EU

The EU Commission under Jean-Claude Juncker is proposing an extension of EFSI, the European Fund for Strategic Investments. Instead of terminating in 2018, it would run until 2020. The public funds and EU guarantees would be topped up from 21 billion euros to 33.5 billion. In this way, the intention is to mobilise 500 billion euros in investment capital instead of 315 billion as originally planned. This sounds like a lot of money, but on closer inspection it shrinks away rapidly.

The reform, which intended to eliminate the model known as ‘perfect bicameralism’ and reduce the amount of members of the Senate, among other things, didn’t reach the majority of votes, and therefore Renzi, at midnight in Italy, announced on TV that he will officially submit his resignation to the President of the Republic. ‘The Italian people have spoken unequivocally (…) I lost and I will leave my seat. My experience in government has come to an end’, the Prime Minister said in press round filled with journalists. Renzi expressed the need to make reforms in Italy, and called to keep on fighting.

December 4th was a great day in Italy. We hoped such an outcome, but did not expect it. When we saw so much turnout by voters we were not sure how to interpret it, because the media and the government had claimed that more voters would result in a higher percentage of “yes” to the constitutional reform. Well, it was the other way round. An unprecedented (for a referendum) participation rate brought to a clear rejection of the reform proposal, and of the government.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement that his goal in Syria was to end the rule of Bashar Assad has caused consternation in the Kremlin, with officials saying it contradicted previous assurances and was out of sync with Moscow’s take on the situation.

The surge in right-wing and anti-establishment sentiments as a result of failed neo-liberal policies in Europe is likely to lead to collapse of the EU in “a tragic development,” prominent American linguist, scholar and activist Noam Chomsky told RT.

BEFORE American voters—especially white, male, rural and older ones—carried Donald Trump to victory in America’s presidential election, aggrieved British voters with a similar profile voted to leave the European Union. Equally surly voters in France have been flocking to Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front for months; she is tipped to make the run-off in next year’s presidential election. Alternative for Germany, an anti-immigrant party, is picking up support ahead of a federal election in Germany, also in 2017.

This election is great news. A lesson in democracy. In Trump's program, there are such theses as putting an end to wars and the export of democracy around the whole world, revising NATO and the UN’s roles, and pursuing friendly relations with Russia. Great attention is also paid to what is happening in the United States: the war against illegal immigration and the introduction of proportional taxation (a flat tax).

With relations with Europe rapidly deteriorating, Turkey is threatening to send upwards of 3,000 refugees per day to Greece in what intelligence officials in Greece described as “blackmail” against the European Union. According to details uncovered by Greek intelligence officials and published in The Times (of London), thousands of dinghies and motorboats

Through the prism of the trade balance, the current account surplus can be viewed as a symptom of Germany’s economic success. German exports increased from 30% of GDP in 2000 to 47% in 2015. But with imports at merely 39% of GDP, this implies that Germany is providing capital to the rest of the world at a very high rate. Indeed, German savings have

While trade experts warn that a recent spending spree by Chinese companies — many of them supported by the Chinese government — will harm the competitiveness of European business in the long-term, Berlin and Brussels are struggling to come up with a political response.