Greece – EU360

Schengen is (clinically) dead. Donald Tusk last week said, that Member States have only two more months to save the internal borderless area. To be honest, Schengen started to implode when its first country reestablished the border checks on the internal borders last autumn. At that time it was said that the checks will be only temporary. However, Monday’s informal meeting of the interior ministers in Amsterdam showed that this won’t be the case. Some countries requested the Commission to prepare th basis for the use of article 26 of the Schengen treaty, that allows the prolongation of the checks up to two years. The first domino is therefore falling. If it will really finally fall, there will only be the question of time when the second will follow.

Prihodnost? — Future reality inside Europe?

Preberi več “Schengen’s last round”

by Christos Aivaliotis

GREXIT. That was the boogie man for the last years. Greece willingly or by force leaving the Eurozone. Consequences for Portugal, Ireland, Spain (rest of the PIGS), or even Italy or France. Endangering the very existence of the common currency. Personally I never believed it can happen. Not because of blind faith to the competence of ruling political class of Greece to face the challenges of the financial crisis. Neither because I believed other European elites would do anything to protect one of the weakest members of the European family. It was purely because I have spent most of my adult years studying the EU. With such a complex political and legal system, it is unimaginable that such a dangerous decision for the EU itself would be rushed when so many other positive steps had to wait years of treaty reforms, parliamentary votes, national vetoes and referenda. (If it was that easy, I am afraid our friends across the Channel would have left us long ago).

Preberi več “GR-ENTRY: a new political phase after the Greek elections”