THE EUROPEAN Commission yesterday sharply lowered its forecast for economic growth in Ireland next year. It now expects gross domestic product to expand by just 1 per cent. Three months ago it forecast GDP growth of 1,9 per cent for 2012.
11/30/2011
— Filed under: Finance
Tags: economy, EU, forecast
Greece must improve the competitiveness of its damaged economy if it is to remain in the euro zone, a top European official said on Wednesday.
The executive board of network-equipment vendor Nokia Siemens Networks said it has decided not to take on any new business in Iran and will gradually reduce its existing commitments, effective Jan. 1, 2012.
11/28/2011
— Filed under: Business
Tags: contract, expost, Nokia Siemens
It sounds like a tough sell for an evening out: Come relive the London riots.
A report by the Royal Society claims the age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland could be «unreasonably low» considering neuroscientific evidence of how slowly the brains of children mature.
Renault-Nissan, the automotive group, is taking a nuanced approach in India as it attempts to meet the unique demands of customers and business partners in the country.
11/25/2011
— Filed under: Business
Tags: India, Renault-Nissan
Ireland unveiled new spending cuts Monday that will reduce civil servants’ pay, increase waiting times for medical services, and lower monthly payments to parents with large families.
11/24/2011
— Filed under: Society
Tags: health, Ireland, medical services
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Greece’s understaffed new statistical agency has been struggling for months to produce high-quality figures needed by European Union and International Monetary Fund experts preparing the country’s next round of fiscal and structural reform.
A criminal investigation focused on its director, Andreas Georgiou, will only compound the problems.
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Mr Georgiou, a former International Monetary Fund official, has already appeared informally before a junior financial prosecutor investigating accusations by a fellow statistician that he «betrayed the country’s interests» by inflating the 2009 budget deficit figures.
Mr Georgiou is due to attend a formal hearing next month conducted by Grigoris Peponis, the senior prosecutor for financial crime, who was appointed this year after the EU and IMF pressured the government to crack down harder on tax evasion and other economic crimes.
A second case, filed by the Athens lawyers’ union, also demands a criminal investigation on the grounds that the «inflation» of the deficit «damaged Greece’s national sovereignty and violated the constitution».
The furore over the deficit figure highlights the embarrassment felt by conservative and socialist politicians — the government changed hands two years ago — over their responsibility for racking up a eurozone record budget deficit of 15,8 per cent of gross domestic product in 2009. That compares with an earlier figure of 13,4 per cent of GDP, less than that of Ireland, produced a few months before the Hellenic Statistical Agency, or Elstat, started operating in August 2010.
But with Greece already embarked on a harsh austerity programme, the extra 2,4 percentage points translated into further tough measures that might have otherwise have been avoided, according to one member of the lawyers’ union who declined to be named.
«The country was already in deep crisis, the head of Elstat should have put Greece’s interests ahead of an issue about numbers which is always going to be open to debate,» said the lawyer, who helped prepare the case against Mr Georgiou.
Members of the parliamentary budget committee blasted Mr Georgiou last week at a hearing to discuss a new regulation on the operation and management of the agency.
Mr Georgiou’s two deputies, who were promoted from the former state statistical service, could face similar charges. Morale at the agency has suffered with middle-level staff fearing that they could face court action for signing off on regular statistical surveys.
Mr Georgiou denies any wrongdoing. His team at Elstat has already sent almost 80 files defending the deficit figure and their methodology to the prosecutor’s office ahead of the December 12 hearing.
The accusations against him by professor Zoe Georganta, a UK-trained statistician who teaches at Greece’s University of Macedonia, were made after she was sacked along with other members of Elstat’s board by Evangelos Venizelos, the finance minister.
Prof Georganta and other board members had demanded that they should jointly approve figures on the public finances before they were sent to Eurostat, in defiance of Elstat’s new methodology and of EU practice.
11/23/2011
— Filed under: Crime
Tags: Andreas Georgiou, investigation
French Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse Monday said European Union institutions have a role to play to establish budget discipline across euro-zone governments.
The European Union has decided to launch negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free trade area with Georgia and Moldova in order to boost economic growth and investment with the Eastern European partners, a European Commission statement on December 5 2011 said.
11/21/2011
— Filed under: Politics
Tags: Georgia, trade negotiations
