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Spain's centre-left prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has attacked centre-right opposition parties, the People's Party and Ciudadanos, over their plans to team up with a far-right party, Vox, in a regional government in Andalusia. "Parties that call themselves pro-European cannot ... base their [regional] government on a resolutely anti-European force like Vox," Sanchez said. Ciudadanos aims to link up with French president Emmanuel Macron's pro-EU party in next year's EU elections.

Der Personaldienstleister Adecco übernimmt die Mehrheit am deutschen Anbieter LOGworks. Konkret würden 51 Prozent übernommen, hiess es in einer kürzlich publizierten Mitteilung der Gesellschaft. Finanzielle Angaben wurden nicht gemacht.

Zusammenfassung:

Tendenz zum überproportionalen Investieren in Staatsanleihen des Heimatlandes – Absicherung durch Eigenkapital würde vor allem spanische und italienische Banken treffen und die Staatsschuldenfinanzierung erschweren

Europäische Großbanken haben in den vergangenen Jahren verstärkt in heimische Staatsanleihen investiert. Insbesondere bei den italienischen und spanischen Banken ist diese Tendenz sehr ausgeprägt. Dies zeigt eine aktuelle Studie des Deutschen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW Berlin). „Müssten Banken – wie vielfach gefordert – EU-Staatsanleihen genauso wie andere Wertpapiere mit Eigenkapital unterlegen, so müssten die hier betrachteten italienischen und spanischen Banken zusätzliches Eigenkapital in Höhe von zusammen mehr als 20 Milliarden Euro aufbringen“, sagt DIW-Finanzmarktexpertin Dorothea Schäfer. Dies würde die Finanzierung der Staatsschulden insbesondere Italiens deutlich erschweren. Eine Risikogewichtung für Staatsanleihen empfiehlt sich erst dann, wenn sich die öffentlichen Haushalte im Euroraum stabilisiert haben. Gleichzeitig sollten Maßnahmen eingeführt werden, die es den Banken erleichtern, ihr Staatsanleiheportfolio besser zu diversifizieren.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said while in Lisbon that "Chinese-Portuguese relations are entering their best period in history" and that "we will deepen [the] ... strategic partnership between China and the European Union". Chinese firms have invested heavily in Portugal's energy, banking, insurance, and healthcare sectors, in a pattern replicated in other poor EU states, such as Greece, amid European and US concern over China's growing economic power.

Das ewige Warten vor der Billettkasse vor dem Skitag ist Schnee von gestern: Ab sofort kann man den Skipass schon im Voraus an über 900 Kiosken im ganzen Land posten.

British prime minister Theresa May lost three Brexit votes in parliament Tuesday, auguring badly for the adoption of the UK-EU withdrawal agreement in a crunch vote on 11 December. MPs forced her to fully disclose her Brexit legal advice, to handle the legal advice issue in plenary instead of in committee, and to let parliament table alternative proposals for how to leave Europe. May called her plan an "honourable compromise".

Russia has partly lifted its blockade of Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea by letting through commercial vessels carrying agricultural products, Ukraine said Tuesday. The move came amid EU and Nato complaints, but did not address whether Ukrainian naval vessels could access the ports. Russia also continues to hold three Ukrainian ships and more than 20 sailors it captured in a skirmish in the area 10 days ago.

EU finance ministers failed to adopt a watered-down digital tax plan on Tuesday after four states opposed the measure, which required consensus. "I continue to have strong principled concerns about this policy direction," Irish minister Paschal Donohoe said. The plan, put forward by France and Germany, was to tax US online retailers like Apple and Amazon, but not advertisers, such as Facebook and Google, with talks set to continue.

A Turkish court on Tuesday (4 December) rejected an appeal by jailed pro-Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş against his conviction for “terrorist propaganda”, his lawyer said, in a fresh blow to the prominent politician considered a potential rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Demirtaş,...

A Polish anti-fraud squad, the CBSP, has arrested 22 people in dawn raids on homes and offices around the country on a group suspected of defrauding €68m from EU funds. The group allegedly obtained 118 bogus EU-funded loans for purchases of specialist IT equipment for 89 different companies between 2017 and 2018, Polish authorities said. Suspects face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Belgium's coalition government risks collapse after its far-right NV-A party broke ranks to reject a UN migration pact to be adopted in Morocco next week. It also caused a storm by posting, then removing, images of veiled Muslim women on social media and saying the UN treaty would help Islam flourish in Europe. "You can take pictures like this every day in Brussels," NV-A leader Bart de Wever said.

A pro-Brexit rally planned for Sunday in London by the eurosceptic Ukip party "may well inspire violence and thuggish behaviour" and "give the opponents of Brexit a chance to lambast Brexiteers everywhere", the party's co-founder, British MEP Nigel Farage, has warned. Farage quit the party Tuesday, launching an attack on its leader, Gerard Batten, for surrounding himself with "violent criminals", such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and Daniel Thompson, two far-right activists.

Noch hat der neue europäische Klub-Wettbewerb, der 2021 lanciert wird, noch nicht einmal einen Namen. Sein simpler Arbeitstitel lautet Europa League 2. Fest steht jedoch: Vereine und Fans müssen sich an ein neues Erscheinungsbild des Europacups gewöhnen. Aber was genau wird anders?

A brexit fő tanulsága, hogy az Európai Uniót vezető elitnek meg kell hallgatni az emberek véleményét  mondta Takács Szabolcs, a Miniszterelnökség uniós ügyekért felelős államtitkára a Magyar Időknek adott interjújában. Az államtitkár szerint az Európai Bizottság politikailag terrorizálja azokat a tagállamokat, köztük Magyarországot, amelyek elég bátrak ahhoz, hogy megfogalmazzanak egy alternatív uniós jövőképet, és ellenálljanak a modern kori népvándorlásnak.

The UN General Assembly will decide on any proposed cuts on US assessed contributions to the UN. Credit: UN Photo/Cia Pak

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 5 2018 (IPS)

The speculation that the Trump administration plans to reduce its mandatory assessed financial contributions to the UN’s regular budget was implicitly confirmed when the US president told delegates last September that Washington “is working to shift more of our funding, from assessed contributions to voluntary contributions, so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.”

Any such reduction in the scale of assessment – which is based on each country’s “capacity to pay” — will not only undergo a long-drawn-out negotiating process but will also have a significant impact on the day-to-day operations of the world body.

But that resolution may be adopted by the 193-member General Assembly if the US resorts to strong-arm tactics — as US Ambassador Nikki Haley once threatened to “take down names” and cut American aid to countries that voted for a resolution condemning US recognition of Jerusalem as the new Israeli capital.

At a press conference announcing her decision to step down as US ambassador to the UN, Haley told reporters last October that that during her two year tenure “we cut $1.3 billion in the UN’s budget. We’ve made it stronger. We’ve made it more efficient.”

At the same time, the US has slashed its contribution to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) , from $69 million in 2016 to zero in 2017, and cut $300 million in funds to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), aiding Palestinian refugees.

The US, which pulled out of the Human Rights Council last June, has also threatened to “defund” the Geneva-based Council.

Scott Paul, Oxfam America’s Humanitarian Policy Lead, told IPS the Trump administration’s recent threats to cut funding for and cooperation with the UN undercut the world’s most important mechanism for reducing the risk of conflict, addressing acute humanitarian needs and building a better, safer world.

“Cutting US contributions not only undermines the effort to prevent conflict and end poverty; it limits the ability of the US to make it better and revitalize it to meet today’s challenges,” he pointed out.

Paul said responses to forgotten crises like the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are both less than 50% funded, “and we will likely see major humanitarian crises even less funded than they are right now”.

“With less reliable funding, when new crises emerge in the future, there will less capacity to respond to help the world’s most vulnerable people survive and live with dignity”.

“We hope other countries will step up to save lives in humanitarian crises, but the US is leaving a big gap to fill, and families caught in crisis will pay the price,” declared Paul.

However, the proposed reduction in assessed contributions by the US has to be approved by the UN’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee (the Fifth Committee), the Committee on Contributions and finally endorsed by the General Assembly.

Currently, the US makes the largest single contribution, paying 22 percent of the UN’s regular budget, which also give the US plenty of financial clout not only to demand some of the highest ranking jobs in the world body but also dominate discussions on the biennial budget, which is estimated at $5.4 billion for 2018-2019.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former UN Under-Secretary-General and one-time President of the Security Council, told IPS that to have an agreement on reducing the scale approved by the General Assembly is a very complex and complicated process.

The proposal to reduce the scale by a country, particularly with a sizeable contribution, like the US, would mean increase in the contribution of other countries as the scale for all countries together adds up to 100 percentile points.

“It is a zero-sum situation,” he added.

According to this formula, besides the 22% contribution by the US, the percentage for the other major contributors include: Japan 9.7 %, China 7.9%, Germany 6.4%, France 4.9 %, UK 4.5%, Italy 3.7% and Russia 3.1%.
The poorest countries of the world pay 0.001% of the UN budget, whereas the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the poor, have a cap of 0.01% each.

Ambassador Chowdhury pointed out that a Member State proposing reduction needs to go through a painstaking and arduous process of bargain-laden negotiating process. It needs consistency, expertise and collegiality in going through the process till its objective of reduction in the scale is achieved.

Very importantly, he noted, the Permanent Representative of that Member State needs to be personally involved and lead the process throughout.

“The whole scenario for this unfolds as a Fifth Committee exercise at the UN – but also at the bilateral/regional levels for influencing that exercise. This is a tall order.”

The last time such an exercise was undertaken for the reduction of the US scale, from 25 percent to 22.5 percent, Ambassador Chowdhury was very closely following that process, as US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was leading that effort on behalf of his country “in a masterful way using all kinds of avenues and leverages available to him.”

“That kind of tenacity, perseverance, skillful diplomatic maneuvers and personal relationship built with many of his counterparts from other nations at UN during his tenure is a rare combination.”

“As I was chairing the Fifth Committee in 1997-98 during the 52nd UN General Assembly session– and the scale of assessment and the biennium budget were both on the agenda– Richard kept in regular touch and sought clarification from me on many related issues.”

“That gave me an insight into the way his patient step-by-step strategy was bringing him close to his objective and finally, it was achieved without much acrimony and hard feeling,” Ambassador Chowdhury added.

At a press conference last October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres– in response to a question on proposed US funding cuts– told reporters: “Until now, the United States has not put into question the assessed contributions to the United Nations”.

He said there have been decisions to withdraw support from different agencies whose work is not agreed by the United States, but there has not been a disruption of the funding from the assessed contributions, both for the normal function of the Secretariat and of peacekeeping.

“And, of course, we are doing everything we can in order to make sure that we can overcome the difficulties that have happened in relations to agencies like UNRWA [UN Relief and Works Agency] or UNFPA [UN Population Fund] that we consider to have a very important function that needs to be maintained,” he added.

Meanwhile, US National Security Adviser John Bolton rejected the argument that Washington will not be able to cut funding to the Human Rights Council because the Council’s operating expenses are funded through assessed contributions.

In an interview with Associated Press (AP), Bolton was quoted as saying: “We’ll calculate 22 percent of the Human Rights Council and the High Commissioner’s budget, and our remittances to the UN for this budget year will be less 22 percent of those costs — and we’ll say specifically that’s what we’re doing.”

Ambassador Chowdhury told IPS that another important element in his scale-reduction strategy by Holbrooke was a carrot –- namely paying up of all US arrears to UN amounting to $300 million plus, blocked by US Senator Jesse Helms as Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“That was also a considerable inducement.”

“In this context, I would say that it is nothing new for the UN to suffer due to US actions for not paying the assessed annual contribution on time, withholding part of the contribution on some excuse, proposing the reduction of the scale (in fact. since UN founding, US scale has come down from 30 percent to current 22 percent) etc.”

“I believe it would be smart on the part of the general UN membership and UN’s Senior Management leadership not to succumb to such eventualities as the US decides to lessen its multilateral engagements.”

“Yes, I agree that on time, in full and without condition payment of assessed contribution is a Charter obligation. But UN has not done anything to enforce this obligation.”

He said “contribution or absence of it” by the largest payer and the host country of UN should not have a negative impact on the policy direction and activities of the world body.

The UN needs to internalize the culture of doing more with less – motivation and inspiration to be of service to humanity should not be dependent on availability of “funds” only, he declared.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org

The post Will Member States Help Offset US Funding Cuts to UN? appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Der Versicherer Bâloise will weiterhin einen eigenständigen Kurs verfolgen. Dies gelte, obwohl die Gruppe "schon lange als schöne Braut am Rhein" gelte, wie CEO Gert De Winter in einem Interview mit der "Finanz und Wirtschaft" (Mittwochausgabe) einräumte.

France's prime minister on Tuesday (4 December) suspended planned increases to fuel taxes for at least six months in response to weeks of sometimes violent protests, the first major U-turn by President Emmanuel Macron's administration in 18 months in office.

M. Nadir

Mis en délibéré le 27 novembre dernier, le verdict du procès dit de la CNAN Oran a été rendu hier par le tribunal correctionnel de Cité Djamel. Les deux agents commerciaux ont été condamnés à trois ans de prison alors que le responsable des opérations du port d’Oran, qui comparaissait libre, a bénéficié de la relaxe.

Dans son réquisitoire, le procureur de la République avait requis dix ans de prison contre les deux premiers mis en cause et la peine maximale contre le troisième cependant que la défense s’était ingéniée à démontrer que l’accusation n’avait pas présenté de preuves accablantes et réclamé la relaxe des accusés.

Pour rappel, les faits remontent à janvier 2018 lorsque le département comptabilité de la CNAN Oran a relevé que des billets d’embarquement sur des navires en partance pour des pays européens étaient annulés alors même que les voyageurs avaient effectué le voyage. Saisi par ce qui apparaissait comme une anomalie, le directeur régional de la CNAN a ordonné une enquête interne qui a déterminé que deux agents commerciaux enregistraient l’annulation de billets dont les propriétaires avaient, en fait, embarqué. Stratagème qui permettait aux présumés fraudeurs d’empocher la valeur des billets prétendument invalidés. Poussant plus loin les investigations, la commission d’enquête acquerra la certitude que la pratique frauduleuse remontait à 2016 (au moins !), entraînant des pertes financières estimées à 657 millions de centimes. Ces conclusions pousseront le PDG de la compagnie à porter l’affaire devant la justice qui décide de poursuivre les deux agents commerciaux et le responsable des opérations au port d’Oran pour détournement, faux et usage de faux pour les deux premiers, et négligence pour le dernier.

Au cours du procès de la semaine écoulée, durant lequel les accusés ont nié les charges, la défense a mis en évidence l’absence de preuves matérielles et mis en doute le sérieux de l’expertise comptable. Certains avocats ont souligné la mauvaise gestion de la compagnie nationale de navigation alors que d’autres ont attiré l’attention du tribunal sur le fait que les deux agents étaient en congé au moment où ils étaient censés avoir frauduleusement annulé des billets d’embarquement.

The post Détournement de 650 millions à la CNAN Oran: Deux peines de prison et une relaxe appeared first on .

Frontière entre le Kosovo et le Monténégro : faux espoir de règlement ?
Kosovo : Ramush Haradinaj veut redéfinir au plus vite la frontière avec le Monténégro
Entre Kosovo et Monténégro, une frontière qui ne passe pas
Visas européens : c'est toujours le parcours du combattant pour les citoyens du Kosovo
Pour la Commission européenne, le Kosovo doit (enfin) être exempté de visas

/ Courrier des Balkans, Kosovo, Politique intérieure, Questions européennes

Frontière entre le Kosovo et le Monténégro : faux espoir de règlement ?
Kosovo : Ramush Haradinaj veut redéfinir au plus vite la frontière avec le Monténégro
Entre Kosovo et Monténégro, une frontière qui ne passe pas
Visas européens : c'est toujours le parcours du combattant pour les citoyens du Kosovo
Pour la Commission européenne, le Kosovo doit (enfin) être exempté de visas

/ Courrier des Balkans, Kosovo, Politique intérieure, Questions européennes