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Euro-zone finance ministers criticized corporate bonuses and questioned Europe's agriculture policies in face of inflation and slowing growth. Euro-zone finance ministers said it's inappropriate for top managers to rake in big bonuses at a time when ordinary Europeans are struggling to make ends meet "It is no longer acceptable to have situations whereby certain top managers have excessive salaries and also benefit from golden parachutes, payments which have no relationship to their performance," said Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chaired the ministerial meeting of the 15 countries sharing the euro currency on Tuesday, May 13. Juncker said ministers were considering hiking taxes to limit what he dubbed a "scandal" and "social scourge." Any move aimed at curbing salaries or bonuses granted to captains of industry is likely to be met with strong resistance by EU member states such as Britain, which fears that it might pose a threat to the City of London by pushing businesses to relocate. British diplomats said that they believed there was "zero appetite" within the EU for such initiatives.
Euro-zone finance ministers said it's inappropriate for top managers to rake in big bonuses at a time when ordinary Europeans are struggling to make ends meet
"It is no longer acceptable to have situations whereby certain top managers have excessive salaries and also benefit from golden parachutes, payments which have no relationship to their performance," said Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who chaired the ministerial meeting of the 15 countries sharing the euro currency on Tuesday, May 13.
Juncker said ministers were considering hiking taxes to limit what he dubbed a "scandal" and "social scourge."
Any move aimed at curbing salaries or bonuses granted to captains of industry is likely to be met with strong resistance by EU member states such as Britain, which fears that it might pose a threat to the City of London by pushing businesses to relocate.
British diplomats said that they believed there was "zero appetite" within the EU for such initiatives.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - With inflationary pressure in the eurozone heating up, its economic chiefs have intensified calls on trade unions to avoid demands for wage increases and suggested the EU should consider measures to discourage "scandalous" financial bonuses for departing executives. "We remain on our guard as regards inflationary developments. It's too high and we don't think it is a good thing," said Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the 15-strong eurogroup, meeting on Tuesday (13 May), on the eve of today's session of all EU finance ministers. The annual level of consumer price gains across the single currency area slowed to 3.3 percent in April from 3.6 percent in March, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office. The European Commission has recently raised its forecast for eurozone inflation this year to 3.2 percent, 0.6 percentage points more than it predicted in February. Energy and food prices remain the key external factors influencing the price hikes but experts suggest that potential salary raises in reaction to these developments would make things worse for the European economy.
Er...what happened to "we have to pay a competitive, world market salary"?
Doesn't the market dictate that those poor benighted companies from pay-restricted countries would simply go under if they couldn't pay millions for executive failure?
Any move aimed at curbing salaries or bonuses granted to captains of industry
Also it's interesting that rises in management income do not constitute the dreaded "wage inflation".
Funny, that.
Meanwhile the poor and powerless need the incentive of benefit or wage cuts to get them out of bed.
When you're rich, it's a reward for being rich.
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi will be called as a witness in a trial over the alleged CIA kidnap of a terror suspect. Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Italy and sending him to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured. A judge in Milan ruled that Mr Berlusconi, who faces no charges in the trial, could be called to testify. Former spy chief Nicolo Pollari says testimony from ex-heads of government may prove he was against the practice. Mr Berlusconi is considered a key witness as he was prime minister when prosecutors allege that Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was snatched from a street in Milan, in February 2003.
Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi will be called as a witness in a trial over the alleged CIA kidnap of a terror suspect.
Twenty-six Americans and six Italians are accused of kidnapping a Muslim cleric from Italy and sending him to Egypt, where he claims he was tortured.
A judge in Milan ruled that Mr Berlusconi, who faces no charges in the trial, could be called to testify.
Former spy chief Nicolo Pollari says testimony from ex-heads of government may prove he was against the practice.
Mr Berlusconi is considered a key witness as he was prime minister when prosecutors allege that Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was snatched from a street in Milan, in February 2003.
MILAN, Italy: The wife of an Egyptian cleric taken from a Milan street, allegedly as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, wept Wednesday as she described her husband's alleged torture in an Egyptian jail. Heavily veiled and speaking through a translator, Ghali Nabila testified in the trial of 26 Americans and several Italians charged in Italy with kidnapping in the disappearance of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in February 2003. "They put him on a cross, they beat him on the ears and all over his body," she told the court, citing a letter from her husband and conversations with him. "They positioned him on a chair, tied up his hands and his feet," she said before breaking into tears. "And they gave him electrical shock all over his body, even his genitals." Nabila, 39, said the torture continued over 14 months.
MILAN, Italy: The wife of an Egyptian cleric taken from a Milan street, allegedly as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, wept Wednesday as she described her husband's alleged torture in an Egyptian jail.
Heavily veiled and speaking through a translator, Ghali Nabila testified in the trial of 26 Americans and several Italians charged in Italy with kidnapping in the disappearance of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in February 2003.
"They put him on a cross, they beat him on the ears and all over his body," she told the court, citing a letter from her husband and conversations with him.
"They positioned him on a chair, tied up his hands and his feet," she said before breaking into tears. "And they gave him electrical shock all over his body, even his genitals."
Nabila, 39, said the torture continued over 14 months.
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has begun to look at the possible set-up for the planned Mediterranean union by trying to breathe life into current bilateral relations between the EU and Mediterranean countries while avoiding an unwieldy new political organisation. An internal paper discussed last week in EU commissioners' cabinets, suggests the new relationship has to be a "multilateral partnership" and "encompass all member states of the European Union." It suggests summits at head of state and government level twice a year with the first official one to take place in Paris on 13 July, when France has the EU presidency. This maiden summit is to formally create the "Barcelona Process - A Union for the Mediterranean" and establish the union's "structures and principle goals."
WARSAW: Whenever the United States sends missile defense negotiators to the Czech Republic and Poland, where the Bush administration intends to deploy parts of its anti-ballistic shield, they encounter surprisingly different attitudes. In the Czech Republic, where negotiations are all but complete, the administration deals with a government that believes that the threat the shield is designed to counter comes from Iran and other "rogue" regimes. "Our rationale for agreeing to accept the radars stems from the fact that we agree about the threats," said Nikola Hynek, a security expert at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. In Poland, traditionally one of the closest U.S. allies in this part of Europe, Donald Tusk's center-right Civic Platform coalition has taken a dramatically different stance. It believes the threat comes from Russia, not the Middle East.
WARSAW: Whenever the United States sends missile defense negotiators to the Czech Republic and Poland, where the Bush administration intends to deploy parts of its anti-ballistic shield, they encounter surprisingly different attitudes.
In the Czech Republic, where negotiations are all but complete, the administration deals with a government that believes that the threat the shield is designed to counter comes from Iran and other "rogue" regimes.
"Our rationale for agreeing to accept the radars stems from the fact that we agree about the threats," said Nikola Hynek, a security expert at the Institute of International Relations in Prague.
In Poland, traditionally one of the closest U.S. allies in this part of Europe, Donald Tusk's center-right Civic Platform coalition has taken a dramatically different stance. It believes the threat comes from Russia, not the Middle East.
EUOBSERVER / KIEV - Expectations are high in Kiev that an EU-Ukraine summit in September in France will result in stronger ties between the two sides and boost progress in negotiations on a new bilateral agreement. "We expect certain serious steps to be taken along the lines of preparing the new enhanced agreement and the free trade agreement [between Ukraine and the EU]," Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told a group of journalists in Kiev. "We look forward to the EU flashing the green light for us that would help us on our way forward," she added. Ukraine's relations with the EU are currently regulated by a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) in force since 1998, a set-up that Kiev considers politically insufficient. Negotiations to replace the PCA started in March 2007 and Ukraine wants it to contain a clear reference to eventual EU membership, and avoid the vague political formulations that have characterised Brussels statements about the large eastern European country to date.
Less than a week after taking office, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday welcomed German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the two called for closer Russian-German ties. "I wish you energy, productivity and good fortune - everything that a man in your position needs," Steinmeier told Medvedev on the first of a four-day trip through Russia. In a speech at the Urals State University in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, the foreign minister outlined the possibilities for a partnership in which the two could work together to modernize Russia.
"I wish you energy, productivity and good fortune - everything that a man in your position needs," Steinmeier told Medvedev on the first of a four-day trip through Russia.
In a speech at the Urals State University in the industrial city of Yekaterinburg, the foreign minister outlined the possibilities for a partnership in which the two could work together to modernize Russia.
BRUSSELS: European antitrust investigators are expanding the scope of a major inquiry into the €484 billion pharmaceutical market in a bid to determine whether companies are blocking generics makers from getting less-expensive medicines to market quickly. Lawyers and European Union officials said Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, was also casting her net widely in a bid to determine whether drug companies' efforts to block competitors by extending patents were also distracting them from developing new medicines, which have been slow in coming to market in recent years. Investigators, who questioned about 100 companies early this year, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis, are now turning to about 80 medical organizations, including associations of doctors, patients and pharmacies, and government agencies that set the prices of prescription drugs in Europe. That could make it the broadest antitrust investigation ever in the EU. If Kroes determines that companies that make and sell medicines are using unfair practices, she could eventually impose large fines - as happened once already to AstraZeneca - and could recommend changes to the way the industry operated.
BRUSSELS: European antitrust investigators are expanding the scope of a major inquiry into the €484 billion pharmaceutical market in a bid to determine whether companies are blocking generics makers from getting less-expensive medicines to market quickly.
Lawyers and European Union officials said Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, was also casting her net widely in a bid to determine whether drug companies' efforts to block competitors by extending patents were also distracting them from developing new medicines, which have been slow in coming to market in recent years.
Investigators, who questioned about 100 companies early this year, including Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis, are now turning to about 80 medical organizations, including associations of doctors, patients and pharmacies, and government agencies that set the prices of prescription drugs in Europe. That could make it the broadest antitrust investigation ever in the EU.
If Kroes determines that companies that make and sell medicines are using unfair practices, she could eventually impose large fines - as happened once already to AstraZeneca - and could recommend changes to the way the industry operated.
