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As European Union leaders push Greece for more austerity reforms, Athens enters political crisis and social media erupts in response. A two-day emergency meeting on Greece’s economic future ended Sunday with strict conditions from the European Union, including contentious austerity reforms, if it wants a new bailout and keep the euro. To meet the conditions for fresh aid packages and a third bailout that Greece needs to avoid bankruptcy, European finance ministers want Greece to pass a series of austerity measures--including tax and pension reforms-- through Parliament and put them into law by Wednesday. Greece will also have to lose...

The UK has signaled that it accepts that a eurozone banking union will go ahead and that it will not be on board, but warned it will seek "safeguards" to protect its financial sector and the single market. "A banking union for the euro area is likely to prove necessary. But it is not essential for a single market. … we are clear that Britain will not take part," says finance minister George Osborne in an article published in EUobserver and several other European media. He warns of London's concern that the euro area, having an "automatic qualified majority", will...

Because they have been unable to find agreement, European leaders have asked top Eurocrats—European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank head Mario Draghi—to come up with a plan. They hope to share some initial proposals at the European summit scheduled for the end of this month. A concrete plan is to be ready by autumn. … The four are intent on making the currency union irreversible, and deepening it to become a political union. A completely different Europe would emerge from such a process. The plan envisions...

The European Parliament on Wednesday (13 June) approved draft laws that would strongly increase Brussels' power over eurozone countries' budgets. But they tempered the previously austere proposals with measures for growth, debt redemption and democratic scrutiny. "This is the core of a fiscal union," said Austrian MEP and socialist leader Hannes Swoboda. "This is the first time that there is a structural solution [to the eurozone crisis] on the table," said Liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt. His Green counterpart Daniel Cohn-Bendit called it a "milestone" for the strength of agreement among MEPs. The pair of laws—also known as the two-pack—is among...

British PM David Cameron on Friday (6 January) vowed to do "everything possible" to prevent EU institutions from being used in a new fiscal treaty the UK has refused to join, but admitted there were legal difficulties in pursuing that path. The treaty negotiations resumed on Friday among 26 member states, with the UK participating as an observer. The text would allow the EU commission, acting "on behalf" of other signatories to the pact, to take deficit sinners to the European Court of Justice.Cameron, whose veto on EU treaty changes in December led to the creation of this new intergovernmental...