Decisive action on zombie banks from…the European Commission
By: EBR | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Neelie Kroes has, according to one analyst in London, “cut through all the bullshit”. Europe’s competition commissioner has trod where national regulators dare not, by imposing harsh penalties on the banks that received the biggest bail-outs in Europe.
E-commerce doing well despite crisis but legal challenges ahead
By: EBR | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
A new OECD report finds that while the retail sector has been hit hard by the crisis, e-commerce has fared well and seen continuing growth in many countries. As consumers have become more cost-conscious, they are increasingly going online to compare products and save money.
Rent-seekers’ Nirvana
By: EBR | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The practice of investment banking and derivatives trading should have radically changed after this economic crisis. But this does not seem to be the case. As Martin Hutchinson writes, Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs are taking advantage of this situation to make more money than ever.
Socialists emerge as frontrunners for EU foreign job
By: EBR | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Romanian MEP Adrian Severin and former Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema have emerged as frontrunners for the new EU foreign minister job to be created by the Lisbon Treaty, according to sources.
Twenty years after: end of Communism cheered but with reservations
By: EBR | Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, public opinion on both sides of the Iron Curtain generally look back approvingly at the collapse of communism. But the initial widespread enthusiasm about these changes has dimmed...
Europe leads the world on sustainability
By: EBR | Monday, November 9, 2009
Long-term economic, social and environmental indicators give a better picture of a country’s progress than do traditional methods, says Candice Stevens, the OECD’s Sustainable Development Advisor.
Foundations are a new power in Europe
By: EBR | Monday, November 9, 2009
There are over 60,000 foundations in Europe, although only a few are large and famous. What these foundations have in common is a willingness to take on projects to help build a better society that the official bureaucracies don't have an interest in or time for.
A fair deal for women
By: Margot Wallstrom, Vice-President of the EC in charge of Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy | Friday, September 11, 2009
Equality is enshrined as a principle at the heart of the European Union, yet only about one-third of Euro MPs are women. Gender discrimination remains widespread in Europe.
Jose Manuel Obama: Yes We Can
By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, July 10, 2009
An ironical Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-chairman of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the EP, said: ‘I have the idea that I am looking at Jose Manuel Obama. The old Barroso is dead: Yes We Can!’.
Business as usual in the European Parliament?
By: N. Peter Kramer | Thursday, June 18, 2009
Despite a lower then ever turnout, protest votes, the rise of extremist groups and suffering mainstream parties, in the European Parliament it is business as usual.
Interview with the Turkish Finance Minister
By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, June 1, 2009
British MEPs can make extra million from claiming allowances
By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, May 12, 2009
A report from Taxpayers' Alliance shows that British Members of the European Parliament can make almost 1.2 million pounds from a single five-year term by claiming various types of parliamentary allowances, reported the Sunday Times.
Cost of EU membership 'ten times higher' than official figures
By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The 'real' cost of EU membership to member states is 'many times higher' than figures quoted by the European commission, it has been claimed. According to the British Taxpayers' Alliance, EU membership costs every citizen €2400 per year.
EU Commissioners to take home more than €1.2 million each
By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, April 24, 2009
Research from Open Europe, an independent think tank, has found that European Commissioners leaving office later this year will receive more than €1.2 million each in pension payments and so-called 'transitional' and 'resettlement' allowances.
No Lisbon Treaty, no further enlargement
By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, April 13, 2009
EU foreign ministers looking to reassure western Balkan countries on their EU future have been blocked by France and Germany. The French and German foreign ministers made clear that further enlargement of the EU will not happen as long as the Lisbon Treaty is in limbo.
In 2002 EESC already asked for rules for the financial world
By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, January 30, 2009
Financial crisis makes Euro popular!
By: N. Peter Kramer | Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Poland, the enfant terrible of the European Union, discovered the Euro! “The world crisis has shown that it is safer to be with the strong, among the strong and to have influence on the decisions of the strong”, Polish Prime Minister Tusk said recently...
Entrepreneurship with a Human Face
By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, September 12, 2008
European Union: united we stand?
By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, September 12, 2008
President’s pragmatic diplomacy
By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, September 1, 2008
By: N. Peter Kramer
