EU Calls for Bank Collapse Fund

The European Union's finance executive called Friday for banks to pay into a fund that could be drawn upon in case of collapse, an effort to shield taxpayers from the fallout of future crises.

Officials are also calling for new ways to deal with insolvent financial groups that operate in multiple countries to avoid a repeat of the messy and expensive cross-border wrangling that followed the September 2008 collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

EU financial services commissioner Michel Barnier, who can draft new EU rules, said taxpayers should not pay for "the excesses and inconsiderate risk-taking of financial institutions."He said environmental rules insist that the polluter pays and "in financial matters, I don't see why it should be any different." He didn't promise to draft rules, saying he would first examine ways for sharing out the costs of bank failure.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn also called on the European Union to come up with "a fire brigade" to deal with the collapse of banks that operate across several countries. He suggested that a new European resolution authority should deal with insolvent banks that would force shareholders and uninsured creditors to bear the costs of failure.

The new agency should be funded as far as possible by levies on financial groups and deposit insurance fees, he said, and should have clear guidelines on rescuing or dissolving a bank that splits its business across different nations.

ABC news

4 million jobs vanished in 2009

Official data show that some 4 million jobs disappeared in the European Union last year, when countries were struggling to emerge from recession. In a Monday release, the EU statistical agency Eurostat said EU employment numbers dropped 1.8 percent from 2008 and that 221.1 million people were working in the region in the last three months of the year.

In the 16 nations that use the euro, some 2.72 million jobs vanished as employment fell 1.8 percent from the previous year. Some 144 million were employed in the fourth quarter.

Eurostat says the highest number of job losses were in the manufacturng industry, construction and trade, transport and communication services. Agriculture and public administration, health and education added jobs.

AP

Európa 2020

Középpontban az innováció, fenntartható fejlődés és a munkahelyteremtés
Az Európai Bizottság ma terjesztette elő az Európa 2020 stratégiát, amelynek célja a válságból való kilábalás és az európai gazdaság felkészítése a következő évtizedre.

Az Európa 2020 stratégia három, egymással összefüggő és egymást kölcsönösen erősítő szakpolitikai területre épül: intelligens növekedés, azaz a tudáson és innováción alapuló gazdaság kialakítása; fenntartható növekedés, azaz erőforrás-hatékonyabb, környezetbarátabb és versenyképesebb gazdaság létrehozása; és inkluzív növekedés, azaz a foglalkoztatás magas szintjét biztosító, szociális és területi kohéziót eredményező gazdaság ösztönzése.

A stratégia előterjesztése kapcsán Barroso a következőket nyilatkozta: „Az Európa 2020 stratégia arról szól, mit kell tennünk ma és holnap ahhoz, hogy az uniós gazdaságot visszaállítsuk a növekedési pályára. (...) Határozottan kell fellépnünk gyengeségeink orvoslására, és arra a – nem is kevés – területre kell építenünk, ahol erősek vagyunk. Új gazdasági modellt kell kialakítanunk, amely a tudáson, a környezetbarát gazdaságon és a foglalkoztatás magas szintjén alapul. Ehhez a küzdelemhez minden európai szereplő hozzájárulására szükség van. (...) Együtt sokkal erősebbek vagyunk, ezért a válságból csak úgy tudunk sikeresen kilábalni, ha gazdaságpolitikáinkat szorosan egyeztetjük. Ha nem így teszünk, a relatív hanyatlás „elvesztegetett évtizedének” nézünk elébe: jóvátehetetlenül lelassul a növekedés, és strukturálisan magas lesz a munkanélküliség.”

Az előrehaladást az unió öt kiemelt célkitűzés megvalósulása alapján értékeli majd, és a tagállamok feladata lesz, hogy ezeket a célkitűzéseket lebontsák a kiindulási helyzetet is tükröző, nemzeti szintű célokra. Az öt kiemelt uniós célkitűzés a következő:

• A 20–64 évesek körében legalább 75 százalékra kell emelni a foglalkoztatás szintjét.
• Az uniós GDP 3 %-át kutatásra és fejlesztésre kell fordítani.
• Teljesíteni kell a „20/20/20” éghajlat-változási/energiaügyi célkitűzéseket.
• Az iskolából kimaradók arányát 10% alá kell csökkenteni, és el kell érni, hogy az ifjabb generáció legalább 40 százaléka rendelkezzen felsőoktatási oklevéllel.
• 20 millióval csökkenteni kell a szegénység kockázatának kitett lakosok számát.

A Bizottság e célok elérése érdekében javasolja az Európa 2020 programot, amely néhány, az alábbiakban felsorolt, kiemelt kezdeményezés köré szervezi a feladatokat. Közös prioritásunk, hogy ezek a kezdeményezések megvalósuljanak, ezért az uniós szintű szervezeteknek, a tagállamoknak, a helyi és regionális hatóságoknak egyaránt cselekedniük kell.

1. Innovatív Unió – a kutatás-fejlesztési és az innovációs politikát a főbb kihívásokra kell koncentrálni, és elő kell segíteni, hogy a tudományos eredményekből mielőbb piacra dobható termékek szülessenek. A közösségi szabadalom eredményeként például a vállalkozások minden évben 289 millió eurót takaríthatnának meg.
2. Mozgásban az ifjúság – a diákok és a fiatal szakemberek mobilitásának ösztönzésével növelni kell az európai felsőoktatás minőségét és nemzetközi vonzerejét. Ide tartozó konkrét feladat, hogy a tagállamokban megnyíló lehetőségeket Európa-szerte hozzáférhetőbbé kell tenni, és megfelelően el kell ismerni a szakmai képesítéseket és tapasztalatot.
3. Európai digitális menetrend – a nagysebességű internetre épülő egységes digitális egységes piac révén fenntartható gazdasági és társadalmi előnyöket kell teremteni. 2013-ra minden európai számára elérhetővé kell tenni a nagysebességű internetet.
4. Erőforrás-hatékony Európa – támogatni kell az elmozdulást az erőforrás-hatékony és alacsony szén-dioxid-kibocsátású gazdaság felé. Tartani kell a 2020-ra kitűzött célokat az energiatermelés, -hatékonyság és -fogyasztás tekintetében. Ennek eredményeként 2020-ra 60 milliárd euróval csökkenthet a kőolaj- és földgázimport költsége.
5. Környezetbarát iparpolitika – az Unió háttériparát segíteni kell abban, hogy a válságot követő világban is versenyképes legyen, ösztönözni kell a vállalkozási kedvet és az új készségek elsajátítását. Ennek nyomán több millió új munkahely jöhet létre.
6. Új készségek és munkahelyek menetrendje – meg kell teremteni a munkaerőpiac modernizálásának feltételeit, hogy növekedhessen a foglalkoztatás és biztosítani lehessen társadalmi modelljeink fenntarthatóságát a háború után született nemzedék nyugdíjba vonulását követően is.
7. Szegénység elleni európai platform – biztosítani kell a gazdasági, társadalmi és területi kohéziót azáltal, hogy segítjük a szegénységben és társadalmi kirekesztettségben élőket, és képessé tesszük őket arra, hogy aktív társadalmi szerepet játsszanak.

Az Európa 2020 által megfogalmazott törekvések megvalósítása az eddiginél magasabb szintű irányítást és elszámoltathatóságot kíván. A Bizottság felkéri a tagállamok állam- és kormányfőit, hogy vállaljanak felelősséget az új stratégia megvalósításáért, és a stratégiát hagyják jóvá az Európai Tanács tavaszi ülésén.

A Bizottság folyamatosan nyomon követi az elért haladást. A nagyobb koherencia érdekében az Európa 2020, illetve a Stabilitási és Növekedési Paktum esetében egyidejűleg folyik majd a jelentéstétel és az értékelés; ezáltal lehetővé válik, hogy e két stratégia hasonló reformtörekvéseket próbáljon megvalósítani, miközben továbbra is külön eszközökként működnek majd.

Euvonal

Commission welcomes fresh Greek austerity measures

The European Commission has said Greece's budget deficit plans are now on track, following the Greek government's announcement on Wednesday (3 March) of fresh austerity measures worth €4.8 billion.

Athens presented its budgetary plan - known as a 'stability programme' - to the commission in January, in which it pledged to reduce its budget deficit by four percent of GDP in 2010. After a three-hour cabinet meeting on Wednesday morning, Greek government spokesman Giorgos Petalotis said the agreed new measures amounted to €4.8 billion, split between €2.4 billion in new revenues and €2.4 billion in spending cuts.

• They include a dramatic 30 percent cut in the holiday bonuses of Greek civil servants.
• The plans also include a 12 percent cut on other civil servant bonuses, a freeze on all pensions, a 2 percent rise in the VAT rate to 21 percent and a 20 percent increase in the tax on alcohol and tobacco, as well as an 8 cent-a-litre increase in the price of petrol.
• There are also plans for a tax rise on luxury goods such as expensive cars.

In return for the fresh austerity measures, Greece is hoping for greater details of a bailout plan to be made public, a step which Athens argues will bring down its borrowing costs. Euro area states have so far resisted however. Greek hopes have recently centered on a meeting between Mr Papandreou and German chancellor Angela Merkel this Friday, but a German official said on Wednesday that Berlin would not offer financial aid to Greece at the meeting.

Euobserver

China officially tops Germany as world's No.1 exporter

Official data released from Germany on Tuesday (9 February) confirmed that China has stripped Europe's largest economy of its top exporter title. Data released by the German Federal Statistics Office showed the country's exports fell by 18.4 percent in 2009 when compared to the previous year, hitting a dollar equivalent of $1.121 trillion. China's exports for 2009 totaled $1.202 trillion.

Despite the drop, which represents the greatest year-on-year decline for Germany since 1950, the news of China's takeover was not greeted with great alarm by German economists.

"This is something that was expected. Everyone agrees that China's currency is undervalued, but still it was only a matter of time," Gernot Nerb, head of the industry department with the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich, told this website.

The official figures also showed a strong export recovery in the fourth quarter of the year, helping to pull Germany out of its recession and providing a silver lining to the more gloomy annual data. With more than 60 percent of Germany's exports going to other EU countries, concerns have been raised that the bloc's forecast low rates of growth in the coming years could prose a problem for Germany's export model.

"There is some concern but we are mainly exporting investment goods, and you can not postpone investment for ever," said Mr Nerb, conceding that investment levels will probably not pick up before 2011-12 however. A breakdown of the German figures shows exports to the EU were down 19.1 percent year-on-year, with sales to faster-growing regions of Asia and South America faring little better and falling 17.1 percent. German imports also declined rapidly in 2009 as result of the financial crisis, dropping fell by 17.2 percent.

Euobserver

Greece gets three years to solve budget woes

While Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou went on national television to dramatize his country’s failing economic state because of out-of-control debt – a dilemma he said requires 10% cuts in public workers wages and higher taxes – the European Union said it would give Greece until the end of 2012 to regain control of its finances.

The drama mounted both in Athens, where public workers said they would take to the streets in protest, and in Brussels, where the European Commission said it would not take immediate punitive action although Greece’s near 13% deficit is more than four times the EU’s ceiling of 3% for countries using the euro as their currency. But the EU said it would monitor Papandreou’s near-Draconian austerity program and step in if Greece failed to meet regular benchmarks because the crisis has threatened the stability of the euro.

Under pressure from the EU to get its fiscal house in order, Papandreou said a public sector pay freeze and fuel duty increases were essential, because the economic crisis was threatening the country with disaster. “I want to be honest. We are making a national effort to stop the country from falling off the cliff,” Papandreou said in his TV address, which drew instant anger from many Greeks who blame the government, including past administrations, for lying to the EU about its financial condition, which has necessitated the wage cuts and tax hikes that would cut deep in a country where the minimum wage is only 700 euros monthly and where many Greeks are under a tsunami of debt to banks who got 28 billion euros in state aid but have refused to lend to consumers. Papandreou made a plea for understanding and cooperation. “Every citizen should be prepared to fight to protect the economy,” he said, but when the question of wage cuts was raised previously, members of the Greek Parliament, who make more than 7,000 euros a month, said they didn’t want to take pay reductions while workers would.

The move came as the European Commission set out the most detailed monitoring system it has ever imposed on a Eurozone country, effectively taking control of sweeping aspects of the Greek budget. “This is a very tough system of monitoring, but the confidence about the success of the program ... is directly linked with the political support that the Greek authorities will receive” from Greek society and the EU, Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told journalists in Brussels.

The Commission “will monitor the execution of the budget and of the reforms very closely and regularly,” he said. The Commission threw its full weight behind a detailed Greek plan aimed at bringing the government’s debt back under control and restoring its vanished credibility by slashing spending and increasing tax revenues. That effectively binds the Greek government to measures such as freezing public-sector wages, stopping new hiring in 2010 and boosting excise on tobacco and alcohol sales, since the EU’s executive will step in if they are not implemented. “Every time we observe slippages, we will ask the Greek authorities to adopt additional measures,” Almunia warned.
The euro, the EU’s flagship currency, has taken a battering in recent months following the revelation that the last Greek government - voted out of office in October - had massively understated its budget deficit when it said it was 3.5%. Immediately after the election, the new socialist government revealed that the real figure for 2009 was 12.7%, provoking outrage across the EU, with some states accusing the Greeks of fraud.

Money markets also responded with dismay. Over the last two months, the euro has lost some 8% of its value against the dollar - largely thanks to concerns over Greece and fears that other euro states, such as Portugal, could also face budget problems. Greece and Portugal “share some common problems,” such as falling competitiveness and high external financing debts, Almunia admitted.

Almunia welcomed that move, rejecting suggestions that Greece might have to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund and saying that the EU was strong enough to tackle the problem alone. “I am fully convinced that the EU and the euro-area countries and system have instruments enough to cope with this challenge, to deal with this issue, to solve these problems, and it’s what we are doing,” he said.

Almunia also said that the next Commission - expected to take office later this month - would propose laws to give its statistical branch, Eurostat, the power to audit national accounts. EU member states rejected an earlier proposal to that effect in 2005. “If Eurostat had received audit powers during the previous years, it is possible that the present statistical problems would not have occurred,” Almunia said.

New Europe

Európa leértékelődik

Az EP jóváhagyta az új Európai Bizottságot

Az Európai Parlament mai ülésnapján (2010. február 9.) Strasbourgban 488 igen, 137 nem szavazat, és 72 tartózkodás mellett jóváhagyta a José Manuel Barroso vezette 27 tagú új Európai Bizottságot.

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Link: The new Commission

Elmarad az EU-USA csúcs

Az Egyesült Államok Külügyminisztériumának szóvivője többek között a Lisszaboni Szerződés ellentmondásosságára hivatkozott, mikor bejelentette, hogy Barack Obama elnök nem jön el a májusra tervezett EU-USA csúcsra Madridba.

Philip J. Crowley szerint a szerződés ellentmondásos abból a szempontból, hogy nem egyértelmű, hogy kivel és mikor kellene találkoznia az Egyesült Államok elnökének az unió részéről. A szóvivő szerint a jelenlegi új struktúrában a Tanács félévente rotálódó elnöksége mellett az Európai Tanácsnak is van már egy állandó elnöke, mely igaz a Bizottságra is, és számukra is kérdéses, hogy a majdani csúcstalálkozókat az EU részéről ki és hol fogja megtartani.

A hír nyomán számtalan cikk jelent meg a nemzetközi sajtóban arról, hogy ez a lépés egyértelmű jele annak, hogy Európa leértékelődött az Egyesült Államok számára. Az El Mundo című spanyol napilap kedden arról írt amerikai forrásokra hivatkozva, hogy a legutóbbi, tavaly novemberben tartott csúcstalálkozó „elvette Obama kedvét attól, hogy részt vegyen egy újabb ilyen találkozón májusban”. Az El País szerint Obama „hátat fordít Európának”. A napilap azt írta, hogy Obama a novemberi lisszaboni NATO-csúcstalálkozóval egyidejűleg szeretne sort keríteni az EU-USA-találkozóra. (Euvonal)

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Why Obama won't bother to attend the EU summit?

Months after the European Union ratifies a treaty aimed at increasing its clout in the world, President Barack Obama's decides not to travel to a summit with EU leaders in Spain because he has more important things to do. Predictably, the decision is interpreted in Europe as a snub for the Spanish government of Jose Luis Zapatero and also for the EU, still recovering from the failure of its efforts to lead by example at the Copenhagen climate talks.

Indeed, the decision reinforced a developing narrative within Europe that was one of the themes of last week's meeting in Davos. With the rise of China, and to a lesser extent economies such as India and Brazil, Europe is less of a player than it was on the world stage. Add this to Europe's current economic travails—sovereign debt problems within the euro zone, feeble economic growth and badly-wounded banking systems—and the outlook is a testing one for Euro-optimists.

Unsurprisingly, Washington did its best to protest that Europe was still at the top of its agenda. Philip Gordon, the senior State Department official responsible for European affairs, said in an interview that the decision of the president not to come is "not a slight; nor is it a cancellation."

...

He said the decision was no reflection on the U.S.'s bilateral relationship with Spain, which had improved significantly since Mr. Zapatero, directly after he was elected in 2004, withdrew all Spanish troops from Iraq and earned the enmity of President George W. Bush. "I think we have really turned the corner on a problematic relationship during the Bush administration," Mr. Gordon said.

Neither was it a commentary on the importance of the U.S. relationship to Europe. He echoed comments from his boss Hillary Clinton, who addressed head-on in a speech last week "concern that the Obama administration is so focused on foreign policy challenges elsewhere in the world that Europe has receded in our list of priorities." "European security remains an anchor of U.S. foreign and security policy," she said.

Mr. Gordon denied suggestions in Europe that the administration had been disappointed by the support given to Mr. Obama's plan to pour 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan – to which European governments have added a further 9,000. "I think we were quite pleased with the response to the president's speech on Afghanistan," he said. Despite these protestations, many Europeans think the EU and its member governments would be unwise to ignore the message from Mr. Obama's non-cancellation.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, said this president does not have the attachment to the old continent of many of his predecessors. "Obama is very unemotional about the E.U.," he said.

The key to getting him to attend E.U. summits is to provide practical solutions to problems. "He's not going to take the E.U. seriously unless the E.U. delivers," he said.

Mr. Grant's point is reinforced by what, according to many European press reports, was European squabbling ahead of the Madrid meeting over transcendental questions such as who was going to sit next to Mr. and Mrs. Obama at the summit dinner, who would shake Mr. Obama's hand first (Mr. Zapatero) and who would sit to his right (Herman Van Rompuy, new president of the European Council).

The Wall Street Journal

EU report slams Greece over false statistics

A report published by the European Commission on Tuesday (12 January) has condemned Greece for falsifying its data on public finances. Written up at the behest of EU finance ministers, the document talks of "deliberate misreporting of figures by the Greek authorities in 2009."

The country's newly elected Socialist government upwardly revised its 2009 deficit forecast last October from 3.7 to 12.5 percent, a considerable change that prompted credit rating downgrades and outrage in other EU member states.

The document continues that the Greek data is so unreliable that actual debt and deficit figures could be even higher than the revised forecast. In a damning paragraph, the commission says: "poor co-operation and lack of clear responsibilities between several Greek institutions and services  ...ambiguous empowerment of officials, absence of written instruction and documentation, which leave the quality of fiscal statistics subject to political pressures and electoral cycles".

Some analysts say the country's debt level, currently at 113 percent of gross domestic product and set to rise further, poses a major problem for Athens and could threaten the stability of the euro due to spillover effects into other member countries and market jitters.

EU governments have asked the commission to put forward a list of measures to help the embattled administration tackle the issue, with the handover likely to happen in the coming days. Greece is then expected to report back to the commission by the end of the month with a list of actions it plans to take.

Euobserver

EU in cold as climate deal redefines relations

It could go down in history as the moment that defined the new, multipolar world.

At 7pm on the final evening of the Copenhagen climate conference, Barack Obama, the US president, walked into an unscheduled meeting with Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, and the leaders of India, Brazil and South Africa. “Mr Premier, are you ready to see me? Are you ready?” asked Mr Obama.

During the next two hours, the five leaders and their advisers ended two weeks of diplomatic deadlock by thrashing out a tentative deal on global warming that became known as the Copenhagen Accord. Conspicuously absent from the room was the European Union and Japan. America’s two main postwar allies were left on the sidelines as Mr Obama cut a deal with China and other emerging economies.

“We’ve been taught some lessons about the realities of the so-called multipolar world,” Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, said. “These lessons will have to be taken into account when we go for a more comprehensive global agreement.”

Until the US-brokered compromise, the conference had been characterised by stalemate and bickering between rich countries and the big emerging economies, with neither bloc dominant nor united enough to prevail. Poorer countries, meanwhile, revelled in their role as swing voters between the rival powers.

Writing in the FT, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, senior director for policy and programmes at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, said the climate conference heralded an “age of transition” in international relations. “Decisive action is inhibited as the power structures of a new world order are only just emerging and thus produce insecurities about where power rests,” he said. “Copenhagen was multipolarity as chaos.”

The EU had hoped to use its much-trumpeted pledge to deepen emissions cuts as a bargaining chip to coax the US and China into stronger action. Instead, Mr Obama brushed aside EU demands and forged a non-binding deal that José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, derided for its “commitment to the lowest common denominator”.

Some might argue it was a telling indictment of Europe’s failure in Copenhagen that, when Mr Barroso announced the EU’s grudging backing for the accord on the final night of the conference, some journalists in the front row slept through the whole event.

“Europe is the big loser from Copenhagen,” wrote Mr Brockhoff. “Climate has been the one issue where Europe has led the world. In the end, the continent was too weak to succeed when it counted.”

Financial Times

Serbia Files EU Application

Serbia filed its application to join the European Union, clearing the latest in a line of hurdles that may still delay its accession for years as it seeks to erase a reputation tarnished by the civil wars of the 1990s.

The Balkan nation may not find it easy to become a member of the EU, which expanded eastward by embracing 12 mainly post- communist members since 2004. Croatia, which has worked on its application for several years, has concluded talks in just 17 of 35 policy areas and may take another two years or more to wrap up entry.

Serbia has struggled to rebuild its reputation and economy following the wars that broke out during the fissure of Yugoslavia. Before it can complete membership talks, it needs to arrest and extradite Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb wartime commander, to the UN war crimes court in the Netherlands to stand trial for genocide during the 1992-1995 war and the 1995 killing of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica.

“There is a certain fatigue on the extension of the EU that you can feel,” said Mark Almond, a history lecturer at Oxford University’s Oriel College. The EU will move at a slower pace as it digests future members, especially those from the east, he said. The bloc will probably be “stricter” in applying membership criteria to Serbia and it will be “very easy for the EU to say when talks get tricky that you didn’t catch Mladic yet,” Almond said.

Bloomberg

Europe's Trade Surplus Spikes

Europe's October trade surplus exploded higher in October, hitting $8.3 billion. Note this was even before the Euro really started to crash against the dollar. Still, Europe's trade surplus says more about the continent's inability to consume imports, rather than a ability to trade right now. Exports fell less than imports, yet both fell.

Unadjusted exports fell 17 percent year-on-year in October while imports dropped 24 percent, the European Union's statistics office said. Adjusted for seasonal swings, the surplus was 6.3 billion euros, up from 4.3 billion in September as exports eased 0.2 percent month-on-month while imports fell 2.2 percent on the month.

December's dollar rally means the Euro Area's trade surplus could keep widening.

Businessinsider

EU opens borders to Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia

The European Union on Saturday opened its borders unrestricted to more than ten million Serbs, Montenegrins and Macedonians after nearly 20 years, a major boost for the troubled region's hopes for closer ties with the 27-nation bloc. The three western Balkan nations celebrated the lifting of visas with fireworks, concerts and all-night festivities, marking a significant milestone for citizens who have long felt shunned by the rest of Europe.
Link

Eurozone industrial production down in October: EU

Industrial production across the 16 eurozone countries declined sharply in October, ending five months of expanding output, official statistics showed on Monday. Industrial production across the eurozone fell by 0.6 percent in October, after a rise of 0.2 percent in September, and fell by 11.1 percent on an annual basis, according to the European Union's Eurostat agency.

Detailed figures compared to one year earlier showed heavy falls across the board, with energy production down by 6.8 percent and production of durable consumer goods like fridges and televisions down by 14.9 percent and capital goods collapsing by 16.3 percent.

More than one million fewer people were classed as working across the European Union in the third quarter of 2009 compared to the previous three-month period, Brussels said on Monday. Added Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight: "The disappointing relapse... is a reminder that the eurozone still faces a difficult economic environment and a tough job to develop healthy, sustainable recovery.

"This reinforces belief that the European Central Bank should only gradually withdraw its emergency liquidity measures and keep interest rates down at 1.00 percent until deep into 2010, particularly as underlying inflationary pressures currently remain muted."

AFP

Az uniós csúcs mérlege

Az ülés résztvevői üdvözölték az unió intézményrendszerét és működését korszerűsítő Lisszaboni Szerződés hatályba lépését, és fontosnak mondták a szerződésben foglaltak gyors gyakorlatba ültetését. Ennek megfelelően a következő hónapok során meg kell születniük az uniós külügyi szolgálattal, az Európai Parlamentre vonatkozó változtatásokkal, valamint a polgárok kezdeményezési jogának gyakorlatba ültetésével összefüggő szabályoknak - emelte ki a zárónyilatkozat.

A korszerűsített intézményrendszer teljes körű működésének megteremtése – a személyi döntések múlt hónapi megszületését követően – elsősorban a következő három félév uniós elnökségére, Spanyolországra, Belgiumra és Magyarországra vár.

A mostani találkozón a 27 tagország három évre (2010-2012) szólóan összesen 7,2 milliárd (évente 2,5 milliárd) euró támogatást ajánlott fel a fejlődő országok klímaváltozás elleni harcához. Valamennyi tagállam tett felajánlást: mint Bajnai Gordon miniszterelnök bejelentette, Magyarország összesen hatmillió euróval járul hozzá ehhez a törekvéshez.

Az elnöklő Fredrik Reinfeldt svéd kormányfő kifejtette, hogy az unió fenntartja azt a vállalását is, miszerint kész 2020-ra 30 százalékkal csökkenteni károsanyag-kibocsátását az 1990-es bázisévhez képest. Ennek azonban feltétele, hogy más nemzetközi szereplők hasonlóan ambiciózus vállalásokat tegyenek – ellenkező esetben az uniós kötelezettség csak 20 százalékot tesz ki.

A tagállamok vezetői elfogadták a szabadságjogokat és biztonsági kérdéseket a következő öt évre vonatkozóan összefogó, úgynevezett Stockholmi Programot, amely egyebek közt arról is szól, hogy folytatódik a belső határellenőrzéstől mentes schengeni övezet bővítése. Bajnai Gordon ezzel kapcsolatban elmondta, hogy román részről a schengeni övezethez való csatlakozás céldátuma 2011 tavasza, mely épp a magyar elnökség idejére esik.

Az ülés utáni nyilatkozatokból kiderült, hogy az uniós tagországok támogatnák a pénzügyi tranzakciók nemzetközi méretű adóztatását az újabb válságok elkerülésének érdekében. Zárónyilatkozatukban a vezetők ilyen értelmű felszólítást intéztek a Nemzetközi Valutaalaphoz (IMF).

Euvonal

Van Rompuy plans shake-up of EU summits

The new EU president, Herman Van Rompuy, is planning to shake up the regular gatherings of EU leaders to make them less formulaic so that they result in decisions that have immediate relevancy. The summits, which take place at least four times a year in Brussels, will have their attendance streamlined and will produce conclusions which are "operative" and contain a message which is "readable and visible" for the European public.

Until now, summits have been numerically weighty affairs - involving over 50 people including foreign ministers, and often resulting in impenetrable conclusions the length of a short novel. This is partly due to the fact that the post-meeting statements are carefully pre-written by ambassadors before being passed up the political food chain and partly as a result of the EU increasingly feeling obliged to take note or react to certain political situations beyond its borders as a matter of rote. Speaking about future meetings of EU leaders, which he will start to chair from 2010, Mr Van Rompuy on Thursday evening (10 December) said: "We have to constitute a group, a club, that gets on, that works for the same cause, namely the European Union."

He emphasized that the European Council's principle members are the heads of state and government, calling them the "hard core." Other ministers - such as those in charge of foreign affairs or finance - may attend from "time to time" depending on the agenda.

Meetings will also take place more frequently and result in more political decisions, according to the former Belgian prime minister, known and chosen for his low-key style.

He said the main focus of his two and half year tenure would be the economic situation, suggesting that if the continent wants to hold on to the "European way of life" it has to grow by 2 percent, double the official projections for the EU's battered economy. Mr Van Rompuy intends to hold informal and formal meetings over the coming months so that in half a year's time, the bloc has a "good strategy" for tackling the crisis, which has resulted in soaring unemployment and public debt in several member states. The first informal meeting has been called for February, just ahead of the traditional Spring summit, where governments will try and agree a long term economic plan to bring the union to 2020.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Mr Van Rompuy's address to EU leaders on Thursday evening was an "insightful contribution." Both he and his German counterpart welcomed the fact that the new president will be able to take part in all EU ministerial meetings, giving him an oversight across all policy areas.In addition, several EU leaders welcomed the new slimmed-down format of the meeting, with foreign ministers not invited to take part in this week's two-day summit, the first under the EU's new Lisbon Treaty. It means they can sit around one table and not have to watch each other's interventions on a TV screen, a more relaxed set-up seen as conducive to more fluid discussions.

Euobserver

Ljubljanában lesz az új energiaügyi ügynökség székhelye

A tagállamok megállapodtak arról, hogy a 2011-ben felálló Európai Energiaszabályozói Együttműködési Ügynökségnek a szlovén fővárosban lesz a székhelye (ACER).

Euvonal

Máltán lesz az unió menekültügyi hivatala

Az igazságügyi miniszterek megállapodása értelmében Máltán lesz a székhelye az unió első menekültügyi ügynökségének. Az új intézmény célja, hogy koordinálja és erősítse a tagállamok közötti menekültügyi együttműködést.

Euvonal

Lisbon Treaty comes into force

The European Union's first president Herman Van Rompuy and its new foreign affairs chief took office Tuesday, as the Lisbon Treaty came into force amid concerns at such low-profile leaders for Europe.

Detractors have voiced doubts over whether Van Rompuy and foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, a British peer and formerly EU trade commissioner, were the dream ticket to lead Europe and stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the United States and China. But speaking at a ceremony in the Portuguese capital, the former Belgian prime minister promised a new era for the 27-member bloc. "We are leading today a new phase in the construction of Europe," he said.

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The Lisbon Treaty has come into force and EU leaders travelled to the Portuguese capital for a ceremony to mark the occasion.

The main goal of the treaty is to reform how the EU functions, including voting rights, now it has been expanded to 27 members.

Talks on reforming European institutions began in 2001 but it has been a difficult process trying to get all member states to agree to the details. All EU countries had to ratify the text before it could be adopted, and the Czech Republic was the last country to do that.

The treaty created a permanent “president” and foreign affairs “chief”. Critics, however, fear a loss of national power to Brussels and there has been a big debate on whether the EU is democratic enough.

AFP-Euronews