EU leaders formerly endorsed the harmless sounding Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, pact on Thursday evening in Brussels. After the shock of Brexit, the goal of defence integration was revived by former military foes, Germany and France, supported by Italy and Spain, in a show of EU unity. A similar proposal was blocked by the French parliament in the 1950s (see below).
Amazon was hit with an order to repay as much as €250 million, plus interest, after the European Commission said Luxembourg illegally slashed the company's bill, making the world’s biggest online retailer the latest U.S. giant to fall afoul of the EU's state-aid rules.
Authored by Alex Gorka via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The White House indicated that President Donald Trump is preparing to sign a sweeping Russia sanctions measure, which the House took up last night, that requires him to get Congress' permission before lifting or easing the economic penalties against Russia...
Late on Friday, Congressional negotiators reached a deal to advance a bill that would punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 election and restrict the president’s power to remove sanctions on Moscow, according to the WSJ. The measure, if signed into law, will also give Congress veto powers to block any easing of Russian sanctions by the president.
Two weeks after the first, and biggest, European bank bail-in took place under the relatively new European bank resolution mechanism, the EBRD, when Spain's Banco Popular wiped out the holders of its most risky securities, including equity and AT bonds, and then selling what was left of the bank to Santander for €1 - a process that took place without a glitch - Italy may have just killed any hope of a European banking union, when the bailout of two small banks made a "mockery" of Europe's new regulation.