A new Eurobarometer survey shows that 71 per cent of Europeans are aware that Europe's population is getting older.

However, it goes on to say that only 42 per cent are concerned about this development.

This, it says, is in "stark contrast" with the perceptions of policymakers, who regard demographic ageing as a major challenge.

For most citizens who were surveyed, people aged 55 years and older are considered to play a major role in key areas of society.

Over 60 per cent believe that the public should be allowed to continue working after retirement age and one third says that they would like to work longer themselves.

People closer to retirement are more likely to share this view than the younger generation.

The survey comes as the EU last week launched the 2012 European year of active ageing and solidarity of generations.

Greece must underscore its political commitment to economic reforms if it is to receive a second EU bailout, finance ministers meeting in Brussels warned yesterday (24 January). Meanwhile, Greece's creditor banks argue they cannot fulfil their part of the deal unless the EU first commits the money.

"All Greek [political] parties must agree to the [austerity] measures and a new programme, independently of the upcoming elections," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told journalists after a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels.

New government expected in Athens

Greece is expected to stage snap elections before 8 April. Antonis Samaras, whose centre-right New Democracy party governs in coalition with technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, has openly criticised some austerity measures prescribed by international lenders.

Opinion polls suggest Samaras would win an election, but he would need to form a coalition with other parties to gain a mandate for governing.

A meeting between European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, aimed at bridging differences over Hungary's controversial state reforms, ended up inconclusively yesterday (24 January). Meanwhile, finance ministers opened the way for sanctions to be imposed on Budapest over its deficit.

Orbán took a conciliatory tone after the end of his visit to the Commission's headquarters, but the statement, released by Barroso's office, made it clear there was little progress.

Piling further pressure on Orbán, EU finance ministers issued a statement just before the meeting, warning that Hungary could see its regional funding cut if it continues to break the EU's deficit limits.

Orbán was expected to present a calendar for changes to recently enacted Hungarian laws that the Commission and critics say could undermine the independence of the country's central bank, data protection authority and judiciary.

On 17 January the Commission launched infringement procedures in those three fields, giving the Hungarian authorities one month to respond.

BRUSSELS - Four years after the EU's biggest-ever police mission came to Kosovo it has not indicted any top suspects on organised crime, posing questions about its work and the integrity of Kosovo's leaders.

Eulex itself is proud of its record. Its training of Kosovo police and customs is a success story. When the EU completes its Eulex review in the next few weeks, it is expected to reduce personnel to let local officers take over many day-to-day functions.

Eulex' spokesman in Pristina, Nicholas Hawton, told EUobserver it also has "clear results" in chasing criminals in its war-scarred and politically complex theatre of operations.

He added it has 350 ongoing criminal investigations and that its judges have handed down 220 verdicts - 15 on organised crime and 20 on war crimes. One of the investigations concerns accusations that Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci used to run an organ trafficking gang. On the shocking case of Enver Zymberi - a Kosovar Albanian policeman murdered by a Serb sniper last year - its investigation has led Interpol to issue six arrest warrants.

(Reuters) - Britain's economy may have entered a mild recession in the last three months of 2011, hampering the government's core policy aim of spurring growth and raising the chances that the Bank of England will inject more cash soon.

Britain's recovery from the 2008/2009 recession - the deepest since the depression-hit 1930s - has already been sluggish, and unemployment has crept up to a 17-year high as the government cuts spending deeply to erase a huge budget deficit.

The economy shrank by 0.2 percent at the end of 2011, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, a bit more than economists expected as a stagnating services sector failed to offset a slump in manufacturing and construction.

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has told the World Economic Forum that a "big rethink" is needed in the eurozone within the global economy.

"Structural reforms that lead to more jobs are essential," she told delegates at the Swiss resort of Davos. "Do we dare to be more European?"

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond has set out the question he intends to ask voters in a referendum on Scottish independence.

The SNP leader said Scots would be asked: "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?" in a ballot which he wants to hold in 2014.

But a consultation launched by Mr Salmond asks if voters favour a second question on more Holyrood powers.

He said the referendum could be regulated by the Electoral Commission.

In a statement to MSPs, Mr Salmond described the question as "short, straightforward and clear", saying the people of Scotland would be asked to make the most important decision facing the country in 300 years.

Talks between Athens and its private creditors resume today, with pressure for a deal by the end of the week; Kathemerini says involvement of the ECB is now part of the negotiations, after the IMF has put on the pressure on the ECB; there is still substantial opposition within the ECB about whether to accept, and how to handle, a haircut; the Greek government withdraws a wideranging liberalisation bill after MPs withhold support; the government now promises to present an ,,improved" version; Angela Merkel warns against overburdening Germany in crisis resolution efforts; Portuguese CDS reach record high as financial markets are betting on a default; Bild see Angela Merkel as Europe's Powerfrau; French unemployment rises close to 3m; Francois Hollande's economic advisers said they had dropped Keynes in favour of Schumpeter; the Fed extended its exceptionally low rates promise until end-2014, and sets a 2% inflation target; the Irish debt agency sold three-year debt as part of a bond swap; Colm McCarthy writes that this is not the beginning of a return to the markets; Ireland's fiscal watchdog insists on medium-term budget goals; Jean-Claude Trichet, meanwhile, now creates money for himself.

The bill may be amended to set the terms for any independence referendum, and a posse of pro-union peers, including Lord Forsyth, the former Conservative Scottish Secretary, Lord Foulkes, the former Labour MP, and the Conservative hereditary peer and former minister Lord Caithness have been very busy drafting helpful changes. But these two from Lord Caithness piqued my interest:
[...]

"(2D) A vote in a referendum held under subsection (2B) of this section which results in Scotland leaving the United Kingdom shall not be binding on the residents of the Orkney Islands or the Shetland Islands unless a majority of the residents of the Orkney Islands and the Shetland Islands who voted in such a referendum voted that Scotland should leave the United Kingdom."

The national status of the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands (and indeed Caithness) are issues the Earl knows a thing or two about. His family, the Sinclairs, controlled them for hundreds of years - and for much of that time they owed allegiance not to the crown of Scotland, but to that of Norway.

L'eurodéputé et coprésident du groupe Les Verts au Parlement européen estime que l'électorat écologiste fait le choix du vote utile en se tournant vers le socialiste François Hollande.

The MEP and cochairman of the Green group in the European Parliament thinks that the environmentalist electorate choose the "useful vote" turning towards the Socialist François Hollande.

Part of the growth problem is that Germany insists other euro zone states must pursue the kind of structural reforms that helped it regain competitiveness in the last decade, even if these risk sending weaker economies into a deflationary spiral.

"To overcome the crisis, there is no way around strict consolidation and structural reforms in the member states," Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said late on Tuesday.

...

Financial market participants say they are more concerned about the absence of growth in the euro zone than about budget deficits and public debt levels now, because growth is what will enable countries to service and repay their debts over time. "It looks like the LTRO is having a positive contribution. Does it solve all of the problems sustainably? Probably not," said Andrew Bosomworth, a senior portfolio manager at Pimco.

"At the end of the day, it comes down to growth -- that's what these countries need to keep their debt sustainable."