Greece's election quagmire

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Financial transaction tax will restore fairness
 
19 May, 2012

Banks forced to put aside more capital
The new legislation is expected to come into force in June
The EU is final­ly ready with strict new rules for banks in order to make them saf­er and elim­i­nate the need for future bail­outs, agen­cies report­ed. Last Tues­day, finance min­is­ters agreed on revised draft leg­is­la­tion on the Basel III accords, aft­er last-minute chan­ges grant­ing more pow­ers to Mem­ber States. Accord­ing to the chan­ges, all EU banks will have to hold more "top-qual­i­ty cap­i­tal," broad­ly meet­ing new inter­na­tion­al stand­ards. "Our over­all objec­tive remains to strength­en the resil­ience of the bank­ing sec­tor in the EU while ensur­ing that banks con­tin­ue to finance eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty and growth," EU Inter­nal Mar­kets Com­mis­sion­er Michel Bar­ni­er said.
EU, Turkey to revive accession process
The start of a "positive agenda" was announced in Ankara in a bid to kick-start the flagging negotiations
The new pos­i­tive agen­da intend­ed to bring fresh dynam­ics into the EU-Tur­key rela­tions was launched by Com­mis­sion­er for Enlarge­ment and Euro­pe­an Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy Ste­fan Fule and the Turk­ish Min­is­ter for Euro­pe­an Affairs and Chief EU nego­ti­a­tor Ege­men Bagis at a con­fer­ence in Anka­ra on 17 May.
 
Hollande to Merkel: Everything on the table
With all eyes on their first-ever talks, the two leaders signalled readiness to bridge differences on boosting growth in recession-plagued Europe
French Pres­i­dent Fran­cois Hol­lande and Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Mer­kel stressed their desire to keep the Euro­zone togeth­er on 15 May in key talks just hours aft­er France's new lead­er was inau­gu­rat­ed.
 
EU's first “more for more” test
Maria Koleva, Brus­sels
The results of "more for more" approach aft­er its first year of imple­men­ta­tion was report­ed in the 2012 Euro­pe­an Neigh­bour­hood Pol­i­cy Pack­age, pre­sent­ed in Brus­sels by Cath­er­ine Ash­ton, EU High Rep­re­sent­a­tive for For­eign Affairs and Ste­fan Fule, Com­mis­sion­er for enlarge­ment and neigh­bour­hood pol­i­cy. It shows what progress the EU's near­est neigh­bours made in respect of human rights, democ­ra­cy and the rule of law. The pack­age con­tains also a road­map for the East­ern Part­ner­ship sum­mit in 2013.
Greece's election quagmire
Sve­to­slav Ste­fan­ov
Greece, and the Euro­zone togeth­er with it, is head­ing to a seri­ous troub­le aft­er elec­tions on 6 May, expect­ed­ly, did not pro­duce a clear win­ner and cre­at­ed a stale­mate.
President Plevneliev lures global giants
Dey­an Dyank­ov, Seat­tle
For­eign invest­ors will­ing to plough mon­ey in Bul­gar­ia will receive addi­tion­al finan­cial aid from the state. This is one of the meas­ures Pres­i­dent Rosen Plev­ne­liev used to pitch the coun­try at a meet­ing he held with the US busi­ness in Seat­tle dur­ing his offi­cial one-week vis­it to the US.
Financial transaction tax will restore fairness
Atan­as Mat­ev, Brus­sels
Close-up: Algir­das Sem­e­ta was born in 1962 in Vil­ni­us, Lith­u­a­nia. He served two terms as Min­is­ter of Finance of Lith­u­a­nia: in 1997-99 and in 2008 until he was elect­ed Com­mis­sion­er for Finan­cial Pro­gram­ming and Budg­et­ing (2009-10). He was also Direct­or Gen­er­al of the Depart­ment of Sta­tis­tics under the Gov­ern­ment of Lith­u­a­nia. Flu­ent in Eng­lish and Rus­sian.
What should European leaders think about?
Prof. Mihail Kon­stan­ti­nov
Suc­cess­ful man­age­ment of social and polit­i­cal proc­ess is only pos­si­ble aft­er a rel­e­vant study of the cur­rent state of affairs and devel­op­ment trends. What can be seen, regret­ta­bly, is that in times of a severe and increas­ing­ly wor­sen­ing cri­sis, the lead­ers of advanced coun­tries in Europe, Amer­i­ca and Asia are una­ble to judge the sit­u­a­tion right­ly. There­fore, they are una­ble to set right pri­or­i­ty goals and imple­ment the pol­i­cies to achieve them.
Sharpening transatlantic battles
Defence spend­ing cuts are put­ting an increas­ing strain on rela­tions between the Unit­ed States and its Euro­pe­an allies in NATO, sharp­en­ing trans­at­lan­tic bat­tles over issues ran­ging from financ­ing Afghan secu­ri­ty for­ces to mis­sile defence, Reu­ters anal­y­ses.
RWE eyes quitting Nabucco pipeline
Ger­ma­ny's sec­ond big­gest util­i­ty RWE AG is recon­sid­er­ing its par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Nabuc­co pipe­line con­sor­ti­um as part of its cost-sav­ing strat­e­gy, the com­pa­ny said pre­vi­ous Sat­ur­day in a writ­ten state­ment. "In the changed cir­cum­stan­ces with new gas pipe­line pro­jects in view, we are revis­ing wheth­er Nabuc­co will take our pro­pos­als into con­sid­er­a­tion," RWE said.
One world, equal rights for all
Car­o­line Rijckaert, Brus­sels
For the sixth year, the One World Inter­na­tion­al Human Rights Doc­u­men­ta­ry Film Fes­ti­val is held in Brus­sels. From 14 to 23 May, the fes­ti­val will offer near­ly two doz­en new doc­u­men­ta­ry films and pan­el dis­cus­sions with pol­i­ti­cians, human rights activ­ists and/or inter­na­tion­al NGO lead­ers.
IN BRIEF
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Photo: Krum Stoev
Irena Krasteva (L), Chairperson of the Editorial Board of EUROPOST and Vasil Zahariev, Editor-in-chief of the Telegraph daily were presented by Russian Patriarch Kirill with blessed certificates of appreciation on the occasion of the Day of Bulgarian Enlightenment and Culture and of Slavonic Alphabet, 24 May.

Photo: EPA
Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission addresses the United Nations General Assembly on the “State of the World Economy and Finance in 2012” at United Nations Headquarters in New York, USA, 17 May. Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA
German anti-riot policemen drag an anti-capitalist protester in Frankfurt. Despite the ban the Blockupy alliance organised a four-days demonstration against the EU austerity policy. Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA
Actress Nahed El Sabei poses during the photocall for “Baad El Mawkeaa” (After the Battle) at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, in Cannes, France, 17 May. The movie is presented in the Official Competition of the festival, which runs from 16 to 27 May. Photo: EPA


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