State of the European Union - enough to make you cry!

Spain's unemployment hit a new record of 27.2% (over 6 million unemployed) with the unemployment rate for the under 25 a staggering 57%. France followed suit with a new record unemployment rate of 10.2% (over 3.2 million unemployed). Even though the UK managed to avoid a triple dip recession with a modest growth in GDP in 1Q2013 of 0.3%, as Ed Balls descries it, the UK economy is essentially flat lining with no new job growth. Inflation figures are massaged by all the EU nations. The citizens of the Eurozone have to sponsor the banks without knowing whether there will ever be return on investment, not to mention return of investment. It’s become increasingly hard to conclude whether the mainstream media is bringing us ‘independent news’.Child hunger in Greece is exploding. Some families are trying to survive on pasta and ketchup. People in Cyprus are being robbed of their savings. Even the Cypriot children who became orphans after their parents died in the 2005 plane crash and who have been paid damages, ensuring them a security for their future and education, have been confiscated a very large portion of their money with the closure of Laiki. Former customers of Irish IBRC (former Anglo Irish) have been informed that their retirement savings had no cover.

Pensions schemes and retirement funds are excluded from the deposit guarantee scheme. Goodbye retirement savings ! And you want us to have confidence in you ? No one is sure whether contributions towards pensions are secure. Those of us who have a job, will need to work until they have the two feet in the grave. - Poverty rates are soaring and the middle-class is disappearing. - The financial sector is moving away from Europe to Dubai, Hong Kong, SingaporeTo add to this gloom, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday that euro zone members must be prepared to cede control over certain policy domains to European institutions if the bloc is truly to overcome its debt crisis and win back foreign investors. Where have we seen this scenario before? Way back in the 1930s during the great depression ofcourse. History is repeating itself  and we are perhaps a few meals away from a social revolution (see video).

New EU rules to double cost of British Pensions - Time to head for safer shores?

The Telegraph has a great article today on how new EU rules are set to double the cost of pensions to British companies. According to the article, the EU body that regulates occupational pensions estimated that the deficit in the UK’s defined benefit pension schemes would be£450bn if the new rules, called “Solvency II”, were introduced. The deficit currently stands at £237bn, according to figures released on Tuesday by Britain’s Pension Protection Fund. The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) has also warned that moving to the new rules for pensions would put a “huge burden” on Britain’s remaining final salary pension schemes and the businesses that run them undermining the retirement plans of millions of people both in the UK and across Europe. As I keep harping time and again, it is well worthwhile to consider moving your pension to a safe offshore location such as the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands taking advantage of HRM's QROPS provison and escape EU bureaucracy and costs on your pensions.

France Germany shoot down PMs idea for a new treaty for Britain

As The Guardian reports, British PM Cameron's idea for a new EU treaty for Britain is under fire from both France and Germany. The article further reported that "Berlin and Paris, in a further sign of irritation at the UK's approach, have snubbed an offer to take part in an exchange of views with the Foreign Office on whether some EU powers should be returned to member states as part of a "review of competences", it emerged last week. Charles Grant, the director of the politically independent Centre for European Reform, who has held talks with senior officials in Berlin and Paris in recent weeks, said there was "no chance" of a new EU treaty in time for Cameron to hold a referendum in 2017, even if he was still in No 10." Perhaps, it is time for the PM to have another idea. As the video from the Yes Minister series suggests, Sir Arnold remarks to Sir Humphrey that ministers think they have achieved something when they have an idea and that he could not recall a time when a minister had two ideas.