Free Republic

Fast-food giant McDonald’s has avoided paying €1 billion in tax across the EU, and should be included in the EU’s probe on “sweetheart” tax deals, according to a report published Wednesday (25 February). The report, published by the European Federation of Public Service Unions, its US Counterpart and the charity War on Want, accuses McDonald’s of “aggressive and potentially abusive optimization of its structure which has led to the avoidance of significant amounts of tax across the continent”. It concludes that “it is likely that the company reached a secret tax deal with Luxembourg”. In July 2009, the Happy-Meal maker...

The European Union’s executive has unveiled a vast plan to boost coordination between the EU’s 28 national energy markets to wean Europe off unstable Russian gas supplies and provide cheaper energy for consumers. European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič on Wednesday called it “undoubtedly the most ambitious energy project” since the inception of the EU over half a century ago. He believes that improving links across borders in Europe’s energy grid could save businesses and consumers up to €40 billion ($45.4 billion) a year. A more energy-independent Europe will also increase the EU’s political options in eastern Europe. […] “Our...

One in five Germans believe that a revolution would be the only way to truly reform society, a study released by the Free University of Berlin on Monday shows. Anti-capitalism, anti-fascism and anti-racism were all are prominent positions according to the study entitled “Against state and capital—for the revolution”, which has revealed a public much further to the left than previously thought. In the report, 20% of the people surveyed agreed with the statement that “Living conditions won’t be improved by reforms—we need a revolution”. A similar percentage of people said they saw the rise of a new fascism in...

Poverty levels in Germany have reached an all-time high, with 15.5 percent of the population—or 12.5 million people—affected. Single parents and unemployed people were the hardest hit, according to a report from a welfare association. Over 40 percent of single parents and almost 60 percent of the unemployed are poor, according to the Paritätische Gesamtverband, an umbrella organization for associations focusing on social services. Older people and retirees, around 15 percent of whom are considered poor, are the fastest growing demographic group in terms of poverty, according to the report released on Thursday. One of the report authors, Christian Woltering,...

To many on the outside, Germany looks like a big, rich country enjoying the benefits of being Europe's largest economy. Inside, Germans know that looks can be deceiving. As in any nation, parts of Germany suffer from poverty, and Germans have always assumed they knew which parts: the west is rich and the east is poor. But a new report reveals the truth isn't that simple. The wealth imbalance in Germany isn't just between east and west; there are also large regional differences between the country's north and south. And across the country there are pockets of poverty more crushing...

Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has spelled out the negotiating strategy of the Syriza government with crystal clarity. “Exit from the euro does not even enter into our plans, quite simply because the euro is fragile. It is like a house of cards. If you pull away the Greek card, they all come down,” he said. “Do we really want Europe to break apart? Anybody who is tempted to think it possible to amputate Greece strategically from Europe should be careful. It is very dangerous. Who would be hit after us? Portugal? What would happen to Italy when it discovers...

The European Commission is hoping that a new global reporting standard will eradicate tax evasion and tax fraud in the wake of the latest revelations in Switzerland. “We are hoping that the coming into force of this new agreement at the very latest by 2018 will put an end to tax evasion and fraud by the use of secret bank accounts,” European Commission spokesperson Vanessa Mock told reporters in Brussels on Monday (9 February). The EU and Switzerland negotiated an agreement on the taxation of savings back in 2014. The plan is to unravel the Swiss tradition of banking secrecy...

The national airline of Cyprus has ceased operations after the European Commission ordered that it must repay €65 million in illegal state aid. The Commission ruled that the airline, which has been losing money for some time and is 94% government-owned, must pay back €65 million of the €103 million that it received in state aid in 2012 and 2013. The airline has been receiving money from the government since 2007. …

The eurozone experienced negative inflation for the second month in a row, according to a flash estimate published today (30 January) by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical office. Inflation is expected to be at −0.6%, with consumer prices falling further than economists had forecast. The fall represents the biggest decline in prices in the history of the euro. […] The drop was driven by the fall in energy prices (−8.9%, compared with −6.3% in December). […] The deflationary spiral comes as Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is trying to tackle deflation with a policy of...

Last year Austria's largest bank, Erste Bank, sent shudders of Credit Anstalt through the European Banking System. This year it is Austria's 3rd largest bank that is scaring investors senseless. On the heels of the Swiss National Bank's decision to un-peg from the Euro, Raiffeisen Bank's Swiss-Franc-Denominated mortgage worries have resurfaced (along with Russian/Ukraine writedowns) and nowhere is that more evident than the total collapse of the bank's bonds (from over 95c to 65c today). Even after the ECB Q€ (and some apparent intervention to weaken the Swissy) bonds kept free-falling. Perhaps, The Freedom Party's demands for a bailout will...

The long-anticipated collapse of the euro is here. When European Central Bank president Mario Draghi unveiled an open-ended quantitative easing program worth at least 60 billion euros a month on Thursday, stocks soared but the euro plummeted like a rock. It hit an 11 year low of $1.13, and many analysts believe that it is going much, much lower than this. The speed at which the euro has been falling in recent months has been absolutely stunning. Less than a year ago it was hovering near $1.40. But since that time the crippling economic problems in southern Europe have gone...

The European Central Bank will plough €1.1 trillion into the eurozone economy in a last-ditch attempt to breathe life into the European economy. At its monthly governing council on Thursday (January 22), the bank’s governing council agreed to start buying up to €60 billion of government bonds from March in an unprecedented quantitative easing program. The program is open-ended, and will run until September 2016 at the earliest. Speaking at a press conference following the governing council meeting, ECB president Mario Draghi said that the bond-buying program would remain in place “until we see a sustained adjustment in the path...

The German central bank, or Bundesbank, said Monday that it stepped up the repatriation of its gold reserves from overseas storage last year. “The Bundesbank successfully continued and further stepped up its transfers of gold,” the central bank said in a statement. “In 2014, 120 tonnes of gold were transferred to Frankfurt from storage locations abroad: 35 tonnes from Paris and 85 tonnes from New York.” Germany’s gold reserves are the second-biggest in the world after those of the United States and totaled 3,384.2 tonnes this month, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council. …

It sounds at first like a crazy thought experiment: One morning, every resident of the eurozone comes home to find a check in their mailbox worth over €500 ($597) and possibly as much as €3,000. A gift, just like that, sent by the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt. The scenario is less absurd than it may sound. Indeed, many serious academics and financial experts are demanding exactly that. They want ECB chief Mario Draghi to fire up the printing presses and hand out money directly to the people. The logic behind the idea is that recipients of the money...

Inflation in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, slowed to just 0.2 percent in December, its lowest level in more than five years, and averaged 0.9 percent for the whole of 2014, according to new figures released on Monday. […] Using the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP)—the yardstick used by the European Central Bank—inflation in Germany was even lower at 0.1 percent in December, way under the ECB’s annual inflation target of just below 2.0 percent. The chronically low level of inflation across the single currency bloc has fueled concern the region could slip into deflation—a sustained and widespread drop in...

The European Union’s executive Commission said Monday that membership in the euro bloc is “irrevocable” but left it open to what extent Greece could renegotiate the terms after elections on Jan. 25. Greece’s left-wing Syriza party leads the polls ahead of the elections and is in favor of changing the conditions of the country’s international bailout deal. That would likely anger the rest of the eurozone, which has given Athens the bulk of the rescue loans. […] EU spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said Monday that if the Greek elections call for a need to reconsider the conditions of Athens’ membership within...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is prepared to let Greece leave the eurozone if Greeks elect a government that jettisons the country’s current austerity course, according to German media reports. The report in the Der Spiegel daily, which cited sources close to the German government, comes as polls show a radical leftist party leading the field three weeks ahead of a snap election in Greece. The Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras has pledged to reverse reforms imposed by Greece’s international creditors and renegotiate its bailout deal. …

EU development ministers met today (12 December) in Brussels and adopted a “perspective” to boost the role of the private sector in the field of development cooperation. But leading NGOs warned that placing the private sector at the center of EU development policy “shows ministers have failed to acknowledge its limitations”. EU ministers adopted Council Conclusions, which contain strong language in favor of engaging more with the private sector. Ministers state that the private sector “is emerging as an increasingly active player in the development field”, and describe its role as “key” for implementing the future sustainable development goals. Ministers...

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has indicated he will try and get around member states’ veto powers over fiscal issues when he proposes new laws to clamp down on tax avoidance. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he said he may use a majority vote to get a forthcoming law on the automatic exchange of tax rulings (letters that give companies favorable tax conditions) passed. “I have not excluded that we change the rules using a qualified majority (of member states). I will leave the technical and legal aspects aside now, but it would affect aspects of administrative...

A top level economic report on Thursday urged European heavyweights France and Germany to implement urgent economic reforms, warning that Europe risked falling into a “stagnation trap”. “In France, we fear lack of boldness for decisive reforms. In Germany, we fear complacency,” said the report, drawn up by two leading economists for the French and German governments. In a hotly-awaited set of proposals to jumpstart the traditional Franco-German motor that drives the European economy, Henrik Enderlein and Jean Pisani-Ferry concluded: “France and Germany spend a lot of time on joint declarations and initiatives. We miss action.” […] “We think the...