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.
Tuesday
19th Mar 2024
A small club of big consultancies has a monopoly on servicing EU bailouts, posing questions on transparency and conflict of interest.
Fourteen EU member states are pushing for the European Investment Bank to boost defence investment, potentially including ammunition — but bank officials have shown reluctance.
The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.
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.