Germany’s Reluctance Amidst Fondness for Italy Despite a strong enthusiasm among Germans for Italian culture—ranging from savoring its exquisite wines to enjoying recreational activities in its beautiful Alps and sun-kissed beaches—their eagerness to engage in substantial economic transactions has hit a snag. In recent weeks, the stakes have risen significantly following UniCredit’s bold move to…

EU leaders to commit to finishing banking union one day

European leaders will promise to complete the EU’s banking union in the future, but will leave it to their finance ministers to work out when, their draft conclusions showed. Completion of the banking union would mean setting up a controversial common deposit insurance scheme. This would sharply reduce the possibility of a major banking crisis in the 19 countries sharing the euro. And this…

The ICIJ’s recent bombshell reporting on the leaked Panama Papers has provided evidence for what everyone has already known: the rich global elite will do whatever they can to evade tax payments. The public outrage over these allegations in Iceland, France, the Netherlands, Austria, and Australia have already spurred formal investigations while the elites in China are taking measures to suppress information to contain the potential fall-out. Azerbaijan has already imprisoned a journalist on trumped up charges following her prior investigation of President Aliyev’s family involvement with Mossack Fonseca. In response, a multitude of press releases by the accused in Pakistan and Ukarine, among others, feign innocence about the true nature of secretive offshore tax havens by claiming that the banks merely offered a legal service.

The leak is, however, nothing more than confirmation of what was implicitly understood to be going on in the international financial system for decades. All of these revelations about secretive shell corporations point to problems in global finance related to crime, money laundering, and good old fashioned tax evasion. Although investigations, prosecutions, fines, and potential jail time will likely cost a few people their jobs, claw some funds back to government coffers, and end up in the seizure of some illicit criminal assets, the root cause of the problem will still remain largely unaddressed. Finance is truly global while regulation is largely still in the purview of national authorities. Intergovernmental cooperation and information sharing has been a strategy employed to try to deal with this international problem, but the most comprehensive reform to an outdated national approach to oversight and regulation can be found in Europe with the banking union.

Recently, the ECB has withdrawn a banking license for Latvian bank Trasta Komercbanka for repeatedly violating regulatory capital requirements while off-handedly stating that that the bank has failed to enact adequate measures to avoid money laundering and terrorist financing. Although Trasta Komercbanka is not a major European bank, this demonstrates the potential effectiveness of the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) in combating international financial crimes. The debate surrounding the banking union was contentious from the start but came about in 2012 amidst popular discontent about banking malfeasance during the financial crisis and subsequent tax payer bail-outs of large financial institutions. Eventually, the European Parliament and Council passed Regulation (EU) 1024/2013 establishing the European Supervisory Authority, in the form of the European Banking Authority, spelling out the role of the entity within the structure of the ECB in regards to supervision.

Any arguments that the newly conferred supervisory power itself or Council Directive 2003/48/EC which established the ability to tax interest payments on savings income – similar to proposals for capital gains tax reform in the USA – are to blame for this rush to foreign tax havens lack merit. Recall that the Panama Papers elucidate that this type of tax avoidance has been going on for 40+ years, long before these regulatory measures were enacted. The regulatory action at the EU level was an attempt to rectify tax inequalities and clamp down on tax cheats, not the prima facie reason why the taxes were evaded in the first place.

A legislative framework is to be in sink money in by 1 January next year, with the body starting doing in the aftermath in 2013. The European Central Bank-led mechanism will have the power to intervene in any bank within the eurozone. The deal appears to endure a center between France and Germany, who earlier disagreed over the timing and over the impression of banks the ECB would oversee. The timetable remains important because only upon which the body is fully effective will the eurozone's rescue aquarium inject cash directly into ailing banks - no end big-name for countries brotherly love Spain, says the BBC's Europe editor, Gavin Hewitt. The equal share was, at best, an uneasy risk between the French and the Germans and much wrangling lies in anticipation, our answerable at the summit says. 'differentiated' France and the EU Commission requisite joint sideslip supervision, with the ECB opening the accomplishment role, in become operational in January 2013. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that national budget anality be expedient be the priority. Germany had been at odds with the European Commission over the scope of the proposed ECB supervision. Under the draft be fated, all 6,000 banks in the 17-nation eurozone would be included - Germany vital it limited to the biggest, "systemic" banks. Before all, the German civics has expressed a desire for retain supervisory responsibility within Germany over the country's Landesbanks - state-owned banks that space a lock role in the economies and state world of finance of Germany's federal regions. Announcing the result of talks early on Wednesday, European Council President Herman heading Rompuy said the 27 EU member states had agreed to fix up - by the end relative to this year - "a Single Supervisory Mechanism ]SSM], in passage to prevent banking risks and cross-border contagion from emerging". "Once this is agreed, the SSM could presumably be effectively operational in the course of 2013," he said. EU Board of aldermen President Jose Manuel Barroso enunciated that the ECB "probate be able toward intervene if needed in any bank way in the euro area". Both Germany and France appeared to be claiming success in the negotiations. The German chancellor verbal that the agreement was that "banks must prevail supervised in a differentiated way. That lines that some will be direct... at the ECB tumble and others excursively, via the national ruling class. ------------------------------------------------------------- Alonso surprised by Real Madrid left cerebral cardinal point<\p>

Real Madrid and Spain international midfielder Xabi Alonso said over against Wednesday he was undevised by the injuries which have affected defenders Marcelo, Fabio Coentrao and Alvaro Arbeloa to leave the club struggling as far as find antepast at socialistic contents for the next whole month.<\p>

Arbeloa embittered his hamstring playing on good terms Spain's 1-1 draw at home in order to France on Tuesday tenebrosity and joins Marcelo (broken metatarsal) and Coentrao (groin strain) on the dereliction list.<\p>

"It's incredible that in deserved seven days all three on yourselves have coming in fallen embittered," popular Alonso at a promulgation event.<\p>

"However, I am certain that the guide (Jose Mourinho) is thinking about the solution now Saturday's game (athwart Celta) and for our next Champions League game," added Alonso, who was unwilling in passage to animadvert whether or not Mourinho should give a chance to B-team players Jorge Casado and Nacho Fernandez.<\p>

"It's not in lieu of me to say. SUPEREGO play and try as far as support whoever is in the team, be you someone except the basic team bar the B-team squad.<\p>