The German Economy Ministry has attacked EU proposals to tackle climate change as "pointless" if other major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions are not also committed to significant reductions.

If climate polluters such as China, India and the United States are not also on board, the EU's climate package would end up harming German businesses.

Germany's criticisms go to the heart of the EU's climate and energy proposals

"Any success achieved in Europe would be pointless," says statement from the Economy Ministry issued on Tuesday (15 July).

The ministry laid out a raft of strong criticisms of the package, whose legislative proposals were unveiled by the European Commission in January, in a statement following a conference of German officials and business representatives.

Both the industry figures and deputy economy minister Jochen Homann at the meeting had offered reservations about some of the main planks of the climate package because they would hurt German competitiveness, according to a report from Reuters.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Green lawmakers in the European Parliament have criticised EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs for allowing the extended use of a Russian-designed nuclear power plant in Slovakia.

"It is scandalous that commissioner Piebalgs has given the green light to resurrect an outdated nuclear project," reads a joint statement issued by leading green MEPs, Monica Frassoni and Rebecca Harms.

Green MEPs say Brussels is supporting the "renaissance aspirations" of the nuclear industry (

According to the two parliamentarians, the commission's opinion on the plant, situated in Mochovce, "highlights its complicity with energy giants". "Commissioner Piebalgs is turning a blind eye to the Mochovce project's problems and indulging the renaissance aspirations of the nuclear industry," they said.

The critical statement came shortly after the European Commission on Tuesday (15 July) gave its opinion on the project of Slovenske Elektrarne - owned by Italian energy firm Enel and the Slovak state - to build two reactors for the Mochovce nuclear power plant in western Slovakia.

Rises in food and energy costs pushed up inflation in the 15-nation eurozone to 4% in June from 3.7% in May.

Confirming estimates made two weeks ago, the Eurostat statistics office said the inflation rate was the highest since measurements began in 1997.

A 16% year-on-year rise in energy costs as oil prices headed above $140 a barrel was to blame, Eurostat said.

The European Central Bank (ECB) raised interest rates to 4.25% at the start of the month to try to contain inflation.

The ECB's target for inflation growth is about 2%, but rising food and fuel prices are making it difficult for the central bank to bring inflation back to this level.

At its latest meeting, the ECB increased interest rates to 4.25% from 4% - its first rise in a year - despite evidence that eurozone economic growth is decelerating.

MILAN, Italy: Italian aviation officials gave more details Wednesday of how they were able to identify two planes that allegedly transferred a kidnapped terror suspect from Italy to Egypt via Germany as part of the CIA's renditions program.

The officials, giving testimony at the trial of 26 Americans, said they found records at four different agencies of a Learjet flight. They said it left from the joint U.S.-Italian Aviano air base in northern Italy and landed at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany on the evening of the suspect's disappearance in 2003.

Brussels-based Eurocontrol -- Europe's air navigation agency -- had information on the final leg, confirmation of the departure of a Gulfstream jet from Ramstein for Cairo a short time later, they said.

The officials said they were able to cull the data some two years after the fact from records kept by Italy's civil air control, the Aviano airport itself, a NATO airport at Poggio Renatico near Ferrara, northern Italy, and Eurocontrol.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Union has adopted an emergency aid package worth up to €2 billion to help the struggling fishing sector tackle the current fuel crisis, including monies previously announced, with €600 million in extra cash to be added to the existing funds.

"Political agreement was reached by a qualified majority on urgent measures for the fishing sector," said Michel Barnier, agriculture minister of France, the current holder of EU's six-month rotating presidency.

The EU has moved to boost cash for fishermen amid soaring oil prices

The move comes after intense pressure from the struggling sector, which saw militant protests by fishermen extending even to the Brussels, whose European institutions were rocked by violent demonstrations last month amid a jump in diesel prices by 240 percent since 2002.

After a tough debate that dragged until late evening on Tuesday (15 July), ministers agreed that the extra cash for fishermen would come from two key sources: some €1.4 billion from the European Fisheries Fund and national contributions, plus €600 million as part of an emergency plan announced last week by the European Commission.

Croatia will be ready to join the EU in 2009 and its membership is not going to be delayed by the EU's current institutional "crisis", Croatian President Stjepan Mesic has said.

"I understand European countries, including France, which intend to solve the EU's institutional problems before proceeding to any new accessions ... [But] we will speed up the rhythm of our reforms and be ready in 2009 to join the EU as its 28th member," Mr Mesic told French daily Le Figaro in an interview published on Tuesday (15 July).

Dubrovnik - Croatia is hoping to conclude EU talks next year

"The current situation will not discourage us," he added.

Following Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty last month, some EU leaders - including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel - have said that no further EU enlargement will take place until the document is ratified.

"I will veto any enlargement as long as there will be no new institutions," Mr Sarkozy said again on Tuesday.

Asked if he could imagine his country joining the EU without the bloc having dealt with the Irish No, Mr Mesic said: "No, the EU will find a way out of this crisis. If 26 EU states ratify Lisbon [traty]... they will find a solution for the 27th ... The European institutional crisis will be solved."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that Ireland will have to vote once more on the EU treaty, in a move bound to ruffle feathers in Dublin, which has yet to say publicly how it plans to react to last month's treaty rejection.

According to a report in the Irish Times, Mr Sarkozy told a meeting of deputies from his UMP party in Paris on Tuesday (15 July): "The Irish will have to vote again."

Mr Sarkozy will visit Dublin next week to discuss the treaty options

The phrase was repeated to journalists by several deputies leaving the meeting.

The remark comes ahead of Mr Sarkozy's visit to Ireland on Monday (21 July) to discuss Ireland's options with Prime Minister Brian Cowen.

Speculation has been high about the political room for manuoeuvre open to Mr Cowen since Irish voters rejected the treaty on 12 June. Most analysts suggest that Dublin will have to opt for a second vote with France and Germany, in particular, keen to get the document put in place.

The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday (16 July) a slew of proposals aimed at convincing consumers to buy `green'.

Whether the consumer is a dad buying cans of pop or a new shower-head, or a local authority making a decision on what paper to buy for its photo-copiers, the commission wants to make it easier to know which products are better for the environment and which ones are worse.

Eco-labels to help consumers know which products are 'greener' would be extended to a wider range of items

Currently, all products that use energy - such as TVs or washing machines - are already governed by a set of compulsory minimum requirements under the `Eco-Design directive' - although companies can voluntarily go even greener.

However, products that do not consume energy directly but have a big impact on energy use - like water-saving taps or shower-heads - remain outside the directive's scope.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission has suggested that the EU's current minimum excise duties on cigarettes and tobacco should be increased to reflect inflation, in a move aimed at helping to cut consumption as well as narrow price differences across the bloc's 27 member states.

"Substantial differences in tax and price levels of tobacco products lead to considerable cross-border shopping and intra-community smuggling," EU tax commissioner Laszlo Kovacs told journalists as he was introducing the proposal on Wednesday (16 July).

Brussels says the EU's tax rules on cigarettes need a brush up as they are over 30 years old and do not reflect current reality

"These differences undermined the budgetary and health objectives of the Member States and resulted in a distortion of the functioning of the Internal Market," he added.

According to the current rules dating back to 1970s, the EU's excise duties levied on cigarettes must account for at least 57 percent of the price, and must be at least €64 per 1000 cigarettes of the "most popular price category" - the prevailing brand in a country.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Bulgaria is next week set to lose pre-accession funds following concerns over possible fraud cases, according to a report from the Reuters news agency.

The European Commission will next Wednesday (23 July) publish its annual reports on justice and home affairs problems in Bulgaria and Romania as part of its ongoing monitoring process for the two member states.

Sofia could lose some €500 million in pre-accession funds.

Additionally, Brussels will publish a third document on the handling of EU funds in the two states.

Both Sofia and Bucharest - EU members since 1 January 2007 - are expected to be criticised for their levels of corruption, but only Bulgaria is to be punished by losing funds, according to the press agency.

The funds are worth some €500 million and have already been frozen due to investigations by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).

AMSTERDAM: The Dutch are building windmills again. Up and down the coast, out from port cities like this one, you can see them: white and tall and slender as pencils, their three slim blades turning lazily in the North Sea breeze.

These ones generate electricity, of course, rather than grinding grain. The government has already built one enormous farm of mills far off the coast, where they are inoffensive to tourists, and plans a second. Yet it is also building, and rebuilding, mills like the squat, homely ones that have seemingly always dotted the Dutch countryside and reflect as much the nature of the country as do tulips or Gouda cheese.

"Revival might be a bit strong," said Leo Endedijk, director of The Dutch Mills, a group that supports mill restoration. Yet last year, the government, concerned that one of the foremost symbols of the Netherlands was about to disappear out of neglect, approved an $80 million program to build or restore 120 mills, of roughly 1,040 still standing. That has created a backlog of work for the country's previously strapped mill restorers.

"We have special companies, very specialized mill makers and restorers," said Endedijk, in an office in the shadow of De Gooyer, a soaring 18th century mill now housing a popular brewery. "They would not have the capacity to restore 120 mills."

They are like Ginger and Fred but they don't dance on a film set. They dance on the brink of crashing. Their shares have fallen in the month of July.
If Fannie and Freddie were to go bankrupt they would leave a hole of 5000 billion dollars, half the American Public Debt. The State should intervene and nationalize them with an automatic increase in the cost of money and in taxes. In Italy it is as though there were the bankruptcy of most of the companies quoted on the Stock Exchange all at the same time. Fannie must pay back 216 billion dollars within a year, Freddie a bit more than that, about 291 billion. The money's not there. For two reasons. The mortgage repayments are no longer being paid and no one is underwriting the new mortgages. Basically the property market has disappeared.
People no longer have money and the cost of money has gone up. Furthermore, the value of houses has collapsed and the banks are full of mortgaged houses. In the stomach of the banks' balance sheets there are still properties with values that go back to before the "subprime" crisis. The banks don't want to devalue, some can't allow themselves to do so, their share values would collapse. Fannie and Freddie represent a financial tsunami that in one way or another will arrive here. The prices of property in Italy are drugged by a cartel of property companies. The city centres are no longer for habitation but for making money. The price of apartments has no connection with reality. The property companies for some time have been in a strange media silence, losing their value on the Stock Market. Since January 2008 the top 9 companies in the sector lost 2.4 billion euro, about half of their capitalization. Pirelli Real Estate, a bit more than the average: 57.82%. The fall in the property market had already happened in part. Anyone who had a one Euro share at Christmas finds themselves with 50 cents before the holidays.
The value of houses is kept high artificially. The big cities are invaded by "For sale" and "To Let" signs and meanwhile new homes in the outskirts are still being built.
The astonishing thing is that the true crisis has not yet arrived. In the United States there are about 90 banks risking collapse. One of them, Indy Mac, closed on Friday. The third most important collapse in the United States since the war. The queues of people who were taking out their savings are an image of the situation.
A bit of advice: don't buy property; don't do debts; don't take out new mortgages; if you can, pay off the mortgages that you have; don't buy shares in property companies; don't buy funds with shares in property companies. Fannie and Freddie are arriving.

TeliaSonera the Finnish mobile data operator uses 55.000 mwh pa representing 4500 carbon tons. The main data centers together use as much power as a small town including industry.

I'm sorry, but we're going to have to give up blogging ;-(

You can't be me, I'm taken