European Union

“It’s not a (counter) proposal, it’s Armageddon; they sent it to us at 5 in the morning”, was the response by a high-ranking but unnamed Greek government spokesman to reported demands for a higher (23 percent) VAT rate on most goods as a well as an end to practically all early retirement schemes in the country.

Standard and Poor?s warned on Wednesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Romania and Serbia if the troubles of Greece spill over into their banking systems.

By Fredmund Malik *

The European Parliament's Committee on Budgets (BUDG) has approved financial aid of EUR 1.98 M for urgent recovery activities necessitated by the floods in 2014 in Bulgaria.

Support for a Greece-creditors deal came from far-off China on Wednesday, with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang expressing his hope that Greece remains in the eurozone — with the subsequent economic turbulence thus avoided.

After rarely seen pro-activity and agility in meeting EU requirements on the part of Bosnian authorities, the EU is allow selected local milk producers to export raw milk and diary products to Croatia and the EU market.

The latest developments in the treadmill of negotiations with lenders are becoming dramatic, since everything is now open, after the Greek Prime Minister’s statement on the “Institutions” shortly before he departed for Brussels.

Europe needs to find a solution to the migrant crisis or risk losing its identity, Italy's Matteo Renzi warned June 24 ahead of a key EU summit, as tensions rose over the asylum issue.

By Mike Dolan

By invoking a Greek euro exit as a possible outcome of failed bailout negotiations, European governments have effectively rewritten a key tenet of the shared currency - and maybe even for the better.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is visiting Brussels on Wednesday for a meeting with the heads of Greece’s three creditors: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Central Bank Chief Mario Draghi and International Monetary Fund Head Christine Lagarde. This meeting comes just a few hours prior to the Eurogroup meeting scheduled for Wednesday.