The EU is making its first major move to counter spying activities conducted by American intelligence services. A new regulation aimed at restricting shady data transfers from EU states to the US is about to be voted on by the European Parliament.

US-based companies consistently argue that they are not required to abide by European legislation. Instead, they maintain that they are only subject to secret court orders of the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which facilitates the work of the NSA.

Genetically modified food is another significant area of disagreement

occasionally causes problems with EU-US relations, because it is illegal in the EU to allow the extradition of a citizen to a country where the death penalty is a legal punishment

Extraordinary rendition flights through Europe were investigated over a number of years by the European Parliament and it held a temporary committee on the matter. The EU has also opposed the use of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and offered to host some former inmates when its closure was announced by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Britain is to launch a parliamentary inquiry into the Guardian newspaper’s leaks by Edward Snowden as part of a broad counter-terrorism inquiry. The probe was announced hours after PM David Cameron called the leaks “dangerous” for national security.

Addressing the UK parliament Wednesday, Cameron accused the newspaper of damaging national security by publishing sensitive data provided by the former NSA contractor.
"The plain fact is that what has happened has damaged national security,” Cameron said.

The pressure facing the Guardian seems to give credence to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s fears for the fate of journalists who assisted the former NSA contractor in divulging top-secret information.

Far from being the effect of the ‘invisible hand of the market’, the crisis of the euro is the product of a strategy carefully designed by Christina Rohmer and the White House Council of Economic Advisers. It is a matter of saving the American economy by forcing the European capitals to take refuge behind the US, and ultimately placing the Euro Zone economies under US control via the IMF and the European Union.

The euro crisis has been triggered by the concentrated attack of the American ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch against the debt of Greece, Spain and Portugal. The downgrading of these three countries - especially Greece - to the ’speculative investments’ category is the result of a concerted action. The downgrading follows a series of repeated and pressing decisions. These attacks have been endorsed by the US-state machinery, notably through the alarmist declarations of Obama’s economic adviser and former chairman of the American Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, who spoke of a prospective disintegration of the euro zone.

This tactical action is coupled with a strategic operation, that of a drive to dismantle the EU to the advantage of an economic union spanning the two continents.

What is behind the intention of the European Council to incorporate the IMF in the euro zone rescue plan? If one looks at the formula applied by this international institution to the countries to which it has made loans, the modus operandi is immutable: the imposition of wage and salary reductions both directly and indirectly, the privatisation of public services and the abolition of social policies. The policies of the IMF have consistently led to the significant impoverishment of the population [8].

In case of depression or even economic stagnation, the ‘policy of consolidation of public expenditure’ is doomed to fail. The foreshadowed €750 billion of aid will be used to pay back the banks to the detriment of taxpayer’s purchasing power, and this payment to financial institutions will further enhance the recession. Thus, IMF control and creation of funds to help the banks are two complementary dimensions of the same policies. The point is to effect a significant redistribution of income in favour of financial institutions.

IMF control of European economic policy represents a supplementary stage in the dissolution of EU member states’ capacity for initiative and a phase of transition for their integration into a transatlantic body.

I'd like to be able to say its as simple as EU good, US bad but it aint..

The European Parliament voted Wednesday for US access to the global financial database held by a Belgian company to be suspended because of concerns that the US is snooping on the database for financial gain rather than just to combat terrorism.

Italy’s spy watchdog COPASIR has recently learned details of large-scale monitoring of Italians by the US intelligence agency NSA, according to a report published by Corriere della Sera.