In the battle over who should become the next president of the European Commission, David Cameron is depicted as the loser - "isolated", "incompetent", a serial mis-reader of Brussels politics.

Yet David Cameron is not alone in finding himself in a corner, defending a position he cannot retreat from.

Several leaders who doubted whether Jean-Claude Juncker was the best candidate for the job are now uncomfortably lining up behind him.

But Angela Merkel's position is almost as uncomfortable as that of David Cameron. Frau Europe's authority has been damaged.

It was not just that she was forced to back down when she suggested other names apart from that of Mr Juncker should be considered for the top job.

She flinched as some outraged German columnists pointed out that during the campaign she had told voters the election would determine the next Commission president.

Although much of the German political establishment has seen a strengthening of the European Parliament as one answer to the EU's democratic deficit, Chancellor Merkel is said to be uncomfortable at a shift in power towards the European Parliament which could weaken the ability of heads of government to define the agenda.

There is already a fall-out from the battle over the Commission presidency.

The centre-left in Europe, led by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and President Francois Hollande of France, have seized an opportunity to push their case for a change of course in Europe. Yes, they have agreed to back Mr Juncker but in exchange for a commitment to support their growth agenda.

The centre-left wants a more flexible interpretation of the EU's budget and deficit rules.

Source EU Observer - BRUSSELS - The setting could not be less spectacular – one of the more nondescript rooms in the European Parliament's glass towers overlooking Place Luxembourg in Brussels, where a handful of officials gather with armfuls of papers.  At intervals, members of the Parliament's catering staff silently walk round the room offering tea and coffee. Unless you were involved, you wouldn't know that the meeting – one of around 1,000 so-called 'trialogue' meetings to take place in 2013 – was actually happening.  At this particular gathering to discuss plans to re-write the EU's accounting directive in March 2013, MEPs from the Parliament's legal affairs committee – Klaus Lehne, Arlene McCarthy, Eva Lichtenberger, Alexandra Thein and Saj Karim – made a breakthrough.  They secured rules that will shine a light on the payments made to governments by companies working in the controversial extractive industries – rules that should help prevent corruption and dodgy dealing between companies and governments.  An Irish government official, whose country has been tasked with leading the talks (because Ireland held the rotating EU presidency at the time), agreed that, without exception, all payments over €100,000 must be publicly disclosed. This will apply to every individual project or contract undertaken by a company.  The new reporting requirements will mark a sea-change in how the industry is regulated yet the trialogue meeting where it happened remains a closed process.  Search for any mention of trialogues in the EU treaties and you will draw a blank.  This is because despite being an accepted part of the lawmaking landscape, in legal terms trialogues don't exist.  All trialogue meetings are informal and the timing of the meetings are not known to most MEPs, let alone the ordinary public. There are no formal minutes taken. Some are over within a few minutes. Others can go on all day and well into the night.   The last trialogue on the single resolution mechanism (SRM), the final, and arguably most controversial piece of banking union legislation, lasted 16 hours through the night on 19 March as lawmakers sought (successfully) to close a deal in time for the end of the parliamentary term.  Despite the sense of intrigue that should surround a lawmaking process that few people are aware is happening, attending the average trialogue meeting would be a perfect cure for insomniacs, as civil servants and politicians drone through a bill line by line, article by article.  But they matter. If the EU's bi-monthly leaders' summits are the glamorous (in the loosest sense of the word) side of the EU, the trialogue meetings are the main engine driving the sausage factory that churns out EU laws in Brussels.

The triumph of the trialogue - In terms of numbers, the volume of legislation does not appear to have changed much in the past two legislatures. MEPs and ministers adopted a total of 447 laws in the 2004-9 parliament. By November 2013, politicians had signed off on 395 files and, even with a wild flurry of activity as they seek to conclude as much legislation as possible before May's elections, the total number of files is likely to be around 500.  But what has changed is the way the laws are agreed.

The formal structure for breaking the impasse between the institutions mentioned in the treaties is the conciliation committee.

Well....lot's of hot aair - in fact The EU is a "bad joke" ...

According to Portuguese MEP Paulo Rangel: “The new process under which the European Commission President is elected by the European Parliament will fortify the Commission's democratic legitimacy and political role and will make the upcoming elections more substantial, by linking European voters to the election of the Commission President.”

The Report on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty with respect to the European Parliament (EP) stresses the need to reinforce the Commission's democratic legitimacy, independence and political role.

Paulo Rangel’s Report urges the European Council to take the results of the elections into account and honour the citizens' choice when nominating the proposed candidate for the position of President of the European Commission. The Report also foresees that the candidate will need to present the next term’s policy guidelines for discussion to the European Parliament before getting the job.

The text also suggests that Commissioners should, as much as possible, be selected amongst the elected Members of the EP and that the new President-elect of the Commission should be more autonomous when selecting the College of Commissioners.

European Commission to function more efficiently...Rangel’s Report takes a further view with additional measures for the more effective functioning of the Commission - without prejudice to the right to appoint one Commissioner per Member State - by suggesting the appointment of Commissioners without portfolio or the establishment of a system of Vice-Presidents with responsibilities over major thematic clusters and with competences to coordinate the work of the Commission in the corresponding areas.

The Report also urges the next Convention to consider how the Commission is formed in order to reinforce its democratic legitimacy and calls on the next Commission President to consider how its composition, construction and political priorities will strengthen policy which is close to the citizens. In addition, it suggests that the next Convention should envisage a reduction of the number of votes required to apply a motion of censure against the Commission.

This important Report was approved by the EP in plenary with 298 votes in favour, 102 votes against and 25 abstentions.

Well...the Britts should ask EU for help ...hahahaha (hence the picture)

Flights have been cancelled and trains suspended as hurricane strength winds threaten to bring Britain to a standstill. Britain's largest airport, Heathrow, plans to run a reduced volume of flights on Monday and the London Overground train service will be suspended until 9am. The disruption comes as a huge search operation gets underway for a 14-year-old boy last seen playing in rough seas off a beach in Newhaven. The local boy is feared to have drowned after disappearing under the waves while swimming with a friend at 4.15pm. Weather forecasters warn St Jude's storm will bring heavy rain, flooding and winds gusting up to 80mph when it hits the West Country in the early hours and the blasts eastwards across southern England.Heathrow will cut hundreds of flights as the storm batters the South East. The airpFlights have been cancelled and trains suspended as hurricane strength winds threaten to bring Britain to a standstill. Britain's largest airport, Heathrow, plans to run a reduced volume of flights on Monday and the London Overground train service will be suspended until 9am. The disruption comes as a huge search operation gets underway for a 14-year-old boy last seen playing in rough seas off a beach in Newhaven. The local boy is feared to have drowned after disappearing under the waves while swimming with a friend at 4.15pm. Weather forecasters warn St Jude's storm will bring heavy rain, flooding and winds gusting up to 80mph when it hits the West Country in the early hours and the blasts eastwards across southern England.ort, which operates an average of 1200 flights daily, will cut 20 per cent of flights between 6am and 11am, ten per cent between 11am and 4pm and around five per cent for the rest of the day. Aer Lingus has announced that eight of its flights between Ireland and Heathrow will no longer run due to the expected severe weather conditions. Track speeds on the Heathrow Express have also been reduced to operate a half hourly service until 10am. No trains will run to and from Gatwick airport during the morning and the Stansted Express will not run until 9am. Several train companies have warned of severely disrupted services for travellers tomorrow morning and have told advised passengers not to take to the railways.

Olli Rehn (the incompetent idiot), Europe's economic commissioner, welcomed news that the 17 nations that use the single currency had expanded collectively by 0.3% in the three months to June – the first pick- up in activity since the autumn of 2011.

But Rehn said celebrations should be put on hold given Europe's jobs crisis and the wide disparity in economic performance across the eurozone. "Yes, this slightly more positive data is welcome – but there is no room for any complacency whatsoever", Rehn said. "I hope there will be no premature, self-congratulatory statements suggesting the crisis is over. For we all know that there are still substantial obstacles to overcome: the growth figures remain low and the tentative signs of growth are still fragile."

Rehn (the conventional idiot) said the average number for the bloc hid substantial differences between states, with Germany's positive performance outstripping that of Spain and Italy, who remain in recession. He added that some member states still have unacceptably high unemployment rates, with economic reforms still in their infancy, leaving the region with a "very long way to go."

"A sustained recovery is now within reach, but only if we persevere on all fronts of our crisis response: keep up the pace of economic reform, regain control over our debt, both public and private, and build the pillars of a genuine economic and monetary union," he said. Figures released by Eurostat, the EU's statistical agency, showed that a stronger than expected performance by the single currency's two biggest economies - Germany and France - helped haul the eurozone out of recession. Financial markets had been braced for a rise in eurozone GDP following the increase in industrial production reported on Tuesday but were surprised by news that Germany grew by 0.7% in the second quarter and that France grew by 0.5%.  Along with the rest of the world, the eurozone fell into a deep slump in the winter of 2008-09 before recovering in 2010 and early 2011. But a second leg of the downturn then commenced as a result of the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis, which hit confidence, led to a mothballing of investment and resulted in the imposition of hardline austerity programmes.

Despite the growth in the second quarter, the European Commission still expects the eurozone to suffer a second full calendar year of falling output in 2013, with growth resuming in 2014.

Eurostat's figures showed that Italy and Spain - the single currency's third and fourth biggest economies - both remained in recession in the second quarter of 2013. Spain's economy shrank by 0.1% percent on the quarter, while Italy posted a 0.2% decline.

The Dutch economy also contracted by 0.2% but Portugal – one of the three countries that required a financial bailout – recorded the fastest growth of any eurozone country with 1.1% quarterly growth.Funny - some friends just returned from France on a hunt for bargain property - looked at a 3.5M Euro estate that was asking 1.2M.   They passed because as they stated, "you could smell desperation in the air - shops in the nearby town were shuttered - there was no activity on the street"... Can someone explain how France is growing?  The MSM is getting very desperate trying to create "green shoots"... Do you think we are stupid enough to believe this BS?....am so disillusioned with this its incredible. It's just a cycle which lasts 10-15 years. Growth-Depression, Growth-Depression. Couple this with increasing house prices which are doomed to crash again we have the same thing happening. Europe obviously hasn't learned and as the saying goes they will be doomed to repeat the past.

The European Commission released the details of its proposals for a single bank resolution mechanism. Here's the run-down of their plans - stupidity has no limit ...it seems...:

 

1. The ECB, as the supervisor, would signal when a bank in the euro area or established in a Member State participating in the Banking Union was in severe financial difficulties and needed to be resolved.

2. A Single Resolution Board, consisting of representatives from the ECB, the European Commission and the relevant national authorities (those where the bank has its headquarters as well as branches and/or subsidiaries), would prepare the resolution of a bank. It would have broad powers to analyze and define the approach for resolving a bank: which tools to use, and how the European Resolution Fund should be involved. National resolution authorities would be closely involved in this work.

3. On the basis of the Single Resolution Board's recommendation, or on its own initiative, the Commission would decide whether and when to place a bank into resolution and would set out a framework for the use of resolution tools and the fund. For legal reasons, the final say could not be with the Board.

4. Under the supervision of the Single Resolution Board, national resolution authorities would be in charge of the execution of the resolution plan.

5. The Single Resolution Board would oversee the resolution. It would monitor the execution at national level by the national resolution authorities and, should a national resolution authority not comply with its decision, it could directly address executive orders to the troubled banks.

6. A Single Bank Resolution Fund would be set up under the control of the Single Resolution Board to ensure the availability of medium-term funding support while the bank was restructured. It would be funded by contributions from the banking sector, replacing the national resolution funds of the euro area Member States and of Member States participating in the Banking Union, as set up by the draft Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive.

"Eurozone: three countries have debt-to-income ratios of more than 300%Figures expose indebtedness of eurozone governments in relation to government revenues – UK is sixth with ratio of 212%  Germany must leave THIS Euro and give the leadership back to France. They  originated that non-working currency by linking every country together.  The Bundesbank WARNED and only by this pressure the Maastricht rules were established.... But this rules were until today 60 times! broken.  France and their socialists are the biggest danger in Europe, they  are be able to raise hate against countries by continuing the  non-working ideological driven politics. The development in Italy underlines the necessary split of the currency. Where is England to avoid this rising conflicts between the EWU countries? Why do they sit back and wait? In the end the Germans are (as always) the bad guys. Three eurozone countries – Ireland, Greece and Portugal – now have debt-to-income ratios of more than 300%. Ireland Greece and Portugal  are laboring under debt-to-income ratios of more than 300%, according to figures that expose the indebtedness of eurozone governments in relation to their government revenues. The measure, intended to show governments' abilities to pay debts, shows Ireland's total debt in 2012 was €192bn (£163.1bn), or 340% of the government's income. Ireland came a narrow second in the table to fellow bail-out recipient Greece, which has amassed an even worse debt-to-revenue total of 351%. Portugal – which has also received aid from the troika of the International Monetary Fund, the European commission and the European Central Bank – came third with a debt-to-revenue ratio of 302%, while Britain was sixth last year on the list of 27 EU member states, with a debt-to-revenue ratio of 212%, according to calculations based on European commission figures."

Who gives these people the right to change the rules that many signed up for years ago? Nothing is sacred anymore and no one can be sure that their investment in making provision for retirement and their families is safe. Unelected mad men hell bent on creating more and more regulation and more and more control of the individuals rights to care for themselves. This one might have been stopped or delayed but you just know they are working on other ways to screw the little man.  I am in the US but more than half of my retirement funds are in UK investments that I toiled for, for years and its already been f####d over by the Brown government. Worse that it's my money but I can't take it out of the UK because of punitive rules it is still vulnerable to these  idiots in Brussels. Where did the people give the right to have this controlled outside of British sovereignty? The rules, known as "Solvency II", would have required schemes to hold more much money in reserve. Experts say that their introduction would have caused every remaining pension scheme in the private sector to close.  The European Commission announced today that it would not include solvency rules in a new pensions directive, effectively kicking Solvency II into the long grass.  It said: "Commissioner Barnier has indicated his intention to come forward with a proposal for a directive to improve the governance and transparency of occupational pension funds in the autumn of 2013.  "At this stage, and as long as more comprehensive data is needed and Solvency II is not in force, the proposal for a directive will not cover the issue of the solvency of pension funds. In light of the differing situations in member states regarding retirement products and pension funds, it is necessary to continue technical work on the issue of solvency."  The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) said this meant the Solvency rules had been postponed indefinitely and would become a task for the next commissioner, who will take office in November 2014.

Romania has dropped setting a target date for adopting the euro, although officials insisted that joining the single currency remains a fundamental objective for the country, according to reports.

The Romanian news agency Mediafax said the Romanian government would submit to the European Commission for the first time a programme on progress towards adoption of the euro without a target date.

Going to Germany, the country's leading economic think tanks have trimmed their growth forecast for Europe's biggest economy this year.

The four institutes- Ifo in Munich, IfW in Kiel, IW in Halle and RWI in Essen, predicted that the German economy would expand by 0.8pc in 2013, a downward revision from 1pc growth, then grow by 1.9pc in 2014. They said the cut to projected 2013 growth was due to the fact that the economy had to catch up this year after contracting in the fourth quarter of 2012.   I look at this the other way....let the sinking German economy pay in full for the Cypriotic mess....the only awkward caveat being they have the influence to hoodwink the Troica to raid depositors accounts.

So other countries have no say; they can simply block any contributions to IMF fund and direct sequestration attempts.

In essence; the man in the wheelchair has just confirmed that Germany will dictate how the EU economy is run. This is a big mistake....The Cypriot bail-out may now hinge on the Mediterranean island's own parliament, which is sorely divided over the rescue.

Early signs are that nearly half the members of the 56-seat Cypriot parliament may oppose it, a step that could plunge the island into fresh crisis, possible bankruptcy and all but spell a eurozone exit.

How Cameron is going to attempt EU top-end reforms has been made near impossible.

Aah Herr Schaeuble, you resort to the politician's time-honoured ploy: When you have lost the rational argument, use fear.

One day soon, you and all the others trapped in the dysfunctional Eurozone will find out that nothing happens when a country leaves. Nothing for the departing country except a short, sharp shock followed by equally quick recovery - you know, like Iceland.....

Of course the great fear that dare not speak its name is that once one country leaves the Eurozone, others will stampede for the exits. And once they leave the Eurozone and prosper, serious doubt will arise over the need for ever-closer political union within the EU.

That will cause a flutter in the Brussels dovecote won't it?

Christine Lagarde, chief of the International Monetary Fund, has been summoned to a French court to testify in the probe into a high-profile scandal that occurred when she was a government minister.

According to news website Mediapart, Ms Lagarde could be placed under formal investigation for a decision she made while finance minister to go ahead with an arbitration to settle a dispute between the state and billionaire businessman Bernard Tapie, in defiance of objections from her advisers.

Magistrates from a special court that handles alleged abuses by government ministers suspect Ms Lagarde of complicity in misusing public funds as finance minister when she decided to go ahead with the arbitration.

Ms Lagarde denies any wrongdoing.

Hmmm...I wonder what would the master EU idiot - Ollie R. say about this ...

Telling people that they can lose their deposits, even possibly below guaranteed amount (100,000 euros), which later was retracted, had not been a mistake. Firstly people realized and got used to the idea that such thing was no longer unthinkable. Secondly, by hitting deposits above 100,000 euros with up to 40% (or even maybe up to 60%) tax, it was made clear that such hit can be very hard indeed. Not some 6.75% or 9.9% as originally mooted: so now it is matter for the 'financial markets' to extend their target, below 100,000 euros. It is indeed a very primitive piece of social engineering and coaching people for the forthcoming loss. It is preparing psychologically all countries in Europe for the next step of the largest heist in history: direct and hard targeting of people's deposits. There is also a rather ironic twist in the events in Cyprus. It has been widely reported that many billions of euros held in banks in Cyprus came from all sorts of dodgy businesses (Russia?). There is even a whispering subliminal propaganda designed to make it easier to accept this new phase of the largest heist in history. The message is that there is nothing wrong in stealing money from the thieves.

Technically what happened there was that the billions of euros in cash deposited in Cyprus was used to redeem for a lot of toxic waste of the financial institutions (it is called 'making investments' in a financial language, with depositors cash). So, as expected, those who had cash ended up with nothing and those who held (and are still generating) zillions of toxic waste, got another tranche of their heist. The largest heist in history continues. Now...if it is true, as it is widely rumored, that many billions of euros of mafia money have been kept in Cyprus and now something like 40% or even 60% are going to be lost, one could wonder whether European politicians, central bankers, who drive this process, e.g. finance ministers, or some other decision makers, even lower down the chain, are going to sleep comfortably. Or are they going to think more about their own and their families safety? Is mafia going to accept such multibillion euros loss? Or would they plan to teach a lesson in order to get their money back, to get a compensation for the current 'inconvenience' and mess and to make sure such a thing is unthinkable in the future. Mafia starts wars when there is big money at stake. And in Cyprus some powerful groups lost billions of euros. Therefore we can also look forward to listen to some interesting news. Don't be surprised.