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April 4, 2013
By Oxfam EU Aid builds hospitals, pays doctors’ salaries and buys textbooks and medical equipment. It isn’t charity; it’s a tiny but crucial investment to build a better, safer world. New figures from the OECD, released today, show that aid from EU-15 has fallen for the second year in a row, with a €10 billion… » read more
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Development Policy, English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Member States |
April 1, 2013
According to the partial results of the latest ECB survey, the median wealth of Spanish households stands at €178,300 while that of their German counterparts languishes at €51,400. This is largely due to contrasting approaches to bricks and mortar: nearly 50% of Germans rent their accommodation and only 25% own it outright, whereas less than… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, Euro & Finance, Member States, UK in Europe |
By Antonia Colibasanu The transformation currently taking place within the European Union not only casts doubt on the future of the bloc, but it also brings to the forefront elements that redefine the notion of country risk. The conditions Brussels has attached to its assistance to Cyprus have opened a discussion on how much control… » read more
March 31, 2013
“The Ministry of Magic has always considered the education of young witches and wizards to be of a vital importance. Although each headmaster has brought something new to this… historic school, progress for the sake of progress must be discouraged. Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices… » read more
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energy efficiency, English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Sustainable Dev. |
March 27, 2013
By Marec Siwiec MEP Information on the settlement of the Cypriot crisis hit today’s press covers. Articles feature pictures of furious people, most of whom are mad at Brussels. It was bad Brussels who ordered to close the banks and is actually to be blamed for everything. Angry Cypriots and sympathetic citizens of other countries… » read more
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blogactiv, English, EU Citizens and Media, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance |
La commission emploi et affaires sociales (EMPL) a posé des questions à la Commission européenne, représentée en la personne de Mme Reding, relatives aux conséquences de l’austérité sur les conditions de vie des personnes handicapées. Le 12 mars 2013, en vertu l’article 115 du règlement, la commission emploi et affaires sociales a posé des questions… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Social Europe & Jobs |
March 26, 2013
By Florian Pantazi The days of Cyprus as an offshore banking centre for rich Russians or Britons are well and truly over. All things considered, however, the 30 billion dollars held by them in Cypriot bank accounts is a paltry amount next to the 20 trillion dollars held by Western corporations and individuals in some… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance, Member States |
By Protesilaos Stavrou In the early hours of March 25, the eurogroup reached an agreement on the macroeconomic adjustment programme for Cyprus, which is in my humble opinion more just than the previous deal that placed asymmetric losses on small depositors while not touching senior bondholders when dealing with the downsizing of the banking system.… » read more
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blogactiv, English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance |
March 25, 2013
The Cyprus bailout deadlock came to remind us that the Eurozone establishment is something we had really over-appreciated 11 years ago. The idea behind the single currency structure was to decrease instability, increase growth and smooth structural deficiencies between member-states. Nowadays, the conclusion is that Eurozone is a forum of European member-states with no decisional… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance, Member States |
What is common in Cyprus, Hungary and Syria? They were all on the agenda of the recent 15 March 2013 EU summit, and they represent for the time being the three main waives of the multiple crises Europa faces nowadays. Cyprus and its bailout marks the new level of the economic/social crisis, Hungary provoked harsh… » read more
March 24, 2013
Over the next three years we will witness an intense debate about the future of the EU, which could probably result in an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in 2015, in preparation for a new EU treaty. How Member States position themselves is crucial to this debate. 2013 is a year of thinking in terms of how… » read more
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English, EU Citizens and Media, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Europe's East, Member States |
March 22, 2013
So the eurozone crisis is back with full force. Did it ever really go away? I don’t propose to try and recap the events of the last few days in Cyprus with the bail-in of bank depositors, things are moving quickly enough that I would be out of date almost immediately. Instead, let’s focus briefly… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020, Euro & Finance |
By Savvas Poulos To: Chairman of the European Council, Mr. Herman Van Rompuy Chairman of the European Committee, Mr. Jose Manuel Barroso Chairman of the European Parliament, Mr. Martin Schulz Athens, March 19th, 2013 Honorable Gentlemen, The befalling privatization of the Greek Public Gas Corporation (DEPA) reveals the deadlock into which the EuropeanUnion is heading… » read more
March 20, 2013
Cyprus comes to take the lion’s share in the process of fiercely undermining austerity politics in Eurozone. After Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, Cyprus seems to shake and unveil the deep heterogeneity inside the single monetary union. There are many questions with pending answers that our interest should be focused on. Cyprus denied to accept… » read more
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English, EU Institutions, Europe's East, Global Europe, Member States |
March 15, 2013
By Andres Laiapea, conservative and a member of the Pirate Party in Estonia. There has been a lot of talk on how the direct election of the President of the European Commission could provide democratic legitimacy. But it might in fact backfire in the most devastating manner. It appears many agree by now that there… » read more
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English, EU Citizens and Media, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020 |
March 14, 2013
While most of the major items in the European Commission’s CAP reform package which the European Parliament has amended and now agreed will do nothing to improve the focus of Europe’s farm policy, there is one item which it approved which contains the germ of eventual radical reform. It is the proposal to begin capping… » read more
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Agriculture & Food, English, EU Institutions, EU Priorities 2020 |
Sophie in’t Veld, a Dutch ALDE Member of the European Parliament and member of the Civil Liberties Committee criticised the US interference in draft stage of the European Data Protection law, that is before legislators as herself got the proposal from the European Commission. Among the controversial changes that are attributed to draft stage interference… » read more
By Uta Dirksen, Björn Hacker, Maria João Rodrigues, and Winfried Veit. The Eurozone is standing at a crossroads, facing the biggest challenges in its history: the systemic crisis and the political attempts to overcome it have far-reaching consequences for the future of the Economic and Monetary Union, European integration and Europe in the world. By… » read more
March 13, 2013
“Nothing beats the truth.” These were the passionate words of Enda Kenny, prime minister of Ireland, when asked last week about the spring European Council on 14-15 March. He was talking about a moment of reckoning for the continent’s leaders, as they confront increasingly hostile electorates, most recently exhibited in Italy where voters sent a… » read more
March 11, 2013
By Antonia Colibasanu Over the weekend, we saw protests against austerity across Spain. This comes after a report last week that the number of unemployed people in Spain surpassed 5 million. Also during the last week, large protests occurred in Portugal, another European country strongly hit by the economic crisis. Once a significant segment of… » read more
