European governments are wrestling with the prospect of a fresh bailout for Greece a year after they committed €110bn (£125bn) to Athens, under pressure from Washington and Beijing to calm the markets and stabilise the euro. The meeting of the 17 finance ministers of the eurozone was overshadowed by the absence of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the International Monetary Fund and French presidential hopeful, who is facing sexual assault charges in New York. Strauss-Kahn has been a key player in the Greek drama and had been due to attend the first-night dinner in Brussels. The ministers – along with the 10 EU finance ministers from outside the single currency, including chancellor George Osborne – agreed on a €78bn bailout for Portugal, the third rescue of a eurozone country in a year. They also signed off on the permanent eurozone bailout fund, the European stability mechanism, which is to shore up the currency from 2013. They were expected to agree that Mario Draghi of Italy be appointed the next head of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. With governments reeling from French socialist Strauss-Kahn's arrest on charges of attempted rape, the meeting in Brussels was also the first chance for ministers to discuss who would be the next head of the IMF in Washington; the post is traditionally held by a European. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was the first to say that Europe should retain its prerogative over the post, amid calls that it was time the IMF job went to someone from the emerging economies. "We know that in the mid-term, developing countries have a right to the post of IMF chief and the post of World Bank chief," she said. "I think that in the current situation, when we have a lot of discussions about the euro, that Europe has good candidates to offer."

Greece's Prime Minister has hit out at fellow European nations for demanding "islands or monuments" as security for bailout loans ahead of a gathering of European finance ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss the country's ailing finances. Despite the conviction in financial markets that Greece's debts are unsustainable and will ultimately have to be restructured, eurozone ministers appear determined to top up last year's €110bn (£96bn) rescue package while forcing the beleaguered country into an ever tighter fiscal squeeze. Prime minister George Papandreou gave a hint on Saturday of his frustration over the terms being discussed by creditor nations, which include Germany and France, by suggesting that they might demand a mortgage over Greece's historic antiquities – or even a lien over some of the country's Aegean islands. "I want to add one thing on which we are very sensitive: to ask us for an island or a monument as a guarantee is nearly an insult," Papandreou told Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper. "The people expect our word and our actions are a sufficient guarantee." Athens has announced a list of state assets, from airports to motorways, that will be sold off to raise €50bn over four years, but there are concerns that the process has stalled. The country will come under pressure to step up austerity measures in exchange for a fresh bailout at Monday's meeting.

Papandreou States: “There is No Going Back on the Euro for EU” - The Greek debt is manageable without restructuring, Prime Minister George Papandreou stressed in Oslo on Friday. Addressing the Progressive Governance Conference themed “A Post-Crisis Agenda for the Centre -Left: Securing Shared Prosperity”, organised by the think tank Policy Network, Papandreou added that: “We have decided to remain and to safeguard the Euro”.
Papandreou outlined a series of measures being implemented by the Greek government, such as the opening of so-called closed-shop professions, and changes to taxation and the social security system. As a result, he is expecting a 5 percent decrease of the deficit annually and an increase in exports. He further pointed out the positive signs in the tourism sector, while regarding the manageability of the debt he cited a relevant appraisal by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “The Greek drama has become a European drama,” the Premier said, adding that in the midst of the crisis the European identity, European solidarity and crisis management ability were being put to the test.

The new accounting law, modified through a government emergency ordinance, for the first time makes a clear distinction between organising and keeping the books, versus doing more advanced reporting (an accountant's job) and signing for it. The Romanian accounting system takes one more step towards deregulation, which brings it closer to the Anglo-Saxon school, says Marin Toma, chairman of the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania (CECCAR), who has been running one of the most important and stable bodies in Romania for the last 18 years. Companies with turnover or overall assets worth under 35,000 euros, which will hire based on a contract or on a service agreement graduates of economic faculties to keep the books, risk a lot, because these graduates will be responsible not only for keeping the books, but also for putting together the accounting records and signing for them. "As an entrepreneur, you have to be really adventurous to accept something like that. I would separate the two processes (organising and keeping the books, and doing accounting and signing for it) because the risk is quite significant. At big companies, only those who have the right to sign can be held accountable. For instance, for a fictitious invoice introduced in the cost category, both the entrepreneur and the graduate of an economics faculty are held to account, it is considered a crime," Toma says. A novelty that the accounting law brings is that these graduates of economics faculties will be able to organize, keep the books, as well as do accounting and sign financial statements

The eurozone's first ever bailout of a debt-laden member country is failing and will need to be renegotiated exactly a year after the €110bn (£96bn) rescue package was agreed for Greece. Following secret talks in Luxembourg on Friday between Athens and some of the key EU players, it emerged that Greece will not be able to meet the terms of last year's rescue and is hoping to ask the eurozone for more funds. As Britain made clear it did not want to offer any more support for Greece as part of an EU package or a bilateral loan, investors remain unconvinced of the ability of Athens to sustain its €340bn debt load. Signalling that his government will struggle to finance itself on the bond markets by next year – which was part of the deal struck with the eurozone and the IMF – the Greek finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, said: "We will either go out to markets or use the recent decision by the EU that allows the European fund to buy Greek bonds. The markets continue to disbelieve in our country." His trip to Luxembourg had been kept so quiet in Athens that only the prime minister, George Papandreou, knew about the discussions, which were led by Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister and president of the group uniting the 17 countries using the single currency. Juncker confirmed that the Greek bailout would need to be renegotiated amid alarmist reports that the country was contemplating reintroducing the drachma. After the talks – attended by the finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Spain as well as Olli Rehn, European monetary affairs commissioner – Juncker said the Greek package needed a "readjustment". Haggling over a new Greek deal is set to dominate the weeks ahead.

The NBR is no longer thinking favourably about leu's strengthening further, after the exchange rate has slid by around 4% since the start of the year. The rising leu is attracting portfolio investors, going into speculative bubbles, and foreign currency lending, says NBR governor Mugur Isărescu. "Allowing the domestic currency to go up to dampen imported inflation can attract rising portfolio investments. More portfolio investments can lead to rising asset prices. Putting up with leu appreciation to help inflation may not be possible in terms of risks generated at the level of private sector balance sheets," Isărescu told the students of "Transilvania" University of Braşov at the end of last week. The NBR is facing a dilemma again, in the context where inflation seems to be climbing steadily, going beyond the 8% threshold this spring, almost double the level of a year ago. After the VAT hike shock of last summer, pressures related to soaring fuel and foodstuff prices internationally have started being felt since autumn. In parallel, the economy is struggling to exit an over two-year recession, and loan demand, though weak, is foreign currency focused. (Z.F.)

Eurozone finance ministers are battling this weekend to contain a mounting sense of crisis about the future of the single currency as details emerge of secret talks on restructuring Greece's debts. Analysts expect a sharp sell-off of the euro when markets open tomorrow morning, as investors digest the fallout from reports – swiftly scotched – that Greece was considering leaving the eurozone. "Perhaps we have crossed a rubicon," said Jonathan Loynes, European economist at Capital Economics. "The knee-jerk response will probably be to push the euro lower. I believe the euro should be at parity with the dollar, not at $1.44 – I don't know what it's doing at anything like these levels." Euro policymakers at first denied that a meeting was taking place, but were later forced to admit that the German, French and Italian finance ministers had been holed up in a chateau in Luxembourg with their Greek counterpart George Papaconstantinou, discussing options for dealing with Greece's unsustainable debt burden. Rumours swept through financial markets late on Friday that Greece was threatening to leave the eurozone and reintroduce the drachma, but that was furiously denied by Athens yesterday.

The euro fell to its lowest in more than two weeks on Friday and headed for its worst week against the dollar since January after a German news report, later denied, suggested Greece had raised the possibility of leaving the euro zone. Spiegel Online reported euro zone finance ministers were meeting in Luxembourg on Friday to discuss Greece, including the issue of its possible exit from the currency bloc. Greece, through its finance ministry, later denied it was considering leaving the euro zone. The Greece headlines though were enough to send investors further unwinding their long positions on the euro, which hit a low of $1.43500, its weakest level since April 20 on electronic trading platform EBS.

BUCHAREST - The exposures of Greek and Dutch banks to Romania fell by nearly three billion euros last year compared with 2009, according to data published by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), also known as the bank of central banks. In the case of Greek banks, exposure to Romania fell by 1.6 billion euros, to 15.8 billion euros, while for banks in the Netherlands exposure was reduced by 1.1 billion euros, to 5.2 billion euros. The Greek now hold 16-17% of the assets in the Romanian banking system, and problems in their own country, which faces a crisis so tough it has shaken the entire euro zone, are making it much more difficult for Romanian operations to finance their activities through loans. Last year, Greek banks kept pressure up on deposit interests and implicitly on loan interests, paying interests above the market average in order to finance their operations preponderantly from the local market. Alpha Bank and Bancpost (the subsidiary of EFG Eurobank) are in the top ten players, but there are six banks with Greek shareholders operating on the Romanian market. Dutch banks are represented on the Romanian market by ING, but there are further lending institutions with local exposure, including to T-bills. "Bank's exposures have remained relatively stable in crisis. More money will continue to flow in if demand for foreign-currency loans returns. Foreign banks' exposure rose very much when lending rose significantly, before the crisis. Financing from parent banks will grow if financing needs grow," commented Ionuţ Dumitru, chief economist of Raiffeisen Bank. (Z.F.)

BRUXELLES - Although the precise terms of the rescue deal announced by caretaker prime minister José Sócrates will not be agreed for another two weeks, news of the deal sent the euro rallying on Wednesday. Portuguese bond prices also recovered some ground in early trading, while shares on the Portuguese stock market moved higher in the face of a widespread sell-off across Europe.The interest rate paid by Portugal for the rescue package is expected to be agreed at a gathering of EU ministers on 16 and 17 May. Sócrates resigned in March after the Portuguese parliament rejected his austerity programme. However, like Greece and Ireland, Portugal will have to accept significant cutbacks and tax rises in return for outside help. Jenkins said: "The prime minister in his television address set out a few things the package did not include, so no cuts to minimum wages or public sector pay, no public sector dismissals and no change to the retirement age. But he was short on what measures the package did include, though it is expected to include further privatisations, recapitalisation of the banks as well as a combination of government spending cuts and tax increases."Portugal successfully auctioned €1.1bn of three-month government bonds on Wednesday morning, slightly more than it was expected to sell. However the yield, or interest rate, on the debt rose to 4.652%, up from 4% in a similar auction.The yield on its 10-year debt fell on Wednesday, in response to the bailout deal, to around 10.06%. This level is still generally seen as unsustainable, and is also several percentage points higher than the interest rates levied on Ireland and Greece's own rescue deals.The euro rose to around $1.4854 against the dollar, and also traded above 90p against the pound.

Manufacturing output in the eurozone powered ahead last month but fuelled concerns that a two-speed recovery will leave faltering southern European countries far behind. Output in Germany, France and the Netherlands soared in April, according to analysts Markit, to register the second fastest monthly jump since 2000. Northern European countries dragged up the average after capitalising on a surge in orders from the far east. Recent company results, lead by Mercedes last week, show China spurring a huge rise in demand from European factories for cars and other manufactured goods. Job creation also increased in northern Europe, with Ireland for the first time joining the job recovery in the manufacturing sector. However, a slowdown in orders and rising input prices threaten growth over the rest of the year, said Markit in its monthly report. "The euro area purchasing managers' index (PMI) was boosted by output and new orders both rising slightly faster than indicated by the flash estimates," Markit said. "An acceleration in the rate of increase of output – to one of the fastest seen during the past 10 years – contrasted, however, with a slight easing in growth of new orders.

BUCHAREST - The euro could be introduced in Romania in January 2015, according to the initial schedule, but will be used in parallel with the euro for a further 11 months from adoption, much longer than the standard two-month period. The latest countries to join the eurozone, Slovenia (2007), Slovakia (2009) and Estonia (in 2011), have had a 16-day transition. France and Germany had two months of parallel circulation. In a first stage, the government did not mention January 1st 2015 as a target in the Convergence Programme, a document that is sent every year to Brussels. However, things changed on Friday. The Government and the NBR (National Bank of Romania) decided to keep 2015 as a deadline for the adoption of the euro, with the target also being mentioned in the Convergence Programme adopted by the Government on Friday, which will be sent to the European Commission, according to sources quoted by Mediafax. So, the 11 months of "extension" are set to be approved in Brussels. Prime Minister Emil Boc specified on Friday evening that the precise date of joining the euro had not been set, and would be agreed with European partners. The proposal came virtually out of the blue on Friday, in a meeting of ruling coalition parties which was also attended by governor Mugur Isărescu, after in the past two months the authorities had only talked about the need to reconsider January 2015 as a date amid the deterioration of economic indicators during the crisis. (z.f.)

Bruxelles -The E.U. is investigating HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays among 16 of the world's leading investment banks over suspicions they colluded and abused their positions in providing the financial derivatives many blame for exacerbating the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. The inquiry into credit default swaps (CDS), the controversial financial contracts designed to allow investors to insure against debt default, follows accusations that banks, many of them rescued by their host governments from collapse, played a part in forcing Greece and Ireland to seek EU bailout funds. If found guilty of abusing their position, the banks could be fined up to 10% of revenues by the European commission, which has handed out sanctions as big as €1bn (£880m). Joaquín Almunia, the commissioner in charge of anti-trust cases, said: "Recent developments have shown that the trading of this asset class suffers a number of inefficiencies that cannot be solved through regulation alone. We are therefore opening two new cases to improve market transparency and fairness in the CDS market ... Lack of transparency in markets can lead to abusive behaviour and facilitate violations of competition rules and the commission should react accordingly." Concerns in several EU countries at Europe's slow pace of finance reform as well as the largely unregulated £360tn derivatives market, which ballooned before the financial crisis, are also understood to lie behind investigation. Members of the EU parliament have lobbied for deeper reforms of the CDS market and other areas of the financial system.Rompres,Amos News, Agerpres,Mediafax,Romanian,Vancouver Sun,Global News

BUCHAREST- IMF says the Romanian economy is starting to rebound, exports continue to increase and consumer and investor confidence, although low, is showing signs of recovery, yet warns that there is a risk that the Government might drop certain reforms because the economy is picking up.
"Many analysts expect Romania's economy to grow faster than the region's on medium term. We cannot relax reforms in Romania. The markets are now seeing Romania doing what it is supposed to do," believe the IMF officials, according to sources close to the talks between the officials in Washington and the Romanian authorities.
IMF experts are considering revising forecasts about macroeconomic indicators, but there will not be any radical changes.Agerpres,Mediafax,Romanian,Vancouver Sun,Global News
The base scenario has IMF estimating a 1.5% economic growth this year. However, the Romanian authorities and the Fund did not rule out the continuation of recession this year, too, forecasting a 0.5% decline in 2011 in a worst-case scenario. It remains to be seen how much the economic growth forecast will be changed and whether the recession scenario will be considered or not. (SOURCE z.f.)Mediafax,Rador,Basa Press,Media Trust,LiveNews.ro

At least 2.1 million Romanians work in EU member states, most of them in Italy, Spain and Germany; this is the first official figure released by European Commission representatives. Austria and Germany will open their labour market to Eastern Europeans on May 1, but not to Romanians and Bulgarians, who will have to wait until early 2014. Currently, in Romania no institution has a clear record on the number of Romanians working abroad, although several organisations have tried to monitor the migration of domestic workforce to the West in recent years. "Member states' statistical data and the results of polls carried out on the labour market show that in early 2010 almost 2.5 million Romanian and Bulgarian citizens worked in 15 EU countries. Of them, 2.1 million people are Romanians, most of whom working in Italy (890,000), Spain (825,000) and Germany (110,000)," Cristina Arigho, a spokesperson with the European Commission's employment, social affairs and equal opportunities, told ZF.

France and Italy have thrown down the gauntlet over Europe's system of passport-free travel, saying a crisis of immigration sparked by the Arab spring was calling into question the borderless regime enjoyed by more than 400 million people in 25 countries. Challenging one of the biggest achievements of European integration of recent decades, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi also launched a joint effort to stem immigration and demanded European deportation pacts with the countries of revolutionary north Africa to send new arrivals packing. The French president and the Italian prime minister, at a summit in Rome, opted to pile the pressure on Brussels and the governments of the other 25 EU states, demanding an "in-depth revision" of European law regulating the passport-free travel that takes in almost all of the EU with the exception of Britain and Ireland. Prompted by the influx to Italy of almost 30,000 immigrants, mainly from Tunisia, in recent months, the two leaders warned that the upheavals in north Africa "could swiftly become an out-and-out crisis capable of undermining the trust our fellow citizens place in the free circulation within the Schengen area".

BUCHAREST - About 1.68 million Romanians are thought to be informally employed, but the Labour Inspection Department is not scaring anyone. Today, Premier Emil Boc, who took the interim reins of the Labour Ministry, will meet with the representatives of the Interior Affairs Ministry and with those of the Labour Inspection Department to discuss fighting informal employment. "The low unemployment rate may conceal informal employment. This is not out of the question, considering that as the registered unemployment rate has gone down and the unemployment rate measured by polls, which also includes informal employment, has gone up. However, I think the decline in unemployment rate is caused by the fact that people no longer register as jobless with the employment agencies once their benefits expire,' said Nicolae Chideşciuc, ING Bank's chief economist.(Z.F.)2012 maya profetie apocalipsa sfarsitul arhiva articole basescu mafia comentarii mesaje articole cititori conspiratie noua ordine conspiratie noua ordine satana 666 crize europene distrugerea romaniei diverse diverse romania tragedie diverse triunghiul bermudelor manipulare euroregiuni romania tinutul secuiesc conspiratie UE iliuminati noua ordine masonerie francmasonerie conspiratie masonerie francmasonerie conspiratie romania dezastru monstrii creaturi satanice chupacabra new age satanism nibiru shambala agartha pamantul gol teoria conspiratiei teoria conspiratiei manipulare putere minciuna tibet Korösi Csoma Sándor secui teoria conspiratiei noua ordine tragedia romaniei wikileaks romania

WASHINGTON - The United States has never defaulted on its debt and Democrats and Republicans say they don't want it to happen now. But with partisan acrimony running at fever pitch, and Democrats and Republicans so far apart on how to tame the deficit, the unthinkable is suddenly being pondered. The government now borrows about 42 cents of every dollar it spends. Imagine that one day soon, the borrowing slams up against the current debt limit ceiling of $14.3 trillion and Congress fails to raise it. The damage would ripple across the entire economy, eventually affecting nearly every American, and rocking global markets in the process.
A default would come if the government actually failed to fulfill a financial obligation, including repaying a loan or interest on that loan. The government borrows mostly by selling bonds to individuals and governments, with a promise to pay back the amount of the bond in a certain time period and agreeing to pay regular interest on that bond in the meantime.
Among the first directly affected would likely be money-market funds holding government securities, banks that buy bonds directly from the Federal Reserve and resell them to consumers, including pension and mutual funds; and the foreign investor community, which holds nearly half of all Treasury securities.

THE EURO strengthened toward a 16-month high against the dollar yesterday after a report showed French business confidence was at a three-year high. The dollar headed for a weekly decline against all its 16 major counterparts as traders reduced bets the Federal Reserve will increase interest rates this year. “The euro zone’s recovery looks solid,” said Hitoshi Asaoka, senior strategist in Tokyo at Mizuho Trust and Banking, a unit of Japan’s second largest bank. “As long as inflation is on the upside, market expectations for European Central Bank rate hikes will likely persist, which is euro- supportive,” he said. The euro climbed to a high of $1.4588 in London from $1.4552 on Thursday, when it rose to $1.4649, the highest level since December 2009. Meanwhile, spot gold surged to a lifetime nominal high yesterday in thin holiday trade. It hit a record for a sixth consecutive session on a weak dollar with factors ranging from geopolitical uncertainty to concerns over inflation. Silver also raced to its loftiest in 31 years, notching the milestone for a seventh straight day and outstripping gold’s weekly gains by a huge margin. The ongoing euro zone sovereign debt crisis, unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, rising global inflation, and most recently worries over the fiscal stability of the US have fueled the record-breaking rally in these precious metals. Spot gold rose to a record of $1,512.50 an ounce, before easing to $1,507.69, on track for a weekly gain of 1.5 per cent – its sixth consecutive week of gains. Spot silver hit $46.69 an ounce, its highest since 1980, on course for a weekly rise of 8.4 per cent, its biggest weekly increase in two months. Silver has gained 51 per cent so far this year, and gold has gained 6 per cent. This compares with a corresponding 1 per cent rise in the London Metal Exchange price of copper, the bellwether of the industrial metals complex. Supporting precious metals, the dollar was languishing near a three-year low against a basket of currencies, and could take a run at the all-time low hit in 2008, pressured by record low interest rates and the crushing weight of the US budget deficit. As long as the overall environment stays supportive and the dollar remains weak, gold is expected to retain its strength. Price of bullion is seen to rise to $1,700 an ounce by 2015, analysts polled by Reuters said in a poll. However, a correction might be on the horizon after the recent rapid ascent, traders and analysts said. “Gold is likely to consolidate around the $1,500 level next week,” said Li Ning, an analyst at Shanghai CIFCO Futures.

Greeks 'planning debt restructuring'. - Greek newspapers report that government is considering extending term of loans as Citigroup trader faces grilling by Interpol over source of market rumours. Greece is considering ways to restructure its debt – such as by extending the life of its loans – two national newspapers claimed on Friday, joining a flurry of recent reports on the prospect that Athens might be forced to default. Greek and EU officials have steadfastly denied a debt restructuring is planned in the face of mounting evidence that markets are factoring one in. Detectives from Interpol are expected to interview Citigroup trader Paul Moss on Friday about an email he sent on Wednesday about a rumoured restructuring which Greek officials claim sparked a share sell-off in Athens. The country's top-selling newspaper, Ta Nea, said without citing a source that the government was mulling "a velvet restructuring" that would include extending outstanding debt and a voluntary agreement with lenders to modify repayment terms. Such a step would have to be taken before 2012, the newspaper said, but not before the expiry of the term of ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet, who steps down at the end of October. The Greek official in charge of the informal debt extension talks "seems to be" finance minister George Papaconstantinou and a team of advisors, the newspaper said, without elaborating with whom they were holding talks.