European Union

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

The French election, won overnight by Emmanuel Macron, put several segments of the French population opposite one another in a pretty fierce contest. And that contest will continue. Because Macron won’t be able to lift the French economy out of its doldrums any more than Le Pen could have, or than Trump can life the US, and the new president will have the honor of presiding over a further and deepening downturn. The French political dividing line was aptly described by Simon Kuper recently:

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

EC vs EC

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council went after Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission for Juncker’s leak of his dinner meeting with UK prime minister Theresa May.

Following ill-fated dinner meeting, Juncker phoned Angela Merkel “Theresa May Lives in a Different Galaxy”. Someone, presumably Juncker’s chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, leaked the results of the dinner meeting and Juncker’s phone call to the German press.

Year-to-date, Greek stocks are among the best performing in the world (absent the currency-collapse-driven spikes in several troubled nations).

The last few days have seen stocks spike further and today we get the 'rumor' that may have driven it as Handelsblatt reports an anonymous EU official stating that the Eurogroup could address Greek debt relief in the near future.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Bureaucrats should not go about making orders they cannot enforce. It
serves no purpose other than to make the bureaucrats look ridiculous.
Here is a case in point: Brussels Orders EU Countries to SCRAP Internal Checks Within Six Months.

In an announcement tonight, eurocrats said there was no
justification for keeping police checkpoints at frontiers within the
bloc and said they must be removed by the end of the year.

 

Following the ridiculously round number demands of EUR100 billion ransom to leave the EU, UK PM Theresa May has stated that EU officials have issued threats against The UK as Europe's negotiating stance has toughened. Furthermore, May accuses EU countries of trying to maliciously influence UK general election result.