E.U. Reaches Funding Deal on Climate Change

European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change. But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50 billion euros by 2020.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.

"Europe has failed once again to say how much it is prepared to contribute for climate finance," said Sonja Meister, a climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "In every way the EU is shirking its historical responsibilities and blocking progress towards the just and fair agreement the world needs in Copenhagen," she said.

The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.

Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects. Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would make funds available immediately to developing countries.

Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to begin in fewer than six weeks. "Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to act, if our partners deliver," he said.

NYT

Latvia agreed to cut budget deficit for EU/IMF

Latvia's ruling coalition agreed on Monday to take measures to cut the country's 2010 budget deficit to meet promises to international lenders and keep on track for further loans, the prime minister of the crisis-hit nation said.

The Baltic country, which has already slashed public sector wages and pensions this year, came under pressure last week from international lenders to live up to a budget agreement made in July which aimed winning further rescue loans and preventing the country facing bankruptcy and possible devaluation.

Finance Minister Einars Repse said that overall in 2010 budget spending would be cut by 320 million lats and revenues would be raised by 180 million lats, leading to the 500 million lat ($1.04 billion) deficit reduction it had promised.

Link

Greek socialists win snap general election

Greece's socialists have won a strong parliamentary majority over the governing conservatives, according to exit polls from Sunday's (4 October) general election in the country. The centre-left Panhellenic Socialist Movement, or Pasok, of leader George Papandreou, is leading according to the polls, with 43 percent of the vote, giving the party 159 seats in the 300-seat chamber.

The centre-right New Democracy of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, which had called a snap election only two years after his 2007 election win, had hoped to give a boost to his faltering government with its one-seat majority. His gamble did not pay off, however, with his conservatives gaining the support of just 34 percent of voters, translating into 94 seats.

Mr Karamanlis' party had been hit by a series of corruption scandals, the economic crisis and was widely viewed as having badly handled a series of natural disasters. Moreover, the election offered a clear choice between Pasok and New Democracy.

The former promised a €3 billion stimulus package that would include above-inflation wage and pension increases, higher taxes for the wealthy and a review of the privatisation of flag carrier Olympic Airlines and the sale of the government's stake in OTE, the telecoms firm. Meanwhile New Democracy campaigned on promises of wage and pension freezes for government employees and further austerity and cutting of social programmes in order to tackle the country's deficit, already twice the European Union's allowed maximum of three percent of GDP.

Despite the convincing victory, recent polls have shown that as many as nine out of 10 Greeks do not trust either party, and abstentions were also high amongst the young, who analysts worry are turning their back on parliamentary politics. Last December, the country was rocked by violent youth riots that lasted three weeks in what was described at the time as the worst unrest to hit Greece since the restoration of democracy in 1974.

Euobserver

Másodszorra az igenek győztek Írországban

A Lisszaboni Szerződésről tartott második népszavazáson – a korábbinál nagyobb részvétel mellett – a polgárok kétharmada a szerződés elfogadása mellett szavazott.

A pénteki (2009. október 2.) referendumon a mintegy hárommillió választópolgár 58 százaléka járult az urnák elé, akiknek 67,1 százaléka támogatta voksával a Lisszaboni Szerződés elfogadását. Ez éles ellentétben áll a tavaly júniusi, kudarccal végződött első referendummal, amelyen 51 százalékos részvételi arány mellett a „nem” szavazatok - nagy meglepetésre - 53,4 százalékos többségbe kerültek.

Euvonal

Germany set for centre-right coalition

Germany was on course on Sunday night for its first centre-right government in 11 years after voters gave chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and her Free Democratic allies a majority in parliament.

Victory of the conservative-liberal alliance – which had campaigned for tax cuts and a return to nuclear energy but also social justice and tougher rules for finance – ends four years of awkward co-operation between the CDU and its rival Social Democratic Party in a grand coalition. “We achieved something fantastic,” said Ms Merkel, now facing a second four-year term. “We achieved a stable majority in Germany for a new government . . . We can party tonight but there is a lot of work waiting for us. Let us not forget that we have a lot of problems to solve.”

The change of government could herald a more confrontational phase in German politics as a stronger left-of-centre opposition links up with reinvigorated trade unions against the centre-right coalition.

The CDU and FDP were expected to win 332 seats in the 623-strong Bundestag, or lower house, giving the alliance a 20-seat majority.

The results were a slap in the face for the country’s two largest parties. The CDU obtained its lowest score since the first postwar election of 1949 while the SPD lost 11.3 points to reach a postwar low.

The vote will draw cheers from business, with a centre-right government coming to power for the first time since Helmut Kohl, CDU chancellor, lost out to Gerhard Schröder, his SPD successor, in 1998.

Ft.com

Results:

CDU/CSU - 33,8%

SPD - 22,9%

FDP - 14,6%

Linke - 12%

Grünen - 10,7%