After the referendum in Cyprus, I asked a friend of mine who works for the UN Development Program what the local mood was like:
really for the time being it is disappointment…with the amount of misinformation out and the also the tight timelines that were imposed….really hard to know who to blame, but I blame the [...]
So, Cyprus’ referendums brought a ‘No’ from the Greek side of the island, with over 75% of voters rejecting the plans and a ‘Yes’ from the Turkish side, with over 65% in favour.
No one really seems to know where they go from here - the UN is closing the office of peace envoy Alvaro de [...]
The Frankfurter Allgemeine reports today (p. 6) that the international community is willing to give EUR 2 billion in support, if the population of Cyprus will approve a plan for reunification in a referendum next Saturday, April 24. That’s according to represntatives of 34 countries and international financial organizations who met at a donor conference [...]
Kofi Annan has announced that the UN is to proceed with the referendum on April 24 despite an apparent lack of agreement. One week into talks at the Swiss Alpine resort of Buergenstock, Annan has simply put his best face on the result and said that the island’s future is now up to [...]
You can smell the coffee now: this is the opinion of Morgan Stanley’s Serhan Cevik referring to the nearest thing to an ‘economic miracle’ that we have in or around the EU at the present time:
“It?s time to smell the coffee ? Turkey?s disinflation process is not a temporary phenomenon. Though currency movements play [...]
Joschka Fischer, visiting Ankara, comes out strongly for (eventual) Turkish accession to the EU, reports the S?ddeutsche:
Europa werde ?einen hohen Preis? daf?r zahlen, wenn es die T?rkei aus der Europ?ischen Union heraushalten wolle. F?r Europas Sicherheit sei die T?rkei wichtiger als ein ?Raketenabwehrsystem?…
[Europe will pay a high price if it wants to keep Turkey out [...]
No joke, unfortunately
“Across Romania, fear is growing of a looming porcine genocide as the country prepares to negotiate its way into the EU. For the fact is that most pigs are bred and slaughtered here in a way that fails to meet EU standards, and no one is prepared to invest the money needed to [...]
File this one under People Who Ought to Know Better. Odder than the fact of the argument is the frequency with which I see it.
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DON’T STRETCH EUROPE’S PROMISED [...]
PKK ended its five year ceasefire a couple of days ago. This is very significant, and very terrible.
There’s been a lot of progress in Turkey, but the kind of moderation and impovement of the Turkish attitude and treatment of its Kurdish minority that would put the conflict completely to an end was several years [...]
Feed: A Fistful of Euros