A high-ranking member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition has said that they are ready to accept "rhetorical" changes to the EU' fiscal compact treaty in case of a victory of socialist candidate François Hollande in the French presidential elections. 

On Monday (23 April) Andreas Schockenhoff, an MP and vice president of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union group in the Bundestag, announced that the fiscal compact could be changed not on the substance, but on the rhetoric. "We can put in a fine paragraph on growth," he said.

"This way, Hollande will be able to say at home: `I have ensured that the fiscal pact deals with growth'. These rhetorical things, we can do them."

A Eurostat survey revealing huge labour cost differences across the 27 EU member states unveiled yesterday (24 April) has provided fuel for the French election campaign, where the two contenders are battling over plans for a "social VAT" to protect French producers against social dumping.

Hourly labour costs for 2011 range from €3.5 in Bulgaria to €39.3 in Belgium, the highest in the European Union, and just ahead of Sweden (€39.1), the Eurostat figures show.

The average hourly labour cost for the eurozone is of €27.6, higher than the EU-27 average (€23.1).

Other EU countries with cheaper labour costs include Romania (€4.2), Lithuania (€5.5), Latvia (€5.9), Poland (€7.1), Hungary (€7.6), Estonia (€8.1), Slovakia (€8.4), the Czech Republic (€10.5).

In Germany, the hourly labour cost is €30.1 compared to France's €34.2.

BRUSSELS - Budget cuts may be deepening the recession, but governments should not give up now, European Central Bank (ECB) chief Mario Draghi said on Wednesday (25 April) at a hearing in the European Parliament.

"We are just in the middle of the river we are crossing, the only way out is to persevere," the Italian economist in charge of the eurozone's central bank said.

He admitted that "fiscal adjustment" - a euphemism for budget cuts - is contributing to recession, which in some countries may last longer than a year or even two.

"In certain cases the contractionary effects could be medium or even long term, for instance where youth unemployment has been there for a long time," Draghi noted, in reference to Spain, where over half of people under 25 are out of a job.

He said the only way out is to stick to labour market reforms that "free some energies in the economy," given that countries like Spain were prosperous and competitive in the past.

BRUSSELS - The incoming Cypriot presidency is getting ready to tackle the biggest and ugliest dossier in the EU - the money - amid a host of problems in its own backyard.

"It's the big bang in the EU because everything gets put on the table - own resources, administrative spending, external aid, cohesion, agriculture," a Cypriot source told EUobserver in Brussels on Wednesday (25 April), referring to future talks on the Union's next €1-trillion-plus seven-year budget.

"We are currently assessing the level of ambition we should have for each dossier. We're really ambitious to finalise [the budget talks] by the end of the year ... if it is not possible, we at least want to reach a stage where an agreement is within reach," the contact added.

Cypriot priorities also include new EU rules on asylum seekers - a hot topic in the current anti-immigration climate, especially for Cyprus' neighbour, Greece, which is struggling to cope with Asian and Arab Spring refugees.

MEPs have had a lively and, at times, heated debate on progress towards EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, on 19 April 2012.

The ECHR was drafted in 1950 by the Council of Europe - a body independent from the EU - and came into force in 1953.

It covers principles including the right to life, freedom of the press and provisions on privacy; and violations of the convention are dealt with by the European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg.

Although all EU member states are signatories to the ECHR, there is a proposal for the EU as a whole to become a signatory.

This would implement a power in the Lisbon Treaty for the EU to have "legal personality", meaning that it is able to accede to international treaties and conventions in its own right.

BELGRADE, Apr 25, 2012 (IPS) - As the May 6 date for Serbia's general election inches closer, two young Belgrade playwrights have capitalised on the electoral war of words between the pro-European camp and conservative nationalists to highlight the dark side of propaganda and expose the omnipotence of party membership.

For the last few months, the airwaves and newspapers in Serbia have been thick with promises of a `better life' for a nation struggling with aftershocks of the economic crisis, high unemployment and a painful transition to a market economy.

Election pledges also touch on rebuilding democracy and all its attendant institutions, which came into being only after the downfall of the country's former leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 and have since suffered from a lack of efficiency, transparency and accountability.

Amidst the turmoil, Maja Pelevic (31) and Milan Markovic (33), whose plays are staged in several prominent Belgrade theatres, offered what they described as a new "cultural and marketing strategy", which was quickly snapped up by every major political party in Serbia and propelled the two young artists into positions of political authority.

What politicians and the media failed to recognise was that the duo's text, `Idea, Strategy, Movement', was lifted right out of a 1928 speech by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, entitled `Knowledge and Propaganda'.

The ECB and several member states prepare proposals to enable the EFSF/ESM to directly lend money to troubled banks; A working group meeting is to come up with proposals next week; Mario Draghi called for a growth compact in his hearing at the European Parliament

According to Asmussen one option would be to redirect money from the EU's structural or regional funds to program countries

Another option would be labour market reforms as the Agenda 2000

German newspapers and  interprets the ECB's proposal as a further sign that Angela Merkel's consolidiation approach is increasingly contested; Mark Schieritz says the proposal offers nothing new, just more of the same; Francois Hollande proposes his own 4-point growth compact; it includes eurobonds to finance infrastructure projects, EIB involvement, a financial transaction tax and redirection of unused EU funds; Sarkozy under pressure after comments that Le Pen was compatible with the principles of the republic; FTP party leader and Bundesbank urges ECB to exit loose monetary policy; German Christian democrats agree on minimum wage for all sectors not covered by collective wage agreements; though collective wage bargaining agreements that foresee wages below the minimum wage shall nevertheless stay valid; Zaki Laidi writes that Sarkozy's lack of political coherence and action is the reason why he lost support; IMF says Spanish banks need more money; German tourists, meanwhile, have been avoiding Greece, fearing anti-German reprisals.

The Five Star Movement is upstaging the conventional parties by pledging to refuse political "reimbursements," the Movement's representatives have cut their salaries from the monthly 12 thousand euros to two thousand; they propose a two-term stay in Parliament; renewable energy replacing fossil fuels; public water; zero waste; sustainable growth. The five stars (in the logo) represent honesty; know-how; transparency; effective comunication; continuous political representation.

For a fast-growing number of Italians the Five Star Movement is the political antidote for a corrupted country where, every other day for the last twenty years, headlines broke stories of political malfeasances: if not organized crime, it was politicians or parties squandering taxpayers' money, pillaging state-owned properties, mismanaging the country's environmental wealth, neglecting crumbling infrastructures.

Such as the Italian situation, no one should be surprised if political parties are no longer believable. In fact, millions of disgusted people are no longer accepting the ineptness of a political caste hell bent on destroying a country physically and morally. Thousands of people jam the squares across Italy whenever the comedian-activist, leader of the Five Star Movement shows up to mock and lampoon a decadent political class while offering a political alternative. If the political success of the the Five Star Movement proves anything it proves that people power is alive and well and George Carlin would have been pleasantly surprised.

beppe's on a roll lately... it's true about george carlin, he would approve of comedy used as political weapon of mass instruction.

The power of knowledge is in mortal combat with the knowledge of power. It really is that simple... That's the Edenic apple we are all munching on.

Footnote : We have grown accustomed to Sarkozy's methods of legislating based on the week's newspaper headlines. But there is an element of black humour in the fact that the person against whom the charged police officer is to be presumed to have defended himself ... was shot in the back.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}