EU Actually

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The EU has issued elaborate guidelines on freedom of expression for other countries, but a majority of its member states still keep such laws in their judicial arsenal. Hungary is the best (?) example.

Press Freedom at risk as EU struggles to match action with values

By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, October 2, 2015

EU’s defence of press freedom has mainly been tailored to traditional foreign policy criteria, such as security interests or trade relations.

Syriza kept its ground and left the New Democrats behind with a clear margin. The dissidents who left Syriza were unable to take possession of a single seat in the parliament.

Tsipras gambled, won and is back in the saddle

By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, September 22, 2015

35% of the Greek voters let it be known that Syriza’s leader, Alexis Tsipras, had to stay in power and endorsed his decision to agree with a harsh bailout agreement, after being crushed by the other Eurozone leaders under the command of German Schauble.

Guntram Wolff, director of the Brussels based think tank Bruegel, said ‘My hope is that Germany is aware that pushing Greece to the point where it has no perspective will be very damaging for Germany. Its image has already suffered very significantly last week’.

Germany′s reputation, the European dream and … 40.000 refugees

By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Recently a weekly publication showed, on its cover, a portrait of Wolfgang Schauble with the headline: ‘This man scares us too’. Was it a Greek weekly? No, it was an Italian one, L’Espresso!

The history of European integration shows that compromise at the negotiation table is the only way of moving forward together.

After NO a new compromise is needed

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, July 6, 2015

Greek voters have, with a clear majority, rejected the economic package the Eurozone presented recently. They said ‘no’ to a policy that would have prolonged the failing austerity-dominated policies of recent years. But the ‘no’ did not reject Greece’s EU membership or the Euro.

An unprecedented emergency summit of the 19 Eurozone leaders will take place on Monday evening. ‘It is time to discuss on the highest political level the situation of Greece’, said Donald Tusk, President of the European Council and of the Eurozone. The summit will be preceded by another Eurogroup meeting.

A week of EU impotence…

By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, June 19, 2015

Not so long ago European leaders swore action after more than 800 migrants died in a shipwreck in April, the worst disaster yet in the Mediterranean in a year in which a total of 1.800 people have died trying to cross from Africa and the Middle East on ramshackle boats.

Schulz has gone a bridge too far; for he has been hauled over the carpet by the EPP (though its President at first agreed with Schultz) and by other EP political groups which were not involved at all in Schulz′s rash reaction.

Herr President Schultz hits back…

By: N. Peter Kramer | Friday, June 5, 2015

Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament was really cross. Russian President Putin put 89 European politicians and officials on a blacklist. And he, President Schultz, was not one of them. Surely a lack of respect for his high function!

Last week England’s voters made it clear by giving David Cameron a majority in the House of Commons that the EU has to change or the UK will leave it ranks.

Grexit and/or Brexit? Who cares?

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, May 11, 2015

Cameron’s government has been able to improve economic indicators and the economic perspectives are much better than in the eurozone even with Germany in its midst.

Did Germany’s President Joachim Gauck read the Nobel Prize-winning op-ed columnist Paul Krugman in the New York Times?

President Gauck: Germany’s human face?

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, May 4, 2015

Krugman recently travelled to Greece and wrote, that he ‘visited a shelter for the homeless in Athens and was told heartbreaking tales of a health care system in collapse.

NATO, under the strong leadership of the US, has strengthened its military presence in EU countries along the Russian border for the same reason. Who is afraid of whom? The Russian military budget is more or less 10% of that of NATO. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be laughable.

Preparing for Cold War II

By: N. Peter Kramer | Sunday, April 19, 2015

Recently the Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkevics compared modern Russia to the German Reich and predicted that it will have the same end as the Nazi regime in Germany. Another clear signal that many EU memberstates like to reinvent the Cold War.

Doubts about Commission’s objectivity were prompted by the extra leeway it recently granted France to get its budget deficit in order.

European Parliament urges Commission to be more neutral on financial and economic decision-making

By: N. Peter Kramer | Thursday, April 16, 2015

Members of the European Parliament showed they were not very happy with Commission decisions revealing double standards in financial and economic decision-making.

A year after the European parliament elections in the UK were won by UKIP (UK Independence Party) and 5 weeks before the parliamentarian elections beginning of May, the EU is a topic in UK politics.

UK national elections on May 7: a vote on Europe!

By: N. Peter Kramer | Thursday, April 2, 2015

The last months the discussion in the UK about the EU membership has moved from loss of sovereignty to the burden EU legislation forces on British industry and on the influx of immigrants.

The EU memberstates and the Commission postponed some strict rules and permitted France to take a few years extra to solve its financial problems.

EU’s double standards. And a brilliant idea!

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, March 16, 2015

Led by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble, the EU has no mercy at all for Greece. Under huge EU pressure the country has to go on with austerity measures to find the money to pay its creditors back.

Shortly after the bailout extension was agreed by the EU finance ministers, Greece indicated it will ask for further financial assistance.

Greek debt deal rattles the Eurozone

By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Greek Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis said that Greece needs a "new arrangement" in order to meet the country's repayment obligations of around €11.5 billion between June and August.

During a pressconference EIB President Werner Hoyer answered on a question about the EIB Group’s position on Greece that ‘“The EIB Group looks forward to increasing its financing for projects in Greece.

EIB remains strongly committed to financing Greek projects

By: EBR | Wednesday, February 25, 2015

As a long term investor institution for the whole EU, the EU Bank does not apply country quotas but evaluates funding opportunities based on the number, nature and quality of the projects that are submitted to it.

The European Commission is looking for ways to cut the reliance of more member states on Russian oil and gas as the conflict in Ukraine chills relations with the Kremlin.

Orban, Putin’s last friend in the EU?

By: N. Peter Kramer | Thursday, February 19, 2015

Last week Orban hosted Russian President Putin for talks about more bilateral energy deals. The two presidents reached in Budapest a new gas-supply agreement and agreed to avert a 3 billion-euro gas payment by rolling over unused volumes from a 20-year-old contract that expires this year.

According to the new Greek government, Germany has an enormous unpaid account in Greece. The Germans never paid anything for the murdering and plundering in the Second World War.

A Greek idea: ‘Let the Germans finally pay their World War 2 debts!’

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, February 9, 2015

The historian Albrecht Ritschl of the London School of Economics (LSE) and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz share the opinion that such an adjustment is not a weird idea.

It looks as though not only EU finance ministers have a problem after the Greek elections.

Greek blow for ‘Cold War-lord’ Tusk

By: N. Peter Kramer | Thursday, January 29, 2015

While the new Greek PM, Alexis Tsipras, was organising his government, Tusk published an EU statement claiming that all 28 EU-leaders had agreed that Russia bears responsibility for a rocket attack on the Ukrainian city of Mariupol and proposing new sanctions against Russia.

The EU should build new infrastructure to link up with a future Russia-Turkey pipeline or lose access to supplies.

The price of no more Russian gas via Ukraine

By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Political disputes between Kiev and Moscow have seen EU supplies interrupted on two occasions in recent years; with Moscow justifying the Turkey decision by saying Ukraine is ‘unreliable’.

Will the European Central Bank (ECB) announce on January 22 that it will start buying large volumes of Eurozone government bonds to further push down interest rates in the eurozone?

European Central Bank split on buying government bonds

By: N. Peter Kramer | Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The ECB will have to decide how much of each eurozone country’s bonds to buy, a politically tricky task. As a genuine EU institution the ECB offers the usual theatre of differing views and opinions.

What’s the position of Germany? Ms. Merkel said after the summit that sanctions only can be lifted if Russia gives up conquered territories in Ukraine.

Germany split on how to handle Russia

By: N. Peter Kramer | Monday, January 5, 2015

Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel, the EU’s most powerful leader, was delighted with the first steps of her protégé Donald Tusk as new president of the European Council in December.

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EU Actually

Ukraine may buy for 6 billion euros Chinese drones with EU money

By: N. Peter Kramer

In his weekly column, N. Peter Kramer writes about the Ukraine buying for 6 billion euros drones in China with EU money. Is it a threat for Taiwan?

Europe

Diplomacy intensifies over Cyprus

United Nations secretary-general envoy Maria Angela Holguin will be in Brussels on Wednesday for meetings seen as important to European Union preparations for a possible revival of Cyprus reunification talks ahead of an expected visit by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Cyprus next week.

Business

How Much Pressure Can European CEOs Take?

There was a time when the job of the CEO was difficult but relatively clear: grow the business, beat the competition, manage costs, satisfy shareholders, inspire employees and avoid major reputational mistakes. That world has disappeared.