The European Commission reacted on Tuesday, after the deputies of the Commission for Industries and Services have passed a series of amendments to the Natural Gas Law, according to which the gas producers will be required to fully trade their output on the OPCOM, with the Romanian Commodities Exchange being left out in the cold. Currently, they have licenses for the trading of natural gas on two entities: the Romanian Commodities Exchange, private company, and the OPCOM, a branch of Transelectrica, in which the state owns 58.68%. The amendments made in the Commission for Industries would leave the BRM without a license. On Tuesday, the European Commission wrote to Iulian Iancu, the president of the Commission for Industries, that the proposal for the production of natural gas to be traded completely on the OPCOM is problematic.  The commission thinks that moving trading to the OPCOM is not recommended, as the BRM is currently a more liquid market, and granting exclusive rights to the OPCOM raises competition issues. Also, the Commission considers that the trading of 100% of the natural gas output on an exchange can be excessive. A warning letter concerning the "severe consequences" of the amendments to the Law of natural gas was recently received by the president of the Chamber of Deputies Liviu Dragnea, from the PEGAS European natural gas platform. That letter also arrived, among other places, at the Ministry of Energy, the ANRE and the European Commission. It is debatable whether the amendments are compatible with the competition laws of the European Union, since they limit the ability of offering trading services, amid the obligation of using only one platform, according to PEGAS, which also says that there is a risk that the platform used by the operator would not reflect the requirements of the market.  Furthermore, the measures proposed can raise an obstacle in the implementation of the EU package of energy, which would lead to an isolation of the Romanian gas market, says PEGAS, the trading platform of the German EEX Group, operated by Powernext, in France. PEGAS had 238 members and offers access to the trading of natural gas on contracts from Austria, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Czech Republic and Great Britain.

According to CNBC's Robert Frank, a Bank of England report shows that its quantitative easing policies had benefited mainly the wealthy, and that 40% of those gains went to the richest 5% of British households. Dhaval Joshi of BCA Research wrote that "QE cash ends up overwhelmingly in profits, thereby exacerbating already extreme income inequality and the consequent social tensions that arise from it". Anthony Randazzo of the Reason Foundation wrote that QE "is fundamentally a regressive redistribution program that has been boosting wealth for those already engaged in the financial sector or those who already own homes, but passing little along to the rest of the economy. It is a primary driver of income inequality". In May 2013, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said that cheap money has made rich people richer, but has not done quite as much for working Americans.  The majority of citizens lost a great deal since the financial crisis in 2008. Savage 'austerity' cuts, increase in VAT, (yet tax cuts for large corporations) has led to a devastating impact on public services, small businesses on our High Streets going bust, over a million people using food banks and an increase of suicides... I could go on.  The finance industry toxic financial products; price manipulations; market bubbles and just blatant fraud, is unsustainable and ordinary people should not continue to pay for this crime in the financial sector. This is not 'capitalism', this is not a 'free-market' and smaller business cannot compete.  If the bankers were prosecuted and went to jail for their crimes back in 2008, like they did in Iceland and the US reinstated the Glass–Steagall Act and we had the equivalent in the UK, the Markets would not be in the volatile state we constantly see. Savers would be more protected. Only robust effective regulation can stabilise the Markets.

The worst effects of the European recession risk becoming permanent in places, according to a left-leaning think tank.  The IPPR's latest report pointed to the high level of unemployment and underemployment across Europe and said the chances of these becoming entrenched is "deeply alarming".  It said there was 10% unemployment and a 5% underemployment rate in Europe.  The UK's main problem was low productivity, the IPPR said.  The official unemployment rate for the 28 countries in the EU was 9.3% in September, down from 9.4% the previous month. The rate in the 19 countries that use the euro stood at 10.8%, down from 10.9% in August.  The IPPR said that unemployed workers risked being left behind as globalisation and technological progress lead to changes in the skills that employers require. The report suggested that European countries look to Germany as a good example of maintaining workplace skills and high productivity rates. Germany - Europe's largest economy - invests 50% more on average than other countries in research and development.  The report also found that the UK's in-work training had fallen by 4 percentage points since 2008 - the largest decline for any EU country. The IPPR said it welcomed the apprenticeship levy and the target for creating three million apprenticeships. However, it called on the Chancellor, George Osborne, to hold off making any further cuts to the education and adult skills budget in Wednesday's Spending Review.

"Eurozone economy 'sizzles'"....hahahaha...That's what fat or wet things do when they're dropped into the frying-pan (or the fire).The action is elsewhere...The Italian government has permitted other healthy note banks to bail out 4 minor banks from foul hanging debt, and interestingly their taxpayers won't foot the bill. Believe it ? I wonder how many other fledging sparkasse banks elsewhere in the EU would dream of that alliance ? Things aren't so sound, as the author portrays otherwise....Since a couple of months Draghi has been mouthing QE, even more negative deposit rates. Thus I would expect a group of business people whose focus and whose businesses evaluate their performance upon short and early middle-term - purchasing managers - to come in with this informed predictions.  Predictions they are and generally the actuals cause them to be recast (sorry readjusted) down by a meaningful portion. Also PMI for Germany is largely meaningless: IFO does it better and normally somewhat blacker than PMI.  These PMI numbers have been contrived better by Draghi's remarks. One can't help wondering if his oratory had been so good as to have pumped them even higher if his move to QE+ would have been questioned. Maybe Draghi wants QE+ questioned...Central bank watchers believe that Mario Draghi, the ECB president, could unveil both interest rate cuts and an expansion of an existing eurozone quantitative easing programme next week.  “With recent comments highlighting how the central bank remains disappointed with the strength of the upturn at this stage of the recovery, November’s slightly improved PMI reading will no doubt do little to dissuade policymakers that more needs to be done,” said Mr Williamson. The Markit survey showed signs of "ongoing deflationary pressures", linked to a fall in commodity prices. The French economy could stand to benefit from looser ECB policy after the November PMI showed that business activity rose at the slowest pace in three months.

The slowdown in China sent shockwaves on the commodity markets. The Bloomberg Global Commodity Index, which measures the evolution of 22 commodities, reached levels that have never been reached since the beginning of this century. The price of oil is the best barometer of the growth of the global economy, as this commodity fuels almost every industry and manufacturing sector of the global markets. The price of oil has dropped by more than half in a year, now getting closer to 40 dollars / barrel on the US market.   Also, the price of iron ore, an essential commodity for the Chinese foundries and the construction sector, has reached 56 dollars a ton, from 140 dollars a ton in January 2014.   The crisis of investing in resources - In the context of the decline of the price of oil and metals, many mining projects which have major loans have been taken out for are now in the red, and investors may never get profits from them...the most affected are the American exploitations of shale gas.  As the needs for refinancing in the sector are increasing, in the future there is the risk of quick contagion.  The domino effect - The pillars of the world's economy are beginning to fall. China is weakening, and the emerging markets that have consumed such huge volumes of commodities are being affected by the weakening of currencies. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, the BRICS which seemed that they were going to uphold the growth of the world's economy, are now in "disarray".  Central banks are quickly losing control.  The stock market in China has already crashed, and a real disaster was avoided only through the government's intervention, which bought billions of shares. In Greece, the markets are having problems, amid the turbulences in the country. In the currency sector, investors have flocked to the Swiss franc in the beginning of the year, but the quantitative easing of 1,100 billion Euros announced by the Central Bank (ECB) has devalued the Euro, causing the Swiss National Bank to drop peg it had imposed four years ago on the EUR/CHF exchange rate.

CAIRO—At least 120 people were killed and 748 injured in early morning fighting between police and supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi, the Ministry of Health said, as Egypt's political divisions edged toward prolonged conflict.  Saturday morning's violence was the deadliest single episode in the more than two years since Egypt's first revolution. The killings mark a dangerous escalation in a conflict that has already badly damaged Egypt's emerging democracy and ruptured a society that had once prided itself on its cohesiveness. The violence seemed to further polarize both sides of Egypt's ideological divide, and many appeared to be digging in for a prolonged showdown between supporters of Egypt's ousted president and security forces.  "We are protesting and we will not give up," said Mourad Mohammed Ali, a former spokesman for Mr. Morsi's office and a leader in the Brotherhood. "We will continue fighting to get our freedom."  The violence came hours after dueling protests brought Egyptian streets to a standstill as millions of Mr. Morsi's opponents staged a show of force following a call by army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who had asked Egyptians to protest Friday to give him a "mandate to confront terrorism"—a request widely thought to refer to Mr. Morsi's mostly Islamist backers.