During the weekly meeting of commissioners, Juncker  made it clear that new chapters in Turkey's accession negotiations could be opened. Furthermore, Turkey is to receive a billion euros for the refugee camps, in addition to the billion euros that have already been promised.  There will be no solution without Turkey, but what motivation does Erdogan have for making Merkel's life easier. The chancellor has always been opposed to Turkish accession to the EU. Furthermore, there are parliamentary elections in Turkey on Nov. 1 and 68 percent of the Turkish population is in favor of stricter rules pertaining to refugees. It sounds nice when Merkel says that fences aren't the solution. But such positions also make her susceptible to political blackmail. What if Erdogan isn't really interested in a solution? What if he is happy to see the camps on the Turkish-Syrian border empty out? What if he is okay with the situation in Syria worsening?  At the end of February, Merkel visited Pope Francis in the Vatican, and brought back with her a question that has remained with her ever since: What if the Middle Eastern conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites is the modern-day version of the Thirty Years' War, the battle between Catholics and Protestants that turned half of Europe into rubble in the 17th century?  To that question, Merkel has no answer. She has said that Germany will grant protection to those who need it. But if her plan to pacify the world doesn't work, it could be that so many people will come to Germany that Germans will no longer stand for it. Merkel is aware of that, which is why she doesn't want to become involved in a discussion about numbers. She doesn't want to name her own threshold of failure.

A kickstarter campaign to launch a computer costing just USD9 is another important milestone on the road to hyper-connectivity, creating risks and opportunities for insurers.   The C.H.I.P. is a tiny computer equipped with a 1 GHz ARM processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, 4 GB of storage, and Bluetooth connectivity, all in a package smaller than a box of cigarettes. It runs on a Debian Linux operating system, is designed to work with most monitors and keyboards, and comes pre-loaded with a number of apps and a web browser.   The device is entering a market that already includes the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black and Arduino, small computers which are increasingly being used by hobbyists and businesses to connect sensors, switches and relays across what is becoming known as the Internet of Everything. What is remarkable about the C.H.I.P., however, is its price point, roughly a quarter of its competitors, marking a major step in the mass production of these tools.  That has investors scrambling to jump on the bandwagon, with nearly 18,000 people contributing over USD 900,000 within just a few days of the launch of the initial kickstarter campaign, which had a target of just USD 50,000.   Regardless of the projects success, it also has enormous implications for the insurance industry. The dwindling cost of connectivity is likely to accelerate the rate at which new devices connect to the internet. This hyper-connectivity will generate enormous volumes of data, which will allow businesses and insurers to generate far more granular insights into their business requirements and the risks that they face.   At the same time, a rapid increase in the number of devices connected to the internet will create new vectors for cyber-attack, generating significant volumes of highly sensitive data while also potentially creating new hazards as hackers will be able to directly interact with a range of new devices, from fridges to shipping manifests and safety sensors. As a recent report by the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics and Zurich Insurance Group illustrates, the global governance framework in place to manage these risks is woefully inadequate, so businesses will need to develop their own robust risk management frameworks to build resilience against attacks. Another benefit of this cheap technology is that it makes internet access more affordable for people on a low income. The C.H.I.P., for example, is being offered in a USD 35 mobile handset.  This kind of connectivity is a vital tool for delivering financial services and the protection of micro-insurance to a greater number people on low incomes around the world.

The future of Europe looks bleak.

So the Germans probably don't want the deal with Greece to go ahead, but Merkel will still get it through parliament.  See, it's not the EU that is non-democratic, it's endemic in Europe.  Germany’s biggest-selling mass-market newspaper has said “Nein!” to the new bail-out deal agreed by the Eurozone for Greece.  Bild has launched a new campaign against the deal, printing a massive “NEIN!” across an entire inside page, and encouraging readers to take selfies holding the page up and send them in for publication.  “No more billions for greedy Greeks,” the newspaper adds, in only slightly smaller print. The page is printed in the blue and white of the Greek flag, instead of Bild’s more usual red and white.   With a daily circulation of some 2.5m Bild is hugely influential in German society. Though it is printed in broadsheet format – allowing for a particularly large “Nein!” – it is decidedly tabloid in tone.   Selfies of readers brandishing the “Nein!” had already begun flooding in on Thursday morning, with many holding it up in their offices or outside their homes.

Lars Riiser, a banker had stuck it to the window of his office on the upper floors of one of Frankrfurt’s skyscrapers, with a view of Germany’s financial capital behind.  Another man, Steffen Beier, brandished it out of the window of his car. Some readers took the selfie holding up iPads showing the headline instead of a newspaper.  The stunt comes ahead of a vote on the new deal in the German parliament on Friday, and is a sign of the deep resentment in many sections of German society against what is seen as being forced to bail out Greece for the profligacy of its own governments and banks yet again.   Many in Angela Merkel’s own Christian Democrat party are unhappy with the deal, and 22 MPs indicated on Thursday that they intend to defy the party whip and vote against it.  There is no chance of the deal being defeated, because Mrs Merkel’s coalition has a huge majority of several hundred, but so many defection from her own party would be a symbolic blow... Moments ago the Bank of Greece presented its latest, January, deposit data. And it's a doozy: following a record €12.2 billion monthly outflow, greater in absolute and relative terms than anything experienced during any of the previous Greek crises and bailouts, the total amount of Greek corporate and household deposits has now tumbled to just €148 billion. This number is in line with some of the more pessimistic expectations, and brings the total cash holdings at Greek banks to the lowest level since August 2005.Currently suffering the biggest bank run in history . 

MOSCOW, May 13 (RIA Novosti) – Peace activists in Rome have gathered to demonstrate against the EU’s support of the authorities in Kiev, Italian antiwar activist Marinella Correggia from the No-War Network told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

“We will stage this demonstration in front of European Union’s representation in downtown Rome, protesting against the support that the European Union is giving to the putschist government in Kiev and the fact that they ignore the atrocities which were made by the neo-Nazist groups which are in the government of Kiev,” Correggia said over the phone.

“We are also protesting against the double standards – Kosovo was born after the NATO bombings and that is very much OK for the EU and it is recognized as an independent country. When it is Crimea or Eastern Ukraine with not the war but a referendum, the EU and the US, and of course NATO, they say it is illegal, criminal,” Correggia told RIA Novosti.

The demonstration will unite Italian peace and anti-fascist organizations which, according to Marinella Correggia, have been silent for years. Thus she doesn’t expect many people this time, though the next demonstration scheduled for May 17 could attract thousands of people.

A similar demonstration was held last Friday in Naples.

Valdai Club expert and Director of the Center for Political Information Alexei Mukhin argues that the independence movements in Ukraine’s Donetsk and the Lugansk regions are a bad sign for the authorities in Kiev, underscoring their lack of control over the situation in the country.
"The use of the Ukrainian military to decide domestic political conflicts is evidence that the sociopolitical system in Ukraine is seriously ill,” Mukhin says. “The question is, who will treat this political malady? It is already clear that the May 25 elections will not do any good, as part of the country has seceded and residents of other parts are unlikely to vote.”
Mukhin believes Russia has chosen the best course of action by staying out of the internal affairs of what remains for now a sovereign state, in contrast to the external powers currently seeking to turn Ukraine into a puppet state. The State Department and top US intelligence officials don’t hide their plans for Ukraine, which is losing the contours of a sovereign state. But Mukhin points out that many in the Western world have realized that Ukraine comes with enormous political and economic baggage that European countries would have to bear. This resulted in a split in Western society, with public opinion in the EU and the United States turning against President Barack Obama and his European allies running the operation in Ukraine.
"The independence referendums held by two southeastern regions of Ukraine are acts of self-defense that their people are entitled to take under the Constitution of Ukraine,” Mukhin argues. “Questioning the legitimacy of these referendums calls into question any and all official actions taken in Ukraine, and Kiev knows it. Most importantly, these events should be approached carefully. We should wait for the results and only then develop a mechanism for political decision-making.”
The expert also noted how important it is that political entities now exist in southeastern Ukraine. Kiev won’t be able to ignore their representatives, and there are no longer any grounds for excluding them from the contact group that everyone except the United States is discussing. When the contact group is formed in the near future, the situation in Ukraine will be brought back into a legal framework with the help of the UN Security Council.
Mukhin believes there is some truth in the claim that Ukraine has become personal for Obama – a matter of envy for another world leader. Throughout 2013, the US media was fixated on Obama’s plummeting approval ratings. Meanwhile Putin’s popularity and political influence in the world was on the rise. The US president could not help feeling resentful, but ultimately Obama’s policy in Ukraine is grounded in more pragmatic concerns.
“Obama has only two years before his second term is over, and he wants to leave behind something more meaningful than the pitiful legacy of George W. Bush,” Mukhin says. “Perhaps he wants to make Europe the main market for the US energy exports. There was a lot of talk about that at the outset of the crisis in Ukraine, when the US offered to replace an unreliable Russia as Europe’s main energy supplier.”
Of course, the United States has sought to play down the fact that energy prices will be much higher due to transportation costs and economic risks. Mukhin believes Europe’s growing economic dependence on the United States will be exacerbated by increased EU military commitments, as the US offer implies the deployment of additional military bases and missile defense units in Europe. While such arguments have not garnered much attention in Europe, Mukhin is confident that they are accurately reflect US intentions.
Alexei Mukhin shared these and other thoughts during his talk at the roundtable, The Current Situation in Ukraine: A Bloody Ten Days in May, held at the Rossiya Segodnya press center on May 12.

The EU's top court has declared "invalid" an EU law requiring telecoms firms to store citizens' communications data for up to two years. The EU Data Retention Directive was adopted in 2006. The European Court of Justice says it violates two basic rights - respect for private life and protection of personal data.

The EU-wide ruling was prompted by Austrian and Irish complaints.

The 28-nation EU is currently drafting a new data protection law.

The ECJ ruling says the 2006 directive allows storage of data on a person's identity, the time of that person's communication, the place from which the communication took place and the frequency of that person's communications.

"By requiring the retention of those data and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data," the court in Luxembourg ruled.

The UK government says it is carefully considering the implications of the ruling, the BBC's Chris Morris reports.

Austrian and Irish courts had asked the ECJ to decide whether the directive complied with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Privacy v security debate

The judges acknowledged that data retention was justified in the fight against serious crime and to safeguard public security. But they argued that the directive was disproportionate.

They also said use of the data without an individual's knowledge "is likely to generate in the persons concerned a feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance".

The directive does not provide sufficient safeguards against possible abuse of personal data, the judges said.

And there was insufficient clarity concerning the basis for holding data for a minimum of six months or the maximum of two years, they argued.

Responding to the ruling, a British government spokesman said the retention of communications data was absolutely fundamental to allowing law enforcement authorities to investigate crime and ensure national security.

"We cannot be in a position where service providers are unable to retain this data," the spokesman said.

The European Commission says it too is assessing the ruling. It said there had to be a proper balance between security and fundamental rights.

I have lifted this extract from a site - if correct, this means that the entire and massive misery suffered by a generation of unemployed young people in Southern Europe (including no doubt a number of suicides and other deaths) is directly due to the deliberate actions of Eurozealots - aided and abetted by venal and incompetent national politicians of course,who greedily troughed on EU money and took out vast unsecured loans, thereby building up enormous debt and allowing their banks to become as good as insolvent.

“Some of the politicians who introduced the euro, who pressed for it to be introduced, realized we would come to this crisis at some stage but they also realized that the crisis would take them further towards their goal, which was fiscal union as well, and creating a United States of Europe,” Mr. Jeffrey told listeners to Wake Up to Money on BBC Radio 5 Live on Monday.

“So in a sense the reaction of euro land to say what we need now is a tighter fiscal union is exactly what people wanted,” he added. “They knew some of the risks they were taking and knew there would be a crisis at some stage.”

Mr. Jeffrey’s argument takes us well beyond the idea that the politicians thought that political will alone could hold the euro zone together. It suggests they knew it wouldn’t. So I asked him if he meant that, and this was his reply:

“The point is that, if you were being logical, a common currency would be the last thing you introduced (after common fiscal policy, legal systems, market regulation, etc.) if you were trying to bring countries into some sort of political federation, since it would be a common currency and monetary policy that would expose all the tensions between economies.

“But the politicians reversed this argument, and saw the currency union as a forcing first step, since it would necessitate a more federal approach in other areas, such as fiscal policy, if it were to be successful.”

To back his case, Mr. Jeffrey quotes Romano Prodi in the Financial Times in 2001, when he was president of the European Commission:

“I am sure the euro will oblige us to introduce a new set of economic policy instruments. It is politically impossible to propose that now. But some day there will be a crisis and new instruments will be created.”

So, argues Mr. Jeffrey, a common currency was not the end game, but merely a step that required further euro-zone action; action that would eventually lead to the desired end: full political and economic union in a United States of Europe.