“Europe’s banks, sitting on $1.19 trillion of debt to Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, are facing a wave of losses if Greece abandons the euro.

The prospect of Greece leaving the 17-nation euro region increased after parties opposed to the terms of the nation’s second bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund won most of the votes in May 6 elections. A fresh round of voting will be held June 17 after politicians failed to form a government. For the first time since the crisis began in November 2009, European leaders and central bankers are speaking openly of Greece abandoning the currency union.

Should Greece go, its new currency probably would suffer an immediate devaluation of as much as 75 percent against the euro, forcing individuals and companies to default on foreign loans, economists at UBS AG (UBSN) said. Unless European leaders could make a credible case that a Greek exit was an exceptional and isolated incident, depositors in other nations might decide to withdraw euros from banks or shift them to countries seen as safer.”

“The EU recently agreed to expand Operation Atalanta to allow forces to attack land targets as well as those at sea, and this is the first time its forces have used the new rules to attack a base on the mainland.”

“The EU Naval Force has conducted the first operation to destroy pirate equipment on the Somali coastline. The attack was conducted in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution 1851. It was also supported by Somalia’s transitional federal government. There were no apparent casualties after the precise attack air strike against pirate supplies on the shoreline. The Council of the European Union on March 23 allowed the EU Naval Force to take disruption actions against known pirate supplies on the shore.”

““The fiscal crisis proves again that our political project for the union cannot handle the membership of a country of Turkey’s size. Turkeyitself has begun looking beyond the EU, too,” Juppe told reporters during a speech in Strasbourg. 

German President Christian Wulff also spoke on Turkey’s EU membership recently, stating that EU members should hold up to their commitments in starting the negotiation process for Turkey in accordance with the “pacta sunt servanda” (agreements must be kept) principle.”

“In a televised statement, [President Medvedev] said ‘modern weapons systems’ could be deployed in Kaliningrad if Russia, the US and Nato failed to come to a deal [on the proposed American missile shield].

President Medvedev’s warning follows an announcement by the United States on Tuesday that it would stop sharing information with Russia on non-nuclear military forces in Europe.

The information was being provided to Moscow under the CFE (Conventional forces in Europe) treaty.”

“Now that Socialist Francois Hollande has replaced Mr Sarkozy as France’s president, Turkey hopes he will be more sympathetic to the candidacy of a country that has one of the world’s fastest growing economies and is becoming a regional diplomatic player.

On Thursday, Turkey and the EU are to open talks aimed at bringing Turkey’s membership bid back on track, and the Turkish government announced this week that its Parliament will soon vote on a series of draft laws designed to help advance its bid.”

“EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday agreed to postpone the ratification of an association agreement with Ukraine. However, they were unable to agree on whether senior EU officials should boycott soccer games played in Ukraine next month as part of the European championship.

The discussions came in response to concerns about the human rights situation in Ukraine, particularly about the treatment of jailed opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko.

Despite the fact that the ministers were unable to agree on a common stance on Euro 2012, several leading EU politicians have already said they plan to stay away unless there are big changes in Ukraine in the next few weeks.

The government of the Netherlands, whose national team plays all of its group-stage games in Ukraine, has said it would send no political representatives. The European Commission has said the same.”

“The European Union currently accounts for 32 percent of Armenia’s trade turnover ($1.5 billion), edging out Russia by 12 percentage points. Three years ago, Armenia entered the Eastern Partnership, a conduit for closer ties between the EU and six post-Soviet countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine); in 2010, Yerevan started negotiations with the EU on an Association Agreement, which would provide for an expanded cooperation framework. Not only are streamlined visa requirements up for negotiation, but also talks about a free trade area which could eventually give Armenian products easier access to the EU’s 500-million-person-strong market.

Fear of losing that opportunity…is prompting Armenia’s government to loudly express the intent to hold clean elections. But some observer…believe authorities are just striving to be more sophisticated in the way they manipulate the voting results.”

“Croatians voted yesterday in a parliamentary election expected to unseat long-dominant conservatives and empower a center-left coalition just as the country prepares to join the European Union.

The vote for Croatia’s 151-seat parliament pits the governing center-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) against a coalition of left-leaning parties. The latest surveys show a four-party opposition coalition known as Kukuriku, led by 45-year-old former diplomat Zoran Milanovic of the Social Democrats, is poised to win an outright majority.”

“With the arrest of both in the past two years, Serbia’s application can now progress - though Kosovo seems to be another obstacle.

Serbia would “need to achieve further significant progress in improving relations with Kosovo” before negotiations could start, the Commission said.”