François Hollande steals the show at his first late-night EU summit but the ball remains firmly in Angela Merkel’s court. Her constituents remain torn between paying for pain they don’t (yet) feel and shouldering the blame for an eventual collapse of the euro.
As we head towards key parliamentary elections on June 10th and 17th, the new French president and government are making their first steps. François Hollande went to Berlin, the US and Brussels in the space of a week. A man elected after a campaign focused on domestic topics is now mostly busy with international issues, from the Greek crisis to the war in Afghanistan.
World powers and Iran both gave positive signals as talks began Wednesday, with EU foreign chief Catherine Ashton (file photo) hopeful that Iran would respond positively to a new offer designed to persuade it to scale back its nuclear programme.
Serbia has elected a new president - and it's not the one that most people were expecting. Tomislav Nikolic has unseated Boris Tadic, the man in power since 2004. Observers are worried about the new head of state, who used to be part of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party. He once said he would prefer to be allied with Russia than join the EU, but he has since toned down the rhetoric, saying he will take Serbia to Europe after all.
Talks to form a new Greek government collapsed last Tuesday, forcing the country's president to call new elections in June. Greece faces weeks of instability and threatens to plunge the whole of the eurozone in a new crisis. Has Greece become ungovernable? Christophe Robeet speaks to Anni Podimata, Vice-President of the European Parliament and member of the Greek Socialist party.
Christophe Robeet speaks to Vuk Jeremic, Serbia's foreign minister. The upcoming presidential run-off will determine the future direction of Serbia. The country is currently split between East and West, between Russia and the European Union.
French President-elect François Hollande said Friday he would stick to his optimistic deficit-reduction targets, despite the European Commission saying it only forecast 1.3 percent growth for France next year versus Hollande's aim of 1.7 percent.
The debate about growth in Europe is in full swing - with more and more talk of growth, rather than austerity. In Germany, many say growth can only be found through structural reform - such as labour market reforms passed by Gerhard Schröder's government a decade ago. These so-called Hartz reforms are widely credited with gradually reducing unemployment - but many say they have caused problems as well, with low paid part-time jobs becoming the norm.
Melissa Bell speaks to Jacques Attali, President of PlaNet Finance. They discuss the appeal published by Jacques Attali, the head of the WTO and other prominent economists and politicians calling for a shift to growth in the euro area and deeper integration to combat the region's debt crisis. Has the time finally come for a federal Europe?
Greece's future is more uncertain than ever following an election that propelled extremists into Parliament. They include the far right Golden Dawn, a party whose leader gave a Nazi salute in Athens last year and the extreme left Syriza party. Both want to scrap the bailout agreement with the European Union and the IMF. It marks a huge change in Greek politics which for decades has been dominated by the main centre-left and centre-right parties.
