As efforts continue to resolve the deadlock over the forthcoming reform of the EU budget, this article from reuters give some background on what the impact on Spain might be.
“Spain is set to be the big loser in tough negotiations on the EU’s 2007-2013 budget as the bloc’s paymasters led by cash-strapped Germany seek [...]

Here’s the link to the Eurostat report on Italy’s deficit revisions. The language is very formal, but between the lines it isn’t hard to see the frustration with the kind of data they’ve been getting.
It is recalled that Eurostat was not in a position to validate the figures for Italy in the context of the [...]

Actually the FT isn’t giving any apparent credence to the Times story, focusing on the embarrasing position the UK government might find itself in if there is a ‘no’. “Senior government officials are warning that if the French public votes No in its referendum on the European Union constitution, it could undermine Britain’s presidency of [...]

Well, if you believe Times (and after last weeks episode with the Independent I believe no-one), le petit ‘non’, like its equivalent le petit mensonge, is not all that serious after all. According to the Times, Britain is working with other European states to draw up plans to keep the European Union constitution alive if [...]

French economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter and this is bound to have a negative impact on yesterdays ‘big push’ to win support for the ‘yes’ in the European constitution referendum. Gross domestic product in what is Europe’s third-largest economy grew January -March by only 0.2%. This compares with the [...]

After the sorry incident of the Independent ‘racism scare’ yesterday, I really have to say I can sympathise with Germans who are getting tired of being treated as if they were all ‘Hitlers Children’.
“Germany’s federal president Horst K?hler called on the British people on Thursday to drop their “stereotypical” and “negative” views of Germany, in [...]

Former government colleague of Jos? Maria Aznar, and now International Monetary Fund managing director, Rodrigo Rato has also been voicing opinions today.
In an interview given to the Spanish magazine Expansion, he says:
A 48-hour limit would push the eurozone in ‘the opposite direction’ from the rest of the world. ‘It is sending the wrong message…. ‘I [...]

The EU Observer has the following:
The President of the European Commission has called for a French yes to the European Constitution, pointing out that there will not be a “plan B” if France rejects the treaty next week……….But Mr Barroso asserted there was no plan B in case the French rejected the treaty.

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President Jacques Chirac said there will be no renegotiation of the proposed EU Constitution if French voters reject the treaty in their referendum on May 29.
‘There will obviously be no renegotiation,’ Chirac said at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski in the eastern French city of Nancy.
‘There [...]

Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm is in the news again. Last time I read about him it was because he had started a weblog. This time the issue is different: he describes himself as being “totally fed up” with the fact the Dutch public thinks that it was effectively robbed by the way the [...]