EU parliament gives final nod to banking union

MEPs on Tuesday (15 April) overwhelmingly approved the creation of a new authority and fund for failing banks – a missing element to the so-called banking union aimed at minimising the public cost of future financial crises.
The final vote on the creation of a €55 billion fund financed by the banks themselves passed with 570 MEPs in favour, 88 against and 13 abstentions, while new rules in cases where public money needs to be used for winding down banks also gathered a similar majority: 584 votes in favour, 80 against and 10 abstentions.
One key concession won by MEPs from governments during final negotiations was a speedier mutualisation of the fund, which will comprise of domestic bank levies paid into "national compartments". Forty percent of the fund is to be mutualised in the first year, 20 per cent in the second year, the rest equally over a further six years.
There will also be an obligation for EU countries to guarantee up to €100,000 in any savings account, but there is no common backstop in case they fall short.
A first element of the 'banking union' – single supervision of the 130 largest eurozone banks – is to become operational in November within the European Central Bank. The resolution mechanism will be independent, but take advice from the ECB as to when to step in to help or to close down a troubled bank.
Euobserver

European Union Condemns Crimea Referendum

The European Union on Sunday condemned the referendum in Ukraine's Crimea as illegal and is taking steps to increase sanctions against Russia over what many believe is a planned annexation of the bordering peninsula.
The contested vote on Crimea joining Russia further acerbated relations with Moscow, which has changed from a wary partner to a diplomatic adversary in the space of a few months. But the EU increasingly realizes change might not be imminent. (...)
Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke after Crimea residents voted overwhelmingly to join Russia. Obama told Putin that the referendum would never be recognized by Washington. Obama also told him the vote violates the Ukrainian constitution and occurred under duress of Russian military intervention. He said the U.S. was prepared to impose additional penalties on Russia.
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Latvia joins eurozone

Latvia became the 18th country to join the eurozone on Tuesday (1 January). Joining the currency is "a big opportunity for Latvia's economic development," Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said as he became the first Latvian to withdraw euro banknotes in Riga.
(...)
The country has one of the lowest levels of government budget deficit and debt in the EU at 1.2 percent of GDP and 40.7 percent of GDP, respectively. (...)
http://euobserver.com/news/122622

France, Germany and UK show discord on EU defence

EU countries have agreed to "deepen defence co-operation," but France, Germany and the UK disagreed how to do it at a summit in Brussels on Thursday (19 December).
France went into the meeting calling for a new EU fund to help pay for member states' unilateral operations - such as the French intervention in Mali or the Central African Republic (CAR) - if they serve European security. He did not get it.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said France cannot to go to war on its own just because the EU makes decisions slowly and then expect the Union to chip in. "We cannot fund military missions in which we are not involved in the decision process," she told press after the defence talks. She added that a separate defence ministers' meeting would be needed to transform the French CAR operation into an EU intervention.
French leader Francois Hollande played down the German snub. He said the EU foreign service will draft a study on his new fund idea in the first few months of next year. He added that Poland might, on Friday, agree to also send troops to CAR, in a development which would trigger financial support from an existing EU military aid package - the so-called Athena mechanism of 2004. "The moment this happens, this will be considered a European operation and ... there will be European funding," he noted. He also said French spending on Mali and CAR will be "an element of explanation" in future talks with the European Commission on France's budget deficit for 2013 and 2014.
For his part, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he will block EU institutions from owning and operating their own military assets. "It makes sense for nation states to co-operate over matters of defence to keep us safer … but it isn't right for the European Union to have capabilities, armies, air forces and all the rest of it," he told media. He also persuaded fellow leaders to dilute the political rhetoric on joint defence.
In one example, a draft text of the summit conclusions had said in its preamble that EU countries will "strengthen [their] strategic autonomy." But on Thursday the phrase - a French concept - was bumped down to page eight of the 10-page communique, which said better industrial co-operation would "enhance its [Europe's] strategic autonomy."
The final text also underlined the primacy of Nato as Europe's security guarantor. The commission proposed back in July that it should "own and operate" its own surveillance drones. The head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, on Thursday also said: "We need a headquarters for civil and military missions in Brussels and deployable troops."
But fellow leaders accused Cameron of politicking for the sake of eurosceptic votes at home. Hollande indicated that member states discarded the commission proposal long ago. "This [Cameron's] statement was, in my opinion, for the large part, a bit false … Nobody envisages the creation of a European army," the French President said.
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who attended the summit, sympathised with Cameron's concerns. "Nato is and will remain the bedrock of Euro-Atlanic security," he said. But he added: "Let me stress: It is not Nato or the EU that possess [military] assets. They are owned by the individual nations."
The final summit communique said EU countries will co-operate on four projects.They pledged to build what Hollande called a "common drone" by 2025 at the latest. They promised to create a bigger fleet of air-to-air refuelling tankers, to work together on "next generation" satellite technology and to do joint training on cyber defence.They also said EU institutions should spend more money on military R&D and draft a new "EU Maritime Security Strategy."
Meanwhile, Rasmussen repeated his earlier warning that the 22 EU countries which are also Nato members must make a bigger contribution to Nato missions."Unless we Europeans take our security seriously, North Americans will rightly ask why they should. Unless we recommit to our own defence, we risk seeing America disengage, and Europe and America drift apart," he said.
The same day in Paris, French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian showed to what extent European armies depend on US technology. He said France will shortly deploy the first two of its 12 new "Reaper" drones to hunt jihadists in Mali and Niger. But with no European firm able to supply competing surveillance equipment, France bought the Reapers from US company General Atomics.
Euobserver

Ukraine opts for Russian bailout instead of EU treaty

Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych has opted for a no-strings-attached Russian bailout instead of the EU alternative.He made the agreement at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday (17 December). 

Under the accord, Putin promised to use money from Russia's National Welfare Fund to buy $15 billion of distressed Ukrainian bonds. He also promised to cut gas prices from $400 or so per thousand cubic metres to $269 until 2019, saving Ukraine up to $2 billion a year.

(...)

Euobserver

Ukraine’s EU ‘U-turn’ dominates East Europe talks

"The Eastern Partnership Summit between EU and Eastern European leaders starts Thursday in Vilnius in the shadow of Ukraine’s decision to scrap a key trade deal with the EU following pressure from Moscow.

Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych has nonetheless said that he will attend the meeting. “Yanukovych said that he wanted to come and explain himself to his European counterparts, but the real reason is that the negotiations here in Vilnius are still going on right up until the last minute,” said FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg in the Lithuanian capital. 

While the Ukrainian government has admitted to pulling out of the deal with the EU after pressure from Russia, diplomats were still discussing possible concessions on Wednesday. On the fourth day of mass pro-European street protests in Kiev, the Ukrainian prime minister said his government still wanted to strike an agreement with the EU.

“The document is physically on the table here in Vilnius,” Cragg said. “But Yanukovych’s main purpose here will be to convince the EU to have three-way talks with Russia.” He added that European officials were divided on the prospect of negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government over their competing spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.

From Moscow, Guardian correspondent Shaun Walker told FRANCE 24 that a deal with Ukraine was unlikely this week but that this may be only a temporary delay. “Eventually they do want European integration, but it’s just not the right economic decision for them right now,” he said. Ukraine is heavily dependent on Russia for trade and energy supplies, and the EU’s offer appears to have been insufficient to counter Moscow’s threats of commercial retaliation.

Although Ukraine is the largest and most visible of the six countries engaged in the much-lauded EU Eastern partnership, Walker said it was not the first time Europe’s efforts to develop ties in the region have been thwarted by Russia.

“Armenia was another country – all the paperwork was ready to sign on the dotted line. A couple of months ago Vladimir Putin travelled there and the next day, Armenia announced it wasn’t joining this EU partnership – that it was in fact joining Russia’s EU-style Customs Union,” he said.

Walker and Cragg both argue that the European Union’s image and diplomatic clout have suffered in the Ukrainian rapprochement fiasco – at least in the short term. However, two other former members of the Soviet bloc, Georgia and Moldova, are due to sign free trade agreements with the EU in Vilnius. Russia’s deputy prime minister has already warned that it will apply pressure to these countries as well."

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The European Union Wants To Join The Drone Club

Seven EU countries said they would form a club to produce military drones. The European project would join drones made by the U.S., Israel and more recently China.
Seven EU countries say they want to join forces and start making their own military drones by 2020 rather than relying on the Americans. The EU Observer website reported that the proposed "Medium Altitude Long Endurance (Male) craft ... can be used to strike military targets or for surveillance of migrant boats in the Mediterranean Sea."
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Elfogadta az EP az unió költségvetését

Elfogadta az Európai Unió 2014 és 2020 közötti hétéves periódusra vonatkozó keretköltségvetését kedden délben az Európai Parlament (EP).

Az állam- és kormányfők által februárban jóváhagyott keretköltségvetés (multi-annual financial framework - MFF) részleteiről hónapokon át tartó egyeztetés folyt az EP és a tagállamok szakminisztereit tömörítő tanács képviselői között.

A 2011-es árakon hét év alatt 960 milliárd euró uniós kötelezettségvállalást és 908 milliárd euró kifizetést lehetővé tevő keretköltségvetést 537 EP-képviselő támogatta, 126-an szavaztak ellene és 19-en tartózkodtak.

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Eurozone posts solid trade surplus for September

The 17-nation eurozone posted a $17.7 billion trade surplus in goods in September, the European Commission's data office Eurostat said Monday.

The surplus, posted as a first estimate, was significantly higher than the $9.3 billion surplus posted in August and the $11.6 billion posted in September 2012. From August, exports rose 1 percent, while imports fell 0.3 percent, Eurostat said.

In the 28-member European Union, the trade balance for the month came to $800 million, which compares to a $19.6 billion deficit from September 2012.

(...)

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E.U. Predicts Anemic Growth and High Unemployment in 2014

A fragile recovery across the European Union is not expected to bear fruit until next year. And unemployment is likely to remain high in countries like Greece and Spain, and even rise in France, the Union’s head of economic policy warned Tuesday.

Left-leaning lawmakers in the European Parliament immediately branded the autumn economic forecast by Olli Rehn, the European Union’s commissioner for economics and monetary affairs, as evidence that the bloc’s austerity policies were continuing to inflict unnecessary pain on millions of Europeans.

And some analysts warned that the forecasts might even be too optimistic in parts, saying that investors and business were likely to remain jittery about growth in many countries and that Europe could even face a sustained period of deflation — an affliction in which economic demand is so weak that prices actually decline, potentially making government debt reduction all the harder.

The report could increase pressure on the European Central Bank to take action to stimulate the economy when it meets on Thursday. Last week, official figures showed inflation falling to an annual rate of just 0.7 percent, well below the E.C.B.'s official target of about 2 percent.

Mr. Rehn’s forecasts could bolster those members of the E.C.B.'s Governing Council who argue that action is needed to prevent the euro zone from becoming stuck in the same kind of economic stagnation that afflicted Japan for decades.

At a news conference Tuesday, Mr. Rehn said the risk of deflation was remote, but he declined to comment on whether the E.C.B. should lower interest rates.

Mr. Rehn said economic output for all of 2013 among the 17 countries that use the euro currency was expected shrink by 0.4 percent, but would grow by 1.1 percent next year. He also said that the 28 countries of the European Union would have an average of zero growth this year, but were expected to grow by 1.4 percent in 2014.

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Malala Yousafzai - winner of the Sakharov Prize 2013

Pakistani campaigner for girls' education Malala Yousafzai is the laureate of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2013, following today's decision of the Conference of Presidents (EP President and political group leaders). She will be invited to receive the award at a ceremony in Strasbourg on 20 November.

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BBC EU Maps

Link to the BBC page

European Union and Canada reach landmark free trade deal

Canada and the European Union have struck a tentative free trade agreement meant to boost growth and employment, officials from both economies said Friday in Brussels.

The deal would make it easier for Canadian companies to invest in and sell to the 28-member EU and its 500 million consumers. European companies will have easier access to Canada's 35 million people. The deal will lower tariffs, streamline regulation and cut red tape. (...)

The European Union, a $17-trillion economy, is Canada's second-largest trading partner behind the U.S. The deal would also help reduce the dependence of Canada's $1.8-trillion economy on imports from the U.S. (...)

A total of 98 per cent of tariffs will be removed immediately once the agreement takes effect, Harper said. Sectors like Canada's dairy products, particularly cheese, which are likely to suffer from higher competition and see their market share fall will receive transitional assistance by the government, he said. (...)

The value of bilateral trade in goods between the EU and Canada was 62 billion euros in 2012 ($84 billion at today's value) with another 23.5 billion euros in services, according to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm. It estimates the agreement will eventually boost bilateral trade by up to a quarter. 

For the EU, Canada is only the 12th most important trading partner but the agreement will provide a boost to the nascent free trade talks between the EU and the U.S.  (...)

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EU to cooperate on drones, cyber defense

European Union states should work together in four areas of defense technology, including developing drones, the bloc's foreign policy chief said in a report on Tuesday. More...

European Union Official Calls for More Surveillance of Migrant Routes

(...) “I’ve asked member states to give their political support and also make available the necessary resources,” said Ms. Malmstrom, who must rely on member governments to finance and carry out search-and-rescue efforts.
The statement from Ms. Malmstrom was one of the strongest calls for a response to the disaster on Thursday, when an overstuffed and rickety trawler carrying an estimated 500 migrants fleeing war and poverty caught fire and capsized near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
(...)
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German elections

CDU/CSU = 41,5%
SPD = 25,7%
Die Linke = 8,6%
Grüne = 8,4%.

In the Parliament (630 seats):
CDU/CSU = 311
SPD = 192
Linke = 64
Grüne = 63

European Union, Singapore conclude far-reaching trade deal

"The European Union and Singapore submitted for approval on Friday one of the world's most comprehensive free trade agreements, which the EU sees as a stepping stone towards a wider deal with southeast Asia.
The chief negotiators of both sides presented the entire text of the agreement on Friday after initialling each page of the roughly 1,000-page document. Subject to approval in Singapore and by the 28 EU member states and the European Parliament, the agreement should enter into force in late 2014 or early 2015.
Trade in goods between the two topped 52 billion euros in 2012 and in services 28 billion euros in 2011. Mutual investment has reached 190 billion euros.
The European Union sees a free trade deal as opening the door to a deal with other members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which has set a goal of economic integration by 2015.
The EU and ASEAN launched free trade talks in 2007, but abandoned them two years later, the EU choosing instead to conduct bilateral talks with individual members.
The European Commission is already negotiating free trade accords with Malaysia and Vietnam and launched talks in March with Thailand.
Singapore has a population of just 5 million people, against some 600 million for the whole of ASEAN, but accounts for about a third of all EU-ASEAN trade and more than 60 per cent of all investment between the two regions.
The deal goes beyond many other free trade accords in committing to open up public procurement, an area where the EU has many leading suppliers, and agreeing on technical standards in areas such motor vehicles, electronics and green technologies. For example, a car made according to EU standards will be accepted for sale in Singapore.
The European Union also gains better protection of "geographical indications", region-specific products such as Parma ham or champagne.
EU tariffs on virtually all items from Singapore will disappear over five years. Singapore has committed to its existing zero tariffs on EU imports.
Singapore is likely to benefit from reduced tariffs for pharmaceutical and petrochemical products.
In services, particularly financial, the agreement will ensure the right to sell directly or establish branches in each other's markets and promises to provide greater transparency over the award of licences."
The Economic Times

European Union launches clampdown on shadow banking

Special funds used by big companies to park billions of euros of cash face stricter rules to make them safer, the European Commission said on Wednesday, taking a first step to reform unregulated finance known as shadow banking. The draft law will regulate money market funds, demanding some set aside cash buffers to avoid a panic should many investors withdraw their money at once.
This would lower what EU financial services chief Michel Barnier said was a risk to the financial system from the trillion euro sector but users of the funds warn that demanding they hoard more for a rainy day would make them too expensive.
The changes are part of efforts to shine a light on shadow banking, a 24-trillion-euro industry in Europe that comprises money market funds, some hedge funds, and firms involved in securities lending and repurchase markets. Such groups borrow and lend, just like banks do, but because they are not banks they often fall outside the remit of regulation, which is why they are considered to operate in the 'shadow' of traditional finance.
In the European Union, money market funds are mainly based in France, Ireland and Luxembourg and are heavily used by companies and banks which borrow from them. For companies, they are an alternative home for short-term cash. Unlike banks, they have no access to support from central banks such as the European Central Bank if things go wrong.
But the vast unchartered territory unnerves regulators in part because the sector is closely intertwined with banks, who often sponsor the funds as well as relying on them for finance themselves. "We have regulated banks and markets comprehensively," said Barnier, the EU Commissioner who has led a four-year revamp of financial rules. "We now need to address the risks posed by the shadow banking system."
The European plans draw on ideas in a global blueprint that will be submitted for approval to the world's 20 leading economies when their leaders meet in Russia on Thursday and Friday. In some cases, the EU reform is more ambitious.
The reform is a response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, which was brought on by the collapse in prices of securities tied to risky home loans. "Shadow banking was at the heart of the crisis," said Frederic Hache, a former derivatives banker who works with public-interest group Finance Watch. "As bank regulation has since tightened, activity may shift into the shadow sector."
The most controversial element in Barnier's proposal is a requirement for one type of money market fund, known as constant net asset value (CNAV) funds, to hold a cash buffer equivalent to 3 percent of their assets.
Such funds seek to maintain a stable 1 euro per share when investors redeem or buy shares in them, to keep the value of their holding steady.
The buffer would provide a safety cushion in case there is a run on the fund, as seen in the United States when the value of one U.S. fund "broke the buck" and fell below $1 per share.
The industry says the reform would be too costly.
"Imposing a three percent buffer would make money market funds unviable," said Martin O'Donovan, deputy policy and technical director at Britain's Association of Corporate Treasurers. "To cover that, their rates would no longer be competitive."
Funds whose share price floats in line with performance are spared the buffer requirement. Imposing the buffer is meant to prompt CNAV funds to convert to funds with floating share prices, which are seen by regulators as more transparent. The funds in the EU, which include BlackRock and Legal & General, are evenly split between the two types.
The European Union's 28 member states and the bloc's parliament have the final say on the draft law and some changes are likely.
Barnier also published a "roadmap" on how the EU plans to move ahead with regulating other parts of the shadow banking sector, including a proposal to boost transparency by collecting and exchanging data among regulators. Banks could be required to hold more capital to cover risks from links to shadow banking. Shadow banking intuitions themselves could be required to hold capital, the EU executive said.
Reuters

European Union has best financial quarter since late 2011

(...)

Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, said the 17 EU countries that use the euro saw their collective economic output increase by 0.3 percent in the April to June period from the previous quarter.

That’s the first quarterly growth since the eurozone slipped into recession in the last three months of 2011. The ensuing recession of six quarters was the longest since the euro currency was launched in 1999.

The improvement made up for the previous quarter’s equivalent decline and was moderately better than the 0.2 percent anticipated in the markets. Growth, however anemic, had been predicted by many economists following an easing in market concerns about Europe’s debt crisis in the past year and record low interest rates from the European Central Bank.

The eurozone’s growth, which translates to an annualized rate of about 1.3 percent, is still well below the 1.8 percent the United States enjoyed during the second quarter. The wider 27-country EU, which includes non-euro countries such as Britain and Poland, also emerged from its own, milder recession, and like the eurozone is also growing at an annualized rate of around 1.3 percent.

Growth in Europe provides a boon to the global economy. The EU, which now totals 28 following Croatia’s accession in July, has a population of around 550 million and its annual gross domestic product stands at around $17.3 trillion — both more than the United States, which has GDP of $16.6 billion for 315 million people.

Growth in Europe provides a boon to the global economy. The EU, which now totals 28 following Croatia’s accession in July, has a population of around 550 million and its annual gross domestic product stands at around $17.3 trillion — both more than the United States, which has GDP of $16.6 billion for 315 million people.

The EU’s recovery marks the first time since a brief period in 2011 that the four major pillars of the world economy — the United States, China, Japan and Europe — are growing at the same time.

The figures will be greeted with a sigh of relief by Europe’s policymakers, who have spent nearly four years grappling with a debt crisis that has threatened the very future of the euro. But they were not ready to declare victory, aware that this is only the start of what is expected to be a slow and uneven recovery.

“This slightly more positive data is welcome — but there is no room for any complacency whatsoever,” Olli Rehn, the EU’s top monetary official, said in his blog after the release of the figures. “I hope there will be no premature, self-congratulatory statements suggesting ‘the crisis is over.’”

The improvement was largely because of solid growth of 0.7 percent in Germany and a surprisingly strong 0.5 percent bounce-back in France following two quarters of negative growth.
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EU deplores Egypt deaths, calls for restraint

The European Union deplored the killings in Egypt of dozens of demonstrators in Egypt on Wednesday as security forces cleared protest camps and it called for maximum restraint by all sides.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was following the situation in Egypt with great concern. "Confrontation and violence is not the way forward to resolve key political issues. I deplore the loss of lives, injuries and destruction in Cairo and other places in Egypt. I call on the security forces to exercise utmost restraint and on all Egyptian citizens to avoid further provocations and escalation," she said in a statement.

(...)
See more at Reuters.com