the EU

Let me give you a few examples of how the EU has developed over the last two decades.

Indeed, Belgium might be seen as a microcosm of the EU, with a wealthy, Germanic north fed up with subsidising a poorer, Latin south.

True enough. Yet despite all that, the EU has not done enough to quell the markets.

It was only a week after the Annan plan failed that Cyprus joined the EU as a divided island.

This is something of a paradox, given how deeply the EU permeates the lives of its citizens.

With a quiet session ahead data wise in London be cognizant of headlines pertaining to the EU debt crisis as instigators of moves.

Germany cannot defy the gravity that has pulled much of the EU region close to recession, and some parts of it to negative GDP growth.

The EU and US have been struggling over which would have the initiative in dealing with Iran, notably over the last two years.

'Let's put all that together and say Germany and the EU have got deep pockets but how much can they really help out here?

The EU is likely to crack down on excessive government budget deficits, which could prompt Italy to leave the currency regulation, it said.

But both speakers said the EU should allow countries to set higher capital standards if national circumstances required them.

Germany's Angela Merkel made clear two years ago that, if Russia wanted better relations with the EU, it had to mend fences with Poland.

Many airlines have given much higher assessments of the cost and said the EU was being unfair.

At least as important as the intrinsic policy problems is the changing nature of influence within the EU.

But yesterday the EU delegation told the conference that these did not add up to a deal that would satisfy UN-backed scientific advice.

The EU ducked the matter in Copenhagen by giving Ankara a "date for a date" to start accession negotiations.

Parts of the EU are now mature enough to understand, at least conceptually, that there is not much money around.

One reason for yesterday's fall was that the EU did not raise its carbon-cutting targets as part of the Copenhagen accord.

The European Union President Herman van Rompuy said the programme would be financed by the EU, the IMF and the private sector.

The statement said the EU travel ban and asset freeze on sanctions list of new officers and a pro-Gaddafi, the Libyan airline.

With all the protection the EU has in place, it was surprising to see it was a hotspot for biodiversity loss.

Most of his MPs understand that while much of the public may dislike the EU, they also distrust politicians who seem obsessed with it.

If enlargement had really gummed up the works of the EU, you would expect to see a large number of vital dossiers blocked by unanimity.

Romania had encouraged Moldovans to obtain Romanian citizenship, even though Moldova was not in the EU, he said.

"Any of the big companies who aim at a global leadership must see the EU as a natural part of their growth journey, " he said.

Counterfeiting has a major adverse effect on the economies of the EU and on the number jobs. Business considers it a serious problem.

And less than a year after the Lisbon treaty came into force, the EU is talking of a new treaty.

What really irks the Kremlin is that Mr Yanukovych is trying to get lower gas prices from Russia even as he knocks at the EU's door.

The rest of the EU is already beginning to feel a little further away.

It is often said that in the face of the euro crisis the EU must either integrate or disintegrate.

The EU's leaders, who seem to lurch from one crisis summit to the next, will have no capacity left to focus on global challenges.

There is nothing to stop this in the EU rules, if Mr Blair is appointed president, so long as it is not "in connection with his duties" .

Certain European nations are trying to move the goalposts so that some of their Eastern neighbours will find it easier to join the EU .

In its filing, China is requesting consultations with the EU to try to resolve the matter.

Some experts agree that the EU agreement is only the beginning of the solution.

But the EU currently has no applicable controls on drugs normally used to treat people, rather than kill them.

On the eve of a special EU summit on Georgia, he warned that Russia was ready to retaliate against any sanctions the EU might impose.

Ashton said the EU would take China's development as an important opportunity to work with China to expand trade, investment and employment.

To its east, the EU has tried a bit harder to promote political reform, due in part to the demands of its ex-communist members.

Overall, Barroso said, the EU has decided to boost its humanitarian emergency funding to Pakistan more than tenfold, to about $100 million.

The EU's response, stretched over the next couple of years, is inevitably going to be a messy compromise.

Officials point to another poll finding that, of those who plan to vote in a referendum, 62% favour joining the EU.

Many will look to see how firm his commitment to higher rates really is in the face of the continued sovereign debt troubles in the EU.

Yet no celebration in Berlin can hide the fact that the EU is in something of a mid-life crisis.

Freed from its internal wrangling, the EU would be able to turn outward and face the real world.

The WTO on Friday said the Appellate Body upheld earlier findings that part of the EU's dumping rules were inconsistent with WTO rules.

If you're studying in the UK, you may be able to obtain a VAT refund if you're planning to leave the EU for at least 12 months.

Mr. Cohen said he believed the EU would follow the U. S. and take an expansive view of what constitutes Col. Gadhafi's assets.

The EU "is correcting its internal imbalances, " he said. "We expect that other G-20 members correct their external imbalances as well. "

The founders of the EU believed its purpose was more than economic advantage and that the project demanded a sense of mutual solidarity.

It will be a relief not to have another man in a suit or, this being the EU, a troika of men in suits.

It had been losing ground since Friday amid market disappointment at the outcome of the EU summit.

He said China supports the integration of the EU and would like to see the EU play a more active role in European and international affairs.

Even the French, who for decades ran the EU as equal partners with the Germans, are acquiring something of an inferiority complex.

If nobody can find more convincing arguments in favour of the Lisbon treaty, the EU as a whole may yet find itself whistling in the dark.

The court seems to think the EU has a "democratic deficit" that is best filled at the national level, not through the European Parliament.

The EU was missing a common treasury, he noted, which could have served as a last resort to fall back on in the time of a debt crisis.

The Franco-German proposal to transform the EU or at least the eurozone into a fiscal union is such a project.

Just a few months time, the EU's 14 member states and 12 other European countries have decided to join the European car-free day campaign.

There is no doubt that the increase in protectionism is a matter of concern for the EU countries.

It's far from guaranteed that the EU would even be able to speak with a single voice on the issue.

"Romania and Hungary are certainly more fiscally irresponsible than if they had not been members of the EU, " Mr Booth says.

For all her sound instincts and skills as a politician, she appears to have no vision for the EU.

In a different era, all this might have caused great worry in Britain and, as a result, generated even more tension within the EU.

Mr Cameron was heckled as he said the timing for such a vote was wrong with the EU facing an economic crisis.

Britain was the most burgled country in the EU, although it had more burglar alarms than any country except Ireland.

Even so, the promise came with a caveat: that the speed of enlargement must take account of the EU's "absorption capacity" .

Yet with the review now at a critical stage, the EU appears ready to give way to protectionist voices in its member states.

The EU already has its own list, and its transport commissioner, Antonio Tajani, said such a list would be a "safety guarantee for all" .

On the one hand the great conceptual difference between China and the EU results in the long term existence of arguments between them.

how much pain each of its 27 members will have to bear over if the EU is to meet ambitious targets set by national leaders last March.

The EU is supposed to have two battle groups, contingents of about 1, 500 troops ready to deploy at a few days' notice.

At its worst, this might be the start of a process by which Britain falls out of the EU (see Bagehot).

The number of people in each age group in the population pyramid [chart to be shown] reveals something of the EU's history.

Take full account of the global nature of the problem and shape the EU's contribution to international responses.

So the court wants to ensure that Germany does not surrender to the EU any of the core powers of a democratic state.

There will come a point when the EU will no longer be in a position to help, even if it wants to.

The matter seemed to be winding down after most were released in the face of a strong response from the EU.

Der Spiegel magazine said the EU could time such a pledge to coincide with granting aid to Portugal.

As if to make the point, the EU failed this week to secure speaking rights at the United Nations.

Even when the EU issues a statement of concern on human rights, it is often not backed by a comprehensive strategy for change.

The EU's energy relationship with Russia was one of "positive interdependence" , Mr Barroso said.

It is often said that the EU's inexorable enlargement means no country can now "make the weather" in Europe, as Germany and France once did.

Blatter wants to fight European employment law which currently means it would be illegal to set limits on foreign players within the EU.

Mr Blair, for all his political qualities and purportedly pro-European views, has never been a comfortable operator on the EU stage.

All this was to be supervised by national governments, not the European Commission, the EU's civil service.

By wimping out of that, the EU has no ammunition left.

It is clear that The EU's founding fathers did not for a moment feel any need to measure the impact of their policies.

In a world in which China and India will each have a population three times that of the EU, anything else is completely out of date.

Some of this was protest voting. But a chunk reflects views deeply antithetical to all that the EU stands for.

Back in Cancun, the EU wanted to see if other developed countries would follow suit. In Durban, they've found new partners.

But, for all the talk of pan-European solidarity, one cost of this credit-line will be a sharp increase in political tensions within the EU.

The EU is in many respects more similar to Belgium than to any of its large member states.

It is not hard to see why: to Belgian leaders trapped in the national equivalent of a bad marriage, the EU's free love must look like bliss.

And Samaras said he would not sign on behalf of any party where the proposed aid by the EU conditions.

In October, the advocate general in a preliminary opinion said the EU was acting within the law.

She said the proposal is in line with the EU's twin-track approach of using both dialogue and sanctions to target Iran's atomic program.

Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the US was "comfortable" with the EU having a reciprocal system.

Americans are right that such advances are imperilled when leaders like Nicolas Sarkozy of France say Turks have no place in the EU.

The EU has not realised how much risk transfer occurs across different categories of finance that can escape sectoral regulation.

Until a few days ago Croatia looked like the tail of the procession of ex-communist countries joining the EU.

Germany and France are trying to put flesh on the bones of a crisis resolution plan in time for the EU summit.

Although the EU listed China into the "Revised country" in 1998, it did not mean that the EU recognized China as a market economy country.

Now her spokesman declares that "if a request were made to the EU, Germany would live up to its responsibilities" .

Last night the prime minister went further, suggesting that Britain's membership of the EU was no longer a given.

Sweden is trying to build a consensus on its proposals within the EU council of ministers.

We have been pleased to see the sizable growth of two-way business between the EU countries and China.

As a relatively big country, and a member of the EU and NATO, Greece can scarcely plead persecution from its small northern neighbour.

For dealmakers, that means China's Commerce Ministry can be as much of a spoiler as the FTC and the EU commission.

Russia strongly criticized the EU and the U. S. side to strengthen sanctions against Iran, saying such a move "unacceptable. "

The British will then be expected to transfer loyalty and affection to the EU and devote themselves increasingly to its wellbeing.

The French prime minister has reiterated his desire to see the EU arms embargo on China lifted, branding it "an anachronism" .

But it would take a bout of wilfully destructive protectionism and the demise of the EU's main institutions to turn that into disaster.

Some claims are, frankly, mad: a leaflet given out in Cork claims that Lisbon would let the EU bring in a Chinese-style one-child policy.

It should improve the EU's industrial competitiveness with a potential for the creation of up to two million jobs.

It is common to hear that a No vote in a small country cannot be permitted to interfere with the smooth running of the EU.

Next, I'm going to brief you with the sets of standards referred to by the US and the EU when judging a country's market economy status.

Although there was no evidence of the product coming into the EU, member states were alerted.

What's more, the EU navy was reportedly to be the first to have issued the news. Will China have contact with the EU on this case?

It promised to bind a unified Germany into the EU and pave the way for some sort of political union in Europe.

In fact Greece cannot leave the eurozone voluntarily, without having to leave the EU as well.

Until now he did not understand that the EU funds are from state subsidiaries of the EU members.

France , which holds the presidency of the EU but has been at loggerheads with Mr Mandelson, said the deal was not acceptable .

If it was any of the other, obscure "little Europeans" mentioned for the EU presidency job?

Time, then, to raise a glass of mulled wine to the EU's four freedoms of movement: people, goods, services and capital? Up to a point.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said the two-day summit was the EU's last chance to save the euro.

The EU has refused to recognize the result of the June 27 presidential run-off poll in which Mr. Mugabe was the sole candidate.

Irish ministers, however, insisted that they were not in discussions with the EU and said they were determined to weather the storm.

"The EU has put investor-state [provisions] up for negotiation, " he said.

"Most of the milk produced throughout the developed world will be following the same standards as those set in the EU, " he said.

In this multi-polar world, the challenge for the EU and China is to create a strategic vision of the kind of partnership we want.

Japan and the EU are worried that the U. S. has embarked on a deliberate attempt to boost its exports at their expense.

The relationship between Turkey and the EU is always edgy, a little like Mexico's with the United States.

In much of Europe people look to the EU as a higher authority able to rescue them from dysfunctional local rulers, notes one ambassador.

Eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels in their latest attempt to plot a path out of the EU's worst crisis.

"Relations with the EU are a strategic choice, " he said. "It goes beyond political parties. "

He also said that if supplies are disrupted again, the EU was ready to abandon its neutrality in the dispute and assign blame.

Rather than chasing yet another not-so-clever plan, the EU must restore a common purpose and a sense of solidarity.

Greece made it clear that it would not approve any new expansion of the EU unless it included Cyprus.

But measures to address substandard drugs do not figure at all in ACTA, the EU or Kenyan legislations that claim to target unsafe medicines.

Of course, it isn't hard to see why the EU today ended up offering up nothing more than soothing words of 'coordinated action if needed. '

The prevalent view was that if you work together to address the current difficulties, then the EU will go forward to become more integrated.

He added to that there are doubts about the ability of the EU to deliver the money it has promised to finance the Greek government.

And under any existing proposal, the EU would still be allowed to spend on domestic support multiple the level allowed to the United States.

Oil industry executives and diplomats said the EU was likely to back an embargo by its next meeting in January.

The EU has also had to reduce its target for renewable power, since the industry could not grow fast enough to meet it.

Even the cosying up to Poland was motivated by realisation that the previous chill blocked the path to broader co-operation with the EU.

Japan seems to think the EU needs to try harder to make ICCAT work.

As Chinese companies began to make investment in the EU, we also offered local people high number of employment opportunities.

David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, had been the first choice of many leaders for the EU post.

The EU is meanwhile trying to coordinate a member-state-wide bank-recapitalization effort.

Second, this budgetary boost needs to be accompanied by an agreement to strengthen the EU's fiscal framework.

China's ministry of commerce said the EU tariffs "damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises" .

Such sentiments are helping to put the kibosh on the risk appetite whetted by the EU bailout announcement over the weekend.

The concept of "Swiss model" is one of the designs about the EU's future political structure.

These prizes will eventually come anyway; and weak though parts of Europe are, the EU cannot be seen to trade them too nakedly.

Ireland was one of the EU's poorest countries a generation ago.

Mr Geithner called for Greece, the IMF and the EU to move quickly to produce a package of strong economic reforms and financial support.

America and the EU have been trying to reach a deal which would eliminate the need to double-test many products.

The Biden visit is an opportunity for America and the EU to push the western Balkans forward together. If they are up to it.

Yet even if the other 25 countries in the EU are ready to go along with this, France faces a huge obstacle.

NATO will not be able to do much of this; if anything, the EU has a bigger role.

Morin also said the EU ministers had made strides on ways to improve Europe's military capabilities in cooperating more closely.

The EU has long been trying to unite a fragmented system that is still largely organised around national boundaries.

Next are the sets of standards referred to by the US and the EU when judging a country's market economy status.

He is intolerant of dissent, shown in his battles with critical media commentators. And he is increasingly impatient with the EU.

By the beginning of next year, food manufacturers in the EU will be required by law to trace all their food products along the supply chain.

Given that the UK is in the EU and the EU will bully China for the next few decades, I think you're asking the wrong question.

"I'm quite clear that China has been taking great efforts to treat the EU as a true friend and strategic partner, " he said.

Brussels is firmly against, fearing that it would trigger currency instability, bank failures and competitive devaluations across the EU.

It is estimated that it would be difficult for china to increase its export to the eu by a big margin in the next few years to come.

Well, the EU is not a state. You always need to come up with a consensus and at a time of crisis this is hard.

It said the EU's big bail-out fund would be temporary, but it is being made permanent.

Unemployment is high and the name dispute with Greece is still unresolved, stalling Macedonia's progress on joining NATO and the EU.

The Framework Regulation defines these materials, and sets out a justification for regulating the use of these materials in the EU.

Not so long ago Germany, racked by guilt over the Holocaust, would have rushed to quash such chidings by the EU, but no longer.

"I am leading my work here on the basis of a mandate adopted unanimously by the EU environment ministers, " he said.

Britain needs to play to its comparative advantages in defence and foreign policy, and its interests in energy, to help move the EU forward.

The EU's anti-piracy force said the skipper was rescued after fleeing captivity upon landing at the Somali coast.

One law being considered by the EU is to force companies that lose personal data to notify those who might be affected by the breach.

Ironically, the EU broached the talks as a way of protecting itself against the trade- diverting effects of the now moribund US-Korea deal.

The funding support is said to needed to be able to supply 12% of the EU demand for electricity by 2020, using PV technologies.

If it does arrive, he argued, the EU would be all the more effective for having been united and moderate now.

The next five months will be crucial, because Spain, an opponent of a unified system, will hold the presidency of the EU next.

At the heart of the debate are proposals made last week by the European commission, the EU's executive arm.

Sweden's Carlgren said the EU will wait until the Copenhagen talks end before deciding whether to raise its target to 30%.

However, up to now, these national bans have not been upheld in the scientific assessments called for in the EU directives.

But the British case is different: sections of the government, media and public seem to want to forget that the EU exists.

But a dedicated bail-out for the ten ex-communist countries that have joined the EU since 2004 is clearly a step too far.

The EU's contribution is for one year only, and I see little chance that the EU will be able to increase it either now or next year.

Moreover, at least to judge by intentions, the EU's drive to open up markets is accelerating.

If this proves to be merely rumors and action is not taken next week, the fallout in the EU as well as globally could be remarkable.

Due to China's buying and low milk supplies in the EU and U. S. , the global supply situation is tight, he said.

Spain is the only country in which a clear majority supports the idea of the EU giving financial assistance to the Balkans.

As Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has pointed out, the European sovereign debt crisis poses a threat to the very future of the EU.

Germany and France showed that they decide the EU's foreign policy, and that easterners do not count, says one minister in the region.

His comments came despite signs that Blair has little support among the British public for the EU post.

In the north, the European Union is the culprit: the EU subsidises every single cow to the tune of five hundred euros a year.

The EU has recently hit China with a number of these tariffs, including on aluminum wheels, steel and shoes.

Prior to the big show we have retail sales out of the EU, Switzerland, and Germany, as well as UK PMI and GDP out of the Euro Zone.

Some Europeans would like to put up carefully designed fences around the EU's still vast and wealthy market.

Barely a week ago Portuguese officials said they lacked the constitutional authority to deal with either the IMF or the EU.

In reality, though, that workaround would have barely changed the status quo and did not satisfy the EU.

Olli Rehn, the EU's top economic official, emphasised the need for the austerity package to be approved by the end of the month.

Analysts say that there is a strong probability of another damaging gas war between Moscow and Kiev, which could halt deliveries to the EU.

The Bulgarian government says it has fixed problems identified by the EU, and will pay urgent grants out of national coffers.

In any case, Bosnians might be forgiven for thinking that the EU will bend to their will, not the other way around.

Jagland said the EU was instrumental in making "a continent of war a continent of peace. "

But the EU constitution seems to have gone back to square one.

Germany and France believed that the assurance would be enough to persuade jittery markets that the EU wouldn't allow Greece to default.

To John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, the EU is turning into a "punishment squad" .

I become nervous when Angela Merkel says the future of the euro and that of the EU are inextricably linked.

China attaches great importance to its relations with the EU, regarding Europe as an important cooperative partner.

Mr Erixon warned the EU was vulnerable to subsidy cases because it had a track record of lavishing benefits on its own companies.

The European commission had asked companies to work on harmonising chargers in the EU in a bid to cut down on waste.

And a failure to settle the Cyprus problem can only make Turkey's strained relations with the EU worse.

As a legal personality the EU is able to conclude treaties with countries and enacts legislation in justice and home affairs.

The EU is still the great brass ring of European politics, but it is now a tarnished brass ring.

Croatia, which is the nearest to joining the EU, has suddenly got bogged down in a niggling border dispute with Slovenia.

Though no big political party wants to leave the EU, it looks ever more likely to happen.

Furthermore, the EU has blatantly used bullying tactics and is now asking the governments to bypass standard ratification procedures.

There was a time when Germany bore its financial contributions to the EU with stoicism.

Eventually we will have one set of hazardous chemical logos worldwide and the EU will be one of the first regions to have these in place.

The EU's military capability is meagre; its ability to stand up to Russian divide-and-rule tactics in energy security is feeble.

The purpose of this cynical exercise was to pretend that the EU was solving a problem, when in fact it was not.

Up to now, the US has wanted to think that Greece was a European problem that could be left to the EU to solve.

But it's also a game of poker; an attempt to convince the Greeks that the EU has all the cards, while the Greeks have just a pair of deuces.

Yet overfishing did not begin with the EU's common policy, and even Icelanders would overexploit their waters if not restrained.

Given the trouble the EU had introducing even a watered-down savings directive, broader tax co-ordination seems out of the question for now.

When Jacques Delors called the EU an unidentified political object, the economy was doing so well the union did not need to be defined.

A mechanism for joint government of a country may be a first for the EU, but it is not for Bulgaria.

Last month, after more than a year of wrangling, the EU approved rules that make the imposition of certain sanctions much swifter.

The EU is a voluntary group of democracies. For all its faults, more states want to join and none wish to leave.

He said that the EU has realized its historic enlargement during Ireland's rotating presidency.

Moreover, the "rescue" loans by the EU and the IMF may be declared illegitimate by an independent audit.

Every quarter the EU, the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB) scrutinise Greece before releasing the next chunk of money.

Europe's commissioner for justice and home affairs, Franco Frattini, wants to see more temporary migrants in the EU.

While the EU and the US both plan to expand the land planted for wheat next year, the effect of this will not be felt for a number of years.

Nevertheless, a week after the vote, Cyprus joined the EU, as a divided island.

Another danger is a disagreement between Greece and its trio of rescuers (the EU, the IMF and the ECB) over the conditions of its bail-out.

Experience shows that formal votes and veto rights in EU summits do not offer complete protection. The EU is a club, not a parliament.

Choose two on those difficulties and look them closer: what are the causes for those problems and how the EU had tried to resolve them?

The lesson to be drawn is that the EU must move more quickly and with greater determination than has been the case so far.

It was the first time the European Competitiveness Index, published every two years, has included the EU's 10 new member states.

The first four years of Cypriot membership amount to a failure for the EU's enlargement policy.

Trade within the EU has grown no faster than the EU's trade with the rest of the world over the last two decades.

The EU-IMF loans package has been put together to help pull Greece out of its debt crisis.

The EU leaders said the G-20 should establish binding rules for financial institutions and set penalties for firms that don't comply.

I agree with him that the EU has made some important steps towards a comprehensive solution.

In the ensuing chaos and recrimination, the survival of the EU and its single market would be in jeopardy.