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The recession in Europe risks hurting the world’s economic recovery, a leading international body warned Wednesday. In its half-yearly update, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said that protracted economic weakness in Europe “could evolve into stagnation with negative implications for the global economy.” The OECD again slashed its forecast for the economy of the 17-country eurozone, saying it will shrink by 0.6 percent this year, after a 0.5 percent drop in 2012. The OECD had predicted a 0.1 percent decline for the eurozone in its report six months ago—and this time last year, it forecast growth of nearly...

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent's welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution. If U.S. welfare standards were introduced in Europe, "we would have revolution, not tomorrow, but on the very same day," Schaeuble told a conference in Paris. In recent weeks Germany, wary of a backlash as many in crisis-hit European countries blame it for austerity, has taken steps to tackle unemployment in the bloc, striking bilateral deals with Spain and Portugal. "We have to...

  The European Parliament met Tuesday to discuss the issue of tax evasion throughout the UK and the Eurozone, and how the European Parliament might clamp down on those attempting to protect their well earned wealth from government confiscation.    All was going according to plan, until UKIP member Nigel Farage was given the floor.    Farage immediately launched into a classic rant against Barroso and the rest of the EU bureaucrats, stating that it is not the average man on the street that is engaging in tax fraud, but the European Parliament members themselves:    If we look at the...

(Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Pope Francis on Saturday and, apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless "dictatorship of the economy", called for stronger regulation of financial markets. On Thursday, Francis appealed in a speech for world financial reform, saying the global economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries. Merkel visited Rome for a few hours specifically to meet the pontiff and spoke with him privately in his library for 45 minutes, unusually long for a private papal audience. She told reporters afterwards that the scandals and excesses criticized by Francis...

The European Commission on Tuesday (14 May) tabled several scenarios for the withdrawal of the 1 and 2 euro cent coins, with the cost of minting these coins greater than their use. “The production of 1 and 2 cent coins is clearly a lossmaking activity for the euro area, with the difference between the face value of the coins and the price paid by the state to get them pointing at an estimated total cumulative loss of €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion) since 2002,” the commission said in a press release. Public opinion about the 1 and 2 euro cent coins...

Even if Germany had to write off the loans it extended to Southern European countries as part of the eurozone’s emergency rescue measures, the economic advantages of its membership would still be overwhelming, according to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung. … “Without the euro, growth of the real gross domestic product [GDP] in Germany would be lower by about 0.5 percentage points per year,” the study says, warning that without that euro, Europe “would fall apart politically” and become “a losing player in international competition.” And projections for the future are looking bright, the study adds. “Adding up...

Europe will take longer to recover from its economic crisis as it tackles a worse-than-expected recession in the eurozone and unemployment at record levels, the European Union warned Friday. In its spring economic forecast, the EU said that gross domestic product in the 17 member countries that use the euro will shrink by 0.4 percent this year; better than the 0.6 percent contraction in 2012, but 0.1 percentage points worse than the EU had forecast back in February. The report also had bad news for the wider 27-country EU: it now expects the region’s economy to shrink by 0.1 percent...

Michel Barnier, the European commissioner for the internal market and services, will on Wednesday (8 May) launch plans to give every individual in the European Union the right to a basic bank account. The proposals also aim to make it easier for customers to switch from one bank account to another, and to force banks to be more transparent about the fees they charge, so that consumers can make better comparisons between different providers. … It is estimated that around 56 million people in the EU above the age of 15 do not have a bank account. …

Italy’s new premier pressed on Wednesday for the creation of a full-fledged European banking union and said he wants results before the EU summit next month. Enrico Letta said at a news conference Wednesday with French President François Hollande that “we mustn’t waste time on this.” …

Figures from Eurobarometer, the EU’s own polling organization, suggest that anti-Brussels feeling has spread far beyond Britain and is rising in both poor and better-off EU nations. It follows the continuing eurozone economic crisis, which has sent unemployment soaring and led to a string of multi-billion-pound taxpayer-funded bailouts. Results showed 66 percent of voters in Britain say they “tended not to trust the EU as an institution”. A majority shared that view in Italy (53 percent), France (56 percent) and Germany (59 percent), while in crisis-hit Spain, the figure has soared to 72 percent. The findings are understood to have...

Around 400,000 Britons live or own homes in the south of Spain, which is suffering a deep recession that is hampering Madrid’s attempts to balance the public finances and stave off a bail-out. Senior figures in Germany are now arguing that some richer home owners in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece have so far avoided paying their fair share to rescue the euro, leaving Germany paying too much. Taxes on property or other assets would mark a significant change in Europe’s approach to funding bail-outs for eurozone members. Until now, the cost of rescue packages for countries like Ireland,...

The European Union and the eurozone have already taken important federalist steps to counter the debt crisis, which go beyond mere economic governance, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said yesterday (22 April) at the 2013 Think Tank Dialogue. A few months after his state of the Union address, in which he called for turning the EU into “a federation of nation states,” the Commission chief tried to dissipate fears about federalism. “More integration is simply indispensable for our economy, to shield us from international rough weather to face strong completion and maintain the trust of markets and investors,” Barroso...

Despite not being a member of the European Union, Switzerland is under intense pressure from Brussels to raise taxes as companies flee high-tax EU welfare states in favor of more business-friendly Swiss cantons. And if the nation refuses to bow down soon, so-called “eurocrats” are threatening retaliation. The Swiss government has been in discussions with EU bosses for over a year regarding Switzerland’s non-compliance with the “EU Code of Conduct for Business Taxation.” The EU’s goal, according to the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, is to eliminate what the supranational regime in Brussels calls “harmful tax practices” — low taxes which attract...

The EU would have to halt multi-billion-euro payments to the bloc’s poorest regions without an extra €11 billion ($14.8 billion) for the EU budget, MEPs were told Monday (15 April). Speaking at a hearing of the European Parliament’s budget committee in Strasbourg, Polish budgets commissioner Janusz Lewandowski admitted that the the commission had “cash flow problems” and would struggle to make cohesion payments in the second half of 2013. According to figures distributed to MEPs in Strasbourg, the commission needs an extra €11.2 billion to cover payments for projects across the EU in 2013. Of this, €9 billion ($11.9 billion)...

Austria has accused the UK of being a haven for money launderers ahead of an EU meeting in Dublin, with Cyprus, Ireland, Portugal and Slovenia’s (potential) bailout needs also on the agenda. The Austrian finance minister, Maria Fekter, described Britain as “the island of the blessed for tax evasion and money laundering” in an interview with her country’s Kurier newspaper on Thursday (11 April). Comparing the UK and its “protectorates”—micro-states subject to British law—to Cyprus in terms of hosting secretive foundations and trusts, she noted: “Just as we urged the abolition of sealed foundations in the Cyprus rescue to drain...

The European Commission launched a probe on Tuesday into whether inter-bank fees charged by MasterCard (MA) may be hurting competition in Europe and running afoul of antitrust rules. The investigation comes as part of a broader look at fees in the card industry, including a similar probe of card giant Visa (V). Noting that European consumers and businesses are making more than 40% of their non-cash payments each year by card, the EC said it has a “priority” to “prevent competition distortions in inter-bank arrangements on fees and other conditions.” The EC said it is concerned that some of MasterCard’s...

Scotland wants the Bank of England to bail it out if there is another financial meltdown—even if the country breaks away from the UK. Scottish Nationalists are insisting they want to keep the pound as their currency and retain the Bank of England as the “lender of last resort”. But an influential committee of peers has warned it would be “implausible” for the Bank to accept risks over which it had no control. It also attacked one of the main parts of Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond’s economic blueprint as “fanciful”. …

US treasury secretary Jack Lew on Tuesday (9 April) hinted that Germany should boost its internal demand to help Europe get out of the crisis. But German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Berlin has no need for US tutelage. “We need to balance policies of growth and fiscal consolidation. The driving force behind any recovery is consumer demand, so any policies to help encourage consumer demand in countries that have the capacity would be helpful,” Lew said during a joint press conference with Schäuble in Berlin. …

Right now there is no trust binding together the original ideas of the European free trade zone. Without that commercial backbone, there can be no confidence in the future of Europe. … The truth is that as confidence has drained from the EU, now trust too is evaporating. The recent acts—whether enacted or not—in Cyprus has delivered a hammer blow to the credibility of Brussels as a trustworthy steward of anybody’s finances. Beneath a thin tissue of brazen statements of confidence there lie festering sores of economic mismanagement going septic as a result of previous poultices and treatments which are...

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl—the architect of German reunification—admitted he would never have won a referendum on the adoption of the euro in his country and said he acted “like a dictator” to see the common currency introduced. … Germany’s chancellor between 1982 and 1998, Kohl said it took him “years” to build the trust and negotiation skills to convince other European leaders of his ideas and push them through. … In addition, the freshly reunified East Germans, happy to finally have their Deutsche Mark back, would never have voted in favor of abandoning it again for a new European...