BRUSSELS, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Italy’s fractured election
result may be a wake-up call to European politicians who have
slackened their reforms and in any case market pressure will
return to force euro zone integration, a prominent EU lawmaker
said.

The Italian stock market fell and the country’s borrowing
costs rose on Tuesday as investors took fright at a political
stalemate after elections that saw a protest party lead the poll
and left no group with a clear majority in parliament.

BRUSSELS/NICOSIA, Feb 25 (Reuters) – European policymakers
are split over how to handle a bailout of Cyprus, with Germany
and some other countries pushing for bank depositors to bear
part of the cost and many other member states worried such a
move will cause a bank run.

Euro zone officials say momentum has built in recent days
behind the idea of “bailing-in” Cypriot bank shareholders and
depositors, although the specifics of how such an operation
would be carried out have not been pinned down.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders agreed the framework of a new long-term budget on Friday after 15 hours of through-the-night negotiation, laying the ground for 960 billion euros of spending on agriculture, aid and scientific research in the years ahead.

The agreement, which EU officials said would only be finalized later on Friday, strikes a tight balance between the demands of northern European countries such as Britain and the Netherlands that wanted a belt-tightening budget, and countries in the south and east such as France and Poland that wanted spending on farming subsidies and much-needed infrastructure.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders agreed the framework for a new long-term budget on Friday after 15 hours of intense negotiations, laying the ground for 960 billion euros of spending on everything from agriculture to scientific research in the years ahead.

The agreement, which EU officials said would only be finalised later on Friday, strikes a balance between the demands of northern European countries such as Britain and the Netherlands that wanted a belt-tightening EU budget, and countries in the south and east that wanted sustained spending on farming subsidies and much-needed infrastructure.

BRUSSELS, Feb 8 (Reuters) – European Union leaders agreed
the framework for a new long-term budget on Friday after 15
hours of intense negotiations, laying the ground for 960 billion
euros of spending on everything from agriculture to scientific
research in the years ahead.

The agreement, which EU officials said would only be
finalised later on Friday, strikes a balance between the demands
of northern European countries such as Britain and the
Netherlands that wanted a belt-tightening EU budget, and
countries in the south and east that wanted sustained spending
on farming subsidies and much-needed infrastructure.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union leaders are expected to set aside more than 5 billion euros from the EU budget to tackle the bloc’s soaring and costly youth unemployment when they meet for a summit in Brussels on Thursday.

The aim is to get to grips with the debilitating unemployment caused by the region’s debt and economic crisis. There are estimates that youth joblessness is costing the EU up to 150 billion euros a year, or around 1.2 percent of GDP.

BRUSSELS, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The European Union is becoming a
three-tiered club and Britain risks being left on the outer
margins of it, Finland’s Europe minister, who was among the
first to warn about Britain drifting away from Europe, will say
in a speech on Tuesday.

Alex Stubb, who last October compared Britain to a boat
pulling away from the rest of the continent, praised Prime
Minister David Cameron for being bold in his Europe speech last
month, but said he had chosen a risky strategy that makes a
referendum on EU membership almost unavoidable.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – In September last year, at a below-the-radar meeting in Helsinki, three euro zone finance ministers came up with a two-word phrase that sounded harmless at the time but has since troubled European leaders a great deal.

Banks’ “legacy assets” sound innocent enough but in the context of Europe’s debt crisis, and particularly for Ireland and Spain, the question of how to deal with existing bad debts is a time bomb that has not been defused.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – In September last year, at a below-the-radar meeting in Helsinki, three euro zone finance ministers came up with a two-word phrase that sounded harmless at the time but has since troubled European leaders a great deal.

Banks’ “legacy assets” sound innocent enough but in the context of Europe’s debt crisis, and particularly for Ireland and Spain, the question of how to deal with existing bad debts is a time bomb that has not been defused.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European officials and diplomats were left scratching their heads after David Cameron’s big speech on Wednesday, expressing confusion about how and when the prime minister expects to overhaul Britain’s ties to the European Union.

Cameron promised voters an in/out referendum on British membership of the EU if he is re-elected in 2015, saying the referendum would take place by the end of 2017, once Britain has re-negotiated its relationship with the EU.