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The European continent is slipping into deflation. Unemployment is rising relentlessly. A debt crisis is ticking explosive underneath countries such as Italy and Spain. Talented young people are migrating in the search for work. Extremist parties of the right and left are rising in the polls as years of depression take their toll.

It is not exactly hard to list the economic challenges facing the European Union right now.

But not to worry, the European Union (EU) is about to fix everything. How? By breaking up Google GOOG, -0.49% .

The European Parliament is limbering up for a fight with the search giant, attacking its dominance of the internet. It argues that is unfairly stifling the growth of home-grown tech start-ups.

Schwab Center for Financial Research's Kathy Jones joins MoneyBeat and explains why the U.S. dollar will likely continue to rise in 2015 and how investors should respond. Photo: Getty.

Nonsense. There is no serious evidence to suggest that the power of Google is holding back the European economy and certainly not compared to the deadening weight of red tape and taxes that government imposes.

The EU should stop worrying about a few American web giants and start working to fix its own problems.

The European attack on Google has been gathering strength for some time. The EU has already been investigating the companys market position for years, probing whether it has become too powerful, whether it discriminates against rivals, and if so what can be done.

Now the European Parliament looks poised to take that a step further, with votes scheduled on whether a search engine should be allowed to engage in other commercial activities. If that was passed, then Google would in effect have to be broken up. If it was broken up in Europe, then not only would that damage the company in itself the EU, after all, despite its troubles, remains the biggest economic bloc in the world but it would also set a troubling precedent in the rest of the world. Google, at least as we know it, might well be finished.

The European attack has affected Googles shares, which closed Tuesday at around $540 a share, versus about $600 a share in August.

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Matthew Lynn's London Eye: Google is nowhere near Europes biggest problem

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Heres one flight delay that European Union citizens might appreciate: The European Parliament has grounded an agreement that would have sent more passenger data winging its way to Canadian law enforcers. And like other flight delays, it could have huge repercussionsin this case for similar data exchange deals with the U.S. and Australia.

Members of the European Parliament voted 383 to 271 to refer the Canadian flight data deal to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for an opinion on whether it is in line with data protection rules enshrined in EU treaties and the EUs Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Canada and the EU are in the process of renegotiating a 2006 deal to exchange so-called passenger name record (PNR) data for the purposes of fighting terrorism and serious crime. This includes information provided by passengers when they book or check in for flights, and data collected by airlines for commercial purposes. It consists of about 60 elements, including itineraries, ticket references, contact details, travel dates, means of payment used, seat numbers and baggage information.

The EU Council of Ministers signed the revised deal with Canada in June, but it still needs the European Parliaments approval before it can enter into force.

Parliament is concerned that building such a database to retain and share passengers personal data could be illegal in the light of a ruling by the CJEU in May. That judgment invalidated EU laws requiring communications providers to retain metadatain much the same way as flight data would be retainedunder the PNR agreementbecause the laws interfered with fundamental privacy rights.

Privacy groups welcomed the Parliaments decision Tuesday, and said that the CJEU ruling could have a big impact on similar deals.

The vote might also have consequences for the EUs existing PNR sharing deals with the U.S. and Australia, said Alexander Sander, managing director of German digital rights group Digitale Gesellschaft, welcoming the decision.

If the court rules this is not in line with EU fundamental rights they would first of all have to stop the already existing agreements with the U.S. and Australia, he said.

It doesnt stop there though. The court ruling could also affect the EU-U.S. Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) Agreement under which some data from the SWIFT international bank messaging system is transmitted to U.S. authorities, again to fight terrorism. That deal is really similar to the PNR agreement, and Im really sure that we have to rethink it as well, if the CJEUs opinion on the deal is in line with the April data retention ruling, Sander said.

Joe McNamee, executive director of European digital rights group EDRi was also delighted by the Parliaments decision.

Excerpt from:
60 things European legislators don't want Canada to learn about air passengers