German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and Portugal’s Vítor Gaspar inked an agreement on Wednesday (22 May) to fight youth unemployment in the debt-laden Southern European state. A similar deal was signed with Spain last month in what the opposition Social Democrats described as a belated attempt to restore Germany’s image in Southern Europe.
EU leaders committed to seek a broad global agreement to share data on foreign depositors to stymie tax-shirking companies and individuals at a summit in Brussels yesterday (22 May). Austria lifted its opposition in principle but support could fade should efforts to strike a similar deal with Switzerland fail.
Critics like to depict the European Union as undemocratic and unpopular, but their arguments are too often based on myths and misunderstandings. This does us all a disservice, and in this period of uncertainty about the future of Europe it is more important than ever that we have a firm grasp of the issues at stake, writes John McCormick.
A proposal by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to fight tax evasion, heralded in draft conclusions to today’s EU summit, will seek to maintain momentum on the EU savings directive by asking leaders to agree the initiative by the end of the year.
EU ministers are pressing to conclude negotiations on the EU’s 2014-2020 budget before the term of the Irish presidency ends in June.
European lawmakers have recommended holding the European elections on 22-25 May 2014, rather than June, to give the new Parliament time to prepare for the European Commission presidency election in July.
EU leaders will meet today to discuss how to lower energy prices and improve industrial competitiveness, at a time when other developed countries are rushing to invest in shale gas.Second issue on the agenda is tax evasion, which every year deprives EU governments of roughly €1 trillion.
The fight against tax havens was added to the agenda of this week’s EU summit (22 May), originally intended to focus on energy issues. The European Commission’s recent push is likely to be diluted into a wider list of issues related to tax evasion and fraud.
Italy said French President François Hollande’s call for a joint European economic government should be considered, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said on Friday (17 May).
Few criticisms of the state of the European Union are more pervasive than the democratic deficit of the European institutions. If so many voters feel there’s a deficit, politicians will have to work hard to improve things or be cast aside, writes Reinhard Bütikofer.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso urged France on Wednesday (15 May) to push ahead faster with economic reforms in return for being granted two more years as promised to bring its budget deficit below the EU limit. The Commission will present more detailed recommendations to France on 29 May.
The EU’s transformation into a more integrated bloc centred on the eurozone will be a key part of the German election campaign, according to Karl Aiginger, director of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research (WIFO). But politicians will probably give in to “populist statements”, he warns, saying the debate on Europe is currently “very irrational” in Germany.
Budget consolidation efforts are necessary but should be complemented with a clear promise that better times are lying ahead, says Karl Aiginger, director of the WIFO economic institute in Austria. Otherwise, people will reject it, he argues in an interview with EurActiv.
European Union finance ministers approved a €7.3-billion increase in the bloc’s spending for 2013 on Tuesday (14 May), as part of a deal to unblock talks on the EU’s next long-term budget.
The sovereign debt crisis has shattered citizens’ faith in the European Union and increased distrust between core nations, according to a widely watched study released on Monday (13 May), one year ahead of the European elections.
The banking union is “an urgent necessity” for the eurozone according to Germany’s finance minister, but current plans are insufficient to ensure its long-term solidity, he writes in the Financial Times, calling for a “two-step approach” crowned by a change of the EU’s founding treaties.
Pressed by the European Parliament, finance ministers will meet on Tuesday (14 May) to throw an extra €11.2 billion into this year’s EU budget as part of a wider deal on finances for 2014 to 2020.
Unless there is substantial movement on greening measures and other critical issues in the still-evolving Common Agricultural Policy for 2014-2020, the objective of creating a new purpose and rationale for the CAP is sliding into the sand, argues David Baldock.
European leaders show signs they are hardening their positions on tax abuses – evasion, the use of offshore centres and information sharing are all on the agenda. But these political noises need to be turned into action, argues Natalia Alonso.
A day before Europe Day (9 May), held yearly to celebrate the peace and unity in Europe, 3,500 staff of the European institutions held a strike against budgets cuts that may see their salaries cut by 60% over the next 15 years.
The question of Britain in Europe has been a running sore in British public life for too long, and as such has proved a constant irritant on both sides of the Channel. It needs to be settled, writes Malcolm Rifkind.
Even though French Socialists launched a personal attack on Angela Merkel’s financial housekeeping in their European roadmap, their centre-left colleagues in Germany are playing a subtler endgame, EurActiv France reports.
Europe’s economy will contract by more than expected this year and budget deficits will decline more slowly, the European Commission said on Friday (3 May), signalling that rising unemployment and the bleak outlook allow some scope for slowing the pace of austerity.
The powerful employers’ group BusinessEurope has called on European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to radically shift the EU’s energy policy away from climate change mitigation towards cost-competitiveness and security of supply.
Even if Germany had to write off the loans it extended to Southern European countries as part of the eurozone’s emergency rescue measures, the economic advantages of its membership would still be overwhelming, according to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung.
Italy’s newly appointed Prime Minister Enirco Letta landed in Brussels yesterday evening (1 May) for a two-day visit to the EU capital, with the economic and political situation at the centre of discussion.
Italy’s new Prime Minister Enrico Letta won his first vote of confidence in parliament on Monday (29 April), after promising to press for a change to the European Union’s focus on austerity and pursue economic growth and jobs.
The arrival of the Alternative for Germany party will be primarily at the expense of the governing coalition and could even spell the end of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship, writes Jörg Forbrig.
A draft resolution in the ruling French Socialist leaked over the weekend has revealed deep hostility towards German-led austerity policies in the European Union. The draft text has since been amended but the episode exposes a deep ideological fracture between the eurozone’s two largest economies.
UK Prime minister David Cameron on Wednesday (24 April) called for his peers in the European Council to take decisive action on tax evasion before the G8 summit in June.
Lithuania, the tiny Baltic country that will take over the rotating EU presidency on 1 July, will have to deal with extremely heavy dossiers, such as the adoption of the 70 items of legislation needed to implement the EU budget for the next seven years, as well as preparation for the Eastern Partnership summit, diplomats told EurActiv.
Lithuania, the tiny Baltic country that will take over the rotating EU presidency on 1 July, will have to deal with extremely heavy dossiers, such as the adoption of the 70 items of legislation needed to implement the EU budget for the next seven years, as well as preparation for the Eastern Partnership summit, diplomats told EurActiv.
The European Union and the eurozone have already taken important federalist steps to counter the debt crisis, which go beyond mere economic governance, said European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said yesterday (22 April) at the 2013 Think Tank Dialogue.
France and Spain fell short of their budget deficit goals last year and debt levels swelled across the eurozone but the pressure may be easing on Paris and Madrid as the European Commission signals an end to sharp spending cuts.
EXCLUSIVE / The European Union will never receive enough public support for federalism and so should abandon the idea of a United States-inspired superstate, says the influential French Socialist former minister Hubert Védrine.
EXCLUSIVE / The European Union will never receive enough public support for federalism and so should abandon the idea of a United States-inspired superstate, says the influential French Socialist former minister Hubert Védrine.
In an acknowledgement that agricultural policy has been knocked off course by prolonged deal-making, the European Commission on Thursday (18 April) announced plans for a year-long transition to give farmers and administrators time to implement the still-undecided policies.
German chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück won many converts at the Social Democrat’s recent party conference, bolstering the left’s election push, but the SPD’s turn in fortunes is likely to fade in the home straight, EurActiv Germany and EurActiv France report.
Europe is better now than three years ago as the crisis has forced EU leaders towards further integration, Staffan Nilsson told EurActiv at the end of his mandate as president of the European Economic and Social Committee.
Addressing the European Parliament today (16 April) in Strasbourg, Finnish Prime Minister Jirki Katainen pleaded for the new concept of “fair integration”, which he said would keep the EU safe from the twin threats of nationalism and populism. Many MEPs saw his speech as a jockeying exercise for one of the EU’s top jobs, which will be up for grabs in 2014.
The European Commission will propose early payments to Cyprus from the EU budget for 2014-2020 and some other measures to help address its soaring bailout needs, says a letter from Commission President José Manuel Barroso to the country’s President Nicos Anastasiades.
Denmark, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden have already met or even exceeded their 2020 national targets on boosting university education, defined three years ago at EU level to enhance the bloc’s labour force and ability to compete against global economic rivals.
The five-year mandate of the present European Commission President expires 31 October 2014. Contrary to the restrictive provisions concerning the president of the European Council and the members of the Court of Justice, the EU Treaty is silent over the possibility of reinstating the Commission’s presidents and members, writes Eberhard Rhein.
Corruption is costing EU countries €323 billion annually, says a new report, defying Europe’s image as a global front-runner in the fight against graft.
Europe’s leaders have a veritable Rubik’s cube of political considerations to solve in 2014 in order to appoint a new EU leadership triumvirate, writes Hugo Brady, giving his take on who are the up-and-comers in a changing European balance of power.
The European Commission yesterday (27 March) launched a scoreboard to compare the justice systems of member states in a bid to assess how courts can affect economic growth.
The European Commission yesterday (27 March) launched a scoreboard to compare the justice systems of member states in a bid to assess how courts can affect economic growth.
European Union governments must modernise their electricity grids and remove investment barriers to meet a 20% target for renewable energy use in 2020, the bloc’s executive said today (27 March).
Those proposing that the euro area needs a fiscal shock-absorbing mechanism might better push for a concrete mechanism that could be implemented among a subgroup of member states instead of jumping to the conclusion that all member states be forced to pay a large part of their tax revenues into a euro area budget, writes Daniel Gros.
Europeans need to hear the truth about the hard realities of the economic and financial crises, writes Ann Mettler.
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