The alliterative attraction of the spate of Tahrir-Tiananmen comparisons that the developments of the last few weeks in Egypt have spawned is understandable. In Tahrir as in Tiananmen in 1989, the country&rsquo;s youth stormed the landmark national square voicing opposition to an authoritarian government.

Egypt protests could be a warning for China

Business Standard

As the free trade negotiations between India and the European Union enter the final stages, a googly has just been bowled by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEOb), a lobby watchdog. The Brussels-based organization announced today that it was suing the European Commission on charges of privileging corporate lobby groups in the India-EU FTA talks and violating the EU&rsquo;s transparency rules.

EU arm being sued on India FTA talks

Research and development-based pharmaceuticals accounts for 17 per cent of total business R&amp;D investments in the European Union. Traditionally, Europe has had a massive lead over the rest of the world in the industry. However, competition in the field is heating up. European pharma has been investing in India, which it views as an important market and manufacturing base.

Q&A: Brian Ager, DG, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations

Youthful protesters taking to the streets have been in the spotlight these last few weeks from Egypt to Tunisia. Less high profile are the protests rocking Belgium, better known for chocolates, waffles and Eurocrats than political dissent. Up to 50,000 people in this country of 11 million marched through the streets of Brussels recently, subverting the usual dynamic of protest politics by demanding the creation rather than the downfall of a government.

Belgium beats Iraq in longest time without govt

Thousands of kilometres away from their fractious border, India and China face a common threat. From May 1, a Brussels diktat known as the herbal directive, will effectively outlaw ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) from the 27-member countries of the European Union.

Where East and West aren't meeting

It&rsquo;s been more than a year since the European Union&rsquo;s much touted Lisbon Treaty came into effect, bestowing on the 27-member grouping a new High Representative of foreign affairs, Baroness Catherine Ashton and as of the last couple of months, a brand new diplomatic apparatus, called the European external action service.

EU scrambles in response to Beijing offensive

Despite, or more accurately because of, its huge success in Europe, where it controls some 80 per cent of the internet search market, the American company Google&rsquo;s European troubles have just got worse.

In europe, Google gets in fresh anti-trust trouble

For the European Union, the spate of popular democratic movements in North Africa has exposed the combination of hypocrisy and incompetence that underlies the chasm between Europe&rsquo;s inherited ambitions on the world stage and 21st century geo-political reality.

Crisis in North Africa draws mixed reactions from European powers

When the fiscal woes of the so-called PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) took centre stage last year, markets wobbled as investors fled. But with the euro, the currency shared by 17 European countries, facing its greatest test yet, it soon became clear that the crisis afflicting the region was not limited to bonds and yields, but pointed to a deeper malaise at the very heart of the European Union.

New Franco-German detente proves divisive for Europe

Germany has always been at the heart of the European project. A nation that came to represent the continent&rsquo;s deepest psychological scars, it was also the motor driving European integration.

Pallavi Aiyar: Europe's schizophrenia over Germany

Free trade negotiations between India and the European Union (EU) gathered momentum this week with the chief negotiators of both sides meeting in New Delhi, followed immediately with two-day-long discussions in Brussels, between Indian Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar and the Director-General for Trade for the European Commission (EC), Jean Luc de Marty.

India-EU FTA talks gather momentum

The Indian chemical industry has become big business in recent years and is expected to be worth $200 billion by 2020. However, a European Union (EU) legislation called Regulation for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) that came into effect in 2007 could cut into this growth over the next decade. REACH already threatens 24 per cent of India&rsquo;s chemical exports, according to the Indian government. Although EU chemical exports are worth more than $2 billion a year to the Indian economy, some Indian chemical producers are wondering if the European market is worth the investment. Jack De Bruijn, Director, Risk Managing Unit, European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the organisation charged with implementing REACH, spoke to Pallavi Aiyar on some of the issues surrounding the regulation.

Q&A: Jack De Bruijn, Director, Risk Management, European Chemicals Agency

Caretaker govt&rsquo;s bailout request may total euro 80 bn; fear of Spain falling next.

Portugal caves in, pleads for debt help

India and the European Union moved closer to sealing an ambitious free trade agreement, with talks between the chief negotiators of the accord kicking off in Brussels, headquarters of the European Union. Sources say after years of discussion (the negotiations were launched in 2007), the broad parameters are finally in sight.

India, EU kick off fresh talks on free trade agreement

Following a period of relative calm in the euro zone since the New Year, markets have again been jumpy over recent days.

Trying again to make bears dance

Europe learning to live with offshoring, but Indian firms slow in riding the shift.

Moving on with the O-word

As Portugal successfully held its first bond auction of the year, buying temporary relief from concerns that it was imminently in need of a bailout, a new era of more tightly coordinated economic governance between European Union member-states was formally launched today.

Tighter dancing for all, EU tells its members

Only a few weeks earlier, the Lithuanian government announced it was in talks with Japan to help build a new nuclear reactor to replace its Soviet-made Ignalina facility, shut last year to comply with European Union commitments. Japan&rsquo;s &ldquo;very high standards of nuclear safety&rdquo; were cited by the Lithuanian energy minister as proof that EU environmental norms would be met.

Japan drives EU atomic revision

With clouds gathering above a fiscally distraught Portugal, finance ministers of the 17 countries that share the euro as a currency have firmed the details of a new permanent bailout mechanism for member-states in need.

Future EU bailout fund details agreed on

Over the millennia it has killed more humans than any other disease, decimating a billion people in the last century and 1.7 million people in 2009 (the most recent year for which statistics are available) or about 5,000 a day. But although the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB for short, is the world&rsquo;s number one killer, it is completely curable.

TB's deathly march along India, China growth

The warnings were apocalyptic, painting pictures of rising xenophobia, &ldquo;social dumping&rdquo; and &ldquo;fragmentation&rdquo; of local labour markets. Your correspondent was attending a hearing of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), a civil society consultative body, in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Union.

Pallavi Aiyar

Pallavi Aiyar

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