Moody's said the eurozone debt crisis had made policymakers more reluctant to cede sovereignty, while "significant fiscal union" was "off the table". "The process of further integration seemingly relies on further shocks almost by design," it said.  Brussels' flagship growth plan also faced significant difficulties as countries with room to invest refused to increase public spending, while fear of further bail-outs meant the banking union remained incomplete, it added.  Moody's said the Greek crisis also remained a big threat to the eurozone and EU.  "The risk of “accidents” remains high in a process that suffers from partial solutions and, increasingly, public scepticism," it said. "Crises can be great catalysts for change, and this has been the case in the euro area. "Still, significant vulnerabilities remain - with 'Brexit' and 'Grexit' still key risks. In a period of relative financial calm, the political will to further pool sovereignty evaporates quickly, and it is only against the alternative of a break-up of the existing system that further measures come back into consideration."  Colin Ellis, Moody's chief credit officer for Europe, said a British exit could spark an "existential moment" for the bloc.  "Even if the EU survives its current challenges largely unscathed, even a 'small' future crisis could threaten the sustainability of current institutional frameworks, if it coincided with negative public sentiment and populist political developments," the report said.  "This can create the impression that the question is when the system breaks, rather than if."

Scientists now believe that many diseases and conditions, are triggered or exacerbated by changes in gut bacteria.  A decade ago, Washington University discovered that adding gut microbes from obese mice to thin mice caused huge gains in weight, a finding which has been replicated many times.  “Being able to cast light on this microbial 'Dark matter' has implications for the whole of biology and how we consider health.”   But the new research suggests that those microbes can live outside of the body and be ingested, potentially upsetting populations of healthy bacteria in the gut and triggering disease.  Intriguingly it could explain why some illnesses run in families. Far from being simply genetic, family members could be picking up conditions through close contact or sharing bathrooms.  Spores are a form of bacterial hibernation which allow species to remain dormant for long periods of time. It is the first time that scientists have considered that transmission of disease might be possible through gut bacteria…Dr Trevor Lawley, who led the new study at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said the conditions like obesity and Inflammatory Bowel Disease, which includes Crohn’s Disease and Colitis, could be passed on.  “I think there are definitely disease that are caused by an imbalance in microbiotia. If you look at something like Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Or obesity, that’s a possibility.

The rulings issued by the courts in the lawsuits filed by the National Consumer Protection Authority (ANPC) against banks apply to all similar loan contracts, the Constitutional Court of Romania ruled yesterday (CCR), which has rendered a ruling on the unconstitutionality exception raised concerning art. 12 and 13 of the Law no. 193/2000 concerning abusive clauses in contracts concluded between traders and consumers, as announced by the Parakletos Association in a press release. He explained that the exception was invoked by four banks in the lawsuits they are involved in with the ANPC concerning the existence of abusive clauses in the contracts they concluded with consumers. "The CCR has rejected the exception, meaning that a ruling in favor of the ANPC has erga omnes effects, in other words it applies to all contracts of that nature", according to Parakletos. So far, the ANPC has won several such lawsuits in the first circuit, with the banks, the one against OTP has also been won in the last circuit.  In October 2013, the provisions of articles 12 and 13 of the Law no. 193/2000 concerning abusive clauses in contracts concluded between professionals and consumers, with the modifications that were made to them by the Law no. 76/2012 for the implementation of the Law no. 134/2010 concerning the Civil Procedure Code. Article 12 stipulates: "If the use of adhesion contracts which include abusive clauses are found, the control entities stipulated in Art. 8 (ed. note: the authorized agents of the National Consumer Protection Agency and authorized specialists of other entities of the public administration, depending on their competences) will notify the court from the domicile, or the headquarters of the professional, and demanding that the professional be required to amend the ongoing contracts, by removing the abusive clauses they may contain. (...) The consumer protection associations (...) can sue professionals that use adhesion contracts that contain abusive clauses, with the courts stipulated in paragraph (1), and ask the latter to decide the cessation of their use, by eliminating the abusive clauses". Article 13 states: "The court, if it finds the existence of abusive terms in the contract, requires the professionals to change all ongoing adhesion contracts, as well as to eliminate all abusive clauses from boilerplate contracts, meant to be used as part of the professional activity". There are several ongoing "class action" lawsuits filed by the ANPC, especially against banks.  The Parakletos Association has intervened in seven of the ANPC cases against the banks, as a third party. The leaders of Parakletos state that, through the ruling in the ANPC/OTP Bank case, lays the groundwork for the straightening of all the contracts between professionals and consumers, when they contain abusive clauses, without the consumers in question having to resort to individual lawsuits.

The European Commission will impose fines of hundreds of millions of pounds on countries that do not take in refugees.  Jean-Claude Junker is tomorrow expected to unveil plans to impose a penalty of around €250,000 euros per rejected refugee, in a bid to salvage his botched migration quota scheme.

The European Commission is expected to propose on Wednesday that an emergency scheme to distribute 160,000 people around the bloc following the massive influx last summer be put on a permanent footing, with a quota system of allocations that kick in if there is another vast wave of migrants that overwhelms a country.  The new plan comes despite the temporary scheme having proved a flop. It was approved against the wishes of Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary in September, and so far, 1,441 people have been moved.  “Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” remarked one diplomat.

China's total debt has increased to a record level of 237% of the GDP in the first quarter of 2016, far exceeding the level reached by other emerging countries, which increases the risk of a financial crisis or of the extended slowdown of the country's economy, according to the warnings launched by analysts. British publication Financial Times (FT) writes that Beijing has resorted to major loans to boost its economic growth, feeding the net debt, which reached 163,000 billion Yuan (25,000 billion dollars) at the end of March. The amount also includes internal borrowing, as well as the foreign ones.

The US Federal Reserve has warned that the world is awash with excess oil and starting to run out of places to store the glut, with no sustained recovery in sight for the oil industry until 2017 at the earliest.  Robert Kaplan, head of the Dallas Fed, poured cold water over talk of a fresh oil boom this year and said the US shale industry has taken far longer to cut output than many expected.

“As we sit here today, Dallas Fed economists estimate that global daily oil production exceeds daily consumption by more than 1m barrels per day,” he told the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum in London.  “Excess inventories in the OECD member countries now stand at approximately 440m barrels. This is a record level and has raised concerns about whether there is sufficient storage capacity in certain geographic areas,” he said.T

CARACAS, April 26 (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist government ordered public workers on Tuesday to work a two-day week as an energy-saving measure in the crisis-hit South American OPEC country.  President Nicolas Maduro had already given most of Venezuela's 2.8 million state employees Fridays off during April and May to cut down on electricity consumption. "From tomorrow, for at least two weeks, we are going to have Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as non-working days for the public sector," Maduro said on his weekly television program.  Drought has reduced water levels at Venezuela's main dam and hydroelectric plant in Guri to near-critical levels. The dam provides for about two-thirds of the nation's energy needs.  Water shortages and electricity cuts have added to the hardships of Venezuela's 30 million people, already enduring a brutal recession, shortages of basics from milk to medicines, soaring prices, and long lines at shops. Maduro has also changed the clocks so there is half an hour more daylight in the evening, urged women to reduce use of appliances like hairdryers, and ordered malls to provide their own generators.  Regarding the public sector measure, the government is excluding workers in sensitive sectors such as food.  Full salaries will still be paid despite the two-day week.  Critics have derided Maduro for giving state employees days off, arguing it would hurt national productivity and was unlikely to save electricity because people would simply go home and turn on appliances there instead.  "Maduro says that 'we in government don't stop working for a second'. Of course. Except for Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays!" satirized Leonardo Padron, a columnist for pro-opposition El Nacional newspaper, via Twitter. Officials said the El Nino weather phenomenon is responsible for Venezuela's electricity woes. But critics accuse the government of inadequate investment, corruption, inefficiency and failure to diversify energy sources.