At a very crucial and difficult time for the EU, irregular migration flows are increasing rapidly and forcing political debates over the functioning and the effectiveness of the Schengen area. Today's almost unanimous positive vote (51 for, 3 against, 2 abstentions) on the Report on the Amendment of the Schengen Borders Code in Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, gives a crystal clear message that MEPs want to protect and further empower the Schengen area. The Schengen area is one of Europe's greatest achievements. It ensures the free movement of EU citizens by eliminating border checks carried out on people, thus enhancing the notion of solidarity and common European identity, and promoting better economic results and growth. By updating the rules and legal developments that have taken place since the establishment of Regulation 562/2006, and since the coming-into-force of the Lisbon Treaty, the current amended proposal takes into consideration legal and practical experiences gained over time from the Member States through the application of the Schengen Borders Code. MEPs regard the notion of the removal of controls at the internal borders between Members States as vital and goes hand in hand with the need for effective controls, deeper cooperation and mutual trust at the external borders of the Schengen area. In this context, the adopted amendments improve the existing frame and on the other hand strengthen the external borders which will also strengthen solidarity amongst the Member States by also providing further economic development.GERMANY TODAY - National airline Lufthansa said it had scrapped more than 400 flights scheduled for Tuesday, mostly at Germany's biggest airport, Frankfurt. The walkout is part of wider industrial action by public sector employees ahead of further talks due later this week. Service workers' union Verdi is demanding a 6.5% pay rise for its two million members. About a third of flights were cancelled at Frankfurt, a spokesman said. Munich, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Cologne-Bonn and Hannover are also among the airports affected. In earlier talks, the union rejected an offer of a 3.3% pay increase over 24 months from public sector employers. Further negotiations are scheduled to start on Wednesday. The union says public sector workers are undervalued, and that their pay has been squeezed by national and local governments trying to keep spending down.
8 comments:
Ok everyone we have a Debt crisis as there is too much debt in the system that can never be paid off.
Our plan to resolve this crisis of too much debt is too increase the debt by another trillion, who's with me.
Nothing but can kicking
-------
Insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
You people need to update your economic reference books.
I bet you all still have pre-2009 versions where what you are saying was also commonly held economic 'science' belief.
After 2009 it was found to be too inconvenient to keep all those principles, so they threw them away and rewrote it all so that it fitted what they needed.
Fuck it, print E2trn, it won't affect inflation or pay settlements in any way as they have been disconnected.
And if it does affect inflation, the legally binding targets are just guidelines to work within, +10% margin is fine.
What you can be sure is all that 'free money', to quote a trader on BBC news yesterday, will give The City Boys a giant stiffy, rise commodity prices and probably also aid housing speculation.
What better way to get The Free Market delivering other than creating debt, which doesn't actually exist, for a small minority to speculate and profit on at the expense of the majority of the world's population?
And there is the small fact that they can't allow or accept their system doesn't work, that is quite patently wrong it just needs endless amounts of Central Bank cash to oil the broken as a bastard mechanism.
Sounds sustainable to me.
That advice is hardly from the stand point of free trade, basically it calls for a lot of financiers who screwed up to get a get out of jail free card. In reality a lot of banks, bankers, financiers, and wealthy folks should have lost a lot of money, if not gone bankrupt, but were bailed out by governments and central banks. Well as KeiserCelente implied it hasn't worked, and there is no reason to believe it will again. Perhaps this policy is only being followed to protect the wealthy financiers, who by underhand means have subverted our so called democracies into doing so.
I think I'll just outline the guarantees the german state has, at the current level of firewall. (my translation, from a report at SZ)
The EFSF is equipped with sums of € 440 Billion, of which nearl €200 billion is already planned for Greece, Ireland, Portugal. These sums would continue, instead of being replaced by the ESM. The rest of the EFSF funds would expire.
Of the existing guarantees by german to the tune of €211 billion there therefore remain €90 billion. In addition there would come €168 billion of new ESM Guarantees as well as the german contribution to the ESM capital of €22 billion. In total Germany would be facing a total guarantee of €280 billion euros. This sum is about the same as the federal budget for 2012. The Bundestag enacted last autumn, that the liability of germany should be limited to €211 billion.
Under discussion is a further variant. This foresees that the unused EFSF billions would be used, and would not expire. In this case the firewall would rise to €940 billion, germany's risk would rise to €400 billion. This variant is completely rejected by the Federal Republic.
Wow. Lol. If they don't stop pandering to big business and big money or BBBM or Triple-BM, which includes the 1%, and start actually helping the devastated people, the devastated people, in their righteous wrath, may make complete non-sense of the OECD, the EU, the ECB, the IMF, etc. overnight. Just saying.
And just to pick out that one sentence:
This sum is about the same as the federal budget for 2012.
That's what germany is on the hook for, if this goes wrong. It's already perilously close to the level of liability the irish government piled on their electorate with their bank guarantee in 2008.
Which is why they finally needed a bailout for. Otherwise, there only problem was a housing bubble.
And the head of the OECD thinks we can take on more?
As butterballs said. He can get f*cked, if all he can do is socialise the losses of politicians and capitalists. And yes, I am in favour of the bailouts, so far. But only sustainably.
US central bankers continue to look nervously across the pond. But today a top official from the US Federal Reserve said the euro zone seemed to be coming to grips with its debt crisis and the Fed probably does not need to take any further action to avoid catching Europe's cold.
William Dudley, president of the New York Federal Reserve bank said liquidity concerns were easing and funding costs for governments throughout Europe had declined.
A poll conducted by Kapa reseach for the authoritative Sunday Vima (Tribune) showed an unprecedented 59.4% of those polled favouring a coalition government – compared to 29.2% who believed a single party government would be better, says Helena Smith in Athens.
Various surveys have shown that, despite the stinging austerity that Greeks have been forced to accept, the vast majority are against dumping the euro for the drachma. In response to TheThistle's query in the comments below, Helena says it was not the Kapa poll that found 76% of Greeks want to stay in the Euro, but she is looking to find out which.
While the majority of Greeks want to keep the euro, Helena reports that leftists in Greece increasingly believe that the debt-stricken country must leave the single currency to survive.
Post a Comment