Troika consultancies: A multi-million euro business beyond scrutiny
A small club of big consultancies has a monopoly on servicing EU bailouts, posing questions on transparency and conflict of interest.
Friday
29th Mar 2024
A small club of big consultancies has a monopoly on servicing EU bailouts, posing questions on transparency and conflict of interest.
The Berliner Sparkasse bank has frozen the account of anti-zionist Jewish organisation.
Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.
Slovenia is paying consultancies over €21 million to test its banks in controversial contracts classed as military secrets.
An Italian judge has convicted Deutsche Bank of fraud, amid widening probes on tax evasion and rate-fixing.
"You will be surprised in the autumn by the degree of movement that will have taken place in some member states," says Thomas Wieser, one of the economists preparing plans for banking union ahead of the October EU summit.
The European Central Bank is an important firefighter in the euro-crisis. But increasingly divergent eurozone economies are limiting the effects of its policies and democratic scrutiny remains an issue.
Concern over democratic oversight of the EU's bailout funds has led to six constitutional complaints in Germany and outrage in the European Parliament.
A lobby for the world's biggest banks - the International Institute of Finance - became a key EU player when it negotiated the debt cut on Greece's second bailout. Its world of rented castles and sopranos shows losses were bearable.