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Proposal for Directive on Fair Trial Rights
The European Commission has proposed a new Directive on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings. The main provisions are: Interpretation would have to be provided for communication with lawyers as well as during investigat...
Does the EMF Require a Treaty Revision?
Angela Merkel says that a European Monetary Fund (EMF) could not be created without treaty changes. The reasoning is in the no-bailout clause (art. 125 TFEU). The exact wording is: “The Union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of c...
Strategic Centralization in the Commission
The new rules of procedure are published in the Official Journal. The main institutional innovation is the emergence of the political guidelines as the indispensable strategic document for all Commission policies. The political guidelines are laid do...
European Monetary Fund: in the Making?
The idea for a European Monetary Fund (EMF), put forward by Daniel Gros and Thomas Mayer, is gaining new ground. FT reports that the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has revealed the first details of a plan for establishing the EMF. Mr. Sch...
Greece, Goldman Sachs Will Be Investigated over Credit Swaps
To my satisfaction both the Federal Reserve of the US and the European Commission are looking into the role of Goldman Sachs in providing help to the Greek government in order to hide an additional 1 billion US dollars in debt by currency swaps.
The Internal Security Strategy of the EU
The Council has approved an Internal Security Strategy for the European Union. It will probably be approved by the European Council in March. The strategy lays out a European security model, which integrates among others action on law enforcement a...
Greece Makes Strange Moves
Greek Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos has criticised Germany’s attitude towards the ongoing Greek debt crisis, adding that Athens had never received adequate war reparations. The German foreign ministry said that a discussion about the...
Report on Frontex
The European Commission presents a report on the evaluation and future development of the FRONTEX Agency – the agency that is responsible for coordinating operational cooperation between Member States on border control and border security. The Comm...
Hedegaard: No Climate Deal before 2012
Climate action commissioner Connie Hedegaard has said that a legally binding deal on climate change would not be achievable before the ‘Cop 17′ – the Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is to ta...
The European Commission Investigates Google
Financial Times reports that the European Commission has started an investigation against Google. The investigation will examine both whether Google penalizes potential competitors in its search rankings, and whether it uses its massive share of the...
Is the Eurozone Flawed?
George Soros has an interesting article in the Financial Times where he says that a fully fledged currency requires both a central bank and a Treasury, and that the eurozone in its current form is patently flawed. He advises on more intrusive monitor...
Netherlands will Retreat from Afghanistan
Netherlands will likely pull its troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year. This comes after the Labour Party left the coalition, saying it could not agree to a Nato request to extend the Dutch mission beyond 2010. The governor of Uruzgan whe...
Greece: “No Additional Measures Needed”
The Greek finance minister has rebuked claims by the European Commission that the recently approved austerity plan may be inadequate. Georgios Papaconstantinou said that taking additional action at this point would contravene the EU’s establish...
Does the French Warship Sale to Russia Constitute an Infringement of EU Law?
There is an interesting argument about the sale by France of a Mistral class warship to Russia. Latvia and Lithuania think that the sale may infringe the Common Position 2008/944/CFSP defining common rules governing control of exports of military tec...
Freedom for Iran!
“Where liberty is, there is my country” Benjamin Franklin The people of Iran are obviously not happy with its current government, and they protest. The Iranian government has in response arrested, tortured, raped and killed protesters in order to...
EP rejects SWIFT Deal
The European Parliament has refused to give its consent to the EU’s interim agreement on banking data transfers to the USA via the SWIFT network, amid concerns for privacy, proportionality and reciprocity. Now the Commission is considering nego...
European Council Gives Moral Support to Greece
The informal European Council has fully supported the efforts of the Greek government and their commitment to do whatever is necessary to tackle its fiscal crisis. The eurozone Member states have said that they will take determined and coordinated ac...
On the Benchmarks for Reform and Bulgarian Organized Crime
There is an ongoing crackdown on organized crime in Bulgaria. This should be good news. But the prosecution will have to prove allegations in court. The benchmark is judgments with res judicata. There’s also the Bulgarian Supreme Judicial Counc...
What to Do with Greece?
The pressure is mounting on the European Union to do something about Greece’s debt and fiscal deficit problems. The word “bail-out” is heard more and more often. Meanwhile the Greek public sector workers have gone on strike in the first major t...
