It seems that a European Banking Union has become the magic solution to the eurozone debt crisis. This week’s meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels confirmed that European funds will provide direct support to Spanish banks, to the tune of €100bn in loans from the European Financial Stability Facility and subsequently the European Stability [...]
Britain is buzzing with talk of a referendum on “Europe”. See the Nucleus blog. In May Peter Mandelson was advocating a national vote some time after 2016, when a new Europe of fiscal union will have been defined. He sees it as a way of resolving divisions within Britain’s political parties. Last week it was [...]
European Council president Herman van Rompuy has arranged a summit dinner for EU leaders on May 23. For François Hollande the Brussels feast will be a first opportunity to brief all his colleagues on France’s new approach to the eurozone crisis and how he sees a return to growth in Europe. His message will be [...]
A compromise may be in sight to defuse the conflict over a proposed EU turnover tax for all financial transactions. It seems that finance ministers are looking at stamp duty on share deals as an alternative way of taxing the financial sector, perhaps marking a calmer phase in the evolution of European financial services legislation. [...]
It’s too early to gauge the real impact of David Cameron’s veto at the European Council in the early hours of December 9 and the decision of 26 countries to devise a new treaty, but there have been straws in the wind over recent days which indicate how positions are evolving and which will set [...]
This week’s summit in Brussels has certainly been a defining moment in the history of the European Union. The UK’s decision to block any revision to the existing EU treaties as part of the package to save the euro is confirmation that we live in a Europe à la carte. Whether it proves to be [...]
A game-changer: that’s how Christine Lagarde, new boss of the IMF, described last week’s eurozone crisis summit, which agreed revised bail-out terms for Greece and far-reaching new capabilities for EU financial institutions, virtually creating a European Monetary Fund. There is no doubt that the decisions taken in Brussels on July 23 2011 opened a new [...]
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