Enlargement, going back to square one
North Macedonia and Albania are inexorably tied by the delay in their long course to join Europe, yet for different reasons.
Albania has the perpetual problem of narcotics production that cannot be overcome unless Tirana...
EU watchdog fines Fitch €5.13m over conflict of interest
The EU’s market watchdog the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has fined ratings agency Fitch a record €5.13 million for violating the bloc's rules on avoiding conflicts of interest.
ESMA found that between June 2013 and...
Estonia set to have first female prime minister as pro-Western party and women make...
Estonia's opposition centre-right Reform Party smashed the pre-election polling projections to secure a resounding victory over the ruling centre-left government of Prime Minister Juri Ratas, making a major triumph for the victorious party's pro-Western leader, Kaja...
Brussels paves the way for pan-European private pensions
Representatives of the EU's 28 members have paved the way for the introduction of a pan-European private pension scheme after bloc's ambassadors approved a previous agreement with the European Parliament.
Individuals who want to save...
Welcome North Macedonia!
As most readers will know, the contentious Greek ratification procedure for the Prespes Agreement ended with its passage in a vote January 25, with a margin of just three votes (153/300). That deal, signed...
Overestimating the EU economy
The European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, and the OECD predict that, on average, the European Union’s economy will grow by 1.9% next year, a rate that is broadly consistent with the average of...
The revolution Europe needs
The spontaneous street protests in Paris over the past month come almost exactly 50 years after the mass revolt of May 1968. But that is not to say the two events are comparable. Les événements...
Ukraine wants maximum EU pressure put on Russia after Kerch incident
Speaking in front of the journalists on December 10, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Pavlo Klimkin claimed Brussels had promised to step up its efforts and push Moscow to release the 24 Ukrainian sailors that...
Name Dispute: Flaws in Prespes Agreement fuel new Greek firestorm
With the Prespes Agreement ratification steamroller moving almost inexorably forward in Macedonia/FYROM, public attention to the issue in Greece has refocused and the subject is once again centre stage in view of approaching elections. ...
Angela Merkel’s long goodbye
With Angela Merkel having announced that she will step down as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and not seek re-election as chancellor when her current term ends in 2021, Germany is approaching a watershed...
Why Italy’s newly proposed budget is the right step forward
New Europe’s Federico Grandesso spoke exclusively with Massimo Bitonci, Italy's Under Secretary for Economy and Finance, who underlined the positives of the Italian budget plan that was recently rejected by the European Commission, and also discussed some weaknesses that...
Brexit and the global economy
The singular issue of Brexit has consumed the United Kingdom for two and a half years. The “if,” “how,” and “when” of the country’s withdrawal from the European Union, after decades of membership, has...
Germany’s Angela Merkel and her legacy in the Middle East
The departure of Germany’s first female chancellor was as unexpected and stealthy as her arrival 13 years earlier. In a brief speech at the end of last month, Angela Merkel announced she would not...
Naples receives major injection of EU funds for cultural heritage preservation
For the better part of seven centuries, the Italian metropolis of Naples was the centre of a powerful Mediterranean kingdom that encompassed the whole of southern Italy and Sicily. The city traced its history to...
The Brexitisation of European politics
Far from settling the question of the United Kingdom’s future, the 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations with the European Union have triggered a full-blown identity crisis and culture war in Britain. Two years...
UK and Norway agree on post-Brexit citizens’ right to remain
The UK and Norway have signed a bilateral deal that grants their citizens mutual rights to remain residents of both countries in the event the European Union and the British government are unable to hammer out...
Europe’s coming year of reckoning
Politically, 2019 will be an extraordinarily important year for the European Union. The United Kingdom is currently on track to leave the EU on March 29, 2019. And, following elections to the European Parliament in May,...
Can Eurozone reform help contain Trump?
US President Donald J. Trump is using economic warfare to pursue his foreign-policy objectives. In August, his administration announced that it would double tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from Turkey, in order to...
Commission refuses to comment on Greek plans to rid banks of bad loans
As reports pour in about Greece’s plan to assist its four banks who are in need of speeding up their Non-performing loan (NPLs) disposals, the European Commission has declined comment on whether the asset...
Will Italy Destroy the Eurozone?
Eurosceptic discourse is now mainstream in Italy. The current government is a coalition that encompasses both the left and right traditions of sovereigntist politics.
The economy is at the epicentre of this discussion, with the...
Greece’s creditors nervous as Tsipras appears to walk away from structural reform goals
After successfully concluding its three-year European Stability Mechanism stability support programme and with its place at the heart of the Eurozone and EU secured - a development that Brussels is publicly hailing as a...
Regulating cash transfers at the EU’s external borders to prevent crime
Over the last few years, Europe has suffered unprecedented terrorist violence that has killed hundreds of citizens, while also experiencing a rise in cross-border organised economic crime. The experience shows that one of the...
Commission wants €4.7 mil from Globalisation Adjustment Fund to help redundant workers in Portugal
The European Commission today proposed to provide Portugal with nearly €4.7 million from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to help former garment workers and several hundred young people without employment and education find a...
Commission welcomes European Parliament’s vote to strengthen Structural Reform Support Programme
The European Commission welcomed a recent vote by the European Parliament to increase the budget of the bloc’s Structural Reform Support Programme by €80 million, which will enable the EU to respond to increased...
ERDF invests €74.5m into high-speed broadband access in Brittany
Located in the northwestern corner of France and best known for its age-old maritime traditions and distinct Celtic traditions, France's region of Brittany received a boost to its telecommunications after the European Regional Development...
Juncker details vision for Europe in last State of the Union speech
Speaking before the European Parliament in Strasbourg for the last time before his term expires in May 2019, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called on the bloc's MEPs to no longer take their international alliances...
Juncker Plan earmarks €300 million for Italian SMEs involved in creative and cultural sectors
The European Investment Fund and Italy's national promotional institution Cassa Depositi e Prestiti have signed an agreement under the Cultural and Creative Sectors Guarantee Facility, part of the EU's Creative Europe Programme, to generate €300 million in...
EU’s Vella pushes for more international oversight of ocean governance
While attending the 23rd North Atlantic Fisheries Ministers Conference in the Faroe Islands, the European Union's Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs, and Fisheries Karmenu Vella opened the gathering by welcoming progress made under the EU’s agenda on...
Juncker Plan backs agreement to provide €100 million in loans to Finnish SMEs
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has concluded an agreement with Tesi, a state-owned investment company, to provide innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in Finland with access to €100 million worth of loans.
The agreement was made...
How Europe Can Learn to Stop Worrying and Love Power
US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker may have averted a trade war last month, but the challenges confronting the European Union are far from resolved. In today’s increasingly Hobbesian global environment, the...
If Trump Ruled Venice
Marco Polo, the famous thirteenth-century Venetian merchant, was one of the first Europeans to trade with China. Now imagine that, after a while, the Venetian state became concerned that Polo was purchasing too many...
Move to grant Kosovo visa-free travel reopens contentious EU enlargement debate
The European Commission's recent statement that Kosovo had fulfilled all of Brussels’ necessary visa liberalisation benchmarks and that the European Parliament and Council should proceed with lifting visa requirements for Kosovars has reopened a...
UK’s new Brexit Secretary has first round of meetings in Brussels
Just ten days after David Davis’ resignation as the UK’s Brexit Secretary, his replacement, Dominic Raab, made his way to the European Commission in Brussels for the first time on July 18 to meet...
EU Commission asks member states to prepare themselves for all Brexit negotiation outcomes
The European Commission is taking a better safe than sorry approach after recent developments in the UK pointed to further delays and uncertainty over Britain's pending withdrawal from the EU.
Brussels has called on all EU...
UK aviation could be grounded by “no deal” Brexit
The UK aerospace industry sees a no-deal Brexit as the "worst case scenario," according to the sector’s trade body.
The ADS (Aerospace, Defence, Security) chief executive Paul Everitt is the latest among industrial opinion leaders...
A lasting agreement?
After what seemed to be an endless round of contentious talks that ran into the wee hours of Friday morning, European leaders wrapped up their two-day summit in Brussels with a tentative deal on...
Local and regional conservative politicians call for structured post-Brexit cooperation
While gathering in London on June 4 for its external group meeting, local and regional politicians from the European Conservatives and Reformists Group in the European Committee of the Regions discussed areas where structured cooperation...