Africa is experiencing historic growth. Six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa. The continent has enormous potential, and it is in the EU's interest to help African countries expand trade and investment to full development. At the same time the EU is applying pressure on African countries to have them signed EPAs (Economic Partnership Agreements) claiming that EPAs are beneficial because they will shift the relationship between the EU and Africa from one of dependency on tariff preferences to one that promotes business competitiveness.

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) provide for WTO-compliant agreements covering substantially all trade in goods (at least 80%) as well as services and investment and trade related rules with a view to fostering African countries integration into the world economy and promote sustainable development.

New EU staff regulations applying to the 32,000 employees of the European Commission will enter into force on 1st January 2014.

The French National Front wants a Europe that is respectful of popular sovereignties, national identities, languages and cultures and that is really at the service of the peoples by concrete actions. Their project is both unreal and phantasmatic !

According to a recent opinion poll 24% of French citizens would vote for the list of the Front National for the European elections ahead of all other parties. This means that one quarter of the French voters are intent on destroying Europe.

The following four scenarios were evaluated, discussed and developed by experts in 15 cities all over Europe. The stakes are high both politically and economically for Europe and the EU’s future is very uncertain. On top of the eurozone crisis, the European economy is suffering from enormous structural woes.

A State that is failing has several attributes. One of the most common is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other attributes of state failure include the erosion of the legitimate authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the inability to interact with other states as full member of the international community.

There are twelve indicators of state vulnerability:

Social Indicators

Ernst & Young has undertaken a study of senior public sector roles across G20 countries and come up with a Worldwide Index of Women as Public Sector Leaders. Public Sector Leaders are defined as non-elected senior excutives across federal or national governments.When it comes to the numbers of female public sector leaders, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom take the top three places. The United States of America, Italy, France and Germany perform favorably. South Africa and Brazil also do well.

 Here below are the results for selected EU countries:

Ulrich Beck, auteur de l’Europe Allemande est chargé de mission Allemagne à Notre Europe-Institut Jacques Delors. Ulrich Beck consacre une grande partie de son ouvrage à développer ce qu’il appelle le « modèle Merkiavel ». Selon Nicolas Machiavel, « le prince ne doit tenir sa parole donnée hier que si elle peut lui apporter des avantages ». Si l’on transpose cette maxime à la situation actuelle, cela donne : « il est possible de faire aujourd’hui le contraire de ce que l’on a annoncé hier, si cela augmente les chances de gagner les prochaines élections ».

Belgium has a population of over 10 million. 6 million Belgians speak Dutch and 19.8% of them (1.2 million) has a good to a very good mastery of German. 4 million Belgians speak French but only 6% (240,000) has a good to a very good mastery of German. There are only 73,000 Belgians who speak German as their native tongue. In Brussels, French is the most spoken language (88%) followed by English (30%), Dutch (23%), Arabic 18% and Spanish 9%.

About the German Language

Having announced that they will present a leading candidate for the Commission’s presidency and that this candidate will campaign in the EU’s 28 Member States, the four major European political parties have set an ambitious target. The challenge is that European political parties gather members from different countries with different political sensitivities. In this context, drafting a common European programme that can appeal to all party members and even all EU citizens across borders is a complex task.