Business for New Europe

This month's issue is is packed full with blogs on the eurozone crisis and the single market, BNE event information and much more. 

This month's review includes details of our upcoming UCITS event, a summary of October's conference on European Growth and Competitiveness.

This month's review is packed with upcoming BNE events, summaries of our fringes at Party Conferences, BNE in the media and a blog on the EU's proposed Financial Transaction Tax. 

In this month's issue, BNE comment pieces focus on developing eurozone issues, from eurobonds to the proposed financial transactions tax. There is also information on upcoming publications and BNE events.

Read this review to see our full programme for Party Conferences 2011 with details of individual fringe events and speakers. Content in this month's issue also includes analysis of the recent developments in the euro zone and the EU's new supervisory structures in financial services.

The headlines continue to tell a story of Europe in a state of crisis and the euro allegedly close to collapse.  There is a crisis, but the more dire predictions are pretty wide off the mark.  They ignore the more important underlying story of a battle in European capitals over how to set the EU on the path to economic recovery.  We will examine this question in the publication we will be releasing on the 17^th.

This issue includes comment on Bin Laden's death, the Arab Spring and recent euro zone developments, including BNE Director, Phillip Souta, discussing the Portuguese bail-out on Jeff Randall Live. The review also looks ahead to our upcoming two day conference, the second annual Economic Ideas Forum, speakers include Christine Lagarde, French Minister for Economic Affairs and Mark Hoban MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. 

This month's review includes summaries of our three events in March, comment on the European response to Libya and the ECJ's judgement on gender discrimination in insurance matters, and looks ahead to future BNE events with Andrea Enria (European Banking Authority), Cathy Ashton (EU's high representative) and Mark Hoban (Financial Secretary to Treasury). 

This issue includes the launch of our new 'In Depth' series, our upcoming events and details about the current EU Careers Month. Also, in a letter to the Daily Telegraph, BNE Chairman, Roland Rudd, calls for the EU to help North Africa meet their democratic aspirations through effective short and long-term objectives.

In this month’s review we have articles on the emerging consensus on fixing the euro zone, a fascinating drive by the government on services and the new language language –focused English Baccalaureate. We are also delighted to announce that BNE will be endowing a €14,000 BNE Scholarship to cover the tuition fees of one British student to the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium or Natolin, Poland

We will continue to push the government to take a positive, leading role in the EU. BNE has a packed programme for 2011, beginning with President Van Rompuy's first keynote speech of the year on 13 January. 

A number of the members of our Advisory Council, including Lord Browne and Roger Carr, and other business leaders such as Sir Richard Branson, supported our drive to persuade the government that this policy was in the national interest (see report in the Telegraph on 26 November by Damian Reece, for a full list of business leaders who supported this initiative and for the role the BNE played).

"12 years on from another Anglo-French summit on defence cooperation, and limited progress since then, we face an unpleasant new paradox: we cannot afford to maintain capabilities which we cannot afford to lose.  The current UK proposed Trident replacement is hugely expensive, but in an uncertain world it remains important to have a nuclear capability. Anglo-French defence cooperation offers an obvious way forward which we cannot afford to ignore."  Letter in Telegraph and Le Figaro, 2 November

We have a full programme of events this month.  William Hague, Carl Bildt (The Swedish Foreign Secretary), John Bruton (former Taoiseach of Ireland), Dan Hannan MEP (representing South East England for the Conservative Party) and Vince Cable are on the billing.  We are also delighted to be holding our first event in Brussels, on the 13^th of October.

We will be holding five events in September – four at the Liberal Democrat and Labour party conferences in Liverpool and Birmingham, and one in London at the LSE with the EU’s budget commissioner (pictured).

BNE is delighted to have been appointed as the Secretariat of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Europe, co-chaired by Lord Dykes (LD, Foreign Affairs Spokesman in the Lords) and Wayne David MP (LAB, Caerphilly).

“Most of my British friends drive German cars. Stop buying them, I tell them – you’re contributing to economic imbalances in the eurozone!” Dr. Markus Kerber, the Director General of Fiscal Policy and Macroeconomic Affairs at the German Ministry of Finance opened a speech at a BNE / German Embassy roundtable, on 29 June, on the vices and virtues of the German economy with a jab at the critics of Germany’s export-led economic model.