There’s a move afoot to have English declared the common language of the European Union and it’s a German who is pushing the idea. Here The Guardian gives a pretty clear reason why a common language might be helpful when representatives of the constituent nations sit down to parlay. Money
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The Canadian Progressive: Excessive corporate rights in Canada-EU CETA trade deal unacceptable to Canadians and Europeans
Transatlantic Statement Opposing Excessive Corporate Rights (Investor-State Dispute Settlement) in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) By Trade Justice Network | Feb. 5, 2013: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM and OTTAWA, ONTARIO and MONTREAL, QUEBEC – Labour, environmental, Indigenous, women’s, academic, health sector and fair trade organizations from Europe, Canada and Quebec
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Chancellor Merkel plumps for the domino theory over the ballast theory
Merkel and dominoes … One of the fascinating things about high level crises like the eurozone one, is the role played by the men and women who have the power or lack the power to influence events. And the key person in the past five years or so is a
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Europe takes another big step towards the United States of Europe
United States of Europe? Financial integration is one major step along the road towards eventual political integration into one massive new federal state, the USE (United States of Europe), and yesterday a significant move was made in this direction: Europe’s finance ministers have taken another major step towards closer integration,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Cyprus, the European Union’s Dilemma
Cyprus, it seems, is the Cayman Islands of the Mediterranean. Russian oligarchs are said to use it to launder their money. And, for the European Union, the Cypriot-Russian connection complicates efforts to bail out the financially-str…
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: The Nobel Peace Prize is slipping into irrelevance
by Brian Lee Crowley | Troy Media | Macdonald Laurier Institute My mother could have told you why giving the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union would produce such a predictable and deserved outpouring of derision. An aspiring writer, she took a creative writing course. One of the assignments
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Anglo-Franco-German ménage à trois: A Federal Europe or a confederation of Nation States?
The European Union A struggle for the future of Europe is being waged right now by the politicians of the EU. Most of the fighting is being done by the leaders of France, Germany and Britain (the Big Three of Europe), with the other medium sized states putting the boot
Continue readingCanadian Progressive: Canadians oppose drug patent extension in Canada-EU trade deal: POLL
A new poll by Ipsos Reid, released today by the Council of Canadians and the Canadian Health Coalition, shows that what would otherwise be high support for a Canada-European Union free trade deal collapses on the issue of pharmaceutical drug costs, with 69 per cent of Canadians opposing a deal that
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Putin prepares for a fistfight with the EU over Gazprom gas policies: Who will win?
In this corner, we have the former head of the infamous KGB, President Vladimir Putin, he of the rugged outdoor, macho activities. And in the other corner, we have the bureaucrats in Brussels, representing 500 million Europeans. In the middle, we have Russia’s most important company, the source of the
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Eurozone: George Soros is dead wrong
Lead or leave. Currency speculator George Soros laid down the law for Germany: change or get out of the way: He warned that the split between creditor and debtor countries in the euro risked becoming permanent, with debtor nations condemned to low growth because they are forced to pay a
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Eurozone: Move over politicians, here come the German Judges!
It’s not just the politicians who make decisions about how to rescue the foundering Euro: a Constitutional Court in Germany also has a say on the most important decisions: Germany’s Constitutional Court Germany’s top court has rejected calls to block the permanent eurozone rescue fund – the European Stability Mechanism
Continue readingCuriosityCat: European political leaders beat back international financial pirates
Mario Draghi, the president of the E.C.B., has managed to outflank some German opposition and gain approval for the European Central Bank to buy bonds of Eurozone countries, in an effort to save the Euro. ‘Super Mario’ Draghi This is how the New York Times describes his deed: The European
Continue readingRedBedHead: Spain & The Madness of Europe
There’s a saying that defines madness as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. By that criteria, it’s clear that the European Union’s response to the long and painful crisis unfolding on that continent is utterly and completely mad. With the appearance a few years ago
Continue readingTrashy's World: Be it resolved…
…that the European Union is dead… Or at best, on life-support. Discuss. Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Eurozone: The coming New Deal
Thank heavens for democracy! In a world taken to the brink of financial implosion because of lax regulations of financial institutions, incompetence of regulatory authorities, pure greed on the part of the stakeholders in our investment banking industries (banks, merchant banks, regulatory agencies, regulatory authorities, lawyers, auditors and the like)
Continue readingWomen win one, lose one … and so it goes
The good news is that the European Union is considering mandatory quotas to get more women on corporate boards. They have tried the voluntary approach and, as is so often the case, it hasn’t worked. Currently only one in seven board members at Europe’s biggest companies are women despite the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Italy’s Mason-Dixon Line
Their leaders have names such as Durnwalder, Klotz, Widmann, and Mair. Their neighbours include Swiss, Germans and Austrians. And at the moment a good many of them are wondering why they should be saddled with the financial burden of remaining within cash-strapped Italy. There has long been a secessionist movement
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Could Irish Voters Scuttle Europe’s Austerity Madness?
The Irish public may be charting the next round in the battle over European austerity politics. The coalition government in Dublin reluctantly yielded to overwhelming public pressure demanding a referendum on the latest Eurozone fiscal treaty. Former Citibank senior international economist Michael Burke writes that angry Europeans are turning on
Continue readingRedBedHead: Greece: You Say You Want A Revolution?
It’s hard to make sense of the hubris and cruelty of European Union leaders towards Greece, unless their goal is to goad the Greek population into overthrowing their government. Why else would they demand from the Greeks ever greater levels of austerity, poverty and unemployment and then, when the government
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Eurocrisis – A Gallic snub, No Haircuts & More Stability Funds
What a dramatic few days we have just lived through! The grandest experiment in modern history – the European Union – has weathered a major threat to its existence, with 27 governments gathering in Brussels, and 26 agreeing on a roadmap for future stability and closer fiscal union. And the
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