The EPP Group has called on the European Commission to strengthen an effective trade defence instrument to guarantee the protection of EU industry from dumped imports from China. The Group's Resolution stresses that as long as China does not meet the five criteria required by the EU to qualify as a market economy, the EU should use non-standard methodology in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on Chinese imports in the determination of price comparability.  At the same time, during today's plenary debate on China's market economy status, the EPP Group Spokesman in the International Trade Committee, Daniel Caspary MEP, called on the European Council to stop the blockade on the Trade Defence Instruments legislation: "The strategic partnership with China is extremely important to us, regardless of whether China is considered to have a market economy or not, because it obviously doesn't. At the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of European people working in the steel industry who are very worried about their jobs. We must act urgently for them to make sure that EU trade instruments are boosted. Jobs are important for the EPP Group; the European industry is important and we want to protect it", said Caspary.

"I am surprised that the European Commission has not yet presented a solution as to how the EU should comply with WTO rules already agreed on 15 years ago. This is not five minutes to twelve, it is five minutes past and we are still waiting. The big question is if there is any chance of passing new laws before it is too late", stressed the EPP Group's Deputy Spokesman in the International Trade Committee, Christofer Fjellner MEP, responsible for the Trade Defence Instruments legislation.

The European Parliament Standing Rapporteur on China, Iuliu Winkler MEP, stressed that the EU strategic partnership with China must be based on reciprocity and mutual benefits: "Any decision on the market economy status of China in anti-dumping investigations should be in full compliance with WTO norms. Automatic recognition of the market economy status of China is not a valid option, so we ask the European Commission to identify viable trade defence instruments that can be applied to protect the steel industry and other industries against unfair competition and dumping. We believe that dialogue with China and other partners in the WTO will lead to identifying the best solutions to be applied to strategic partners in the mutual interest of the EU and China."

Regulators from some of Europe's biggest markets will take centre stage at this year's EUROMAT Gaming Summit which will take place at the Majestic Hotel in the heart of Barcelona.  The latest programme for the Summit shows that Marta Espasa, the Director General for Gaming in Catalonia will open the programme along with the European Commission's top official Harrie Temmink. Mr. Temmink will then join several other European regulators for a panel discussion including:

     - Peter Naessens from the Belgian Gaming Commission;

     - Elisabetta Poso from the Administration of State Monopolies, Italy;

     - Carlos Hernandez Rivera, Director General of Gaming, Spain;

     - Fernando Prats, Madrid Regional Government, Spain.

Eduardo Antoja, President of EUROMAT and Chairman of the panel discussion with regulators said: "Regulation makes or breaks our industry so having so many top gaming officials from European markets together for one session is a real added value of this year's summit. Operators and manufacturers from across the industry should be there if they want to get a valuable insight into the thinking of the people making decisions that have a direct impact on the industry". Other panel sessions at this year's summit include:

     -What does convergence mean for the land-based gaming industry in Europe?

     - Player tracking: Does it help to improve responsibility?

     - Are manufacturers or operators driving the gaming machine market in Europe?

     Delegate numbers are set to soar with industry leaders and regulators sharing their thinking on how the European market is evolving.

  Reuters writes that the British financial authority has placed the London division of DB "under enhanced watch" since back at the end of 2014, amid "concerns over corporate governance and internal audit". Following these revelations, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), an international shareholder consulting firm, has advised DB shareholders to vote in favor of the beginning of an independent audit process, because "there are significant doubts concerning the ability of the supervisory board to investigate the potential illegal actions of its members, which reflects a conflict of interests". The next general shareholder meeting of the shareholders of Deutsche Bank will take place in Frankfurt on May 19th, 2016, according to the notice to attend located on the website of the bank.  The recommendation of the ISS also comes as a result of the recent resignation of an important member of the Supervisory Board of the bank. A press release posted on the DB website states that Georg Thoma, member of the Supervisory Board and president of the Integrity Committee, has presented his resignation two years before his term was set to expire.  In the same press release, Paul Achleitner, the president of the Supervisory Board, stressed Thoma's achievements and thanked him "for everything he did for the bank". Unfortunately for the biggest German financial institution, Georg Thoma actually did too much, and the result was an open conflict with both the executives, as well as with the Supervisory Board.  Bloomberg writes that "Thoma went too far with investigating the potential illegal activities of the bank" and has been "isolated" as a result of "examining the ties between the members of the executive management and the lawsuits that the bank has been involved in over the last two years".  One of Thoma"s "targets" was actually Paul Achleitner, and the conflict blew up in the press last week, when Alfred Herling, the vice-president of the Supervisory Board, criticized Georg Thoma for "being too zealous and spending too much time investigating potential illegalities", according to Bloomberg. The conflict between the two is marked by a bitter irony, as it was precisely Achleitner that recommended Thoma for the position on the Integrity Committee, based on their friendship, "cemented" by their cooperation on the privatization of the East-German chemical industry, according to the Bloomberg article.

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.