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Europe's Galileo GPS Plan Limps to Crossroads - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-plan-limps-to-crossroads.html
shared by Gene Ellis on 07 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Galileo — first proposed in 1994, more than 20 years after America started its own system, and initially promoted as a big potential moneymaker — “can’t give a direct return on investment, but politically it is very important for Europe to have its own autonomous system,” said Mr. Magliozzi of Telespazio.
  • It is also designed to be far more precise than the American version.
  • Galileo has been financed almost entirely by the European Union since 2007. It is the first and so far only major infrastructure project managed by the European Commission.
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  • Critics mocked it as “the Common Agricultural Policy in the sky,” a reference to Europe’s program of subsidies for farmers, which eats up nearly 40 percent of the union’s total budget.
  • A 2011 report to the European Parliament listed a catalog of troubles, noting that Galileo had been particularly blighted in its early years by a familiar problem: political pressure from individual countries to skew the project in favor of their own companies and other immediate interests.
  • It quoted the OHB chief, Berry Smutny, describing Galileo as doomed to fail without major changes and “a waste of E.U. taxpayers’ money championed by French interests.” Mr. Smutny, who disputed the comments attributed to him, was fired by the company.
  • Astrium won an initial Galileo contract for four satellites. But contracts worth $1 billion for 22 more satellites have all gone to OHB, now one of the primary corporate beneficiaries of Galileo. British companies have also done well, a boon that has helped erode Britain’s initial hostility to the project.
  • Washington also asked why, when many European nations were increasingly unable to fulfill their military obligations as members of NATO because of defense cuts, they wanted to splash billions on a project that replicated an existing system paid for by the United States.
  • They acknowledge that Galileo, most of whose services will be free like those of GPS, will not earn much.
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Tunisia enters 'phase of absurdity' - FT.com - 0 views

www.ft.com/...da-11e2-8189-00144feab49a.html tunisia phase absurdity com
shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • “No development model will be able to find a solution to unemployment,” he says bluntly, citing the grim reality that at about 800,000 are already unemployed and another 100,000 enter the labour force every year. “The best we can do is create 100,000 jobs a year but you still have the 800,000. The solution should be immigration. There’s no other way.”
  • But to where?
  • The government also has raised with European partners the prospect of absorbing some of the highly skilled graduates. But while immigration could alleviate some of the pressure, surely it cannot be the solution.
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Bureaucracy's Salaries Defended in Europe - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...icials-salaries-draw-fire.html
shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • the monthly base salary of the most senior bloc officials is 18,370 euros, or $24,830.
  • Ms. Merkel’s monthly base salary is 21,000 euros,
  • European Union officials generally pay low taxes,
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  • the highest-paid European Union officials paid taxes equivalent to about 25 percent of their gross salary.
  • Unlike European Union officials, the 27 members of the European Commission are political appointees. Their salaries are much closer to those of national leaders like Ms. Merkel, and in some cases may exceed them.
  • José Manuel Barroso, president of the commission, is paid a monthly salary of 25,351 euros, a residence allowance equal to 15 percent of that salary, and allowances for expenses like running a household and schooling for children. The seven vice presidents of the commission earn basic monthly salaries of 22,963 euros.
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European Union Leaders Gather in Brussels Over Budget - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...r-in-brussels-over-budget.html
shared by Gene Ellis on 05 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • He has threatened to veto any new budget that does not at least freeze spending,
  • “Europeans who are attached to the European Union are now in a minority.” Fifty-two percent of those surveyed said they felt little or no attachment, up seven percentage points since 2010. In Britain, only 27 percent felt attached to the union.
  • Ahead of this week’s negotiations, at least seven countries, mostly those that contribute more to Europe’s coffers than they get back in farm subsidies and other payments, have already warned that they may veto a budget that does not give them a better deal. Among these is Austria, where, according to Mr. Ehrenhauser, who sits on the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee, “there is a critical mass building against the European Union.”
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  • The rethink, which would have scrapped spending on agricultural subsidies, ran into heavy opposition and stalled
  • All long-term budget decisions require unanimous approval by the member states, a rule first established when the grouping, then known as the European Economic Community, had just six members, not 27. The power of veto makes any major change to spending all but impossible and entrenches the status quo, no matter how unworkable or unpopular.
  • “It is extremely difficult to change anything,” Mr. Sapir said. “Everyone is always fighting at the margins over narrow national interests. They try to make sure they get money for their own countries and that cuts go to other countries.”
  • After months of arguments, two broad alliances have emerged. The first comprises countries like Britain, Germany and Sweden that are big net contributors and want to keep a tighter rein on spending. The second, known as the “Friends of Cohesion,” after a class of development grants aimed at less wealthy areas, includes Poland, Spain, Portugal and others that want to make sure the union’s largess does not dry up.
  • The European Commission, however, has been far less forthcoming. It told Mr. Ehrenhauser that it could not give a breakdown of spending in recent years on wine because that would require “lengthy research” and “it cannot consider doing this at the present time because of other priorities.”
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Tomato Imports Deal Reached by U.S. and Mexico - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ch-deal-on-tomato-imports.html tomato imports deal u s mexico
shared by Gene Ellis on 04 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • The agreement, reached late Saturday, raises the minimum sales price for Mexican tomatoes in the United States, aims to strengthen compliance and enforcement, and increases the types of tomatoes governed by the bilateral pact to four from one.
  • “The draft agreement raises reference prices substantially, in some cases more than double the current reference price for certain products,
  • Florida growers contended it set the minimum price of Mexican tomatoes so low that the Florida growers could not compete.
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  • “Even though no dumping or injury to the U.S. industry was demonstrated by our competitors,
  • The new agreement covers all fresh and chilled tomatoes, excluding those intended for use in processing like canning and dehydrating, and in juices, sauces and purées.
  • It raises the basic floor price for winter tomatoes to 31 cents a pound from 21.69 cents — higher than the price the Mexicans were proposing in October — and establishes even higher prices for specialty tomatoes and tomatoes grown in controlled environments. The Mexicans have invested billions in greenhouses to grow tomatoes, while Florida tomatoes are largely picked green and treated with a gas to change their color.
  • The dispute unfolded in the heated politics surrounding the presidential election, with Mexican growers charging that the Commerce Department was courting voters in the important swing state of Florida. Instead, the timing of the negotiations ensured that the government could win those votes and bring the controversy to a conclusion satisfactory to the Mexicans after the election was over.
  • The Mexicans enlisted roughly 370 American businesses, including Wal-Mart Stores and meat and vegetable producers, to argue their cause.
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Sting operations reveal Mafia involvement in renewable energy - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9dc9-bca76dd777b8_story_2.html
shared by Gene Ellis on 28 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • But as he attempted to sidestep a push by organized crime to control the renewables sector — eschewing efforts to use mob-connected developers and refusing to make a customary payments of 2 percent of profits — his business came under attack.
  • “It’s not only the criminal infiltration but the corrupt bureaucracy that makes it difficult to do business here,” Moncada said.
  • Indeed, the mafia has targeted legitimate businesses in Sicily beyond renewable energy, with a 2008 probe revealing the island’s largest supermarket chain to be a front for mafia cash.
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  • Citing its poor finances and a mountain of debt, the Italian government is now curbing new subsidies for renewable energies.
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Happy 2013? | vox - 0 views

www.voxeu.org/happy-2013
shared by Gene Ellis on 26 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Hopefully the following ten observations are less controversial in 2013 than in previous years.
  • As long known by elementary textbook readers, austerity policies have contractionary effects.
  • Debt reduction is a very long process; we're talking about decades,
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  • The debt-to-GDP ratio is best reduced through sustained nominal GDP growth.
  • Besides, having been there, no one really wants to unleash inflation anymore. That leaves us with real GDP growth as a necessary condition for bringing the debt-to-GDP down painlessly.
  • But in today’s world voters are angry at everything that is called Europe and will not back a fiscal union.
  • The crisis has delivered a surprising degree of wage flexibility and labour mobility.
  • This means that the need for dissolving the euro back into national currencies at almost any cost has evaporated.
  • Sustained real growth should be the number one priority.
  • In most Eurozone countries, structural reforms are as needed now as they were before the crisis.
  • Banks are at the heart of a diabolic loop: bank holdings of their national public debts (Brunnermeier et al., 2011).
  • Massive forbearance has allowed many banks to not fully account for the losses that they incurred in 2007-8.
  • For that reason, they deleverage, which leads to a credit crunch, which slows growth down.
  • The ECB is the lender of last resort both to banks and to governments.
  • This involves massive moral hazard.
  • The long-hoped-for awakening of the ECB has produced several miracles, especially a major relaxation of market anguish.
  • Austerity policies must stop, now.
  • Growth will not return unless bank lending is adequately available.
  • The ECB may act as lender in last resort to banks and governments, but who will bear the residual costs?
  • The only remaining option is public debt restructuring, a purging of the legacy.
  • This will lead to bank failures. This means that debt reductions must be deep enough to make it possible for governments to then borrow, to shift to expansionary fiscal policies and to bail out the banks that they destroyed in the first place, in effect undoing the diabolic loop.
  • Who will lend? Even the best-crafted bank restructuring will not allow an immediate recovery of market access. The ECB is the only institution in the world that can help out.
  • There is no easy option for the Eurozone after three years of deep mismanagement. Governments will not accept drastic action unless forced to. This means that we need another round of crisis worsening.
  • Gene Ellis on 26 Jan 13
     
    Good article by Wyplosz on ten observations and five consequences of Euro policy. 4 Jan 2013
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