Normally, when banks look into merging, the impetus is either opportunism, whether well informed or not, or desperation. The only thing that differentiates the possible combination of Deutsche Bank, long the sickest man of Europe, and not all that healthy Commerzbank is that the desperation isn’t driven by the usual urgency, that a bank is […]
Read MorePARIS (AP) – The Latest on yellow vest protests in France (all times local): 5:45 p.m. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is vowing to “severely punish” the radicals responsible for rioting and setting fires around one of France’s richest neighbourhoods. Philippe visited the Champs-Elysees on Saturday to show his support for riot police and firefighters […]
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After a fiscally damaging year that Ford CEO Jim Hackett implored employees to forget, cuts are coming to the automaker’s workforce, and America won’t be spared. But America can wait, as that region remains a major profit generator. Other regions aren’t, and the automaker’s axe has already fallen in South America. Now it’s Germany’s turn, […]
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First, here’s the good news on Brexit. The Malthouse Compromise is dead. Britain has signed a post-Brexit free trade agreement with Fiji and Papua New Guinea. The irritating phrase “meaningful vote” has lost all meaning. Prime Minister Theresa May, who increasingly resembles one of those characters that just won’t die in a TV series, is […]
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The massacre of 49 people in New Zealand on Friday highlights the contagious ways in which extreme right ideology and violence have spread in the 21st century — even to a country that had not experienced a mass shooting for more than two decades, and which is rarely associated with the extreme right. New Zealand […]
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The UK is rudderless as Brexit looms. Theresa May was never in control; her fundamentally wrongheaded approach to the negotiations of thinking the UK had the advantage, compounded by the massive own goal of calling snap elections, led to the EU steering the negotiations at key junctures. But May was still able to exert influence […]
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WASHINGTON — Aleksej Gubarev is a Russian technology entrepreneur who runs companies in Europe and the United States that provide cut-rate internet service. But he is best known for his appearance in 2016 in a dossier that purported to detail Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election — and the Trump campaign’s complicity. Mr. Gubarev’s […]
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Just when you thought the UK’s approach couldn’t possibly become more shambolic than it has been, its leaders manage to outdo themselves. Even though Parliament delivered the expected outcome of voting against a no deal Brexit, the process got so utterly out of control that the Government whipped against its own motion. And it probably […]
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From concerns about data sharing to the hosting of harmful content, every week seems to bring more clamour for new laws to regulate the technology giants and make the internet “safer”. But what if our existing data protection laws, at least in Europe, could achieve most of the job? Germany […]
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Yves here. Michael Olenick is correct to point out how one of the many bad features of US exceptionalism is that we refuse to learn from the experience of other countries, particularly with health care. And that’s before you get to the fact that big swathes of the public have […]
Read MoreA damning new report has claimed that since 2014, the government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has allowed thousands of war criminal migrants to enter the country. The new report claims that from 2014 to 2019, the German government not only let in around 5,000 migrants who were subject to investigation for violating international law, but […]
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United States citizens wishing to visit or travel to the majority of the European Union nations after January 2021 will have to register online and pay a small fee as part of a new security system intended to screen visa-free travelers. What’s changing? Starting on Jan. 1, 2021, American citizens […]
Read MorePARIS (AP) – Hundreds of protesters from France’s yellow vest movement marched Saturday for a 17th straight weekend in Paris and other cities to maintain pressure on the government to reverse policies they see as favouring the rich. Women, some carrying pink balloons, led the calm and orderly Paris march, advocating for equal rights and […]
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Frankfurt — The European Central Bank on Thursday unexpectedly revived a stimulus measure intended to encourage lending, an abrupt policy reversal that signals the bank is worried about growth in the region. The bank also pushed back the date of its earliest possible increase in benchmark interest rates, saying there […]
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Fewer than 24 days till Brexit, and no one knows what will happen. And even more peculiar is that this remarkable degree of uncertainty seems to have become normalized. Nevertheless, some of the latest developments: It’s now official that the latest UK efforts to reopen the backstop are going nowhere. […]
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The case was sensational. Two young volunteers stood accusedof masterminding a massive smuggling operation on the Greek island of Lesvos,innocently disguised as a search-and-rescue NGO. One, Sarah Mardini, was already famous. She and her sisterfled Syria in 2015, and when their dinghy’s motor failed on the sea crossing toGreece, the […]
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HAMBURG, Germany — No one knows yet what, if anything, will happen on March 29 — B-Day, the day when Britain is to leave the European Union. It could be a nonevent; it could be a disaster. Likely, it will be somewhere in between. But while the world fixates on […]
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Today’s Rare Ride is the European luxury sedan you’ve never heard of. Plush, brown, and boxy, it’s the Talbot Tagora from 1982. The Tagora was born at a difficult time for its owner, Chrysler Europe. Chrysler’s European branch was formed in 1967 from a combination of three brands, all hailing […]
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LONDON — Europe’s gathering Jewish question came into sharp focus this month when a British M.P. declared that she had come to the “sickening conclusion” that one of the country’s two main political parties, Labour, is now “institutionally anti-Semitic.” Imagine, to gauge the import of this statement, Bernie Sanders suggesting […]
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The EU has done a good job upholding net neutrality since it implemented a law on it back in 2016, but European net neutrality will face a new challenge in 2019: how to deal with 5G. The current net neutrality law is undergoing reform this year and it’s expected that […]
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Yves here. I’m glad to see someone call out Parliament after having seen May successfully play it again and again. How many time has she moved back the date of the required Meaningful Vote? Ignored Cabinet resignations and even an unheard of censure? Let us understand all that happened: May […]
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At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary about them. A t-shirt showing a mountain and deer and the slogan “Respect Nature.” A black polo shirt with black, white, and red piping and a small circular logo. A sweater showing a child on a parent’s […]
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