Bernardino California that left 14 dead, Donald Trump proposed a “temporary ban on Muslims entering the US”. This statement gave him a clear lead in the race for the Republican Party nomination, amongst the twelve candidates for the 8 November Presidential election. Republican voters seemingly appreciated his strong […]
The overwhelming labor reforms that the French government is currently finding very difficult to introduce, are also posing a crucial dilemma for the entire Eurozone. The ‘liberalization’ of the labor market has already traumatized Italy and the rest of the south European countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal. The northerners have already ‘solved’ this problem, […]
Barack Obama visited the UK last week clearly in an attempt to boost the “Remain” campaign urging Britain to stay within the EU. This move has not yet been exactly measured as beneficial or not for David Cameron’s campaign but has certainly caused several reactions to the British voters about two months before the referendum. The […]
The world economy remains more or less motionless or even recedes six years after the financial meltdown, because the banking industry has not yet decided what’s best for its interests. Continue leveraging itself (borrowing) on central bank liquidity in a stagnating environment, or start deleveraging and send the world to another deep recession, if not […]
President Bashar al-Assad’s regular Syrian army aided by Lebanon Hezbollah fighters plus some Iranians, and of course under the air cover of Russia’s fighter jets last week pushed the ISIS murderers out of the ancient city of Palmyra. Reportedly, a Russian ground special force played also a role in this decisive battle, that probably constitutes […]
The next European Court of Justice (ECJ) meeting will take place on April 12 regarding the breaching of human rights by the massive interception of communication data. This hearing is very crucial as it is probable that the EU judges will decide to cut down on the power of UK surveillance laws since ECJ’s rulings are binding on UK courts […]
What happens in China is more important for the European economy than a meagre fall of unemployment in the Eurozone. Last Tuesday, China said its February exports dived by a record 25.4%, fuelling new fears for a bigger slowdown in the world economy. At the same time, a Press release by Eurostat, the EU statistical […]
On Thursday 25 February, this newspaper concluded that “the other major central banks in Europe, China, Japan and elsewhere appear ready to fill the gap that the Fed plans to leave in the ‘money for nothin’ game”. This week’s developments completely justified this prediction. The immediate result is a new appreciation of the dollar with […]
The US-Russia plan for a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria, endorsed by the UN Security Council on Friday 26 February kicked off in the early hours of Saturday and two days after is still more or less observed. Understandably the cease-fire may collapse at any moment but the US and Russia seem determined to keep […]
Last Tuesday, a new steep fall of the price of crude oil by almost 5%, triggered another selloff in all the major capital markets of the world. The New York and the European stock exchanges lost anything between 2% and 3% of their capitalization. One may observe that this development is one of many of […]
Brussels seems quite lost with what is happening now in Syria. The statement issued last Monday 15 February by the European High Representative Mogherini and Commissioner Stylianides on the atrocious and murderous attacks on hospitals and schools in Syria stands as an infallible witness to that. At this point in time, the foreign powers, regional or […]
The Iowa US presidential candidate nomination race results in both the Republican and the Democrat vote, proved that in the US politics still matter. The populist, unpredictable and apolitical billionaire Donald Trump was largely defeated by Ted Cruz, a super conservative Texas politician. On the other side Hillary Clinton the champion of the American business […]
Every time Mario Draghi, the President of the European Central Bank, tries to fight very low inflation and indirectly support growth and job creation in Eurozone with monetary measures, the Germans stand in his way. Last Thursday 28 January, Jens Weidmann, the governor of the German central bank the Bundesbank, did it again. In an […]
The major central banks of the world are currently in the middle of a precise but of dubious results surgical operation on capital markets. On the one hand, the monetary authorities aim at supporting the real economy by injecting more cash into the financial system. On the other, they try to mitigate the risky super […]
The wild selloff in the major capital markets of the world that culminated last Monday, the first working day of the New Year and continued on Wednesday for a fifth day in row was not just an overreaction to the anticipated slowdown of the Chinese economy, as almost all chief analysts assumed in mainstream media. […]
The dilemma ‘me or chaos’ that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hurled at his compatriots in last Sunday’s election paid dividends. And this despite the fact that he did what he could to produce frightening samples of the kind of chaos he had in mind. Understandably, then the Turkish voters didn’t give a super-majority […]
Mario Draghi’s statement of last Thursday from Malta that the European Central Bank’s “monetary policy accommodation will need to be re-examined at our December monetary policy meeting”, offered a strong support to all major capital markets, with stocks gaining a lot of ground and the euro receding slightly. Understandably, a generous increase of ECB’s monthly […]
Probably the greatest achievement of last Thursday’s European Council was that its conclusions were refuted within hours after they were published. While the official text of the Council results boasts about a “joint action plan with Turkey”, to stem the immigration flows to the EU, the Turkish minister of Foreign Affairs Feridun Sinirlioglu commented otherwise. […]
Last Friday 9 October the UN Security Council and its five permanent members unanimously decided to actually trade entire nations and geographical regions between them. To this effect they authorized the European Union to employ warships in the Libyan waters to “board ships for inspection, seize and even dispose of vessels suspected of being used […]
It was only last Wednesday that Russia officially launched airstrikes in Syria which are supposed to target terrorist groups such as Islamic State (IS). The attacks however aim at western Syria where “strangely” IS has no activity. Consequently, while Russia is mitigating the war in Syria backing-up Assad and his government, refugees continue leaving massively the […]
Last Saturday, 12 September, Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis made some remarks after the informal meeting of ECOFIN (the EU ministers of Finance Council) in Luxembourg. The main item on the agenda was about completing the European Monetary Union. EMU is the most important EU project after the introduction of the single euro currency. He […]
During the last two weeks the world’s largest stock markets had a wild time not seen since Lehman Brothers went bust on 15 September 2008. The New York stock exchange in Wall Street lost more than 8% of its capitalization in a few days and then recovered some of the losses to close last Friday […]
The EU Commissioner of Climate Action and Energy stressed out yesterday the sluggishness of the required actions that must be taken in order to combat climate change effects. Miguel Arias Cañete was critical to some G20 countries that have not yet provided their climate contributions and are not helping to create a constructive agreement. The Commission’s official made […]
Since last March the European Central Bank has being pumping at least €60 billion a month into Eurozone’s financial system, under its ‘expanded asset purchase program’, aimed at reviving the stagnating price level and energizing the sleepy real economy. The objective is to bring inflation close to 2%; the target rate set by ECB’s monetary […]
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 […]
The first to travel to Tehran after the nuclear agreement was struck last week between Iran and the 5+1 (France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States plus Germany) are the German Vice Chancellor Zigmar Gabriel and Laurent Fabius the French minister for Foreign Affairs. Understandably, French and German dignitaries are more welcomed […]
The European Foreign Ministers gathered in Luxembourg two days ago and decided to continue imposing economic sanctions to Russia for another six months. This shows the strong intention of Europe to weaken Russia’s power in Ukraine and thus put a stop on Russia’s imperialistic plans. However, Russia claims these sanctions as “illegal and unfounded” and will fight […]
For the first time in the history of the EU-Turkish relations the European Parliament openly and loudly welcomed last week the heavy losses of the governing party in a general election. The MEPs actually rejoiced on “the most inclusive and representative parliament in Turkish modern history, reflecting the country’s diversity”, forgetting that it’s a hang […]
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 […]
Last Tuesday Brussels celebrated the return of the Eurozone inflation to positive grounds after five straight months of deflation (negative inflation). Some EU Commission economists, among others, assume that three positive decimal points of change of the level of consumer prices in May (0.3%), can signal the return of the economy to growth. Under an […]
The UN talks that are being held in the context of a 10-day climate conference in Bonn are highly crucial for the preparation of the final agreement that must be signed at the climate summit in Paris in 6 months from now. Therefore, officials from 190 nations are gathered in the German city to discuss […]
Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU Commission President together with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave a Press conference following the 23rd EU-Japan Summit which took place in Tokyo on 29 May. The focal point of the meeting was supposed to be the free trade agreement (FTA) between the two sides. However the EU dignitary spoke […]
