Trade union leaders tonight threatened to ballot their members on industrial action unless employers stopped hiring foreign workers at cut-price wages in breach of national agreements. Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said he would demand a commitment that ...Read More
Ae_STnSfter all the years of doubt and hesitation, the European Union's 490 million inhabitants were finally united last week, if only by the realisation that they were now being ruled by two people they had never heard of.
Herman van Rompuy, ...Read More
BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Saturday sent a message to Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to congratulate him on his election as full-time president of the European Union (EU). In the message, Wen expressed his ...Read More
BEIJING, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday sent a message to Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to congratulate him on his election as full-time president of the European Union (EU). In the message, President Hu said ...Read More
Whatever your view of the European Union, one thing is for sure: it has a genius for making life hard for its supporters. Now we are being asked to swallow the surreal farce enacted in Brussels this week, in which ...Read More
With the European Union's top new jobs going to two low-key bridge-builders, the bloc appears to have set its sights on smoothing over internal divisions before trying to construct a bigger global role. The combination of Belgium's prime minister, Herman Van ...Read More
LONDON — Catherine Ashton: International woman of mystery. Ashton is Europe's new foreign policy chief, the international representative of half a billion people, with a euro7 billion ($10.5 billion) budget and a salary of more than $300,000 a year — but ...Read More
ANKARA (Reuters) - Herman Van Rompuy's appointment as the first European Union president provoked fears in Turkey that he might hinder Ankara's hopes of joining the bloc, with some media declaring outright that he is anti-Turkish.
Turkish newspapers were quick to ...Read More
Senior officials from six world powers have expressed disappointment at Iran's response to an offer of a deal intended to delay its potential ability to make nuclear bombs and have urged Tehran to reconsider the proposal.
Iran is seeking further guarantees ...Read More
Brussels - The European Union's new foreign policy supremo, Catherine Ashton of Britain, will assume office on December 1, earlier than had been anticipated, officials in Brussels said Friday. Ashton received the unanimous backing of the EU's 27 leaders at ...Read More
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who is little known outside his own country, as the bloc's first president on Thursday to lead efforts to make it more influential on the world stage.
They ...Read More
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Senior officials from six world powers expressed disappointment on Friday that Iran had not accepted proposals intended to delay its potential ability to make nuclear bombs and urged Tehran to reconsider. Iran has rejected a deal under which ...Read More
European Union leaders will gather in Brussels on Thursday to select their first full-time president and foreign affairs high representative. The heads of the 27 EU member nations are divided over which candidates to choose. Former UK prime minister Tony Blair had ...Read More
BRUSSELS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The European Commission approved on Friday a revised Irish government guarantee scheme for financial institutions that extends the maturity of instruments covered by the plan to five years from two years. 'The new guarantee excludes subordinated ...Read More
The world reacted with a shrug, ritualistic praise and a tinge of criticism Friday to the appointment of two relatively unknown figures to the European Union's top posts. The administration of US President Barack Obama said the choice of Belgian ...Read More
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgians on Friday mixed pride with trepidation over Herman Van Rompuy's appointment as the first president of the European Union because of the risk of instability after his exit as prime minister. Van Rompuy has led linguistically divided ...Read More
* Extension gives Oracle more time on competition concerns * EU Commission has objected to Oracle's planned buy of Sun BRUSSELS, Nov 20 (Reuters) - European Union regulators haveextended their review of plans by U.S. software firm Oracle(ORCL.O) to buy Sun Microsystems ...Read More
Critics say the pair have too low an international profile
One of the two newly-appointed figures to the European Union's top jobs has hit back at criticism that she does not have enough experience for the post.
Baroness Catherine Ashton told ...Read More
The EU President will only pay a 24 per cent rate of tax and his personal annual travel budget will be £4 million.
He will have a staff of 60 people - a cabinet of 22, 10 body guards and 28 ...Read More
Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union’s major powersbegan maneuvering to win jobs to regulate their $15 trillioneconomy after leaders named Herman Van Rompuy as the EU’s firstpresident and Catherine Ashton as top diplomat. France bid for the post of financial-services ...Read More
Bang go the reputations of Metternich and Talleyrand. European diplomacy has a dynamic new exponent and it is none other than Baroness Ashton of Upholland (not, apparently, a derogatory remark made about the Netherlands No voters in their Lisbon Treaty ...Read More
