Bailed-out Cyprus should reunite in order to boost its struggling economy, EU economic affairs commissioner Olli Rehn said on Wednesday (8 May). "It is worth recalling that the reunification of the island would give a ...

The European Commission will next Friday (3 May) unveil its latest forecast for economic growth and employment in EU countries. A number of member states - chief among them France and Spain - are struggling to live up ...

Europe's human rights watchdog has said Greece should consider banning the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party for its violence, racism and hate-filled rhetoric against immigrants. The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe says ...

Tax inspectors in Greece are underpaid, working in poor conditions and some 130 of them have personal bank accounts abroad - possibly indicating tax evasion, according to an internal report by the IMF and EU. Leaked to ...

Deputies in the Greek parliament early Friday (18 January) voted to launch a parliamentary investigation into Greece’s former minister of finance Giorgos Papaconstantinou. Papaconstantinou is one of several names to ...

German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Monday (14 January) urged Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras to drop his opposition to bailout-linked austerity measures, saying there is "no alternative" if Greece ...

Greek opposition leader Alexis Tsipras feels "vindicated" by the International Monetary Fund's recent change of tone on austerity, he told this website ahead of a meeting with German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble ...

EUobserver's Nikolaj Nielsen visited the Greek-Turkish border in November to see what 'Fortress Europe' means in practice for refugees and people smugglers trying to get into the Union.

'Fortress Europe' - the fifth in a series of EUobserver investigative reports - looks at refugee and immigration networks operating on the edge of Europe, focusing on the 12.5-km Greek 'wall' completed late last year.

A chief of police in a border town in northeastern Greece says irregular migrants are no longer crossing into the country from its land border with Turkey. Barbed-wire fences, landmines, thermal night vision cameras and ...

A 12.5-km-long fence rolled with barbwire runs across plots of garlic and asparagus on the Greek-Turkish border. For the small farming community at Nea Vyssa, the presence of Greek military and police is a welcome ...

The poor treatment of migrants and asylum seekers in Greece is a humanitarian disaster, says a report released on Wednesday (19 December) by Amnesty International. “Greece’s failure to respect the rights of migrants and ...

Greece is to get €49.1 billion worth of bailout funds after eurozone finance ministers in Brussels agreed the latest tranche of emergency funding on Thursday (13 December). Athens will receive €34.3 billion "in the ...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted Sunday that governments will likely have to take a loss on the Greek debt they own, breaking what was considered a taboo in German politics. Choosing the influential mass-selling ...

A majority of German MPs on Friday (30 November) is expected to approve the adjustments to the Greek bailout and the €44 billion tranche of bailout money Athens has been expecting since June. The Social Democrats on ...

Early in the week, eurozone finance ministers reached a deal to deter Greek default. After marathon talks, they were upbeat. "This is not just about money," said eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker. "This is the ...

A vote in the Bundestag on the recently agreed Greece deal may be delayed or split as the German Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens are asking for more time to study the implications of the package. The centre-right ...

Debt-laden Greece was brought back from the brink on Tuesday (27 November) after eurozone finance ministers agreed changes to the country's bailout deal. After another marathon, 13-hour-long meeting which broke up in ...

Eurozone finance ministers and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde are having a third attempt on Monday (26 November) to agree on how to keep Greece afloat and unblock its long-awaited bailout tranche. ...

Over 500 undocumented migrants detained for the past three months at the Komotini police academy in eastern Greece have rioted and set fire to the premises. "The riots have stopped. It is not the first but it is the ...

Germany is considering the use of extra eurozone bailout funds of up to €10 billion to finance a bond-buyback scheme for Greece. "We all agree that the funding gap could be filled through a bond buy-back scheme," German ...

Eurozone finance ministers will reconvene next week (26 November) after failing to reach a deal on whether to release the next tranche of Greece's multi-billion euro loan programme. Talks aimed at staving off imminent ...

Eurozone finance ministers on Tuesday (20 November) are set for a final round of talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about how to deal with Greece's ballooning debt. The meeting is aimed at reconciling ...

Eurozone finance ministers and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) clashed publicly on Monday (12 November) evening over how long Greece should get to bring its debt under control. Jean Claude-Juncker, who chairs the ...

Negotiations on next year's EU budget and how to pay around €9 billion in bills from 2012 will take centre-stage this week after discussions on the issue collapsed on Friday evening. Member states and MEPs are due to ...

A decision on Greece's long-delayed bailout tranche is unlikely to be taken next week, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said, as international lenders are still at odds over how to keep Greece afloat in ...

The Greek Parliament early Thursday (8 November) narrowly adopted an austerity package needed to unlock the next bailout tranche, despite a general strike and violent clashes with riot police. On the eve of the vote, ...

The EU commission on Wednesday (7 November) is likely to forecast a larger-than-expected deficit for Spain, adding pressure on the country to ask for a bailout. Spain's public deficit for this year - already adjusted ...

German drug company Merck has halted life-saving cancer drug shipments to Greek public hospitals. Its chief financial officer, Matthias Zachert told German paper Boersen-Zeitung on Saturday (3 November) that the crisis- ...

Media outlets in Greece plan a 24-hour general strike on Wednesday (31 October) in response to deteriorating press freedoms and cuts in social security and labour rights. The planned protest follows a two-hour blackout ...

Greek magazine Hot Doc has published the names of 2,059 suspected tax evaders in a move likely to stoke social tension. The roll call of people who held accounts at the HSBC bank in Geneva includes Stavros Papastavros, ...

Greece's lenders are suggesting a further write-down on the country's debt, according to Der Spiegel, with tax-payers to feel the hit for the first time. The German news magazine Sunday (28 October) reported that ...

After a week of relatively high activity, the EU changes down a gear, with a holiday in Belgium on Thursday (1 November) and many EU commissioners and MEPs "working from home." Some EU business will take place, however. ...

The EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are at odds over how to fund Greece for two extra years, while the Greek government has still not reached a agreement on promised budget cuts needed for the next tranche ...

The nightmare scenario of Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain leaving the euro could cost the world economy €17 trillion, a new study says. The figure - totted up by German consultancy Prognos for the Berlin-based ...

German leader Angela Merkel on Tuesday (9 October) showed sympathy for Greek "pain," as tens of thousands filled the streets, clashed with police and chanted angry slogans. "I have come here today conscious of the very ...

Eurozone finance ministers have given Greece 10 days to implement budget cuts in return for a delayed bailout tranche. "We stressed that before the next disbursement Greece clearly and credibly should demonstrate its ...

Greece is temporarily blocking an EU gas embargo on Iran. But the big question is: are EU sanctions hurting or helping Iranian leader Ali Khamenei? The gas ban is to be agreed by foreign ministers on Monday (15 October ...

As Europe hangs on every public statement about the possibility of more bailouts from the European Central Bank or German Chancellor Angela Merkel, some investors don't see the wood for the trees. The focus on short- ...

Outbursts of violence in both Greece and Spain are not preventing the respective governments from pushing ahead with the further austerity measures asked for by international lenders. After weeks of haggling, the three- ...

France is in favour of giving Greece more time to meet bailout conditions, provided it is "sincere" on implementing reforms, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said. "We can already give it more time to pull ...

The troika of international lenders is considering a second debt restructuring for Greece, according to Financial Times Deutschland. "There is such a discussion," a senior official told the paper. The discussion ...

Finance ministers are meeting in Cyprus to put more pressure on Greece to implement promised budget cuts, so that bailout payments can resume in November. The informal meeting of finance ministers taking place Friday ...

Germany's highest court takes centre stage once more this week with a ruling on the constitutionality of the eurozone's permanent bailout fund. The decision, due Wednesday (12 September), is generally seen as unlikely ...

Greece should impose a six-day week to secure the next tranche of its bail-out package, according to a leaked letter sent by the country's creditors. Under a heading "increase flexibility of work schedules" the Troika - ...

Last year Germany went out on a limb by calling for political union in Europe. The idea was met with little enthusiasm elsewhere in the eurozone, but particularly in France. After the election of French President ...

Anti-immigrant and nationalistic discourse has existed in Greece since the 1990s, say experts, but has become more radical with the economic crisis. For Golden Dawn, the neo-facist movement that scooped 6.9 percent of ...

Dubium sapientiae initium - Doubt is the origin of wisdom - could have been René Descarte's rather poetic interpretation of the European Union's founding moment. The doubts as to how the nations in Europe could coexist ...

Greek leader Antonis Samaras has said talks on Friday with Angela Merkel signalled the start of new relations between Athens and Berlin but the German chancellor remained characteristically cautious. "My visit today ...