Banking Industry: EU - You won’t believe this, but some big banks may have broken the law again – by Jason Karaian

Just as markets were digesting the Euro 1.9 billion (US $2.6 b) penalty imposed on Credit Suisse for helping American clients avoid taxes, news from Brussels suggests that yet another big fine is looming for a few other banking giants. 

Today the European Commission accused JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole with rigging euro interest rates, alleging that they acted in a cartel to manipulate Euribor, a key interbank lending rate.

The three banks refused to settle the antitrust case in December last year, when the commission fined eight other banks and brokers a record €1.7 billion ($2.3 billion) for their roles in the rate-rigging cartel. Settling the case saved the accused 10% of the headline fine, on top of other discounts based on their degree of co-operation with regulators.

JPMorgan, HSBC, and Crédit Agricole must now answer the commission’s charges without the offer of leniency that comes from settling. 

That said, throughout the financial crisis European regulators have been seen as softer than their American counterparts, with Brussels wielding more limited powers and showing less of an appetite to impose big penalties. Even after settling with the EU in last year’s euro interest rate case, Société Générale is challenging its €446 million fine in court, alleging “a manifest error of assessment” in calculating it.

The three banks that were charged today will hope to benefit from the eurocrats’ presumed timidity. In theory, EU cartel fines carry a penalty of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue, which would imply a combined fine of more than $18 billion, according to the bank’s latest annual results.

But the commission is highly unlikely to ask for this much in damages, and the depressing regularity with which big banks land in legal trouble these days means that they are well prepared to pay the penalties. From interest rate-rigging to mortgage mis-selling, tax avoidance, foreign-exchange manipulation, money laundering and much else besides, banks now operate under the constant threat of large fines, and they’ve built up enormous litigation reserves to cope. 

Note EU-Digest: one can only hope the EU Commission will not act with their usual timidity in dealing with this serious fraudulent issues.

Read more: You won’t believe this, but some big banks may have broken the law again – Quartz

De Europese Verkiezingen: Wat dacht Pim Fortuyn over de EU? - RM

Pim Fortuyn - "at your service"

Het tv-programma Altijd Wat van KRO-NCRV zendt vanavond een nooit eerder uitgezonden interview uit met Pim Fortuyn. Het gesprek werd begin mei 2002, vier dagen voor de moord op Fortuyn, opgenomen; de NCRV besloot destijds om het niet uit te zenden.

In het vraaggesprek zei Fortuyn dat hij voor uitbreiding van de Europese Unie was. Hij zei letterlijk: "als premier zal ik vurig voor uitbreiding van Europa pleiten, vooral vanwege de veiligheid en stabiliteit."

Hij noemde Europa een uniek politiek project dat door de Europese bevolking moet worden gedragen. "Als dat niet gebeurt, zal alles uiteenvallen wat is opgebouwd."

En gelijk had Pim Fortuyn, zelf tot op de dag van vandaag.

 Als we ooit mochten teruggaan naar "eigen landje, eigen muntje, eigen zegje" worden we niet alleen levend "opgegeslokt" door de "grote machten"  - maar dan krijgen de multi-nationals zoals Monsanto, Dow, CitiBank, Google, Facebook, etc. in dat geval zeker een nog grotere greep op alles wat we kopen, eten en drinken en nog veel meer. Je moet er niet aan denken..

Gelukkig kunnen wij nu nog steeds via de EU tenminste gezamenlijk wat "tegen-gas" geven aan al die invloeden van buitenaf.

Stem daarom deze week tijdens de Europese verkiezingen vooral met uw gezond verstand en laat u niet beinvloeden door populistische uitlatingen van politici die niet verder kunnen of willen kijken dan hun neus lang is.

Jammer dat Pim er niet meer is om het ons nog eens een keer op zijn altijd scherpe en intelligente wijze goed en duidelijk uit te leggen.

EU-Digest

Chemical Cartel: Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market

Six multinational companies dominate the agricultural input market, and they’re in cahoots.

When a handful of corporations own the world’s seed, pesticide and biotech industries, they control the fate of food and farming. Between them, Monsanto, Dow, BASF, Bayer, Syngenta and DuPont control the global seed, pesticide and agricultural biotechnology markets. This kind of historically unprecedented power over world agriculture enables them to:

• control the agricultural research agenda;
• dictate trade agreements & agricultural policies;
• position their technologies as the “science-based” solution to increase crop yields, feed the hungry and save the planet;
• escape democratic & regulatory controls;
• subvert competitive markets;

…and in the process, intimidate, impoverish and disempower farmers, undermine food security and make historic profits - even in the midst of a global food crisis.

According to the UN, corporate concentration of the agricultural input market “has far-reaching implications for global food security, as the privatization and patenting of agricultural innovation (gene traits, transformation technologies and seed germplasm) has been supplanting traditional agricultural understandings of seed, farmers' rights, and breeders' rights.”

Read more: Chemical Cartel | Pesticide Action Network

EUROPE – What makes the EU tick?

The EU was not always as big  as it is today. When European countries started to cooperate economically in 1951, only Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands participated.

Over time, more and more countries decided to join. The union reached its current size of 28 member countries with the accession of Croatia on 1 July 2013.

The creation of the single market and the corresponding increase in trade and general economic activit transformed the EU into a major trading power. The EU is trying to sustain economic growth by investing in transport, energy and research, while also seeking to minimize the environmental impact of further economic development.

The EU's economy — measured in terms of the goods and services it produces (GDP) — is now bigger than the US's: EU GDP in 2012: €12 945 402 million.

With just 7% of the world’s population, the EU's trade with the rest of the world accounts for around 20% of global exports and imports.

Around two-thirds of EU countries’ total trade is done with other EU countries.

Trade has been hit by the  global recession, but the EU remains the world’s largest player accounting for 16.4% of global imports in 2011. The EU is followed by the United States with 15.5% of all imports, and China with 11.9%. The  EU was also the biggest exporter, accounting for 15.4% of all exports -  compared with 13.4% for China and the 10.5% for the United States.

The EU's also has a unique institutional set-up:

• the EU's broad priorities are set by the European Council, which brings together national and EU-level leaders
• directly elected MEPs represent European citizens in the European Parliament
• the interests of the EU as a whole are promoted by the European Commission, whose members are appointed by national governments
• governments defend their own country's national interests in the Council of the European Union.

The European Council sets the EU's overall political direction – but has no powers to pass laws.

Led by its President – currently Herman Van Rompuy – and comprising national heads of state or government and the President of the Commission, it meets for a few days at a time at least every 6 months.

Law making: There are 3 main institutions involved in EU legislation:

• the European Parliament, which represents the EU’s citizens and is directly elected by them;
• the Council of the European Union, which represents the governments of the individual member countries. 
• The Presidency of the Council is shared by the member states on a  rotating basis.
• the European Commission, which represents the interests of the Union as a whole.

Together, these three institutions produce through the "Ordinary Legislative Procedure" (ex "co-decision") the policies and laws that apply throughout the EU.

In principle, the Commission proposes new laws, and the Parliament and Council adopt them. The Commission and the member countries then implement them, and the Commission ensures that the laws are properly applied and implemented.

Read more: EUROPA and the European project

European Parliamentary Elections: Polls show Europe's centre-right leads by a sliver before next weeks EU elections

EU-Digest Poll shows close race

The center-right is set to win the most seats in European Parliament elections next week, but its wafer-thin poll lead suggests the chances of securing the presidency of the European Commission are uncertain.

The European People's Party (EPP) will take 212 seats in the May 22-25 vote, according to an analysis of national polls on Wednesday by PollWatch 2014, only three more seats than its center-left rivals, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D).

There are 751 seats in the parliament, around 70 percent of which are expected to go to Europe's four mainstream groups - the center-right, center-left, Liberals and Greens.

Around a quarter of seats look likely to be won by anti-EU or protest parties on the far-right and far-left, almost double their standing at the last election in 2009. That's largely because of voter frustration with high unemployment and low growth.

Under EU rules introduced in 2009, the party that wins the election is best placed to have its top candidate become the president of the European Commission, one of Brussels' most powerful jobs, with far-reaching influence over legislation.

But while the EPP may just edge out the Socialists in the vote, according to Wednesday's survey, the Socialists are better placed to secure allegiances with other parties on the left, potentially helping them secure a majority in parliament.

Since the nominee for Commission president must be approved by parliamentary majority, the Socialists may be able to argue that their candidate has greater legitimacy than the center-right EPP's.
The nomination for Commission president will be made by EU leaders, who are required to "take into account" the results of the election in making their choice.

The EPP has chosen Jean-Claude Juncker, 59, the former prime minister of Luxembourg and a central broker during the euro zone debt crisis, as their candidate to succeed Portugal's Jose Manuel Barroso, who has led the Commission since 2004.

The Socialists are backing Germany's Martin Schulz, 58, the current head of the European Parliament and an ardent campaigner for more money to be spent helping young people get jobs.

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, known as ALDE, have chosen former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt as their candidate for Commission president. But PollWatch's latest survey sees the Liberals taking just 63 seats.

The European Parliamentary elections will be held throughout the 28 EU member states from 22 to 25 May 2014 - let your voice be heard - VOTE -  IT IS OUR EUROPEAN UNION.

Read more: Europe's centre-right leads by a sliver before EU election: poll | Reuters

Prtivacy Laws v Freedom of Speech: US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be forgotten

The reverberations from this week's landmark European Court of Justice ruling on the right to be forgotten continue to be felt.

Legions of lawyers are still trying to work out what it will mean for the search engines, and for millions of EU citizens who may want to force them to remove links to their past online lives. And the cultural divide between Europe and the US appears wider than ever, with two very different views of how we should live our lives online.

On the one hand there is what you might call the web utopian view, held by the US internet giants and some in Europe who look to Silicon Valley for inspiration. This sees the ECJ ruling as unworkable, illiberal and just out of touch.

The Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who divides his time between London and the US, explains to me why something like it could never happen across the Atlantic because of the constitutional guarantee of free speech: "This is not a debate the United States is even capable of entering into.

You'd have to repeal the First Amendment - and that's like a religious artefact - so that's never going to happen."

So a battle between two views of freedom - the US belief that free speech trumps everything, and the European view that individuals should have some control over what the world knows about them. But there is something else in play here, a growing unease about the power wielded by what are nearly always US web giants over our lives.

Note EU-Digest:  US Corporations, including Facebook, Yahoo and Google are comparing apples with Pears. The European Court of Justice decision is the right one because there is a distinct difference between Personal Privacy Laws and Freedom of Speech. Storing private information and selling that information to third parties without pernission is in no way linked to Freedom of Speech.

Congratulations to the European Court of Justice for a job well done. 

Read more: BBC News - US v Europe - a cultural gap on the right to be forgotten

Far Right Dangers in Europe: "In parts of Europe, the far right rises again" - by Sonni Efron

As Europe marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War I, the war that destroyed Old Europe, far-right parties are gaining ground across New Europe.

Most of the far-right parties are pro-Russia, opposing U.S. and European Union efforts to isolate President Vladimir Putin for his intervention in Ukraine. They are expected to do well in the May 25 European Parliament elections.

Last month, I traveled to Hungary and Greece, where the neo-fascist movements are strongest. In Hungary, the extreme-right Jobbik party won 1 in 5 votes in last month's parliamentary election. In Greece, even as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party is being prosecuted by the government as a criminal organization, it remains the fourth-largest political party in the country. Golden Dawn lawmaker Ilias Kasidiaris, who sports a swastika tattoo and once read from "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" on the floor of Parliament, is running for mayor of Athens.

Both parties deny being inherently anti-Semitic or anti-Roma, but their symbols and rhetoric suggest otherwise. Party leaders are unapologetically hostile to LGBT rights, and Golden Dawn is vehemently anti-immigrant. And in both Greece and Hungary, many voters appear to be either overlooking the neo-fascist message or embracing it.

Despite international condemnation of Jobbik's anti-Semitic, anti-Roma vitriol, support for the party rose from 18% in the 2010 elections to 21% last month. Among those reelected to office was a Jobbik member of parliament who demanded that the government draw up a list of Jews in official positions because they posed a "national security risk." Another winning candidate claimed that "the Gypsy people are a biological weapon" of the Israelis who have "occupied" Hungary. These are not idle words in a country where Roma have been terrorized or killed in organized attacks.

Read more: In parts of Europe, the far right rises again - Los Angeles Times