Politics in the APR occupies an increasingly important place in U.S. foreign policy, with particular emphasis currently on the new bloc which plans to create free-trade zones across the entire region. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is without a doubt one of the Obama administration’s main priorities and offers an alternative to the Chinese project, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is also in the negotiations stage.

On the future of EU-Russia energy relations WEJ spoke with Jack D. Sharples, expert on the EU-Russia energy relations and a lecturer at the European University at Saint-Petersburg.

Dear Mr. Sharples, how would you assess the current state of EU-Russia trade relations – who is more dependent on whom?
Currently mineral products (mainly oil and gas) account for around 71 percent of Russia’s exports. Taxation oil and gas production and export contributes around 50 percent of the Russian federal budget. The EU is the main export market for Russian oil and gas. According to Gazprom Export, in 2013, Russia exported 133 bcm of natural gas to the EU. This is 68 percent of Russia’s total pipeline gas exports. According to the latest figures from Eurostat, in 2012 Russia exported 170 million tonnes of crude oil to the EU – some 71 percent of Russia’s total crude oil exports of 240m tonnes in 2012. So clearly, oil and gas exports to the EU are important for Russia.

The legislation specifies requirements for the payment card system as well as regulatory functions and features to be carried out by the Bank of Russia. The main goal of the NPS is to ensure complete independence from international payment systems, foreign regulators, and political risks that could result in the partial or complete blocking of foreign payment systems. If the NPS project is successful, widely used international payment systems could lose up to $4 billion which the companies earn from commissions on approximately 85% of all transactions in Russia. And this despite Russians using bank cards much less than in the West. Out of all bank card operations within Russia, 81% are cash withdrawals and only 19% are for cashless purchases.

2013 marked another record year for Spanish tourism: The problems of other Mediterranean countries and the attractive consumer prices not only attracted 5.6% more tourists than the previous year, but raised a number of vital questions for the sector.

Over the past year, 60.66 million international tourists visited Spain, which is even more than in 2007, when the Spanish coast was especially popular (58.6 million). Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was the first to announce the joyous news, even before the statistics agencies. In doing so, he tried to support the positive disposition of the sector and the citizens. He said that tourism would soon get them out of this infamous crisis. In some ways, of course he’s right: 10% of the Spanish GDP comes from tourism and that has been on the rise since late 2012. Worried about political instability in Egypt, tourists changed their vacation plans and headed to the Spanish coast to enjoy the sun. The recovery of demand in the travel business has been a positive factor for several European countries. The tide of tourists has naturally affected the balance sheets: At the end of 2013, the Spanish tourism industry brought in more than €45.1 billion. By number of tourists, Spain overtook China, and came in third after the U.S. and France.

It is expected that the mechanism will allow for the creation of a so-called Single Resolution Fund that will total €55 billion over the next ten years, financed by contributions from banks into national divisions of the fund. This plan is supposed to provide the financing for the process of closing bankrupt banks without the need for funds from small investors. The framework of the SRM also makes the European Commission a regulator for the banking system, complete with the right to decide whether or not to close troubled banks within the EU countries.

European officials enthusiastically approved the plan at the end of last December. “This is great news. It is also in our interest that all banks in the European Union, not just in the Eurozone, were stable. In addition, this compromise finally breaks the vicious cycle between banks and the government,” said Czech Deputy Minister of Finance Radek Urban shortly after an agreement was reached. European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Michel Barnier himself called the agreement a revolutionary decision that will “finally put an end to supporting banks at the taxpayer’s expense,” referring to the fact that, during the financial crisis, the EU provided financial assistance to troubled banks to the tune of €1.6 trillion.

Created in 2011, today the Eurasian Customs Union (ECU) is the largest economic platform in the former Soviet Union. Made up of Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, the ECU is a common customs territory with total annual external trade of $939.3 billion and internal trade of $68.6 billion. The ECU’s main objective is to intensify economic relations and strengthen the overall position of Customs Union members on the world stage. The ECU faces some major challenges in the near future, including prospects for expansion, which is directly dependent on its economic attractiveness and ability to offer favorable terms to all participants.