French unions and businesses on Friday agreed on broad changes to labor laws,
a key plank of President François Hollande's efforts to arrest rising
unemployment and restore France's competitive edge. But after months of
wrangling, only three of the five labor unions around the table gave their
backing to the accord, depriving Mr. Hollande of the unanimous support that
would give him a strong political boost.
New ways for employers to cut pay and working hours in tough
times
- Simplification of legal procedures for layoffs
- Health insurance benefits extended to more workers
- Higher levies in fixed-term contracts to encourage permanent hires
- Incentives to hire young workers on permanent contracts.
"This is the first time in over 30 years that a negotiation at this level and
with such depth has reached agreement," Mr. Hollande said. "This is a success
for social dialogue." The government will now present the text to Parliament,
where Mr. Hollande has a majority. French President François Hollande, right,
speaks to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault after a meeting with French
government ministers, focused on France's economic situation and employment,
earlier this month. Negotiators still have to return to their unions to finally
sign off on the agreement. Joseph Thouvenel, a representative for the Christian
CFTC union, and moderate CFDT
union negotiator Patrick Pierron said they will give a favorable opinion, and
the CFE-CGC union negotiator Marie-Françoise Leflon said she had helped achieve
a more balanced agreement. "The objective of creating conditions to fight
insecurity and boost employment has been achieved," Mr. Pierron said. "We have
met the challenge of getting extremely positive things for business and new
points for employees," said Patrick Bernasconi, the negotiator for employers'
group Medef. As expected, two more radical unions the CGT and the FO, said they
won't sign the pact. Under terms of the agreement, business associations
secured a victory that will allow companies to cut working hours and wages when
times are tough, as German businesses have done during the global economic
crisis to ensure their survival. Employees will have their jobs guaranteed
during those periods of flexible wages and hours.
11 comments:
The claim comes after Andrew Bailey, head of prudential regulation at the Financial Services Authority, told MPs yesterday that interest rates for borrowers had not come down “to the same extent” as those paid on deposits. He said “the jury is still out” on whether the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) was delivering what it was set up for.
The FLS was established to provide banks with cheap state-backed funding on around £80bn of loans, reducing their costs by about £800m a year. The gains were supposed to be passed on to households and businesses in the form of cheaper and more available credit.
But by providing an alternative source of funding to customer deposits, savings rates have been slashed since the FLS’s introduction in August. Sylvia Waycot, a financial expert at Moneyfacts, said: “Savers are being persecuted without borrowers getting the rewards. One would hope there will be better deals for borrowers coming through in the next few weeks.”
The euro crisis took its toll on the German economy in 2012, but the budget swung to a surplus for the first time since 2007. Still, data released on Tuesday showed a paltry growth of just 0.7 percent.
The German economy shrank by 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012 as a result of the euro crisis which hit exports and investment, preliminary figures released by the Federal Statistical Office on Tuesday showed.
ANZEIGE
Growth for the full year slowed sharply to 0.7 percent from 3.0 percent in 2011, but that still compares favorably with much of the rest of the euro zone, which remains mired in recession as a result of austerity measures and burgeoning debt.
Germany, Europe's largest economy, was able to offset part of the export declines in its core European market with strong growth in exports to the US and big emerging markets like China, hungry for German automobiles and industrial goods.
"The German economy might not be an island of happiness any longer but it remains at least an island of growth in a still recessionary euro-zone area," Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING, told Reuters.
The Statistical Office also said that the public budget was in surplus for the first time since before the financial and debt crisis in 2007. The surplus amounted to 0.1 percent of GDP after a deficit of 0.8 percent in 2011. In 2010, the deficit had been 4.1 percent, above the 3 percent limit set by European Union rules.
The swing to a surplus has been caused by record employment levels and rising wages, which many countries in Europe, especially in the austerity-hit south of the continent, can only dream of.
The 2012 GDP growth figure was slightly below forecasts. The sharp slowdown was partly explained by above-average growth rates seen in 2010 and 2011. "In the previous two years, GDP growth had been much larger but that was due to a catching-up process following the worldwide economic crisis of 2009," the Statistical Office said in a statement. The German economy shrank by 5.1 percent in 2009, at the height of the global economic crisis.
Predictions for 2013 are mixed. Some economists expect German growth to accelerate slightly. Business confidence, as measured by the Ifo Business Climate Index, rose in December to its highest level in five months.
But according to a report in business daily Handelsblatt on Tuesday, the German government expects 2013 growth of around 0.5 percent. Economy Minister Philipp Rösler will release the latest forecast on Wednesday when he presents the government's annual economic report. The OECD also expects 0.5 percent for Germany.
The economists at the Ifo Institute is a little more optimistic, expecting unchanged growth of 0.7 percent. The German Intsitute for Economic Research in Berlin predicts 0.9 percent.
cro -- wth wire reports
The Statistical Office also said that the public budget was in surplus for the first time since before the financial and debt crisis in 2007. The surplus amounted to 0.1 percent of GDP after a deficit of 0.8 percent in 2011. In 2010, the deficit had been 4.1 percent, above the 3 percent limit set by European Union rules.
The swing to a surplus has been caused by record employment levels and rising wages, which many countries in Europe, especially in the austerity-hit south of the continent, can only dream of.
The 2012 GDP growth figure was slightly below forecasts. The sharp slowdown was partly explained by above-average growth rates seen in 2010 and 2011. "In the previous two years, GDP growth had been much larger but that was due to a catching-up process following the worldwide economic crisis of 2009," the Statistical Office said in a statement. The German economy shrank by 5.1 percent in 2009, at the height of the global economic crisis.
Predictions for 2013 are mixed. Some economists expect German growth to accelerate slightly. Business confidence, as measured by the Ifo Business Climate Index, rose in December to its highest level in five months.
But according to a report in business daily Handelsblatt on Tuesday, the German government expects 2013 growth of around 0.5 percent. Economy Minister Philipp Rösler will release the latest forecast on Wednesday when he presents the government's annual economic report. The OECD also expects 0.5 percent for Germany.
The economists at the Ifo Institute is a little more optimistic, expecting unchanged growth of 0.7 percent. The German Intsitute for Economic Research in Berlin predicts 0.9 percent.
cro -- wth wire reports
A report backed by William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, will warn that “the status quo is no longer an option” and demand “a new and different relationship” with the European Union.
The Fresh Start group of Conservative backbenchers will throw down the gauntlet to the Prime Minister two days before he delivers a speech on EU membership, as it sets out proposals to return responsibility for laws to Westminster and cut Britain’s bill for EU membership by billions of pounds a year.
The group’s Manifesto for Change could become the Tory blueprint for EU membership if Mr Cameron wins the next election, senior figures in the party have said.
Mr Cameron will outline his vision for Britain’s future in the EU in his long-awaited speech in Amsterdam on Friday. He is expected to set out plans to renegotiate the country’s relationship with Europe which will then be the subject of a referendum, probably in 2018.
Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, yesterday warned that Mr Cameron’s approach was creating uncertainty about Britain’s future in the EU and having a “chilling effect” on jobs and growth. Last night senior Downing Street sources welcomed the suggestions made by the group, which claims to have the backing of about 100 Tory MPs, and indicated that Mr Cameron was sympathetic to repatriating social and employment laws.
If we left the EU the impact of duties added by the EU to our exports and the duties we would add to imports from them would be miniscule, probably about £3 billion a year each way.
FDI, current investment and trade will not dry up for that.
We will need to negotiate our own trade agreements but the EU is protectionist in many areas anyway so we could benefit from that.
Against these miniscule tariff changes the benefits are huge.
No membership fee of £18 billion a year, £10 billion a year lower food prices, lower energy costs, no working time directive save £10 billion a year.
On top of that we control our borders and we are a sovereign nation again.
So if exit is wholly beneficial financially and we get back our sovereignty what is the real agenda for keeping Britain in the EU ?
We talk about britain leaving the EU, but we are not the only ones. I believe that other countries are waitng and watching for the UK to make a decisive move. Once the UK opts out many other countries will follow either for the same deal or similar.
None of the PIIGS are going to hang around after the UK contribution has gone.
Europhiles keep banging on about loss of jobs, loss of investment, companies relocating if we exit the EU.
The likely duty on exports by the UK to the EU , if we were outside the customs union, would be around £3 billion a year, around 2% of the total.
Similarly with imports. The UK charges £2.9 billion duty a year from non eu countries so if we apply the same tariffs to imports of EU goods and services when we leave the EU , assuming generously the eu has 50% of our imports, then import duty would rise by £2.9 billion.
This could easily be offset by tax and investment incentives and reduced costs from exit.
So trade will not vanish if we leave and the europhiles are telling us to give up sovereignty for a £3 billion a year charge on exports and similar on imports.
There is clearly another agenda for staying in the eu, I would love to know what it is.
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The agency warned of a toxic mix of fiscal risks coming together over the next two months that could derail recovery and raise serious doubts over America's governing machinery.
"Pressure on the US rating is growing and we're very concerned," said David Riley, the agency's managing director.
Fitch said Washington elites appeared not to have learned the lesson of the last fight over the debt ceiling in August 2011, when brinkmanship by Republicans and Democrats deflated business confidence and damaged America's credibility around the world.
"If there is repeat, we will place the US sovereign rating under review. It raises political concerns are about the predictability of economic polices and and the quality of economic instistutions," he told a credit forum in London.
"Such self-inflicted crises as they stagger towards a new deadline every six months is not typically characteristic of a AAA state."
Cameron rejects in/out referendum on EU membership
British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Wednesday that he is at present against the idea of holding a straight in/out referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, but said that he felt the time had come to renegotiate its role.
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