With the preparation of the future guidelines on regional State aid under way, a delegation of the Islands Commission of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), headed by its President Ugo Cappellacci, President of Sardinia Region (IT), met today with Competition Commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, to ask for more flexibility in the State aid system.
Read more... New export opportunities of between €20billion and €40billion a year by 2020 could emerge for European companies trading with Japan and Korea according to a report conducted on behalf of the European Commission. ‘The Executive Training Programme’s: EU Trade with Japan & Korea’ report maintains that if export growth from the EU to Japan and Korea follows growth patterns in non-EU exports over the last ten years, EU companies could enjoy significant new export opportunities by 2020.
Read more... IRU Indices show OECD countries on the brink of double dip recession According to the IRU Road Transport Indices, economic development and transport performance in OECD and EU countries will slow down and stagnate in 2012, following a feeble economic growth in 2011. The IRU Road Transport Indices, which allow the comparison of GDP growth, road freight transport volumes and new vehicle registrations in 58 countries, forecast that the OECD and EU countries will be confronted with a considerable slow down of economic growth and transport activities after a year of feeble economic growth.
Read more... The Bulgarian Government has entrusted e-government specialist ]init[ AG for Digital Communication with the coordination, the planning, and the implementation of technical tasks for the implementation of the project BORKOR - “Center for Prevention of Organized Crime and Corruption in Bulgaria”.
Read more... Despite the constant repeating of comments by Europe’s political leaders about decisive actions they have taken, unprecedented steps and firm commitments, it should be clear that Europe’s single currency crisis will be with us for a long time. At the moment any hopes for a speedy recovery seem far-fetched. Italy’s 10-year bond still costs more than 6.5%; borrowing costs that are not sustainable and would in the long run make the country insolvent. But the biggest problem currently is not Italy but Spain. Despite having excelled in implementing budget deficiency reducing measures, it found it very hard to attract any buyers at a recent debt auction. The only thing worse than a high bond yield is being unable attract bond buyers at all. These renewed troubles come even after the Greece debt restructuring, the setting up of a large bail out fund and a host of other measure that all seem unable to instil some credibility and confidence into the EURO’s solvency.
Read more... What have the Internal Market and the London riots got in common? Is the Internal Market for engineering effective?
Read more... Representatives of the European media and advertising industry met at the European Parliament today to share their vision of Europe 2020, the European Union’s growth strategy, and to discuss how advertising could be more effectively used in order to catalyse growth, jobs and competitiveness.
Read more... Eurostat ranks north-west Bulgaria as the poorest part of the entire European Union, with GDP per inhabitant just 28% of the average. The wealthiest region is inner London with 343% and the gap would be much bigger if the figures had not been adjusted to reflect that the cost of living is lower in Bulgaria than in the United Kingdom.
Read more... Tuscany is not only a place for art and culture, it is also a welcoming region for national and international businesses who wish to settle here and explore new investments. A perfect springboard to compete on the international market from Tuscany is offered by Regione Toscana, which is announcing a range of incentives to attract international investments to the region. The incentives are for investments from companies that are not yet based in Tuscany.
Read more... Christine Lagarde is planning to visit China, India and Brazil to drum up support for her bid to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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The new year started like the old one; with bad news. The rating agency Standard and Poor (S&P) stripped France and Austria of their tripe A rating, along with Malta, Slovenia and Slovakia who were also downgraded by one notch. Italy and Spain suffered even worse with a two notch downgrade to BBB+ and A respectively. As expected, Portugal and Cyprus bonds have been downgraded to junk status. The only good news is that the downgrade was long expected and hardly surprising. In early December S&P has warned of possible downgrades just before the Europe’s decision makers met for yet another summit that was promised to tackle the debt crisis for good. S&P reasoned its downgrade by arguing that the summit failed to deliver.
Read more... Both passenger and freight traffic at European airports continue to weaken significantly. Olivier Jankovec, Director General, ACI EUROPE commented “Since last summer, traffic at European airports has increasingly reflected the impact of the sovereign debt crises and the slow-down of the world economy. While full 2011 figures will remain positive for passenger traffic, the entrenched decrease for freight has already wiped out all previous growth for the year. Prospects for 2012 are worrisome, with passenger traffic decreasing in 13 national markets."
Read more... From the first of January Kazakhstan started to function within the Common economic space with Russia and Belarus. Between Russia and China geographically and the EU and the US virtually, Central Asia's richest country with about 60 billion euros in international reserves is a subject of intense courtship by the world’s leading actors. Does this move towards Russia mean that other interested countries are losers?
Read more... The tenth anniversary of the start of the Doha Round rolled by in November 2011. The negotiations, which were supposed to usher in a restructuring of the global trading system in a manner that was to be of benefit of developing countries, have hit the buffers. The reality is that the completion of the Round looks increasingly unlikely.
Read more... An inconvenient truth is slowly emerging: There is an increasing notion amongst politicians and the public alike that the never-ending debt crisis in the EURO-zone has more to do with the lack of political governance of the common currency than the economic strength underpinning it.
Read more... Reacting to the opening of the new, fourth runway at Frankfurt Airport by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel today, European airport trade body ACI EUROPE applauded the news, but warned that Europe still needs to come to terms with airport expansion, if it wants to maintain its global relevance.
Read more... When discussing how to best help others to develop sustainably and secure their future, it is understandable that the debate often seems to focus on economic growth rates, but he health of rural economies should be the yardstick for progress, not GDP.
Read more... Open Europe has today published a briefing note, looking at the forthcoming German Constitutional Court ruling on the legality of the eurozone bailouts, setting out what the ruling could mean for the Single Currency. The Court’s ruling is expected on 7 September. The Head of Open Europe’s Brussels office, Pieter Cleppe, said, “Although the Court will almost certainly approve the bailouts, it may well demand a greater say for the German Parliament over the bailout funds, and could even lay down some additional constitutional red lines on joint debt in the eurozone. This could further complicate attempts to push the eurozone towards fiscal union, including the widely discussed pooling of debt and risk through Eurobonds.”
Read more... A farm in northern Germany has been identified as the most likely source of many of the infections in the E. coli outbreak that has left 22 people dead.
Read more... An alliance of European motoring organisations has written to the European Commission calling for an investigation into the price of fuel.
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