European Commission: Barroso lays hold of EU budget
“Barroso reduces Lewandowski’s standing”, headlines Rzeczpospolita, quoting a letter sent by the Secretary-General of the European Commission, Catherine Day, to the Commission’s respective directors....
View ArticleInstitutions: Brussels/London clash over EU budget
“£400 [€451] per family demanded by EU,” headlines the Daily Telegraph, after the European Commission made a formal request to members for a £5.5 billion [€6.2 billion] budget rise that would take EU...
View ArticleEuropean budget: Crisis to change rules for structural funds
"Brussels has acknowledged that the rules for structural funds will be modified to provide support for countries like Portugal," reports the Lisbon daily Público. It explains that the European...
View ArticleEU budget: Tug of war between EU27 and Commission
The Commission "struggled through" its presentation of the EU budget proposal for 2014-2020, remarks Le Figaro, which reports that "in line with a demand made by Nicolas Sarkozy, the absolute value of...
View ArticleGreek myths and EU budgets
EditorialGreece is the cradle of Europe, the birthplace of many myths easily recycled as journalistic metaphors. Sisyphus and his rock, the labours of Hercules or the Daughters of Danus have already...
View ArticleEurozone crisis: Euro – a right-wing dream gone wrong
The Guardian, London – With the very existence of the euro is in question, an American economist points out the fundamental difference between the single currency and the EU: while the former is the...
View ArticlePoland: Mini-Marshall Plan “unfair and divisive”
“EU Marshall Plan encourages bankrupts,” complains the front page of DGP, which reports on a European Commission plan to increase EU funding for farming, regional and infrastructure projects from 85%...
View ArticleEU Budget: Brussels tightens belt
Fifteen hours of “murderous” negotiations was all it took to hammer out a deal on next year’s European Union budget. On November 19, the decision was made that it would grow just 2 percent to 129...
View ArticleLooking Ahead: 2012 cannot be worse than 2011
Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw – 2011 was such a bad year for Europe that 2012 can only be an improvement. However, Gazeta Wyborcza columnist Jacek Pawlicki points out that the European Union is now...
View ArticleEU budget: A tale of three Europes
Gazeta Wyborcza, Warsaw – Three parallel Europes inhabit the EU, each with its own goals. And the single budget, which used to unite them, is increasingly a source of division and, in the long run,...
View ArticleEU Budget: The real test for Britain in the EU
The Daily Telegraph, London – On October 31, Eurosceptic conservatives and Labour joined forces to push through an amendment calling for a cut in the EU budget. The vote marked a major defeat for PM...
View ArticleEU Budget: Grazing away at billions of euros
"New problems with European Union spending," headlines Dutch daily, Trouw. A report on the implementation of the 2011 EU budget, published by the European Court of Auditors on November 6, notes...
View ArticleProfile: Olli Rehn, austere guardian of budgetary discipline
Les Echos, Paris – Popular in his home country of Finland and much feared elsewhere in Europe, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs maintains a low profile. However, with the...
View ArticleEU Budget: Bargaining set to go to the wire
<p>"The EU is a double fiasco", announces <em>Jyllands-Posten</em>. On the one hand, plans for a banking union are moving at a painfully slow pace. On the other,...
View ArticleA budget for 7 years
EditorialIn the coming days, we will likely see yet another revival of the grand European tradition for interminable and acrimonious budgetary negotiations. On 22-23 November, leaders of the EU27, as...
View ArticleToday's front pages
European Union | Billion euro poker for EU budgetOn Thursday 22 November, leaders of European governments will embark on discussions to conclude the next EU budget. More than a trillion euros will be...
View ArticleUnited Kingdom: EU exit would lead to less sovereignty, not more
The Observer, London – As a poll shows 56% of Britons in favour of a straight EU exit, the British Sunday newspaper argues that the consequences of such a withdrawal would be dire. See more.
View ArticleEU Budget: Another Ponta and Băsescu face-off over Brussels
The campaign for Romania's December 9 legislative elections is dominated by discussions over the 2014-2020 European Union budget. Following yet another row over whether Prime Minister Victor Ponta or...
View ArticleEU budget: Maximum spending, minimum gain
Der Standard, Vienna – The EU spends a third of its budget to try to narrow the gap between rich and poor in Europe. Despite the billions from Brussels, though, the poorer countries have not caught up....
View ArticleEuropean Council: Major confusion over EU budget
Negotiations are to be based on proposals put forward by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, which plan to trim € 75 billion from an initial figure of €1,048bn. Major contributing countries,...
View ArticleThe front page
European Union | European disunionWith the EU’s 27 member states still struggling to reconcile their positions, the success of the extraordinary European Council summit on the 2014-2020 budget is...
View ArticleEU budget: Britain’s bluster serves the eurozone well
Financial Times, London – The EU leaders' failure to find an agreement on the budget is largely symbolic as negotiations concern only a very small part of the Union’s wealth. More important to the EU’s...
View ArticleEU budget: Scrap the CAP
The Guardian, London – The Common Agricultural Policy was one of the contentious points of the last week’s EU summit. In the midst of an economic crisis, how can we join the French and defend spending...
View ArticleYouth: Let’s create an employment Erasmus scheme!
Les Echos, Paris – The financial crisis has left behind 14 million young Europeans with neither employment nor training, yet nobody is mentioning them in the talks over the EU budget. What if a little...
View ArticleEvery man for himself
EditorialThe major diplomatic event of this week was the United Nations’ decision to recognise the Palestinian Territories as a non-member observer state on November 29. The vote in the UN General...
View ArticleEuropean Union: A budget for 2013, but still not enough money
The European Parliament approved a compromise 2013 EU budget of €132.8bn, ending an impasse with member states that threatened negotiations over the bloc’s long-term spending plans, writes the...
View ArticleEconomy: Merkel shepherds us away from the fiscal cliff
NRC Handelsblad, Amsterdam – The last minute negotiations in Washington to avoid a budget shortfall show that short-termism is well grounded in US politics. And by contrast, it shows that despite her...
View ArticleEconomy: America’s European moment
“America turns European”, jokes The Economist on a cover featuring US President Barack Obama and the Republican House Speaker John Boehner dressed as a Frenchman and German respectively. “For the past...
View ArticleEU-funds: Spending still hard to control
De Standaard, Brussels – Despite all the promises of transparency, European funds are still being used improperly by companies and member states, while fraud and misuse remain difficult to detect and...
View ArticleEuropean Union: ‘New EU budget rules out further cuts for Poland’
The EU has eventually reached a budget compromise, say sources in Brussels quoted by the economic daily. The deal rules out further cuts in cohesive funds and the Common Agricultural Policy, which is...
View ArticleEuropean Union: ‘The mighty money market’
Member States are increasing the pressure on the eve of the European Council meeting scheduled for February 7-8 to discuss the 2014-2020 budget. Negotiations "have entered a decisive phase, but nothing...
View ArticleStructural funds: Let Brussels manage our development projects
Dilema Veche, Bucharest – Structural funds for 2014-2020 are at the top of the agenda of the European Council meeting on February 7-8. Management of these development projects is left to member states...
View ArticleEU budget: Roads in Brussels are paved with gold
The knives are out, ahead of the European council meeting to hammer out an EU budget for 2014 to 2020, as Dziennik Gazeta Prawna reports: “Tusk and Merkel paid less than eurocrats.” The story comes on...
View ArticlePortugal: ‘Passos asks Brussels for more than €900m for agriculture’
As Brussels begins tense talks to hammer out a deal for the 2014-2020 EU budget, Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho will push the European Council to increase funding for rural development...
View ArticlePoland: ‘Van Rompuy’s Purse’
“This is the last time we may get really big money from the EU to catch up with the West,” says the Warsaw daily at the start of the European Council summit dedicated to agreeing the EU 2014-2020...
View ArticleEuropean Council: ‘Discord among net donors’
Talks on the EU budget for 2014-2020 will, more than ever, "resemble a bar-room brawl" rather than a European Council, forecasts the Austrian daily. Along with the usual bones of contention: between...
View ArticleEuropean Council: The selfishness waltz
Le Monde, Paris – The EU's 27 leaders are now meeting to discuss the European Union's 2014-2020 budget and will probably reach an agreement. But they will do so by making the usual petty deals that...
View ArticleEuropean Council: ‘The last such budget’
Polish “PM Donald Tusk is negotiating an EU budget in Brussels that will be decisive for the pace of the development of Poland’s civilization,” writes the conservative daily, stressing that “this could...
View ArticleEuropean Council: ‘Wealthy countries try to impose the most restrictive budget’
Those countries least affected by the crisis, such as Germany or the United Kingdom, want to impose limitations on the 2014-2020 budget. This position is opposite the countries of southern Europe, such...
View ArticleEU budget: A convoluted compromise
It took a delayed summit, overnight negotiations and numerous discussions in which national interests overshadowed all other considerations but the 27 heads of State and government have found a...
View ArticleEuropean Union: ‘European budget: infrastructure projects abandoned’
For the first time in its history, Europe has adopted a downsized budget. Programmes aimed at developing the digital and energy future of the Union have been pruned in order to cut spending. The EU...
View ArticleEU budget: An austerity budget cooked in German-British sauce
For the European press, the budget adopted by the bloc on February 8 marks a contraction of Europe’s ambitions and tilts the balance of power within the EU. According to Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, the...
View ArticleEU budget: The European Union has been paralysed
Les Echos, Paris – A EU without a vision of the future, turned in on itself, divided, deaf and blind to the world it lives in: this is the face of Europe emerging in the wake of the “impoverished”...
View ArticleBudget and democracy
EditorialAt the end of a marathon negotiating session that was more akin to haggling in a bazaar than plush drawing-room diplomacy, the government leaders of the EU's 27 member states finally adopted a...
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