August 21, 2015
After three years of inhaling the diesel fumes of Paris, I have had the chance to spend a few weeks in Metsovo, in northern Greece. Known to the Greeks and the Bulgarians as Vlachs and to the rest of the Europeans as Aromanians, the Latin dialect-speaking community of Metsovo are a warm and welcoming lot… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
August 3, 2015
In Wolfgang Schaeuble’s Germano-centric EU, no institution is more important – apart from his Politburo-like Eurogroup and the Office of the Chancellor – than his Ministry’s Council of Economic Advisers. The most influential adviser among them is Professor Hans-Werner Sinn from Munich, a Christian missionary-manqué turned tele-economist. Like any good German, Professor Sinn has but… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
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E.U., Economy & Euro, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, Security |
July 30, 2015
To those in the know, the Italian peninsula was not only the cradle of the Roman Empire or Rome the centre of the Catholic faithful, but also the birthplace of capitalism and of countless statecraft innovations and institutions still widely used around the world today. During the middle ages, the Italian city-states thus discovered and… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
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E.U., Economy & Euro, English, EU Priorities and Opinion, External Relations, Security |
July 23, 2015
Very few American experts grasp the motivations behind the construction of the European Union. As a result, American specialized literature abounds with misguided comparisons, such as that between the US Civil War from the 19th century and today’s tense situation between Europe’s North and South. Yes, the EEC was initially formed in 1957 to prevent… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
July 19, 2015
Some seventeen centuries ago, emperor Diocletian realized that the Roman empire had grown too big and too diverse to be ruled from a single centre. Diocletian therefore decided to split it in two, the west ruled from Rome by a fellow army officer and the east controlled by himself. The east-west division became more or… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
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E.U., Economy & Euro, EU Priorities and Opinion, External Relations |
July 13, 2015
With protracted negotiations still going on in Brussels, I would like to provide my readers with an opinion I have expressed in February this year, in an email exchange with my younger Blogactiv colleague Dimitri Rapidis from Athens. I still consider today that the total absence of a Plan B has severely weakened the position… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
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E.U., Economy & Euro, EU Priorities and Opinion, External Relations |
July 11, 2015
On the 9th and 10th of July 2015, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has held a landmark summit in Ufa (Russia), its 15th to date. Ufa has simultaneously hosted the BRICS summit, which was meant to further strengthen economic ties between its five emerging economic powers. Founded in 2001 by Russia, China and four Central… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
June 16, 2015
Last week Romania was the scene of a bizarre and, luckily, aborted judicial coup d’état. This at least is what the efforts of the new Romanian president to depose the country’s premier have been labelled by veteran Bucharest journalists, such as Ion Cristoiu and Cornel Nistorescu. Truth be told, the anti-corruption drive initiated by former… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
May 13, 2015
Last week’s electoral win by the Conservative party has marked the Labour party’s fall from political grace in Britain. The victory was obtained through political manipulation (as opposed to political leadership) and electoral wizardry first tested in the land down under. Alas, Britain does not have Australia’s natural wealth, nor China as a huge, close-by… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
April 7, 2015
The President of the European Commission, Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, has recently proposed the creation of a common army in charge of defending the EU in case of external aggression. Unfortunately, chances for the success of such a project are rather slim. Governments of member states have jealously guarded their prerogatives of framing foreign policy and… » read more
Posted by Florian Pantazi
