EU-DIGEST

Wall Street's Killer Instinct Spells Death Knell for Jobs -by Pam Martens

2010-02-09T00:32:00.000+01:00

Wall Street is so steeped in destruction that the symbols of death are everywhere. Wall Street calls the big newspaper ads they take out to herald the launch of their market offerings a “tombstone.” (To understand how appropriate that is, consider the billions in bond and stock offerings they raise for Big Tobacco.) What does Wall Street call the completion of a buy or sell order: an “execution.” (Think of how many derivative trades they “executed” for the now crippled, life support patients Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG; or the off balance sheet vehicles they created for Enron, WorldCom, and dozens of now bankrupt companies.)

Wall Street calls an order to complete a trade without any reduction in quantity a “fill or kill.” This could just as reasonably be called a “fill or cancel” order but it’s so much more fun for the thundering herd to race around a trading floor screaming “kill it, kill it!”

What is the benefit to Wall Street in killing things or bringing the share price of companies to near worthless? Tails they win; heads you lose. Wall Street can and does make enormous profits on bets that share prices will decline (shorting), that companies will disappear (credit default swaps), that the economy will crater (interest rate swaps). And there’s a slogan on Wall Street: the trend is your friend. When it’s clear the bull is lying in the center of the ring (think Lehman’s death and the Merrill Lynch shotgun wedding on September 15, 2008), Wall Street moves its bets to the downside.

For more: Pam Martens: Wall Street's Killer Instinct Spells Death Knell for Jobs

US Economy: Turn Wall Street Bonuses into One Million Green Job - by Les Leopold

2010-02-09T00:02:00.002+01:00

President Obama may be joining the populist crusade against Wall Street. In the span of one week he opened up a three front war: a tax on big banks, full support for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and the embrace of Paul Volcker’s plan to break up the big banks.

Let’s keep in mind how we got here. For thirty years the financial lobbyists and their willing partners in Congress and the White House engaged in an orgy of deregulation and tax reform, resulting in wealth accumulation in the hands of a few. So much money accumulated with the wealthy, that they literally ran out of investments in tangible assets in the real economy. Wall Street solved that problem by creating a menagerie of deregulated fantasy finance instruments that sucked up the surplus wealth and earned Wall UStreet more profits that ever before. (Summers and Geithner were avid cheerleaders for this process.) The process of securitization and derivatives was creating an upside down pyramid of synthetic instruments leveraged on top of risky assets like subprime loans, which in turn created an enormous housing bubble. (And before that the dot.com bubble, the savings and loan crisis, and so on–it should be clear by now that we’re dealing with a distended financial sector that inherently builds bubbles.)

Turn Wall Street Bonuses into One Million Green Jobs « SoapBox

Greece Not Named as New EU President Sets Tone for Summit - by Kevin Costelloe

2010-02-08T23:53:00.000+01:00

A European Union summit this week will focus on long-term economic strategy, President Herman Van Rompuy said, making no direct reference to Greece’s fiscal crisis.

The Feb. 11 summit, the first since Van Rompuy became the bloc’s full-time president in January, will also discuss “some aspects of the present economic situation,” according to a letter sent to EU leaders today.

Note EU-Digest: Wall Street and the financial community better understand that they are not the ones who are going toset the agenda for the EU.

For more: Greece Not Named as New EU President Sets Tone for Summit - BusinessWeek

Euro rebounds as debt fears ease slightly Currencies - by William L. Watts & Myra P. Saefong

2010-02-08T15:38:00.000+01:00

Fears of a sovereign default in southern Europe eased somewhat Monday, allowing the euro to reclaim a little lost ground versus the U.S. dollar.

European Union officials attending the weekend meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven industrialized nations offered a united front on Greece, saying they were confident Athens would be able to cut its deficit and vowing to closely monitor the Greek government's efforts.

For more: Euro rebounds as debt fears ease slightly Currencies - MarketWatch

Genetically Modified Foods: How Safe Are They?

2010-02-08T00:43:00.001+01:00

In the 14 years since the first GM crop was commercially launched, only 8 per cent of the world's cropped area has been converted to growing them. There are two main reasons for this: the high costs of GM seeds and several unresolved controversies. Normally , farmers save some of their harvest for use as seeds for the next crop or governments and companies provide cheap seeds of better varieties. But for cultivating GM crops, special seeds are needed. Most of these seeds have been developed by one of the world's biggest agri-business companies Monsanto ($11.7 billion sales in 2009). They claim that they have spent millions in research and development of the seeds and so they price them high. Royalty has to be paid for producing their type of seeds and farmers cannot use seeds from their fields for the next harvest. Although it is claimed that ultimately, because of higher yields or savings from lesser use of pesticides, the farmers will end up saving more money, there is hesitation because of various controversies that have dogged the GM crops since their introduction. Many governments have introduced tough regulatory mechanisms so that potential dangers from unbridled use of GM crops do not occur.

Although no direct evidence has come up of GM foods causing toxic or allergic effects, some cases of gene transfer have been found. The environmental concern is about the inserted gene "going wild" , that is, getting transferred to other plants in nature. Some studies show that such transfer does take place through pollen flows. In all these issues , long range or chronic effects have not yet been documented and this has led to caution being exercised in use of GM crops.

For more: GM foods: How safe are they? - Science - Home - The Times of India

Food, Inc: Oscar nomination for best documentary is revealing

2010-02-07T20:48:00.002+01:00

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring interviews with such experts as Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as citizens and where we are going from here.

To view a clip of the movie click here

For more: Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - About the Film

Bulgarians Rise in Protest against Genetically Modified Crops

2010-02-07T20:23:00.002+01:00

Several hundred Bulgarians protested against the allowing of genetically modified organisms by the country’s legislation.

The protest before the National Library building was organized by the “For the Nature” coalition and an “initiative committee of citizens and parents.”

“We Don’t Want GMO”, “Bulgaria Free of GMO”, and “We Are the Real Environment Ministry , shouted the several hundred protesters which included a number of mothers with very young kids as representatives of parents’ organizations. “I am not sure whether the decision to adopt the GMO Act is the result of incompetence on part of the Environment Ministry who might have decided to harmonize Bulgaria’s legislation with that of the EU by liberalizing everything,” said lawyer Svilen Ovcharov from the “Green Advocates” association.

For more: Bulgarians Rise in Protest against Genetically Modified Crops: Bulgarians Rise in Protest against Genetically Modified Crops - Novinite.com - Sofia News Agency

EU: Google's plans of digitization of copyright material considered a case of “piracy” and “robbery” - by Jim Brunsden

2010-02-07T20:03:00.002+01:00

European publishers will next week present their arguments against a draft legal settlement agreed in the United States to permit Google to include in-copyright works in its online digital library.

The objections come as champions of Europeana, the EU's rival project for a digital library, seek to muster support to compete with Google.

Helga Trüpel, a German Green MEP who is drafting a report for the European Parliament on Europeana, said Google's digitisation of in-copyright works in US libraries was a case of “piracy” and “robbery”.

For more: Publishers hope Google's library will be brought to book | Policies | Information society | Information technology | European Voice

People's Bank of China Currency Reserves: Biggest Bubble of All Time? -

2010-02-07T16:25:00.000+01:00

The People's Bank fo China continues to amass huge levels of foreign currency reserves with little attention paid. Those reserves totaled $2.4 trillion as of December 2009, which is larger than the GDP of Italy, the world's 7th largest economy. China's reserves are growing at about $400 billion per year, roughly adding Norway's economy to their reserve surplus every year.

China's huge arsenal of reserves is increasingly troublesome. William Pesek of Bloomberg has called it a "massive and growing pyramid scheme." China is essentially trapped in its current arrangement; as it buys more US Treasuries, it becomes harder to sell them without causing huge capital losses.The challenge for China alone is like trying to park an Airbus A-380 super-jumbo in a Volkswagen. Like all pyramid schemes, there’s no easy end in sight and things could end badly. If the dollar collapses, panicked selling by central banks looking to limit losses would shake global markets more than the U.S. credit crisis has. Two, reserves are dead money.

It seems unlikely that China fall victim to the same lost decades that were experienced in the US and Japan. However, this "bubble" in reserves may be an indicator of an economy overheating. We are starting to see the early warning signs in other asset classes in China.

For more: People's Bank of China Currency Reserves: Biggest Bubble of All Time? -- Seeking Alpha

Euro will be stable despite euro zone woes say German Finance Minister

2010-02-07T01:43:00.000+01:00

The euro currency will remain stable despite fiscal problems in some euro zone countries, Germany's finance minister said on Friday.

Wolfgang Schaeuble also said the European Union would make sure that Greece, one of the countries with a big fiscal problem, would stick to its belt-tightening pledges.

"The EU has imposed heavy measures on Greece, like an austerity and savings program, and it will watch closely that Greece acts according to that," the minister said.

For more: Euro will be stable despite euro zone woes-Germany | Reuters

Your car computer may kill you - by John Dvorak'

2010-02-07T01:30:00.000+01:00

As more research is done into the recall of certain vehicles made by Toyota Motor Corp., the more likely it is that the sudden-acceleration phenomenon due to supposedly faulty gas pedals may actually be a software glitch.

In other words, an electromagnetic pulse outside the vehicle or a unusual series of commands to the onboard computer may trigger the hazardous condition.

The original concept behind computer-networked cars began with engine-control units (referred to as car computers) in the 1980s, which handled the complicated fuel injection and other aspects of the modern engine. Because computer networks are easier to troubleshoot than a harness with a bunch of wires in it, cars got more reliable. So companies took the next money-saving step, which was to think seriously about a complete drive-by-wire car. It works on airplanes, why not cars?

This sort of problem can never be fully resolved or eliminated in complex systems. If we are going to continue to trust software and computers to run everything, disaster will forever occur. So get ready for this sort of problem to reemerge over and over in the decades to come. The next step for the auto industry is drive-by-wire steering. I think we can already imagine how this is going to turn out.

For more: Your car computer may kill you John Dvorak's Second Opinion - MarketWatch

EU and U.S. Organic Markets Face Strong Demand Under Different Policies

2010-02-07T00:30:00.002+01:00

Organic markets in the European Union member states and the U.S. are nearly the same size in terms of retail sales. At the same time, their farm sectors differ significantly, with the EU-15 member states having more organic farmland and more organic operations than the U.S. (see “EU and U.S. Organic Sectors”). The U.S. and EU Governments have also adopted markedly different policy approaches to the organic sector. The EU actively promotes the growth of the organic sector with a wide variety of policies designed to increase the amount of land farmed organically, including government standards and certification, conversion and support payments for organic farmers, targets for land under organic management, and policies supporting research, education, and marketing. The U.S. largely takes a free-market approach: its policies aim to facilitate market development through national standards and certification and federally funded grants that support research, education, and marketing for organic agriculture.

For more click on this link

Google: The Virtual Dictator of the Digital Economy - by Miachael Gray

2010-02-06T12:15:00.002+01:00

At the surface it seems such a simple question to answer. However, to find the answer we need to dig a little deeper and understand the complexities of the modern internet and electronic commerce.

Google’s dominant share of the search landscape puts it in a unique position. For many consumers, Google is the internet, or at the very least Google is the start page of the internet and doorway to the rest of the virtual world. For most web publishers and site owners, Google is responsible for the lion’s share of their traffic. In some cases Google can account for 60-90% of a website’s overall site visitors. For an ecommerce website getting traffic from Google can be the difference between making a healthy profit or going out of business.

Google has cornered the market on traffic. They control who is listed on the organic side and set pricing, some times at astronomically uncompetitive levels, for paid advertisers. It has become a Google world and there wasn’t anything you could do to change it. Google operates in a market without government intervention, oversight or regulations.

Google is taking very aggressive steps to retain the market share that they fought to achieve. By giving away free services like GMail, Google Reader, and Google Analytics, they price competition out and keep users locked into their offerings and their integrated search engine.

But Google isn’t stopping there. Now they want all your data.

New initiatives like personalized search, and web history seek to gain a deeper level of access to your private world and all of the websites you visit. Google ‘bookmarks’ gives them access to the sites that you think are important, noteworthy or worth revisiting. Simply put - Google wants to mine your personal data and life to find out as much as it can about you. They want to learn how to market to you more effectively, and how they can extract the most profit from you.

While they may not have set out with this goal in mind, for many people Google knows more about them than the government.

While Google may be too powerful they’ve crafted a public image that is exactly the opposite. With their college-campus-like work environment, bean bag chairs, 6o’s throwback lava lamps, the image they created goes hand-in-hand with their “do no evil motto”. Google is too powerful, they know it, and that’s why they are willing to give you so much for free. The less attractive and harder they make it for you to change, the more they have you tucked neatly into their back pocket.

Note EU-Digest: Even though the above report dates back to 2007 it has become more actual than ever.

A recent proposal by Google which would give them the digital rights to millions of hard-to-find books has not only Google rivals but also consumer watchdogs, academic experts, literary agents, state governments and even foreign governments up in arms.

In an opinion filed by the US government it states they believe a proposal to give Google the digital rights to millions of hard-to-find books threatens to stifle competition and undermine copyright laws. The justice department also raised concerns that Google's partnership with the participating US publishers could turn into a literary group that would wield too much power over book prices. Judge Chin has scheduled a hearing for February 18 to consider approving the class-action settlement.

For more: Google The Virtual Dictator of the Digital Economy

Morality: Is an affair a sackable offenc

2010-02-06T02:08:00.001+01:00

We are living in liberal times; we are more tolerant of homosexuality, divorce and illegitimacy than ever before. Yet talking about sex even inside a good relationship is still difficult for many people. Meanwhile, fidelity has acquired a new importance. A Gallup poll in 2006 found that Americans were more tolerant of polygamy and human cloning than infidelity.

We no longer need to get married to have sex or children and many now enjoy a range of sexual experiences with different people before they "settle down", at which point being faithful to that special person is completely bound up with our feelings of love for them. Given how long we live and expect to be together, achieving this can be very difficult.

The only way a relationship can be made to work in these sex-obsessed times is with an understanding that we should never take each other for granted. Monogamy and fidelity cannot be expected from another person as a right. It is a gift offered from one mature human being to another because they care enough about their feelings not to want to hurt them. That's the deal most of us strike, and most of us do our level best to keep to it.

For more: Is an affair a sackable offence? | From the Guardian | The Guardian

G7: Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States meet near artic in Iqaluit Canada to focus on Global economy and issues related to China and Greece

2010-02-06T01:04:00.001+01:00

The two-day Group of Seven finance ministers' conference, the first high-level international meeting to be held in the Nunavut capital, is considered a "venue for relatively informal discussions" between financial leaders from Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The meetings, described as informal "fireside" chats, are slated to begin Friday evening. The agenda includes economic issues that have arisen with China and Greece.

Unlike past G7 meetings, no concluding written communiqué will be issued when talks wrap up on Saturday.

For more: CBC News - Canada - G7 leaders enjoy Arctic outing before talks

EU: "Rompuying along" - ANGLO-SAXON EURO SCEPTICS THE MAIN SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM

2010-02-05T23:59:00.004+01:00

"Three headaches obsess Brussels at this moment ( say Eurosceptics) . First comes the spectre of a euro-area crisis. Senior figures say it is a question of “when not if” external aid is sent to prevent cash-strapped Greece from defaulting on its debts. Second : Under the Lisbon treaty summits are meant to take place in Brussels, hosted by the new permanent president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. But Spain, which holds the rotating EU presidency until June 30th, insisted on inviting Mr Obama to Madrid. He has now made clear he is not coming. A third headache is the “EU 2020 reform agenda”, a ten-year plan to make Europe dynamic by administrative fiat. The 2020 agenda is to be discussed at an informal summit called by Mr Van Rompuy on February 11th. EU leaders hope to build on the rubble of the 2000 Lisbon agenda, whose stated aim was to make the EU “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion and respect for the environment.” It failed.

Lisbon failed because lots of Europeans do not want to live in the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world. They prefer to work fewer hours than Americans or Japanese (about 10% fewer, on average), to take long holidays, and to retire as soon as possible. Among EU leaders it is fashionable to predict that the financial crisis will lead to a revolution in “European economic governance”. Yet that phrase hides a dearth of new ideas", they say.

Note EU-Digest: The Anglo-Saxons Euro-sceptics and their friends in the press just love to bad-mouth the EU, don't they? The most obvious reason Mr. Obama snubbed the EU Summit has probably all to do with Afghanistan, where the Europeans have been reluctant to support the US with additional troops and to help keeping a corrupt local government propped up. If there is a problem today in the EU, the Anglo-Saxon Euro-Sceptics are probably the main cause of it.

For the complete report also see: Charlemagne: Rompuying along | The Economist

US Unemployment Rate Falls in January: experts say figures flawed

2010-02-05T23:33:00.001+01:00

US employers reduced their payrolls by 20,000 during January, a government report showed, generating fresh anxiety about a labor market that has yet tocatch upwith growth in the overall economy. The reduction was slightly worse than the 15,000 jobs economists were expecting. The nation's unemployment rate -- the result of a separate but simultaneously released survey of households -- dropped to 9.7 percent from the 10-percent level of a month ago, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

Despite the mixed numbers, a growing chorus of economists and labor market analysts say the unemployment picture in the United States is actually far worse. They argue that the Labor Department routinely undercounts the number of unemployed in this country, adding fuel to a simmering debate on whether the government is providing an accurate snapshot of the nation's unemployment picture.

"Our gripe about the numbers is that it leaves out broad swaths of unemployed people in the country," said Madeline Schnapp, director of macroeconomic research at TrimTabs, a Sausalito, Calif.-based investment research firm. Like other economic observers, Schnapp argued that the Labor Department's methodology is flawed because it's based on surveys and polling and ignores "the real-time data available via analysis of withheld income and employment taxes."

For more: Unemployment Rate Drops: Jobless Rate Down - ABC News

Spanish PM: Spain's economy is strong - by Melissa Eddy

2010-02-05T22:36:00.001+01:00

Spain's prime minister has defended his nation's economy as "robust and strong" and vowed to stand by Greece, which has plunged the nations using the common European currency into a debt crisis.

In comments late Thursday, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also expressed understanding for President Barack Obama's decision not to attend an annual EU-US summit being planned for May and indicated a meeting would be held in the future, but did not say when.

In remarks to the Atlantic Council, Zapatero dismissed worries about the Spanish economy, saying that "Spain's financial system is robust and strong."

Last week, Zapatero's government announced a deficit for 2009 that was equal to 11.4 percent of economic output, nearly four times the European Union limit. Madrid's disclosure came atop EU concerns about Greece's 12.7 percent budget deficit that has forced the government to enact austerity measures and fueled fears that it might default.

For more: Spanish PM: Spain's economy is strong - BusinessWeek

US Federal Watchdog: "TARP Program Opens Way for Deeper Future Economic Meltdown - by Christopher Neefus

2010-02-05T01:52:00.000+01:00

Neil Barofsky, the man tasked with overseeing the administration of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), told Congress in a report released Sunday that the bank bailouts have cleared the path to another financial crisis -- potentially even more grave than the 2008 crisis.

“(E)ven if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008,” Barofsky wrote, “absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.”

For the complete report:CNSNews.com - Federal Watchdog: TARP Program Opens Way for Deeper Economic Meltdown

Sovereign Credit Risk Surges to Record Amid Confidence ‘Crisis’ - by Abigall Moses

2010-02-05T01:22:00.000+01:00

Portugal and Greece led a surge in the cost of insuring against losses on sovereign debt to a record as concern that nations will struggle to cut budget deficits deepens a “crisis of confidence” in Europe.

The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of credit- default swaps on the debt of 15 governments rose 12.5 basis points to 106.5, according to Deutsche Bank AG. Swaps on Portugal soared 31 basis points to 227, according to CMA DataVision, while contracts on Greece jumped 32.5 basis points to 430 and Spain increased 13 to 165.

For more: Sovereign Credit Risk Surges to Record Amid Confidence ‘Crisis’ - BusinessWeek

European Union Beats Expectations, Grows Wind Power Capacity in 2009 - by Brendan Demelle

2010-02-04T23:16:00.001+01:00

The European Union installed more new wind power capacity in 2009 than any other electricity-generating technology, according to a new analysis by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Fully 39% of all new capacity installed last year in the EU was wind power, followed by gas (26%) and solar photovoltaics (16%). All told, renewable energy technologies accounted for 61% of new power generating capacity in Europe in 2009.

It was also clearly an ‘out with the old, in with the new’ year, as Europe decommissioned more coal and nuclear capacity than it installed in 2009. The coal power sector decommissioned 3,200 megawatts of capacity in 2009, while the nuclear sector cut 1,393 megawatts. The European Union’s total wind capacity has now reached 74,767 MW, with the potential to produce 163 TWh of electricity, meeting 4.8% of total EU power demand. Financing woes that were expected to set the industry back turned out to be much ado about nothing, as €13 billion ($18 billion) in investments were pumped into new European wind farms in 2009, including €1.5 billion ($2 billion) offshore.

This was the second year in a row that Europe installed more wind power capacity than any other electricity-generating technology, and also the second year running that renewable energies have accounted for the majority of new investments. Germany held onto its lead role as the EU country with the largest installed capacity, followed by Spain, Italy, France and the UK.

“It is a remarkable result in a difficult year” said Christian Kjaer, CEO of EWEA. “The figures, once again, confirm that wind power, together with other renewable energy technologies and a shift from coal to gas, are delivering massive European carbon reductions, while creating much needed economic activity and new jobs for Europe’s citizens.” Looking ahead to 2010, Kjaer added: “I am quite optimistic about the medium-term outlook for wind power in Europe, but project finance is still tight and it is clear that more orders must be announced in the coming months for the sector to repeat the 10 GW installed this year.”

For more: European Union Beats Expectations, Grows Wind Power Capacity in 2009 | Brendan Demelle

Aircraft Industry: 2 Spanish Eurofighters down 8 F-15C at recent exercise

2010-02-04T15:28:00.001+01:00

In an interview on the exercise, Major Juan Balesta, the 41-year old Commander of the 111 Squadron stressed that a two-ship formation of Eurofighters involved in a dogfight simulation "against" the F-15s enjoyed full control of the engagement. The Typhoons managed to smash a formation of eight F-15s which had the role of the attacker with the first Eurofighter jet managing to "shoot down" four F-15 fighter jets. The second Eurofighter managed to disable three F-15 jets. Eventually the pilots were using the Eurofighter Typhoon to full capacity and taking advantage of its enormous capabilities. Trump that.

This apparently refers to an exercise that ended last March. Who thinks Eurofighter is just trying to compensate for something, like a rumored beat-down by Dassault Rafale's at Al Dhafra?

For the complete report: 2 Spanish Eurofighter down 8 F-15C at recent exercise

Global wind power boom continues - Half a million people now employed by the wind industry around the world

2010-02-04T14:42:00.001+01:00

The Global Wind Energy Council in Bruxelles Belgium announced recently that the world’s wind power capacity grew by 31% in 2009, adding 37.5 GW to bring total installations up to 157.9 GW. A third of these additions were made in China, which experienced yet another year of over 100% growth.

“The continued rapid growth of wind power despite the financial crisis and economic downturn is testament to the inherent attractiveness of the technology, which is clean, reliable and quick to install. Wind power has become the power technology of choice a growing number of countries around the world,” said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s Secretary General. “Copenhagen didn’t bring us any closer to a global price on carbon, but wind energy continued to grow due to national energy policy in our main markets and also because many governments in prioritised renewable energy development in their economic recovery plans,” he said.

Wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets. The global wind market for turbine installations in 2009 was worth about 45 bn EUR or 63 bn US$. GWEC estimates that around half a million people are now employed by the wind industry around the world.

For more: Global Wind Energy Council - GWEC: Global wind power boom continues despite economic woes

Interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty: confusion reigns - clarity essential

2010-02-04T14:00:00.005+01:00

Contrary to earlier expectations there now seems to be political confusion in Europe following the acceptance of the Lisbon Treaty. Europe seems to be having difficulty to get the treaty off to a quick start.

Unfortunately, at least from a protocol point of view, there seems to be initial confusion as to the interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty. Case in point, the upcoming US-EU summit. Even though Spain is hosting the EU-U.S. summit, it will be chaired by the new EU president, Herman Van Rompuy. But when asked earlier if President Obama was attending the summit, Van Rompuy’s office had no clue if he was attending, saying only that it had read press reports that he wasn’t coming. Officials referred calls to the Spanish rotating presidency in Brussels, which is in charge of planning summits and other meetings for the next six months. The perception now exists that no one seems to be sure who is calling the shots in Europe. Is it the EU rotating Presidency's office, the EU President Van Rompuy, Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, or Mrs. Catherin Ashton, the office of high representative for foreign affairs?

Foreign heads of state and their cabinets are expected to have made themselves familiar with the new EU structure under the Lisbon Treaty, but given the confusion which reigns, they don't seem to have done so. Therefore, even though everything is spelled out in the Lisbon Treaty, it would benefit the EU to produce a clear public outline on how the top EU hierarchy functions, based on the level of authority and responsibilities under the Lisbon Treaty. It is maybe good to remember the wise saying, "that if hierarchy is inaccessible on the human level, then chaos will prevail rather than natural order."

EU-Digest: Interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty: confusion reigns - clarity essential

Banks in Spain and Portugal feel the heat - by Anjli Raval

2010-02-04T11:55:00.001+01:00

Spanish and Portuguese banks dropped heavily in late trade yesterday, cutting short a three-day rally of European shares, as investors worried about the economic health of the eurozone's peripheral countries.

The cost of insuring debt against default for Portugal, Greece and Spain rose after Portugal's debt agency IGCP cut its planned treasury bill placement to €300m from €500m.

More generally, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese stocks were among the biggest losers on the FTSE Eurofirst 300 index which lost 0.6 per cent to 1020.99.

For the complete report: FT.com / Financials - Banks in Spain and Portugal feel the heat