Eurosphere roundup: “one finger livened-up the German election campaign…

France Sees Great Potential in the Chinese Tourism Industry

The statistics this year for French tourism are a bit fuzzy. Minister of Tourism Sylvia Pinel remains cautious with the numbers while the results from Protourisme, the reference point for tourism studies, look gloomy [fr].

Vassiliou: ‘Europeans should get out of their chairs more often’

Some 60% of Europeans seldom engage in sport or physical activity, says EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, who urges Europeans to get out of their chairs to help combat obesity.

Androulla Vassiliou is EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth. She answered questions by EurActiv’s Henriette Jacobsen ahead of the obesity conference “Eat well, drink well, move … A small step for you, a big step for Europe” in Brussels on 17 September, where she will be one of the keynote speakers.

What is the Commission’s new initiative on physical activity about?

Europe’s most radical left-wing nun

The feminist nun on a mission to tear down capitalism’s temple

Merkel?s CDU wins over Turkish minority

The Conservative CDU is the latest beneficiary of a decline in the SPD?s political dominance of ethnic voters, according to a poll out last month

Greek Communists beaten in suspected neo-Nazi attack: Police

Eight Communist youths were hospitalised on Friday in Athens after a beating attributed to members of the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, police said.

Merkel rival stirs online storm with middle-finger photo

German Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s election rival took more fire Friday for a magazine cover showing him making the vulgar middle-finger gesture

Spotlight on Slovenia

Back in the spring, we looked at who might be next in the line of eurozone bailout requests. It’s now looking increasingly likely that one of our predictions, Portugal, will require some form of further assistance to fully exit its current bailout. Now, suspicions are rising that our other tip, Slovenia, may need external aid in a not-too-distant future.

Grand coalition looms in German election

Merkel?s hopes of winning a third term as German chancellor at the head of her conservative-liberal coalition are hanging in the balance

How one finger livened-up the German election campaign

Peer Steinbrück, the SPD?s Chancellor Candidate graces the front cover of today?s Süddeutsche Magazine unapologetically flicking the bird.

Could the decline in Spanish house prices be bottoming out? Not just yet…

A quick update on Spanish house prices, given that the latest quarterly statistics were released this morning.

UK wins legal backing on EU?s short-selling ban

Britain has won backing to curb the power of the European Union market watchdog to ban short-selling in a boost to a campaign against the concentration of financial regulation in Brussels at the expense of the City of London.

An adviser to the EU’s top court said in an opinion yesterday (12 September) that such an emergency power, part of an EU law introduced last year, went beyond what the watchdog could do under the EU treaty.

Barroso?s State of the Union: Nothing Fresh, No Self-Criticism

President?s Barroso annual speech over the current situation of the European Union, the so-called State of the Union, offered nothing new in the debate over the future of the Union. No fresh ideas, no concerns over austerity politics, no realism in the analysis, but above all no self-criticism over the management of overdebtedness and economic crisis in Europe. It goes without saying that Mr. Barroso is a good diplomat and a-not-too-good politician, but someone could expect from this last speech a sort of pioneering. All expectations went in vain.

Barroso: I proposed putting a ‘face’ on EU elections

Commission President José Manuel Barroso said yesterday (12 September) that he came up with the idea that European political parties present their candidate for the top EU job at the European Parliament elections in 2014, and regretted that little progress had been made in this direction.

Barroso said there was a risk that the campaign would take place without a clear public debate between representatives of the different political forces competing with the role of Commission president. He insisted on the role he was playing in changing the system.

French Conservative MEPs opposed EU resolution on minority languages

French centre-right MEPs voted against a resolution on endangered regional languages, passed by a large majority in the European Parliament this week, claiming that it violated the unity of the French Republic.

With 92%, EU lawmakers gave their overwhelming backing on Wednesday (11 September) to a report, prepared by the Green group, aimed at protecting endangered and minority languages across Europe.

EU lawmakers back ?intellectual property rights? over biodiversity

The European Parliament has agreed to rules that would prevent EU companies, particularly in the pharmaceuticals sector, from exploiting the natural resources of the world’s indigenous communities by recognising their ‘intellectual property rights’ over local biodiversity.

In the vote yesterday (12 September), MEPs rubber-stamped the next stage of the EU’s ratification of the Nagoya protocol, a UN convention on biodiversity signed by leaders in the Japanese city in 2010.

Britain should stay in the EU, for science

At a time when Britain debates whether to remain in the European Union or leave, there is one critical area being overlooked – science, write Michael Galsworthy and Michael Brown.

Michael Galsworthy is a senior research associate at the University College London. Michael Browne is head of European research & innovation at University College London. This piece was originally published on the UK edition of The Conversation, the news website sourced from the academic and research community.

ECB ?interested? in bailing out Slovenia

The European Central Bank is interested in Slovenia applying for aid from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the eurozone’s bailout mechanism, according to German business daily Handelsblatt.

Slovenia has been in recession since last year and is struggling to avoid an economic bailout. On Friday Slovenian officials said they would liquidate two small banks to ensure the financial stability of its banking system.

UK Prime Minister Appoints New Anti-Piracy Enforcement AdvisorIn 2010 the UK introduced the Digital Economy Act, legislation designed in part to crack down on the unlawful sharing of copyrighted material, but three years on and the implementation of the law is still more than a couple of years away.

Romanian MEP faces corruption trial in cash-for-influence scandal

Romanian MEP Adrian Severin will stand trial in his country for allegedly agreeing to take money from fake lobbyists more than two years ago in return for introducing amendments to draft EU laws in the European Parliament, the Romanian press reported yesterday (11 September).

Romania’s anti-corruption agency, DNA, charged Adrian Severin with corruption over the allegations, which led Severin to being expelled from the Parliament’s Socialists & Democrats (S&D) political group more than two years ago.

The shaking up of Europe?s old order

Successful financial disentanglement depends on how comprehensively the old order is broken down. Neither in Italy nor Spain is the outlook clear

Third EU legal opinion of the week, this time on banking union: bad news for Germany?

It seems to be a week for big legal opinions in the EU. We’ve had opinions on the FTT, the EU?s short selling regulation and now on the European Commission?s plan for a Single Bank Resolution Mechanism (SRM) ? a key component of the banking union.

Reconstruction of car accident that seriously injured Vice-President of the European Parliament