Category: European Union
The analysis published under this category are as follows.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Brussels Attacks Tear at the Fabric of the European Union / Politics / European Union
By: STRATFOR
The March 22 terrorist attacks in Brussels come as the European Union is still reeling from the November Paris attacks and scrambling to solve the migrant crisis. More important, they come as nationalist forces are challenging key principles of the Continental bloc, including the free movement of labor and the Schengen Agreement, which eliminated border controls among several member states. The atmosphere of fear and suspicion that is sure to follow will only worsen these social, political and economic crises.
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Thursday, February 25, 2016
The Balkanization of Europe / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
When my mate Steve Keen took me to meet Yanis Varoufakis for dinner last week when we all happened to find ourselves in Athens together, I at least sort of regretted not having the time and space to talk to Yanis about his DiEM25 project for the democratization of Europe. It was a private occasion, there were other people at the dinner table, Steve and Yanis had no seen each other for a while, it was simply not about that.
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Europe: Why It's Going to Get a Lot Worse Before It Gets Better / Economics / European Union
By: EWI
New interview with our European markets expert
Brian Whitmer, the editor of our monthly European Financial Forecast, explains what indicators helped him anticipate market volatility.
You'll also learn what he's expecting for the year ahead in European stocks.
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Monday, December 14, 2015
Marine Le Pen Will Reap What The EU Has Sown / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Many people are cheering now that yesterday Marine Le Pen and her Front National (FN) party didn’t get to take over government in any regions in the France regional elections. They should think again. FN did get a lot more votes than the last time around, and, though she will be a little disappointed after last weekend’s results, it’s exactly as Le Pen herself said: “Nothing can stop us”.
And instead of bemoaning this, or even not believing it, it might be much better to try and understand why she’s right. And that has little to do with any comparisons to Donald Trump. Or perhaps it does, in that in the same way that Trump profits from -people’s perception of- the systemic failures of Washington, Le Pen is being helped into the saddle by Brussels.
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Wednesday, December 02, 2015
It Will Take Trillions of Euros to Save the European Union / Politics / European Union
By: John_Mauldin
The EU’s political leaders and other elites are committed to holding the European Union together. To them, united Europe is an article of faith. They hold the idea with as much ferocity and fervor as any religious belief. But while the European Union is a wonderful political idea, it’s economically terrible. And the EU nations will have to face up to bearing enormous costs to save the Europe we wished for.
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Friday, November 20, 2015
European Borders May be Redrawn as Europe Embraces Nationalism / Politics / European Union
By: MISES
Ryan W. McMaken writes: In the wake of the Paris attacks, Europe is being pulled in two directions at once. On the one hand is the rise of localist nationalism in the form of border closings, border fences, and Euroskepticism. On the other hand is the rise of renewed militarism as the French state calls for even more aggressive foreign policy from its European allies in the name of security. In some ways, these two trends appear to be at odds, but they are really just different expressions of nationalism.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
European Union Challenged from Right and Left / Politics / European Union
By: John_Browne
The heinous ISIS attack in Paris is a game changer in Europe. In addition to the horrific amount of individual casualties, the attack has also threatened severe damage to the long term survivability of the European Union as a political entity. Based on the unpopularity and unfeasibility of immigration controls under the EU's Schengen Plan, the events have opened up the Union to renewed attacks from the right, just as its support from the left is crumbling as a result of opposition to EU-mandated fiscal austerity. This two-front onslaught may be too much for the Union to endure.
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Sunday, September 20, 2015
Europe Refugee Crisis, UK to Repatriate 120,000 Hungarian Economic Migrants Back to Hungary / Politics / European Union
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Now if true such a policy would send political earthquakes throughout Europe if David Cameron had started to pull the plug on Eastern European mass economic migration that still continues. But of course its just not going to happen because the UK is a far more civilised nation than the likes of Hungary and its other eastern european brethren that have been showing their anti-european fascist credentials that would be home in Czar Putin's Russian empire than that which the European Union purports to be and what the people of Britain have been led to believe it be.
Friday, September 11, 2015
After the Greek Debt Crisis, Euro Elites Dream of a Unified Euro State / Politics / European Union
By: MISES
Ryan W. McMaken writes:
[E]urozone officials shot down any prospect of a quick resumption of talks, even though finance ministers were planning to meet during the week to discuss the fallout from the vote. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande immediately scheduled a bilateral meeting.
“Tsipras and his government are leading the Greek people on a path of bitter abandonment and hopelessness,” Germany’s Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel daily. He said negotiations with Athens now were “barely conceivable.”
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Thursday, September 10, 2015
The EU Uses Every Crisis To Grab More Power / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Jean Claude Juncker held a speech yesterday that had, oh irony, been labeled a State of the Union. A perfect way of showing how pompous Juncker and his surroundings have become. A perfect way, too, to point out how much the European Union differs from the United States. The gap is so wide it doesn’t need any explaining.
Thursday, September 03, 2015
Eurodystopia: A Future Divided / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
This is a rerun of an article I wrote on August 10, 2012. It seems to have regained quite a bit of relevance in recent days. I was thinking earlier today, how can I write about finance when Europe continues to offend people’s, and humanity’s, most basic dignity the way it does, but it does. It gets more incomprehensible by the hour, what happens there. But it does.
So here’s a different view, 50+ years old, of what Europe could, and perhaps should, have been, instead of the sad and amoral place it has become. Just for perspective.
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Thursday, September 03, 2015
Europe Rethinks the Schengen Agreement / Politics / European Union
By: STRATFOR
Forecast
- Rising immigration and fragile economic recovery in Europe will reduce political support for the Schengen Agreement, which eliminates border controls among member states.
- The Schengen Agreement will likely be reformed to make room for countries to tighten their border controls more frequently.
- Friction between Schengen members and other countries will remain, as will tension within the bloc itself.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Europe Running on Borrowed Time / Politics / European Union
By: John_Mauldin
“I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.”
– Romano Prodi, EU Commission president, December 2001Prodi and the other leaders who forged the euro knew what they were doing. They knew a crisis would develop, as Milton Friedman and many others had predicted. It is not conceivable that these very astute men didn’t realize that creating a monetary union without a fiscal union would bring about an existential crisis. They accepted that eventuality as the price of European unity. But now the payment is coming due, and it is far larger than they probably anticipated.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
EU Migration Crisis Solution - Settle Migrants in Depopulated Eastern Europe, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia / Politics / European Union
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Over 1 million people will succeed in their attempts to migrate to the European Union this year alone (2015), where whilst first port of call is Spain, Italy, France, and Greece, who soon funnel migrants northwards to the UK, Germany, Netherlands etc.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2015
A Geopolitical Net Assessment of Europe / Politics / European Union
By: STRATFOR
Last week I began this series with a Net Assessment of the World, in which I focused on the growing destabilization of the Eurasian land mass. This week I continue the series, which will ultimately analyze each region in detail, with an analysis of Europe. I start here, rather than in the Middle East, because while the increasing successes of the Islamic State are significant, the region itself is secondary to Europe in the broader perspective. The Middle East matters, but Europe is as economically productive as the United States and, for the past 500 years, has been the force that has reshaped the world. The Middle East matters a great deal; European crises can destabilize the world. What happens between Greece and Germany, for example, can have consequences in multiple directions. Therefore, since we have to start somewhere, let me start with Europe.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
UK Election Result Strikes Another Blow Against EU / Politics / European Union
By: MISES
Ryan W. McMaken writes: With the victory of the Conservatives in last week’s British election, the future of both the European Union and the United Kingdom looks more doubtful. Newly re-elected Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, in order to please anti-EU constituents who were essential to his re-election, promised a referendum on EU membership by 2017, although it could come sooner than that.
At the same time, the promised referendum is again inflaming secessionist sentiment among Scottish nationalists and separatists who wish to remain a part of the EU.
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Tuesday, May 05, 2015
How the UK Election Represents the State of Europe / Politics / European Union
By: STRATFOR
By George Friedman: The United Kingdom is going to the polls on Thursday. Elections electrify the countries in which they are held, but in most cases they make little difference. In this case, the election is a bit more important. Whether Labour or the Tories win makes some difference, but not all that much. What makes this election significant is that in Scotland, 45 percent of the public voted recently to leave the United Kingdom. This has been dismissed as an oddity by all well-grounded observers. However, for unsophisticated viewers like myself, the fact that 45 percent of Scotland was prepared to secede was an extraordinary event.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Greek Crisis and Southern Europe Immigrant situation / Politics / European Union
By: Submissions
luciano malocco writes: Europe is facing a crisis. Well actually Europe is facing two and both of them are of their own making and almost as serious as each other. The news that nearly 1000 illegals from Libya died over the weekend making the treacherous journey from North Africa to the Italian coastline should shock nobody. This is the result of a disastrous policy by the West namely the US to destabilise not only Libya but also Tunisia, Egypt and previously Iraq. It was called the Arab Spring back in 2011 when the region which was filled with hope for better times to come and a fairer way of life, while Western commentators spoke of bringing democracy to the people of these countries. It was sold to the Western population as the Arab people standing up to their cruel authoritarian rulers to demand something that we here in the West take for granted, Democracy.
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Monday, March 09, 2015
EU Warmongers Juncker Requests Creation of European Army / Politics / European Union
By: Mike_Shedlock
Warmongers United
European discussion of Russia has gone from dumb to dumber.
Of course, the highly regarded "Warmongers United Think Tank" (WUTT) would dispute that. "Warmongers United" believes more armies, more missiles and more fighting are precisely the right thing to do.
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Sunday, March 08, 2015
Europe, The Morally Bankrupt Union / Politics / European Union
By: Raul_I_Meijer
The European Union is busy accomplishing something truly extraordinary: it is fast becoming such a spectacular failure that people don’t even recognize it as one. People have no idea, they just think: this can’t possibly be true, and they continue with their day. They should think again. Because the Grand European Failure is bound to lead to real life consequences soon, and they’ll be devastating. The union that was supposed to put an end to all fighting across the continent, is about to be the fuse that sets off a range of battles.