The Sicilian mafia is effectively without a »boss of bosses» according to chief Italian anti-mafia prosecutor Pietro Grasso.
05/1/2012
— Filed under: Crime
Tags: Pietro Grasso, Sicilian mafia
Read more: Clomid pas cher
European Union countries may gain the power to impose 5 percent additional capital requirements on their banks’ domestic and non-EU exposures as long as they notify the bloc’s authorities.
04/30/2012
— Filed under: Finance
Tags: banks, capital, EU
The European Union’s statistics agency released new figures on household savings this week which underline just how much of an impact the debt crisis is having on ordinary citizens.
04/29/2012
— Filed under: Finance
Tags: crisis, EU
Chancellor Angela Merkel would welcome joint German-Italian approval of key EU crisis-fighting measures, her spokesman said Wednesday, but denied a report their parliaments had reached such an accord.
04/28/2012
— Filed under: Politics
Tags: crisis-fighting measures, Italy, Merkel
Labour costs in Germany have grown at the slowest pace of any EU country in the past ten years, the German Federal Statistics Office said on Tuesday, underlining the wage restraint that has helped Europe’s largest economy outpace its peers.
04/27/2012
— Filed under: Finance
Tags: Germany, labour costs
Struggling cellphone maker Nokia Corp. said Thursday that tougher-than-expected competition pushed it to a net loss of (EURO)929 million ($1,2 billion) in the first quarter as sales plummeted, including for smartphones.
04/26/2012
— Filed under: Business
Tags: Nokia, sales
A new report has found that black students are 30 percent less likely to be employed than their white peers in Britain, raising concerns that blacks are being discriminated against in the UK.
04/25/2012
— Filed under: Society
Tags: job, UK
The leader of one of Poland’s most notorious organised crime gang has won damages after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that he had been treated «inhumanely» while in a Polish prison.
04/24/2012
— Filed under: Crime
Tags: boss, Mafia, Poland
EU leaders share responsibility for the rise in popularity of anti-European parties, the European Commission said Monday (23 April) but rejected the notion that austerity measures are contributing to the trend.
Speaking a day after Marine Le Pen’s National Front party clocked up a record 17,9 percent of the vote in first round of French presidential elections in a campaign that focused on immigration, Brussels-bashing and single-currency-bashing, the commission said «more Europe» is needed.
«Faced with this crisis we need more Europe. We need member states to work together for the citizens. National solutions in a global village is not the way forward,» said commission spokesperson Olivier Bailly.
He added that all EU leaders as well as the commission bore part of the blame.
«There is indeed a share of responsibility for all EU leaders — and we are part of them so we are ready to look at that.»
His words come amid widespread concern that the prolonged economic crisis is contributing to increased nationalism, protectionism and euroscepticism. Nationalist parties scored well in the latest elections in Sweden, Hungary and Finland.
Attempts to rein in deficit spending are already causing political difficulty in many other member states.
Even as it was becoming clear that Le Pen had persuaded almost one in five French voters to send their ballot her way, in neighbouring Holland the government was collapsing.
The eurosceptic anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which came third in 2010 elections, at the weekend withdrew its support from the minority government over The Hague’s attempts to bring its budget deficit in line with EU rules.
Meeting for a regular council on Monday, EU foreign ministers expressed concern about Europe’s political health and specifically about Le Pen’s performance.
«I’m concerned with sentiments that are against open societies, against an open Europe,» Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said. Austria’s Michael Spindelegger said the result «has to give us food for thought.»
Jean Asselborn of Luxembourg took the strongest line. He directly accused the incumbent French leader Nicolas Sarkozy of contributing to the result by hardening his rhetoric and challenging core EU policies.
«If you repeat every day that we must change Schengen [the EU passport-free area], that we have to have a tough immigration policy, that we have to talk about French exceptionalism, that is grist to the mill of the National Front,» he said.
For his aprt, the EU commission’s Bailly cautioned against linking austerity measures with the euro-backlash, however.
«The countries where there is most populism are not the ones that suffer from the current austerity,» he said.
One likely test will be the Greek elections on 6 May — the same day as the second round of the French elections. The country’s far-right Golden Dawn party, with its neo-facist roots, is hoping to break the three percent threshold and to make it into parliament.
They see their electoral chances as improving because Greek people are increasingly weary of the harsh austerity measures they have to endure in turn for EU a
04/23/2012
— Filed under: Politics
Tags: far-right, politicians
European markets opened in the red on Monday and continue falling, as the developments in the area over the weekend undermined sentiment. Spain, France and Holland are the three countries where recent events have once again cast a shadow over the Eurozone’s future.
04/22/2012
— Filed under: Politics
Tags: EU, extend losses