Britain will give an extra £10bn to the European Union because of the weakness of struggling eurozone economies, it has emerged. The British contribution to the EU will rise dramatically from £30bn to £40bn over the next five years, the Office for Budget Responsibility said. It includes a surprise £2.2bn jump in funding to £8.7bn this year.  EU contributions are calculated in part according to each state’s national income.   The growth forecasts across Europe have been cut as eurozone economies, particularly Greece, France and Italy, struggle under a debt crisis, leaving Britain to make up the shortfall – costing the taxpayer an extra £1bn a year. How much longer are the taxpayers of this once great country going to tolerate the increasing financial support of this failing, tyrannical dictatorship, especially while our own public services are declining?
Are our fools and cretins of politicians, who are mostly in favor of this abomination waiting to be physically removed from Parliament?
The entire lib/lab/con are hell bent on keeping Britain in the EU, so it's time they were all removed from government!...If you take into account, the money Britain will have to spend to "welcome" the people from Bulgaria and Romania heading towards what they think is an Eldorado, it is much more than £10 billions. Thank you very much, anyway, as a French, I rather see them coming in the UK and as you are explained day after day by people living in huge houses in Surrey, with private medical care and with their children privately educated that it is for your benefit, you should call yourselves lucky....  "It includes a surprise £2.2bn jump in funding to £8.7bn this year."  This wasn't a surprise, the EU came begging for a bail out, what was surprising, was the little press it received?

This is why we are needed in the EU, to pay for all the little countries they admit, even when their finances don't meet the criteria!  From next June, we will be powerless in our decision making, the EU / US FTA is due to be signed then, this deal, gives companies complete control over us, even now, Tobacco giant Philip Morris is suing Australia for billions of dollars in lost profits because the government took action to reduce teenage smoking. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is suing Canada for $500 million, just because Canada has laws to keep essential drugs affordable and the Nuclear industry is suing the German government. This is all happening in International courts, out of the public eye, via other TTiP deals. Lets get together and stop this one!  

The chancellor warned Britain is “too dependent” on weak European markets and must look to the Far East for growth.

The Euro area is forecast to shrink by 0.4 per cent this year and instability in the region is the first threat to Britain’s recovery, Mr Osborne said.
He has doubled the export finance capacity to £50bn to support British businesses that want to trade in new markets.
“The Prime Minister’s visit to China this week is the latest step in this Government’s determined plan to increase British exports to the faster growing emerging markets – something our country should have done many years ago,” Mr Osborne said.

 

Since the last crisis, central banks around the world have pumped trillions into the economic cycle, both by lowering interest rates and buying up securities in the markets. For central bankers like United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the aim of the policy was to stimulate the economy and rescue banks that could no longer raise capital elsewhere. But this "grand monetary experiment," as Spitznagel calls it, has side effects. Because it makes borrowing cheaper than even before and saving all but pointless, it encourages investors to pursue reckless deals. Share prices are exploding on stock exchanges around the world, while real estate prices are rising at an alarmingly fast pace. And many US companies are now in as much debt as they were before the financial crisis.  To take Spitznagel's metaphor a step further, the flood of money coming from central bankers acts like a highly aggressive, artificial fertilizer. It generates enormous yields in the short term, but eventually leads to potential devastation. For this reason, the ongoing party in the stock and real estate markets is beginning to feel uncanny to a growing number of observers. "It might go badly," Nobel laureate Robert Shiller told SPIEGEL. Some economists are even convinced that the question is no longer whether the next crash is coming, but when.  For brokers on the venerable trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange, such predictions are hugely exaggerated. "This is not a bubble," says Peter Tuchman, who has worked on Wall Street for almost 30 years and, with his white, Einstein-like hairstyle, half a dozen bracelets and well-worn running shoes, is a legend on the floor. He taps his smartphone a few times and pulls up a graph depicting the S&P 500 index of stock prices for 500 large companies, which has gone up by 166 percent since it hit rock-bottom in 2009. "This is a stable development," says Tuchman, pointing to the graph, which is directed uniformly upward. In his view, these are simply good times following on the heels of years of crisis. "There are new company listings every day," he says. "That is a good sign to me."

La France - documentary by Russian TV crew..

Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have held surprise talks on a "strategic partnership treaty". Mr Yanukovych flew from China to Sochi in southern Russia for the meeting. He has also cancelled a visit to Malta.

Last month he shelved a partnership deal with the EU, triggering angry protests in Ukraine's capital Kiev.

In Sochi he discussed "preparation of a future treaty on strategic partnership" with Russia, his press service said.

The talks covered various economic issues, the statement said, without elaborating.

Thousands of anti-Yanukovych protesters remain outside the government building on Kiev's Independence Square, braving bitter cold. They are furious that he made an 11th-hour U-turn in relations with the EU, refusing to sign an association agreement that had been prepared during years of negotiations.

Mr Putin has been urging Ukraine to join Russia's customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan - a union whose entry terms are far less demanding than the EU's.

In recent months Russia has put Ukraine under economic pressure, imposing long customs delays at the border and banning imports of Ukrainian sweets.

The ECB’s own policies appear to be in contradiction. Its latest Financial Stability Review warned that bond tapering by the US Federal Reserve could lead to an interest rate shock, with a sharp rise in bond yields. Yet it has been slow to mitigate the dangers with pre-emptive stimulus.

Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, told an audience in Berlin last week that bank needs a “safety margin against deflationary risks” after eurozone inflation fell to 0.7pc.

He warned that low inflation makes it harder for crisis states in Southern Europe to control their debt trajectories while at the same time carrying out internal devaluations within EMU to regain competitiveness, though he denied that the two goals are inherently contradictory.

“If average inflation is allowed to drift too low, adjustment runs into major head winds as demand suffers and real debt burdens rise,” he said.

Mr Draghi has to walk through a political minefield. The German constitutional court has not yet ruled on the legality of his back-stop plan for Italian and Spanish debt (OMT), making it very risky for him to push his case too hard. While Germany does not have a legal veto on ECB decisions, it has a de facto political veto.

Veteran EU watchers say the sacred contract of monetary union is that Germany will never be overruled on crucial matters. Mr Draghi has to work in tandem with Germany’s ECB board member Jörg Asmussen. The bank is in reality a twin-headed institution.

BRUSSELS - The Greek economy will stay in recession in 2014 for the seventh consecutive year, according to the OECD.  The Paris-based Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) think-tank forecasts a further 0.4 percent economic slowdown next year in its economic survey of Greece published Wednesday (27 November), lower than the 0.6 percent growth currently projected by the Greek government and its creditors.   It also says that Greece will struggle to bring its debt burden below a massive 160 percent of GDP by the end of the decade, nearly 40 percent higher than the 124 percent expected by the European Commission.  The OECD states that a sharp fall in prices could also force Greece to seek more time and money from its creditors. Greece is currently three years into a €240 billion emergency loan programme.  "If negative inflation risks materialise, assistance from Greece's euro area partners may need to be considered," the OECD said.  Speaking in Athens on Wednesday, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said that it was "imperative that both the costs and the benefits of adjustment are shared fairly” if the country's reform programme was to work.  However, Gurria was full of praise for Athens' progress in reforming its economy and particularly a “spectacular reversal in the balance of payments”.      Greece has lost more than 25 percent of its economic output since 2007 and seen its unemployment rate climb to 27 percent, the highest in the EU. Its debt pile is expected to peak at around 180 percent this year, nearly double the average across the rest of the eurozone.  The OECD report calls on the Greek government to scrap 555 regulations hindering businesses ranging from retailers to building materials sector and tourism, arguing that slashing red-tape would lead to an extra €5.2 billion in economic activity.  "A more rapid return of confidence and foreign capital, attracted by low asset prices, and privatisation, could support domestic demand through both investment and consumption," it argued.  For his part, Kostis Hatzidakis, Greece's minister for competitiveness agreed that the government would continue its programme of market liberalisation. "It is true that our economy has been plagued by bureaucracy, protectionism and market distortions for a long time," he said.

China's growing engagement with Central and Eastern European countries is an essential part of its China-Europe strategy, which has focused on achieving strategic win-win outcomes, said a senior Chinese diplomat.

"China has made great efforts to enhance mutual understanding and the willingness to deepen cooperation," Xu Jian, Chinese ambassador to Poland, told China Daily recently in an exclusive interview.

"Premier Li Keqiang's visit and talks in Romania with the regions' leaders demonstrate China's consistent efforts."

Xu, who was Chinese ambassador to Romania before his current position, said Beijing has been bridging the gap and exploring the potential of deepening exchanges in Central and Eastern Europe. By comparison, China's ties with Western European countries are relatively mature.

China launched the political dialogue with the region last year when then premier Wen Jiabao visited Poland. And Premier Li carried on the momentum through his summit with European Union leaders in Beijing last week, his first since taking office in March.

Observers have begun to refer to this month as Chinese leaders' "Europe season", following the frequent exchanges between China and EU member states.

"Poland, as the biggest trading partner of China in the region, has put China on the priority list when developing foreign relations, which is very encouraging," said Xu, adding that its top leaders have frequently stressed the strategic importance of deepening ties with China.    The ambassador said the Polish government has launched a "Go to China" project, but he did not elaborate. 

Poland, like other countries in the region, is still engaged in transforming its economic development patterns, the ambassador said, and China can offer its experience, technologies, finance and investment to speed up the process. "It is very complementary in this regard," Xu said.

Poland has been China's biggest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe for eight years, Xu said, so bilateral relations have been fruitful. Trade volume reached $14.3 billion in 2012. "The two-way investment is also picking up," Xu said.

Investment and trade are expected to grow quickly within the framework of the EU-China 2020 strategy, which will double the trade volume, the ambassador said.

Poland's cultural strength and traditional friendship with China are the foundations for the future development of bilateral relations, Xu said.   Poland is the biggest country in the region regarding size and population, and it has growing influence in regional and international affairs, he added.