1.Monetary policy after the crash.

Controlling interest
BEFORE the financial crisis life was simple for central bankers. They had a clear mission: temper booms and busts to
maintain low and stable inflation. And they had a seemingly effective means to achieve that: nudge a key short-term
interest rate up to discourage borrowing (and thus check inflation), or down to foster looser credit (and thus spur
growth and employment). Deft use of this technique had kept the world humming along so smoothly in the decades
before the crash that economists had declared a Great Moderation in the economic cycle. As it turned out, however,
the moderation was transitoryand the crash that ended it undermined not only the central bankers record but also
the method they relied on to prop up growth. Monetary policy has been in a state of upheaval ever since.The
recession that accompanied the credit crunch in the autumn of 2008 delivered a massive blow to demand. In
response central banks in the rich world slashed their benchmark interest rates. By early 2009 many were close to
zero, approaching what economists call the zero lower bound. Even so, growth remained elusive. Pushing rates
below zero, though technically possible, would not have helped. Negative rates would merely have encouraged
depositors to withdraw their money from banks and hold it as cash, on which the rate of return, at zero, would have
been higher. Central banks in the developed economies faced a frightening collapse in output and soaring
unemployment without recourse to the tool that had been the mainstay of monetary policy-making for a
generation.Central banks were not entirely unprepared for this challenge. In the 1990s the Japanese economy had
slumped following an asset-price crash. Facing weak growth and deflation the Bank of Japan had slashed rates to
near-zero before embarking on a series of experiments with unconventional monetary tools. Although the Bank of
Japans performance was widely considered disappointing, if not an outright failure, the rich worlds central banks
began by drawing upon its playbook. Unconventional policy falls into two broad categories: asset purchases and
forward guidance. Asset purchases are a natural extension of central banks more typical activities. Americas
Federal Reserve, for instance, has long bought Treasury bills and other bonds with short maturities to increase the
money supply and reduce short-term interest rates. After its benchmark rate fell close to zero the Fed began buying
longer-term securities, including ten-year Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, to bring down long-run
borrowing costs. Printing money to buy assets is known as quantitative easing because central banks often
announce purchase plans in terms of a desired increase in the quantity of bank reserves. The Bank of Japan first
attempted QE in 2001 when it promised to buy {Yen}400 billion-worth of government bonds a month in order to
raise the level of reserves to {Yen}5 trillion. The central banks of America, Britain and Japan have all engaged in QE
since the crisis struck, buying up a vast stock of financial assets.Economists reckon QE works in a few ways. Central
bankers emphasise the portfolio-balance effect. When a central bank buys bonds from investors with newly created
money, they use the proceeds to rebalance their portfolio by buying assets of different risk and maturity. In doing so
they boost asset prices and depress interest rates (increased demand for bonds allows them to be sold at lower rates).
Cheaper borrowing, in turn, prods businesses and households to invest.QE can stimulate the economy via a fiscal
effect, too: lower interest rates reduce government borrowing costs and so lower expected future taxation. And QE
also helps shape expectations of inflation. A central bank announcing a new, higher inflation target might use QE to
convince markets it will meet it, since, other things being equal, an increase in the amount of money in circulation
leads to higher prices. If people think their money will be worth less in the future, they have an incentive to spend
more of it now.Forward guidance, the other main unconventional tool, is an attempt to boost the economy by
signalling central banks future policies more clearly. The Bank of Japan first attempted to talk the economy back to
health in 1999, when it promised to keep its main interest rate near zero until deflationary concerns subside. The
Fed and the Bank of England have since mimicked this approach. In early 2009 the Fed said its interest rate was
likely to remain low for an extended period. In August 2011 it sought to improve this formulation by adding a date,
specifying that low rates would stick around until at least mid-2013.In December 2012 the Fed adjusted its
communications again. It announced that rates would stay low until the unemployment rate had fallen to at least
6.5%, as long as short-run expectations of inflation were no more than 2.5%. In August 2013 the Bank of England
followed suit, stating that it would not raise rates until unemployment had fallen to 7%, provided financial markets
behaved themselves and inflation remained subdued.Like QE, forward guidance works in several ways. A promise to
tolerate higher inflation in the future, if believed, can stimulate economic activity in the present, just as the threat of
higher prices due to an expanded money supply does. By the same token, a promise to hold short-term rates low for a
long time should reduce long-term rates too, since long-term rates are typically compounded short-term rates along
with a premium to allow for rising inflation and other risks.In addition, investors respond to the real or inflationadjusted interest rate, which equals the nominal or advertised interest rate minus expected inflation. When
inflation is expected to be negative, meaning that prices are falling, the real interest rate may actually rise. Deflation,
by raising the value of a unit of money in terms of other goods, in effect increases the cost of borrowing. If a central
bank credibly promises more future inflation, by contrast, the real interest rate can fall and even dip below zero. A
negative real interest rate works where a negative nominal interest rate does not: holding cash does no good, since
inflation reduces the purchasing power of hard currency as well as deposits. It is therefore in everyones interest to

save less, and to borrow and invest more.Studies of quantitative easing generally find that it has indeed reduced longterm interest rates. One rule of thumb has it that $600 billion in purchases brings down long-run rates by 0.15-0.2
percentage points, equivalent in impact to a cut of 0.75 percentage points in the Feds benchmark short-term interest
rate. Lower rates are estimated to have raised real output in Britain and America 2-3% higher than it would have
been without QE, even though borrowing costs remained stubbornly high for British banks.Recent research also
suggests that QE plays a strong role in reinforcing a central banks forward guidance. The Feds signalling, for
example, seems to be responsible for much of the movement in the prices even of assets it is not buying itself. And
market bets on future interest rates reveal that investors find central banks promises to keep rates low more credible
when accompanied by QE purchases.Whether forward guidance is effective at boosting output is harder to say. There
is some agreement that communication about future policy reduces long-term interest rates. But it is unclear why
rates fall. They could drop because markets believe the central banks promise to keep short-term rates low, which
should encourage more investment and growth. But they could drop because markets read the central banks
guidance as a signal that the economy is weaker than expected, implying less demand for loans. That could actually
prove counterproductive if it discouraged new investment.Some recent Fed research suggests the first effectthe
credibility of the promiseis more important. Other work indicates that guidance may be more powerful when it
clearly represents a commitment to a particular policy rather than a forecast of future economic conditions and
the policy that is likely to flow from them.What is certain is that for all the experimentation, the rich worlds big
economies are still struggling. Output in Britain remains below its pre-crisis peak. Some 10m fewer Americans are
now working than might reasonably have been expected in 2007. The euro area is only just escaping the second
trough of a double-dip recession, and its unemployment rate remains in double digits. Unconventional monetary
policy, in short, does not seem to be working as well as the conventional sort used tobut there is no agreement
why.Some economists maintain that monetary policy, conventional or otherwise, loses much of its power at the zero
lower bound. Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University argues that monetary policy cannot stabilise the economy
without fiscal easing, meaning more government spending or lower taxes, to transmit newly created money and low
rates into the real economy. Others, such as Richard Koo of Nomura Research Institute, reckon that highly indebted
firms and households are simply unable to respond to lower long-term interest rates by borrowing more.Some
believe that unconventional policy would work better if central banks only pursued it more vigorously. Soon after
Japan ran into its own zero lower bound, Ben Bernanke, who was then an economist at Princeton University but is
now chairman of the Fed, argued that the Bank of Japan needed to set a higher inflation target, buy more assets and
devalue the yen by purchasing foreign currencies. Robert Hall of Stanford University suspects that pushing the real
federal-funds rate down to -4% would be sufficient to get the American economy moving faster. As long as the Fed
keeps inflation around 2%, however, the real interest rate can go no lower than -2% (a zero federal-funds rate minus
the 2% rate of inflation).Christina Romer of the University of California, Berkeley is one of the many economists who
see a need for a psychological jolt to rouse the economy. She argues for regime change, meaning not just a change
in leadership, but also a dramatic shift in policy. She wants central banks to stop targeting inflation and to focus
instead on total spending in the economy, or nominal GDP. Although in most circumstances the two approaches
would deliver similar results, a nominal-GDP target gives a central bank more leeway to fight unemployment during
steep downturns. Just as important, in her view, the policy change would signal to markets that the Fed meant to
restore rapid growth once and for all.Yet for every critic who believes that central banks have done too little, there is
one who fears they have done far too much. By propping up asset prices artificially, some complain, central bankers
are stoking inequality, rewarding financial firms despite their past misdeeds and sowing the seeds of the next crisis.
Many, especially on the right in America, give warning that the massive increase in the money supply QE entails can
lead only to a debasement of the currency and hyperinflation. Others gripe that low interest rates in the rich world
have sent a flood of hot money towards emerging markets, generating financial instability.It is likely to take years to
discern which of these criticisms are warranted. Not until 1963 did Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz publish A
Monetary History of the United States, definitively establishing that misguided monetary policy had helped
entrench the Great Depression. Unfortunately for the many countries still enduring sub-par growth, a similarly
decisive resolution to todays monetary-policy debates is still far off.

2.The origins of the financial crisis. The effects of the

financial crisis are still being felt, five years on.
THE collapse of Lehman Brothers, a sprawling global bank, in September 2008 almost brought down the worlds
financial system. It took huge taxpayer-financed bail-outs to shore up the industry. Even so, the ensuing credit
crunch turned what was already a nasty downturn into the worst recession in 80 years. Massive monetary and fiscal
stimulus prevented a buddy-can-you-spare-a-dime depression, but the recovery remains feeble compared with
previous post-war upturns. GDP is still below its pre-crisis peak in many rich countries, especially in Europe, where
the financial crisis has evolved into the euro crisis. The effects of the crash are still rippling through the world
economy: witness the wobbles in financial markets as Americas Federal Reserve prepares to scale back its effort to
pep up growth by buying bonds.With half a decades hindsight, it is clear the crisis had multiple causes. The most
obvious is the financiers themselvesespecially the irrationally exuberant Anglo-Saxon sort, who claimed to have
found a way to banish risk when in fact they had simply lost track of it. Central bankers and other regulators also
bear blame, for it was they who tolerated this folly. The macroeconomic backdrop was important, too. The Great
Moderationyears of low inflation and stable growthfostered complacency and risk-taking. A savings glut in
Asia pushed down global interest rates. Some research also implicates European banks, which borrowed greedily in
American money markets before the crisis and used the funds to buy dodgy securities. All these factors came together
to foster a surge of debt in what seemed to have become a less risky world.Start with the folly of the financiers. The
years before the crisis saw a flood of irresponsible mortgage lending in America. Loans were doled out to subprime
borrowers with poor credit histories who struggled to repay them. These risky mortgages were passed on to financial
engineers at the big banks, who turned them into supposedly low-risk securities by putting large numbers of them
together in pools. Pooling works when the risks of each loan are uncorrelated. The big banks argued that the property
markets in different American cities would rise and fall independently of one another. But this proved wrong.
Starting in 2006, America suffered a nationwide house-price slump.The pooled mortgages were used to back
securities known as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), which were sliced into tranches by degree of exposure to
default. Investors bought the safer tranches because they trusted the triple-A credit ratings assigned by agencies such
as Moodys and Standard & Poors. This was another mistake. The agencies were paid by, and so beholden to, the
banks that created the CDOs. They were far too generous in their assessments of them.Investors sought out these
securitised products because they appeared to be relatively safe while providing higher returns in a world of low
interest rates. Economists still disagree over whether these low rates were the result of central bankers mistakes or
broader shifts in the world economy. Some accuse the Fed of keeping short-term rates too low, pulling longer-term
mortgage rates down with them. The Feds defenders shift the blame to the savings glutthe surfeit of saving over
investment in emerging economies, especially China. That capital flooded into safe American-government bonds,
driving down interest rates.Low interest rates created an incentive for banks, hedge funds and other investors to hunt
for riskier assets that offered higher returns. They also made it profitable for such outfits to borrow and use the extra
cash to amplify their investments, on the assumption that the returns would exceed the cost of borrowing. The low
volatility of the Great Moderation increased the temptation to leverage in this way. If short-term interest rates are
low but unstable, investors will hesitate before leveraging their bets. But if rates appear stable, investors will take the
risk of borrowing in the money markets to buy longer-dated, higher-yielding securities. That is indeed what
happened.When Americas housing market turned, a chain reaction exposed fragilities in the financial system.
Pooling and other clever financial engineering did not provide investors with the promised protection. Mortgagebacked securities slumped in value, if they could be valued at all. Supposedly safe CDOs turned out to be worthless,
despite the ratings agencies seal of approval. It became difficult to sell suspect assets at almost any price, or to use
them as collateral for the short-term funding that so many banks relied on. Fire-sale prices, in turn, instantly dented
banks capital thanks to mark-to-market accounting rules, which required them to revalue their assets at current
prices and thus acknowledge losses on paper that might never actually be incurred.Trust, the ultimate glue of all
financial systems, began to dissolve in 2007a year before Lehmans bankruptcyas banks started questioning the
viability of their counterparties. They and other sources of wholesale funding began to withhold short-term credit,
causing those most reliant on it to founder. Northern Rock, a British mortgage lender, was an early casualty in the
autumn of 2007.Complex chains of debt between counterparties were vulnerable to just one link breaking. Financial
instruments such as credit-default swaps (in which the seller agrees to compensate the buyer if a third party defaults
on a loan) that were meant to spread risk turned out to concentrate it. AIG, an American insurance giant buckled
within days of the Lehman bankruptcy under the weight of the expansive credit-risk protection it had sold. The whole
system was revealed to have been built on flimsy foundations: banks had allowed their balance-sheets to bloat (see
chart 1), but set aside too little capital to absorb losses. In effect they had bet on themselves with borrowed money, a
gamble that had paid off in good times but proved catastrophic in bad.Failures in finance were at the heart of the
crash. But bankers were not the only people to blame. Central bankers and other regulators bear responsibility too,
for mishandling the crisis, for failing to keep economic imbalances in check and for failing to exercise proper

oversight of financial institutions.The regulators most dramatic error was to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt. This
multiplied the panic in markets. Suddenly, nobody trusted anybody, so nobody would lend. Non-financial
companies, unable to rely on being able to borrow to pay suppliers or workers, froze spending in order to hoard cash,
causing a seizure in the real economy. Ironically, the decision to stand back and allow Lehman to go bankrupt
resulted in more government intervention, not less. To stem the consequent panic, regulators had to rescue scores of
other companies.But the regulators made mistakes long before the Lehman bankruptcy, most notably by tolerating
global current-account imbalances and the housing bubbles that they helped to inflate. Central bankers had long
expressed concerns about Americas big deficit and the offsetting capital inflows from Asias excess savings. Ben
Bernanke highlighted the savings glut in early 2005, a year before he took over as chairman of the Fed from Alan
Greenspan. But the focus on net capital flows from Asia left a blind spot for the much bigger gross capital flows from
European banks. They bought lots of dodgy American securities, financing their purchases in large part by borrowing
from American money-market funds.In other words, although Europeans claimed to be innocent victims of AngloSaxon excess, their banks were actually in the thick of things. The creation of the euro prompted an extraordinary
expansion of the financial sector both within the euro area and in nearby banking hubs such as London and
Switzerland. Recent research by Hyun Song Shin, an economist at Princeton University, has focused on the European
role in fomenting the crisis. The glut that caused Americas loose credit conditions before the crisis, he argues, was in
global banking rather than in world savings.Moreover, Europe had its own internal imbalances that proved just as
significant as those between America and China. Southern European economies racked up huge current-account
deficits in the first decade of the euro while countries in northern Europe ran offsetting surpluses. The imbalances
were financed by credit flows from the euro-zone core to the overheated housing markets of countries like Spain and
Ireland. The euro crisis has in this respect been a continuation of the financial crisis by other means, as markets have
agonised over the weaknesses of European banks loaded with bad debts following property busts.Central banks could
have done more to address all this. The Fed made no attempt to stem the housing bubble. The European Central
Bank did nothing to restrain the credit surge on the periphery, believing (wrongly) that current-account imbalances
did not matter in a monetary union. The Bank of England, having lost control over banking supervision when it was
made independent in 1997, took a mistakenly narrow view of its responsibility to maintain financial stability.Central
bankers insist that it would have been difficult to temper the housing and credit boom through higher interest rates.
Perhaps so, but they had other regulatory tools at their disposal, such as lowering maximum loan-to-value ratios for
mortgages, or demanding that banks should set aside more capital.Lax capital ratios proved the biggest shortcoming.
Since 1988 a committee of central bankers and supervisors meeting in Basel has negotiated international rules for
the minimum amount of capital banks must hold relative to their assets. But these rules did not define capital strictly
enough, which let banks smuggle in forms of debt that did not have the same loss-absorbing capacity as equity.Under
pressure from shareholders to increase returns, banks operated with minimal equity, leaving them vulnerable if
things went wrong. And from the mid-1990s they were allowed more and more to use their own internal models to
assess riskin effect setting their own capital requirements. Predictably, they judged their assets to be ever safer,
allowing balance-sheets to balloon without a commensurate rise in capital.The Basel committee also did not make
any rules regarding the share of a banks assets that should be liquid. And it failed to set up a mechanism to allow a
big international bank to go bust without causing the rest of the system to seize up.The regulatory reforms that have
since been pushed through at Basel read as an extended mea culpa by central bankers for getting things so grievously
wrong before the financial crisis. But regulators and bankers were not alone in making misjudgments. When
economies are doing well there are powerful political pressures not to rock the boat. With inflation at bay central
bankers could not appeal to their usual rationale for spoiling the party. The long period of economic and price
stability over which they presided encouraged risk-taking. And as so often in the history of financial crashes, humble
consumers also joined in the collective delusion that lasting prosperity could be built on ever-bigger piles of debt.

3.British banks. Cracking the oligopoly. A new

competitor offers hope of a shake-up in British
banking
FOR more than a decade competition regulators have fretted that Britains banking oligopoly is ripping off
customers, mainly by stinging them with high fees for overdrafts or late payments. Yet the resurrection on September
9th of TSB bank, which traces its roots back to a lender set up in 1810, promises to inject competition into a market
that is among the rich worlds most concentrated.The new TSB bank is being created through a spin-off of 631
branches from Lloyds Banking Group, Britains biggest lender when measured by domestic market share. Although
TSB is still wholly owned by Lloyds it plans to issue a prospectus early in 2014 with an initial public offering (IPO) to
follow in the summer.The divestment by Lloyds was forced on it by the European Commission after it was bailed out
by the British government five years ago in the midst of the financial crisis. Even the IPO was a reluctant choice.
Lloyds had hoped to sell the branches, along with their 4.5m customers. Several potential buyers came forward
before it accepted a bid from the Co-operative bank, a small not-for-profit firm. But the deal was scuppered when
banking regulators noticed that the Co-op was pursuing its not-for-profit ambitions a little too diligently and was
dangerously short of capital.Despite these hiccups an IPO of TSB holds out some promise of making Britains
banking market more competitive after more than a decade of false starts. In 2000 a government-appointed review
headed by Don Cruikshank, a former telecommunications regulator, found evidence of excessive prices and profits
in British banking because of insufficient competition. A succession of investigations over the following 12 years by
British and European Commission investigators have served mainly to fill vaults with reams of evidence detailing
failures in the market. Promises by the government and industry to improve matters have yielded little. A study
earlier this year into personal accounts by the Office of Fair Trading, a competition watchdog, concluded that longstanding competition concerns remain.Worse still, Britains banking market has become more concentrated since
the financial crisis. In mid-2008, just before the near-collapse of the global banking system, regulators worried that
Britains four biggest banks had about 65% of the retail-banking market. Within months their slice had risen to about
75% as the government pushed through the takeover of HBOS, an ailing mortgage bank, by Lloyds TSB. The merged
bank, renamed Lloyds Banking Group, alone had about a third of the retail-banking market. But soon after the
takeover it needed its own government bail-out, while the failure of several other small lenders led to further
concentration in the market.Any challenger to the current oligopoly needs to jump two big hurdles. The first is scale.
Although TSB has enough branches to have a national presence (it claims that most Britons live within a few miles of
at least one), it may struggle to win much new business because its branches are thinly spread. This is because of an
intriguing characteristic of scale in retail banking: in places where banks have many branches near to one another,
they gain a share of customers that is even higher than their scale suggests.To achieve the density of branches needed
to compete with bigger rivals TSB might need as many as 1,000 outlets across the country, reckons one expert. One
way to achieve that might be through mopping up some of the countrys smaller banks which face even greater scale
challenges. These could include Virgin Money or the 315 branches that Royal Bank of Scotland is also being forced to
sell after its government bail-out (see chart). But in order to buy up smaller rivals and consolidate them it needs
modern and efficient computer systems.This is the second hurdle. When potential bidders looked at buying TSB they
reckoned they would have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds building new computer systems for the bank.
This would have entailed huge riskrivals in Britain have spent upwards of 1 billion ($1.5 billion) and taken years
longer than planned in rebuilding their IT infrastructure. But it would also have left the buyer with modern and
flexible systems that could then be used to bolt on smaller lenders. One willing bidder was NBNK, a firm backed by
Wilbur Ross, an American investor who also has a stake in Virgin Money. Before its bid for the Lloyds branches was
trumped by the Co-ops it had planned to use them as a consolidation vehicle that could grow quickly.Instead the
new TSB will use computer systems run by Lloyds. TSB reckons this is an advantage since it will enjoy some benefits
of scale and also have access to new technologies such as mobile banking that Lloyds is investing in. Yet there would
seem to be an equally pressing danger that TSBs growth and competitiveness may be hampered by its reliance on a
competitor. When they ring up the Lloyds CTO [chief technology officer] to ask for a new product, will he turn
around and say sorry guv, that could take weeks and then switch it on the day after Lloyds has launched its own
version? says a person who was involved in one of the bids.Despite the challenges facing TSB, its spin-off is a big
step towards a healthier market. It lifts some uncertainty for shareholders of Lloyds, including the government,
which hopes to start selling down its stake soon. Yet its impact on competition will be tremulous rather than seismic.

4.EU banking union

Following agreement among European finance ministers in the early hours of Thursday morning, the eurozone is
gearing up to strengthen its banking sector by introducing a more unified set of rules and protections. Below are
some common questions - and answers - setting out what we know about its planned workings.
What is the "banking union"?
It consists of three parts:
1. A common banking supervisor (or "single supervisory mechanism"): This job goes to the European
Central Bank, which will be given the power to monitor the health of and the risks taken by all the major
banks within the eurozone, and intervene if any gets into trouble.
2. A common resolution framework: If a bank anywhere in the eurozone gets into trouble, the process of
bailing it out - or, in a worst case, letting it go bust - would be managed by a common "resolution authority",
with the cost borne by the eurozone governments collectively.
3. A common deposit guarantee: Anyone who puts money in an ordinary bank account anywhere in the
eurozone would have their money (up to a limit, expected to be 100,000 euros) guaranteed by a common
eurozone fund.
Only the details of the common banking supervisor has been agreed at the summit.
What powers will the supervisor have?
According to the proposal, the eurozone central bank will "have direct oversight of eurozone banks, although in a
differentiated way and in close cooperation with national supervisory authorities". The ECB, in its new role as
supervisor, will monitor the health of banks within the eurozone (but not the UK), and be able to intervene when a
bank is in trouble.Countries such as the UK and Sweden, outside the euro area, can enter into "close co-operation
arrangements" with the ECB if they choose to.In contrast to the European Banking Authority, which sets the rules
under which all banks in the EU (including the UK) must work within, the ECB would be able to impose its will on
the national banking regulators.A compromise agreement was reached giving the ECB direct oversight of banks with
assets greater than 30bn euros ($39bn; 24bn).There was some debate about whether the ECB should be directly
responsible for all 6,000 eurozone banks or just for the biggest banks.The European Commission wants the ECB to
be responsible for all the banks, arguing that during the financial crisis, even relatively small banks such as Dexia and
Northern Rock got into trouble and threatened the entire financial system.The German government wants the ECB to
have a more limited role. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble does not want the ECB to have powers over
his country's savings banks (Sparkassen) or the regional Landesbanken, which play an important role in public
policymaking in Germany.The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is also concerned not to overburden the ECB with
too many responsibilities too quickly. The ECB may, for example, delegate a lot of the day-to-day supervision work to
the national bank regulators.Another concern for Germany is that the ECB's new supervisory powers should be
strictly separate from its existing monetary policy powers - so that, for example, the ECB won't be tempted in future
to set interest rates too low in order to help out banks that are in trouble.Under the compromise, the ECB will
oversee banks representing more than a fifth of a state's GDP.
How will the "common resolution framework" work?
If a eurozone bank got into trouble, the process of rescuing it - or, in the worst case, putting it though a kind of
bankruptcy procedure - would be carried out by a pan-European "resolution authority" - potentially the ECB, or an
agency reporting to it.As part of any rescue, the eurozone governments would require the bank's existing
shareholders and lenders to take a lot of the losses - as was the case with Spain's recent bank bailout.All eurozone
banks would also be required to contribute annually to a common fund that could be used to absorb the cost of a
bailout - and therefore reduce the cost to taxpayers.To the extent that taxpayer money is also needed to absorb losses,
or has to be put at risk by buying new shares in a troubled bank in order to provide it with more capital, then this
would be provided by the eurozone governments collectively, irrespective of which country the bank is based in.This
taxpayer money is expected to be provided by the eurozone's recently inaugurated permanent bailout fund - the
European Stability Mechanism.

What is bank capital?

When banks make losses on their loans and investments (their "assets"), it means that they have less money to repay
their investors.These "investors" include ordinary people who have put their savings in a deposit account at the bank,
other financial institutions who have lent the bank money, and the bank's shareholders.The bank's capital is the
value of its shareholders' investments, based on the bank's financial accounts.It is calculated by taking the value of all
the bank's assets, and subtracting from it the value of everything the bank owes to its depositors and lenders.The
shareholders are the first in line to take losses on their investments. Each time the bank makes a loss on a loan it has
made, the shareholders suffer an equal loss on the value of the bank's capital.If the losses are so big that they eat up
all of the bank's capital, the bank is insolvent - its assets are no longer worth enough to repay all of the deposits and
loans that the bank owes.For this reason, the bank's capital is a measure of how much loss the bank can potentially
absorb without going bust.
How will the common deposit guarantee fund work?
Currently each eurozone country operates its own national deposit guarantee scheme. During the crisis, all EU
countries agreed to raise the amount of each deposit that they guarantee to 100,000 euros. The summit discussion
paper - put together by the EU's various bigwigs - talks about a "harmonisation" of these national schemes, which
presumably involves setting the same rules in each country for who gets guaranteed how much and when, and what
the banks in each country must contribute to the scheme.It is unclear if, and how much, these national schemes will
then be guaranteed by all of the eurozone's governments collectively.A maximalist version might create a single
deposit guarantee scheme with an blanket guarantee from the eurozone. A minimalist version may retain the existing
national schemes, and give each one a limited guarantee from the eurozone's bailout fund.Whatever the case, the
eurozone banks will also be required to make big regular contributions to the scheme (on top of their contributions to
the common resolution fund), in order to minimise the cost to taxpayers.
When will all this happen?
The eurozone governments want to have the legal framework for the common banking supervisor in place by 1
January 2013.The ECB will then have up to 12 months to put in place its new supervisory department, and take over
active duties by 1 January 2014.Some kind of common resolution arrangement should also be in place by then,
backed by the eurozone's bailout fund.In order to keep to this schedule, the legal framework will need to be designed
in a way that avoids the need for a change to existing European treaties.A treaty change would open a whole new can
of worms - it would need to be negotiated with all the EU governments, including the awkward UK. And it would
then need to be ratified by all of the EU parliaments.In the long run, however, a treaty change looks unavoidable if
the ECB is to be given adequate authority, and if the resolution framework and deposit guarantee scheme are to be
given enough financial backing to see off a future financial crisis.However, it seems likely that Germany would delay
this until much greater integration has been achieved in other areas - including economic policy and government
spending rules.Germany's constitutional court has made clear that a national referendum will be needed for any
treaty change that obligates Germany to cough up even more money for the common European good than it has
already agreed to give the eurozone bailout fund.

5.Norway uses waste as eco-friendly fuel

Forget coal, oil, shale gas, even nuclear. The bin bag - full of your household waste - is becoming one of Norway's
fuels of choice. Try to imagine the smell when a bin lorry passes you on the street on a hot summer's day. Breathe it
in through your nostrils. Stinks, doesn't it? Now multiply it by a thousand. That's what it is like inside the largest
energy recovery facility in Norway, the Klemetsrud plant. A vast concrete hall of waste. Tens of thousands of tonnes
of rubbish piled up. The conveyor belts clunk and clank as more pours in. Bin lorries reverse towards the chutes and
tip out more plastic bags of waste. A huge industrial claw swoops down, its pincers reaching round a tonne of
rubbish, picking it up and transporting it to the other end of the hall, where it is dropped. A cloud of white dust
builds, and soon fills the hall. It is not good to stay in here too long. This is where the waste thrown out by millions of
households from Norway, Britain and elsewhere is turned into heat and electricity for the city of Oslo. The rubbish is
pre-sorted. Everything that can be recycled is meant to have been taken out, but even then they are still left with
more than 300,000 tonnes a year. They do not see it as waste here - they see it as energy. "Four tonnes of waste has

the same energy content as one tonne of fuel oil," says the director of the waste-to-energy agency in Oslo, Pal
Mikkelsen."That means a lot of energy, and we use very little energy to transport it."One tonne of fuel oil, Mr
Mikkelsen says, could heat a house for half a year. In other words, take just part of an English bin lorry's maximum
load picked up on the streets of Leeds or Bristol, turn it into energy here - and you can heat a home in Oslo for half a
year.The process is simple. The waste, tonne by tonne of it, is dropped into an incinerator. It soars to 850 degrees.
Peeking through a small porthole of toughened glass, the fire burns bright orange with a fierce roar of flames. Most of
the waste is burned, but some can be recycled Not everything is burned. Old tin cans and some mattress springs are
left. At the end of the process they are left with ash, metal -which is recycled - and a lot of heat. The heat boils water.
The steam drives a turbine, which produces electricity. And the scalding water is piped off from the plant, to houses
and public schools across Oslo. Which means at Bjoernholt School the technical manager, Agnar Andersen, does not
have to worry about fuel deliveries during the harsh Norwegian winter any more. "We don't have to think about fuel
oils or fossil fuels. They are phasing out the last school this year with fossil fuels." At full capacity the plant will
provide all the heat and electricity for Oslo's schools and heat for 56,000 homes. An environmentalist's dream, you
might have thought. Not necessarily, cautions the chair of Friends of the Earth Norway, Lars Haltbrekken. "The
overall goal from an environmental perspective should be to reduce the amount of waste, reuse what we can reuse,
recycle, and then the fourth option is to burn it and use the energy."We have created such an overcapacity in these
power plants in Norway and Sweden. We have made ourselves dependent on producing more and more garbage."
Send us your rubbish
Norway burns rubbish to get energy - and avoids resorting to landfill Supporters disagree, and point out that, used
together, all of Europe's current waste-to-energy plants could only consume about 5% of the continent's total annual
landfill. Norway - they say - is actually helping to dispose of some of that waste in the best way possible. That is
certainly true in the case of the English cities Leeds and Bristol. Both export waste to Oslo. Rather than pay for it to
go into landfill after the recyclable bits have been removed, they actually pay Oslo to take it off their hands. So, Oslo
is paid to dispose of the rubbish, and gets energy out of it as well. The waste-to-energy revolution can also be heard
on the streets of the Norwegian capital, as the number 144 bus rumbles past. It is powered by biogas, created from
the city's decaying organic matter. One kilogramme of food waste produces half a litre of fuel. Use all of the organic
waste they have and they will be able to power 135 buses year-round in Oslo. If this whole project were repeated
across Europe, Pal Mikkelsen believes it would make a huge difference."I think it would mean we get a lot better level
of self-sustainability when it comes to energy. If it's done properly it would also mean a lot more materials recovery.
And a sharp decrease in the landfill."With tight controls to clean up the gases from the burning, Oslo believes
converting waste into energy will help it to halve its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within 20 years - making a city,
whose wealth was built on oil, one of the greenest on the planet.

6.Cyprus deal
Cyprus has agreed a 10bn euros bailout with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an
attempt to stave off the collapse of its banking sector and the wider economy.
What has been agreed?
Cyprus has agreed to a significant restructuring of its banking sector, along with other measures such as tax rises and
privatisations. The measures are designed to raise billions towards the bailout, but protect bank customers with
deposits of 100,000 euros or less.Cyprus's second largest bank - Laiki Bank - will be closed down and deposits above
100,000 euros moved into a "bad bank". Deposits below 100,000 euros will be moved into Bank of Cyprus, the
country's biggest bank, which is being significantly restructured.Deposits at Bank of Cyprus of more than 100,000
euros are being frozen. At both banks, deposits above 100,000 euros will be used by the government to contribute
billions towards the bailout. It is not clear how much of the money will be taken, but a government spokesman has
suggested customers should expect about 40% of the balance to be converted into bank shares.
What about the bank levy?
In the original EU-IMF deal, all customers of Cypriot banks were to face a one-off tax on their deposits, starting at
6.75% for the smallest deposits.That was designed to raise 5.8bn euros towards the cost of the bailout. But it proved
hugely unpopular with the Cypriot public and was voted down by Cyprus's parliament.There is no bank levy in the
new deal, but the bank restructuring measures mean deposits over 100,000 euros will effectively be used to pay the

bulk of the 5.8bn euro bill. The measures cannot be voted down by Cyprus's parliament, as new bank restructuring
laws have already been agreed and voted through by MPs.
Why are there capital controls?
After being closed for almost two weeks, Cyprus' banks have reopened - but with strict controls on how much money
can be withdrawn. This is to prevent a bank run, where customers try to withdraw all their money at once due to a
lack of confidence in the banking sector. In the past, bank runs have caused banks to collapse.In Cyprus, customers
are limited to withdrawing 300 euros a day, taking no more than 1,000 euros in cash on trips out of the country, and
transferring no more than 5,000 euros a month on debit or credit cards. Bigger transactions need the approval of
Cypriot authorities.The measures were due to stay in place for just a few days, but Cypriot authorities are already
indicating that they are likely to keep them in place for longer. Iceland introduced temporary capital controls in
2008, which are still in place today.
Are the UK operations of Cypriot banks affected?
Bank of Cyprus UK has 50,000 UK customers. Although it is a subsidiary of Bank of Cyprus, it is a separately
incorporated UK bank and depositors are protected by the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS),
which covers savings up to 85,000. It said the crisis in Cyprus would have no effect on its deposits.Laiki Bank has
four branches in Britain and serves 13,000 customers. Unlike Bank of Cyprus UK, its UK operations are directly
controlled from Cyprus, and so are not covered by the FSCS. It says deposits up to 100,000 euros are guaranteed and
customers are free to make withdraws if they wish. However, the UK Finance Minister, George Osborne, says the UK
government is in talks with Cypriot authorities to find "a British solution" to Laiki's UK branches.
So is the crisis over?
Not necessarily. In the short term, the risk of the Cypriot banking sector collapsing has receded, and the bailout
funds will allow the government to pay its own debts and undertake the restructuring of the banks without facing
economic collapse or exiting the euro.But in other respects the outlook is less certain. Cyprus must enact tough
austerity measures to rebuild its economy, and regain trust among investors in its banking sector and government. It
is unclear whether the Cypriot public, angered by how the crisis has been handled so far, will support that.It is also
unclear how much trust is left in Cyprus's banks, and so when fears over a bank run will recede.Finally, the whole
episode has damaged confidence in European authorities' ability to handle economic crises.
What went wrong in Cyprus?
Before the financial crisis struck in 2008, Cyprus was seen to have a healthy economy, with high growth, low
unemployment and sound public finances. But during the good years, the island's banking sector grew rapidly. By
2011, the IMF reported that their assets - which include all the loans they have made - were equivalent to 835% of
annual national income, or GDP. A chunk of that is down to foreign-owned banks, but those that are Cypriot had
made loans to Greek borrowers worth 160% of Cypriot GDP. When Greece became engulfed in crisis in 2010, Cypriot
banks were hit hard, and the government did not have the money to bail them out itself. Government finances have
been further weakened by slow economic growth and international lenders have stopped offering loans.Negotiations
on a bailout with the EU were delayed by the previous socialist government. President Nicos Anastasiades, a
conservative who favoured a swift agreement with Europe, assumed office in late February.
Why was a bank levy considered?
When countries get an international bailout, they are often expected to contribute to the solution by raising funds
themselves, usually by increasing taxes or selling state-owned assets. The levy on bank deposits was designed to play
the same role. It was intended to reduce the size of the bailout and therefore the amount of new debt Cyprus had to
take on.But there is almost certainly a political aspect, too. In the eurozone, there are concerns about moneylaundering in Cyprus and the presence of large amounts of Russian-owned money in the banks. Germany is reputed
to be especially unhappy about the idea of using European taxpayers' money to rescue them. Experts say the decision
to target ordinary savers came about because Cypriot banks have fewer private bondholders than banks in other
eurozone countries. In the Greek bailout, it was private bondholders who had to take a "haircut" - a slice out of their
investment.However, the deal provoked outrage in Cyprus, parliament promptly voted against it, and it is
increasingly seen as a blunder by European and Cypriot authorities.

7.Eurozone PMI survey 'shows underlying improvement'

Eurozone business activity grew at its fastest pace in more than two years in September, according to a closelywatched survey.The Markit composite purchasing managers' index - which includes manufacturing and services rose to 52.1 points, from 51.5 in August.A number higher than 50 indicates growth."These surveys show a real
underlying swell of improvement, " said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit."It's all looking very positive,"
he added.The pace of growth beat average analyst expectations.Business activity in Germany, Europe's largest
economy, grew at its fastest rate for eight months, while in France, the bloc's second biggest economy, activity
increased - albeit marginally - for the first time in more than a year and a half."It is particularly encouraging to see
the business situation improved across the region," said Mr Williamson.Manufacturing helped drive the overall rise
in business activity, with the three months to September marking the sector's strongest quarter of growth for more
than two years.The data provides further evidence of the eurozone's exit from recession. The bloc's GDP grew by
0.3% in the second quarter of 2013.Employment across the eurozone continued to fall, but saw its smallest drop for
18 months. European Central Bank president Mario Draghi warned last week that the eurozone economy remained
"fragile", and unemployment was "still far too high"."It is reassuring that the rate of job losses eased to only a very
modest pace, suggesting that employment could start rising again soon," Mr Williamson said.Philip Shaw at Investec
said the data suggested that the recovery in the eurozone economies was gaining some traction: "[The PMI numbers]
are reasonably encouraging and suggest momentum is beginning to build, albeit slowly."
Eurozone industry 'growing again'
The revival in the eurozone economy is being led by manufacturing . Private sector industry in the eurozone returned
to growth in July, according to a closely-watched survey, boosting hopes that the single currency area will soon
emerge from recession.The Markit eurozone Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), which measures business output,
was 50.4 in July. A figure above 50 indicates expansion. July's figure was up from 48.7 in June, and marks an 18month high. The eurozone has been in recession since the end of 2011."The best PMI reading for one-and-a-half
years provides encouraging evidence to suggest that the euro area could - at long last - pull out of its recession in the
third quarter," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit.He said the revival in the economy was being led by
a broad-based upturn in manufacturing, and signs of stabilisation in the services sector. But he warned that
employment was continuing to fall, although at a slower rate than earlier in the year.
Growth forecast
Markit's survey found that manufacturers reported the largest monthly increase in output since June 2011, and
output in the sector grew for the first time since February 2012.Service sector activity fell, but the decline was the
smallest in 18 months, and Markit said the data showed signs of stabilising after "marked rates of decline" earlier in
the year.The PMI measure is based on surveys of thousands of companies across the eurozone and is regarded as a
reliable indicator of economic growth.Mr Williamson said the latest data tentatively suggested the eurozone would
grow by 0.1% in the third quarter of this year.The latest forecasts from the European Central Bank are for the
eurozone economy to contract by 0.6% over 2013 as a whole, but for it to recover with growth of 1.1% in 2014.The
data revealed a continuing gap between eurozone members.Germany continued to perform well, with steep growth in
manufacturing and services, and strong job creation.However, southern European states saw output falling, but only
marginally.
Eurozone output falls at slowest rate for 15 months
The downturn in the eurozone's services and manufacturing sectors eased in June as output fell at its slowest rate
since March 2012, a survey suggests.Markit's composite purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the eurozone rose to
48.9 in June, up from 47.7 in May. The index has been below the 50 mark, which indicates contraction, for all but
one of the past 22 months.The figure was higher than analysts' predictions. Germany saw output rise for the second
successive month.The eurozone has been in recession for 18 months, and Markit said that the latest data indicated
that its economy would shrink by a further 0.2% this quarter."There are reassuring signs that the downturn is
continuing to ease," said Markit's chief economist Chris Williamson."Encouragingly, the rate of contraction has eased
over the course of the second quarter, with the decline in June the smallest for 15 months."Germany saw its largest

drop in employment since the start of 2010 and job losses also increased in France. However, elsewhere in the
eurozone, the drop in employment was the smallest since October 2011."At this rate, the region could stabilise in the
third quarter and return to growth in the fourth quarter," added Mr Williamson
European Central Bank cuts growth forecast
The European Central Bank (ECB) has revised down its eurozone growth forecast as it voted to hold rates at historic
lows.The ECB now expects the euro area to contract by 0.6% this year, having earlier predicted a GDP fall of
0.5%.ECB President Mario Draghi said the Bank still saw "downside risks" for the eurozone economy, but insisted a
gradual recovery would begin in 2014.The ECB's benchmark rate was kept at 0.5%, after being cut last month. May's
cut from 0.75% was the first in 10 months.The decision not to cut rates further came despite an ongoing recession
across the 17 countries that use the euro.
'Recovery in 2014'
Mr Draghi told a press conference the bank had also marginally revised up its 2014 forecast to 1.1% growth."The
governing council continues to see downside risks surrounding the economic outlook for the euro area," he told
journalists."They include the possibility of weaker than expected domestic and global demand and slow or
insufficient implementation of structural reforms in euro area countries."Draghi kept all options open but also
tempered expectations about a quick ECB fix. However, he stuck with previous predictions that a gradual recovery
would begin in the second half of the year."Export growth should benefit from a recovery in global demand, while
domestic demand should be supported by the accommodative stance of our monetary policy and by the recent real
income gains due to lower oil prices and generally lower inflation," the president said.Draghi ducked questions about
precisely how many members of the ECB's Governing Council voted to cut interest rates.Instead he said "the vastly
prevailing consensus" was there had not been any events deemed significant enough to merit a cut.European shares
took a hit after the press conference, with investors disappointed that the president seemed unwilling to dig deeper
into the ECB's tool box to stimulate the economy."As regards any future policy measures, ECB president Draghi kept
all options open but also tempered expectations about a quick ECB fix for the real economy," noted ING economist
Carsten Brzeski.The eurozone's GDP shrank 0.2% in the first quarter - the sixth quarter of decline in a row. The rate
announcement came shortly after figures showed unemployment in France rose to 10.8% in the first quarter of the
year - its highest level since 1998. The jobless rate grew from 10.5% in the last quarter of 2012, the official Insee
statistics agency said. The French economy went into a recession after seeing GDP fall by 0.2% in the first quarter.

8.Bail out universities rather than banks?

World leaders will be gathering in Northern Ireland next week for the G8 summit. Like a bunch of well-dressed
people standing around a car that won't start, they will be looking for ideas to revive the spluttering engine of
economic growth.But is it time to think differently about what creates new industries and jobs? Should education be
recognised as the key to innovation rather than a drain on the public purse?Should we be pumping money into
universities as well as banks and propping up schools and colleges as well as currencies?Andreas Schleicher, the
OECD's influential big thinker on international education, says that western economies have reached a fork in the
road. It's a case of up-skilling or downsizing."You have two choices. You can go in to the race to the bottom with
China, lowering wages for low-skill jobs. Or you can try to win in innovation and competitiveness."In the long run, if
you don't have natural resources to sell, skills are the only way of competing."In the past, monetary policy and fiscal
policy could be seen as a way to growth, but today, what remains is human capital. You can no longer bail yourself
out of a crisis, you can't stimulate your way out of a crisis, the only way is to provide better skills."This would also
mean making fundamental changes to the school and university systems, argues the OECD's education expert.
The IMF's Nemat Shafik warns of the social cost of youth unemployment
Schools will have to give all pupils a chance to succeed and to tackle the stubborn, talent-constricting link between
family income and academic achievement."Europe cannot afford to have success at school so strongly dependent on
social background," says Mr Schleicher."That's where you cut off your supply. You simply won't get more people into
university if you don't improve at the foundations."We're at the limits of what universities can do, because the

pipeline is limited."Mr Schleicher says the landscape of higher education will have to be reinvented, moving beyond
the traditional university to a variety of smaller, specialist, advanced institutions, accessible in a much more flexible
way.
Danger at the margins
Once the education system is reconfigured, he says, policymakers will have to encourage businesses to shift to a
better-qualified workforce and "to create disincentives for low skills".In Hong Kong there has been a policy of moving
out low-skilled production and replacing it with more high-value industries."They are focused on moving up the
value chain. In Europe we do the opposite. We are trying to cling on to low-skill jobs."The costs of drifting
downwards into a low-skilled economy are dangerously high, he argues.Research by the OECD shows that those with
the lowest skills are pushed to the political margins, disengaged and distrustful of society. It's a combustible
mix.Nemat Shafik, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, says governments need to "think
outside the box" about harnessing education in the cause of economic recovery.In particular, she has concerns about
the high level of youth unemployment, at its most acute in southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle
East.Europe cannot afford to have success at school so strongly depending on social background"It's the most
worrying phenomenon. Not just because of the wasted potential and frustrated young people. It's also politically and
socially very dangerous. We know that high rates of youth unemployment have a huge fiscal cost for countries,
consequences for crime, higher rates of mortality, higher rates of suicide, higher rates of social instability," says the
IMF's deputy head.Even with the most optimistic view of a recovery, she says it will take years to tackle the levels of
unemployment."Which is what brings us to the role of education. It does seem to us that some creative thinking
about the future of education could start to make a dent in these unemployment rates," says Ms Shafik, the Egyptianborn former vice president of the World Bank.It's not just a case of churning out more graduates, she argues, but
about providing the "survival skills" for an unpredictable jobs market. Not least, because the relationship between
education and labour markets can be complex.In Europe and North America, having a degree makes someone much
less likely to be unemployed. But in North Africa, it is the opposite, with graduates more likely to be unemployed
than non-graduates, because the job opportunities are not there for them.In sub-Saharan Africa, the problem is even
more fundamental, with a lack of access to basic education erecting a barrier to employment.
Ms Shafik also wants the education system to act as an advance guard on preparing for big social and economic
changes.In developed countries, people are going to have to work longer, but many jobs are going to disappear long
before their occupants can afford to retire. "We have to think about what they're going to do," she says.Many whitecollar jobs in the middle layers of the labour market are going to be lost to outsourcing or technological change, she
says. Universities should have a role in retraining these mid-career people.
INVESTMENT IN RESEARCH

Finland 3.8%
S. Korea 3.7%

Japan 3.2%

United States 2.8%

Germany 2.8%

Austria 2.8%

France 2.3%

UK 1.8%

Italy 1.3%

Source: OECD, May 2013. Expenditure on research and development as % of GDP. 2011 data, S. Korea and Japan
from 2010"Universities will have to be places that people go in and out of all their lives. The idea that you get trained
for three or four years and that's it for life is unrealistic."But during a downturn, the tide can be running in the
opposite direction. At the point at which educational opportunities are most needed, there is pressure to spend less.
It's a cash-strapped Catch-22 situation.In England, the raising of tuition fees has seen a plunge in part-time

undergraduate students, down by 40% in two years. And these are exactly the type of people who are wanted for
retraining."We are strong supporters of higher investment in education and infrastructure. "But part of the problem
of this crisis has been that many countries have cut back on investment in education, infrastructure, research and
development and innovation, which are all the things that are going to create growth in the future."
Digital industries
Another way in which education is being seen as part of the economic crash recovery team is through its links to
innovative technology. Universities have been the golden goose for digital industries. Google was a PhD project,
Facebook was invented for university students. Hi-tech industries cluster around universities, with Silicon Valley the
blueprint other countries try to copy.The link between universities and industrial growth is going to become even
more important, says Andy Haldane, the Bank of England's executive director for financial stability.They provide the
stable environment needed for long-term investment, he told the Global University Summit, an annual event that
shadows the G8."What does it take to make investment and innovation flourish? It takes patience, a willingness to
defer gratification a willingness to experiment, to fail as often as you succeed."But modern capital markets were
hooked on "instant gratification", he told international business and university leaders at the summit, hosted by the
University of Warwick."Modern capital markets, like modern football teams, are intolerant of experimentation and
failure. They are short-termist and such short time horizons are inimical to research and development, counterproductive to investment and innovation."In contrast, he said universities operated on longer timescales needed for
research. "They can afford to be patient."Mr Haldane said that the stakes were high for the need to
invest."Economists only know one thing," he said. "If you ever meet an economist and they say they know two things,
they're exaggerating."The one thing is this: Today's investment is tomorrow's growth."Should there be a greater
emphasis on education and training in the push for economic recovery?It's all well and good having R&D, but if
people on the ground don't have the capital either personal or borrowed, then ideas can't fly. Far too much wealth is
in the hands of people who couldn't change wheel, let alone develop new technologies. How on earth are they the
right people to decide what should get funding and what shouldn't. Go to Germany.. engineers are in the board
rooms.. THAT is why Germany is doing well and will continue to do well, research funding is the result of the right
people at the top.

8. What is fracking and why is it controversial?

Drilling companies suggest trillions of cubic feet of shale gas may be recoverable from underneath parts of northern
England, through a process known as "fracking". Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique designed to recover
gas and oil from shale rock. But how does it work and why is it controversial?
What is fracking?
Fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to
release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are injected into the rock at high pressure which allows the gas to
flow out to the head of the well. The process is carried out vertically or, more commonly, by drilling horizontally to
the rock layer. The process can create new pathways to release gas or can be used to extend existing channels.
Fracking is shorthand for hydraulic fracturing and refers to how the rock is fractured apart by the high pressure
mixture. Experts also refer to a "frac job" and a "frac unit".The extensive use of fracking in the US, where it has
revolutionised the energy industry, has prompted environmental concerns.The first is that fracking uses huge
amounts of water that must be transported to the fracking site, at significant environmental cost. The second is the
worry that potentially carcinogenic chemicals used may escape and contaminate groundwater around the fracking
site. The industry suggests pollution incidents are the results of bad practice, rather than an inherently risky
technique.There are also worries that the fracking process can cause small earth tremors. Two small earthquakes of
1.5 and 2.2 magnitude hit the Blackpool area in 2011 following fracking."It's always recognised as a potential hazard
of the technique", says Professor Ernie Rutter from the University of Manchester, "But they're unlikely to be felt by
many people and very unlikely to cause any damage."Finally, environmental campaigners say that fracking is simply
distracting energy firms and governments from investing in renewable sources of energy, and encouraging continued
reliance on fossil fuels."Shale gas is not the solution to the UK's energy challenges," said Friends of the Earth energy
campaigner Tony Bosworth. "We need a 21st century energy revolution based on efficiency and renewables, not more
fossil fuels that will add to climate change."

What are the advantages of fracking?

Fracking allows drilling firms to access difficult-to-reach resources of oil and gas. In the US it has significantly
boosted domestic oil production and driven down gas prices. It is estimated to have offered gas security to the US
and Canada for about 100 years, and has presented an opportunity to generate electricity at half the CO2 emissions
of coal. The industry suggests fracking of shale gas could contribute significantly to the UK's future energy needs. A
report by the Energy and Climate Change Committee in April said shale gas in the UK may help to secure energy
supplies, but may not bring down gas prices.
Where is fracking taking place?
Reserves of shale gas have been identified across swathes of the the UK, particularly in the north of England.
However no fracking is currently taking place, and drilling firms must apply for a fracking licence if they wish to do
so in the future.
Fracking: Untangling fact from fiction
The government has announced that it will remove a temporary ban on hydraulic fracturing across the UK. Fracking,
as it is known, is a controversial technique for recovering gas and oil from shale rock. But how concerned should
people be about the environmental impacts?Hydraulic fracturing is widely used across the US to exploit reserves of
oil and gas that were once believed to be inaccessible. But in the UK, the use of fracking was halted in 2011 after some
minor earthquakes near Blackpool, in north-west England, were attributed to test wells being drilled by the energy
company Cuadrilla. The company carried out its own report into the incident and found that it was "most likely" that
the seismic events were caused by the direct injection of fluid into the fault zone.The Department for Energy and
Climate Change (Decc) then asked three experts to make an independent assessment. Their report indicated that
future earthquakes as a result of fracking could not be ruled out - but the risk from these tremors was low and
structural damage extremely unlikely. The experts also made recommendations on how to minimise these
risks.Another review, carried out by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, also gave fracking the
green light - provided that strong regulations were in place. Earthquake issues have also been attributed to fracking
in British Columbia, Canada, and in some parts of the United States. But according to the Francis Egan, chief
executive of Cuadrilla, there needs to be a sense of proportion about the risk of earthquakes from fracking."If you
look at the British Geological Survey website, in the last two months alone there were nine events of the same
magnitude," he told BBC News."We have a host of measures in place to ensure there is no recurrence."It is expected
that if fracking resumes in the UK, the government will insist on constant monitoring and a threshold of seismic
activity. If fracking causes a tremor above the limit, it could lead to a suspension of drilling.
Fluid situation
Many people have concerns about the fluid used in fracking. It is normally a mixture of water, sand and some
chemicals that is pumped into the well under high pressure to force the gas from the rock. There have been worries
that the fluid is dangerous - suspicions that were fuelled by the reluctance of many companies in the US to disclose
what's exactly in the mixture. Democrats in the US Congress released a report that detailed some 750 different
chemicals and other components used in fracking fluid.In the UK, Cuadrilla has been open about what is in its
fracking mixture. But the liquid going down into the well isn't the whole story. Fracking requires tens of millions of
litres of fluid - much of what goes down the well comes back up as "produced water". It can contain a mixture of
organic hydrocarbons, and naturally occurring radioactive material. In the US, this water is often stored in open pits
before it is processed but in the UK the pits will have to be covered. In many locations where the facilities don't exist
on site, the water has to be trucked away to be cleaned. Prof Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute,
says that this would also be the likely scenario in the UK if fracking becomes more widespread."It'll be a bit like
Pennsylvania, where a whole industry has grown up to deal with waste-water," he said. "We'll have to clean the water
if we want to re-use it."The International Energy Agency (IEA) has suggested ways of cleaning up the water that is
used in shale gas exploitation. The IEA says that the technologies to address these issues exist or are in development
and if they are adopted, fracking might be more widely accepted.The other water issue associated with fracking is the
potential of the technology to contaminate existing drinking supplies. In the US, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) investigated complaints from residents in Pavillion, Wyoming, who complained that fracking was
affecting their drinking water. The EPA's initial report concluded that there was a link with the waste-water produced
by drilling for gas. Further investigations into this incident haven't yet conclusively shown the sources of

contamination.There have been many other reports of a similar impact on drinking water from people living near
fracking operations across the US.Prof Davies says that when water has been contaminated in the US it has not been
the fault of fracking. It has been as a result of cracks in the wells or surface spillages. "We have been distracted by
hydraulic fracturing," he told BBC News. "It is really at the bottom of the list when it comes to contaminating water
supplies. Drilling wells properly and cementing them are the critical things."In a report published in the journal
Marine and Petroleum Geology, Prof Davies found that in the UK the possibility of fracking causing rogue fractures
that would allow methane gas to contaminate water was a fraction of 1%. The study recommended a minimum
vertical separation distance between fracking wells and water supplies of 600m (2,000ft).Some scientists have
proposed adding chemical tracers to fracking fluids as a way of confirming that any contamination of drinking water
comes from the drilling process.
Environmental disruption
Horizontal drilling can offer many advantages to the gas extraction process, allowing wells to be drilled in several
directions from one pad. But there are downsides as well. Horizontal drilling means companies can extract oil and
gas from locations that were once inaccessible, and these may be under built-up areas as they are in several cities in
the US. The disruption that this can cause is considerable. Road traffic, drilling noise, and the danger of accidental
fuel spillages are all associated with the process. Mark Boling, executive vice president with Southwestern Energy, a
US oil and gas exploration company that uses fracking technology, says the fracking industry needs to be more
honest about the real impacts."We need to think more innovatively above the ground," he told BBC News. "We need
to figure how to do better on surface impacts, water supply, water transfer and disposal, drilling locations - we really
didn't come out and say, 'yes, these are risks, and there are obstacles'." Mr Boling says that in many parts of the US,
people have accepted the technology because they have seen a direct financial benefit from selling mineral rights.
That's not something that pertains in the UK. "You are going to have even more difficulty where the minerals are
owned by the Crown - if you don't have something that is going to put money in the pockets of people that are
suffering through all the trucks, road damage the compressor noise all these sorts of things."

9.Collective rights 'offer hope for global fisheries'

The legacy of ineffective management regimes pushed fish stocks to the brink of collapse . Collective communitybased rights could put the world's fisheries on a sustainable footing after decades of over-exploitation, an expert
suggests.Previous management regimes had failed to protect both the industry and fish stocks' long-term future,
explained Ragnar Arnason from Iceland University. Communities would act like "shareholders", ensuring stocks
were protected and not depleted, he added. Prof Arnason outlined his views at the ICES science conference in
Iceland. "We have a severe problem of over-exploitation of global fish stocks, with the associated damage of marine
ecosystems," he told BBC News ahead of his presentation."There is some indication that things may have stopped
declining - at least in some parts of the world."However, we have essentially devastated the world's most valuable fish
stocks but the good news is that we basically know how to solve the problem. "That is by installing fisheries
management regimes based on individual rights to fisheries or fishing communities so that operators, on behalf of
the population, will find it in their own interests to treat the fisheries carefully and sustain or even rebuild them with
long-term benefits to them and others."Prof Arnason identified two main reasons for the world's fisheries to have
been pushed to the point of collapse: improvements in the technology available to fishing fleets and the fast rise in
the human population and its purchasing power."The result is that we are now going far and wide to harvest fish
stocks," he explained.
Common tragedy
A driver of the downward spiral of fisheries around the globe was because they were considered to be the common
property of large groups of people, he explained.Marine scientists warn that many fisheries' days are numbered
unless fish stocks are protected "It is a fact that if there is something that is economically valuable and available to
many people then there will be a race or competition to get as much of the valuable things as possible. "This applies
in every sphere of human life, not just fisheries. On land, we have seen this with forests, grazing land and freshwater
resources."If you are only one of many and you cannot co-ordinate your actions with others then you are almost

forced to overexploit, even if it is against your better knowledge. "But if you do not go out and take what you can then
others will and you will lose even more - this is the tragedy of the commons," said Prof Arnason, referring to the
famous article by Garrett Hardin, published in Science magazine in December 1968.The inefficiencies in the common
property model of fisheries management regimes came to light in a 2008 UN and World Bank report, which
calculated that the world's fishing fleet was operating at a US $50bn (31bn) annual loss.The authors said the loss
was a result of depleted fish stocks and overcapacity in the fleet (too many vessels harvesting the available fish).
Individual responsibility
Prof Arnason, who addressed the annual science conference of the International Council for the Exploration of the
Sea (ICES) in Reykjavik, said attempts to reform and improve fisheries were not anything new.Many of the world's
fisheries consist of small-scale low-tech fishing boats "The only system that empirically has been found to function
have been based on private property rights," he recalled. "In fisheries, this is usually done by saying that an area of
the ocean belongs to a group - this is called territorial rights. It works pretty well if you have sedentary species, such
as shellfish."When you are dealing with fish stocks that are moving about then you usually have quantitative catch
rights. So out of the total allowable catch for that particular stock, you would get a fixed [allocation], for example 1%.
"You then do not have to race or compete against your fellow fishermen. If this right is a long-term right, you also
have a greater interest in the welfare of the fish stock and ecosystem because the amount you are allowed to catch
increases as the state of the fish stocks/ecosystem improves. "So you become a little bit like a shareholder in a
company, you want the company to succeed."
Cutting costs
But he explained that these measures have to be enforced and monitored. While, he argued, this was not
prohibitively expensive in fleets of industrialised nations (about 3% of the value of the landed catch), it became
problematic in many developing nations, where fisheries were made up from thousands of small-scale low-tech
fishing vessels.This gave rise to the idea of collective fishing rights to small communities, Prof Arnason said."These
rights are for all the people in that community but the hope is that communities that are reasonably homogenous so
they may be able to overcome the common property problem and install, enforce and maintain their own fisheries
management system."He added that fishermen, on the whole, were recognising the benefits of this shift in the
management regimes but a potential hurdle remained."The problem they are facing is that before you get the gains,
you have to rebuild the fish stocks," he told BBC News. "You have to cut back on fishing and allow the fish stocks to
rebuild. During this interval, there will be fewer catches and less profit - the benefits appear later."The global
community - in the guise of the UN, World Bank etc - is keen to move the world in this direction, so I am optimistic
and I think things are moving in the right direction."

10. Reform of EU fishing policy

The EU faces the challenge of making fishing both sustainable and profitable .The European Parliament has
approved a package of major reforms to the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), designed to cut waste and stop
overfishing in European waters. Under the plan, the existing system of fishing quotas - which often leads to tonnes of
perfectly good fish being dumped at sea - will be reformed.For the first time MEPs have legislative power in this
policy area. They are proposing amendments to a European Commission reform plan for the CFP. But there will be
more negotiations with the 27 fisheries ministers this year before the changes become EU law.
What is wrong with the existing system?
The European Commission says the current policy is wasteful - 75% of stocks are still overfished and catches are only
a fraction of what they were 15-20 years ago. Catches of cod for example have declined by 70% in the last 10
years.The Commission believes that the "top down" system of micro-managing fisheries from Brussels is failing and
that decision-making needs to be decentralised.The method of allocating fishing quotas EU-wide has contributed to
the serious depletion of stocks, the Commission says. Crews that haul in more than the agreed quota often throw
large quantities of dead fish back into the sea - the much-criticised "discards".The system is not meeting the

European market's needs. Fish imported from non-EU countries now accounts for two-thirds of the fish sold in the
EU.
What was the current policy designed to do?
The idea of agreed quotas was to make Europe's fishing stable and sustainable and prevent conflicts arising where
foreign trawlers fish in a country's waters.The quota system - called Total Allowable Catches (TACs) for each fish
stock - is at the heart of the CFP, launched in 1983. The TACs are based on a country's previous catches.Over time
Europe's fishing fleets have grown too large for the dwindling fish stocks, but fisheries ministers are often reluctant
to see their national TACs reduced. The Commission says the CFP has been plagued by short-term decision-making.
How does the EU plan to protect fish stocks now?
The practice of discards must be phased out, the Commission says. In future trawlers will have to land their entire
catch - and that means member states will have to ensure that better technology is installed to monitor
compliance.The Commission says fisheries should be managed on an "ecosystem" basis - there needs to be more
flexibility in the system and more scientific data needs to be collected on a larger number of fish species.The
parliament's lead negotiator, German Social Democrat Ulrike Rodust, says the EU should scrap the annual
bargaining over quotas, replacing that with an eco-friendly system based on "maximum sustainable yield" (MSY).
Under MSY, there would be a limit to the catch for each species based on its reproduction rate - in other words, the
rate at which the stock is replenished. Ms Rodust accepts that for MSY to become the benchmark in 2015, as outlined
in her legislative report, more scientific data will be needed.A new funding mechanism will be set up for 2014-2020
called the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF), with a budget of 6.7bn euros (6bn).Part of that fund will
help support small-scale coastal fleets. Member states will be able to restrict fishing in a zone within 12 nautical miles
of the coast, up to the year 2022. But Ms Rodust's report objects to some Commission proposals to make fishing
more market-driven. The Commission said large fleets should be allocated transferable catch shares, called
"concessions", which they would be able to trade, in response to local conditions. Ms Rodust argues that such choices
should remain in the hands of national authorities, not the EU.She does not want "an allocation system being
imposed at European level", and instead "member states will remain free to establish - or not to establish - a system
of transferable fishing concessions".
What is the time frame for the changes?
Originally the Commission wanted the new CFP to be in place by 1 January this year, but the timetable has
slipped.MEPs now hope to reach a final deal on the reforms with the Council (EU governments) in June. The plan is
to start adopting the MSY approach to fisheries management in 2015, and from 2014 discards are to be phased out.
What has been the response so far to the plan?
The UK government is enthusiastic. UK Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon said more work must be done to
encourage consumers to buy a wider range of fish. That message was echoed by Sainsbury's, which said "it is
imperative that supermarkets such as Sainsbury's help create the consumer demand for lesser known species by
promoting them to our customers".Scottish Fisheries Secretary Richard Lochhead said the EU reforms "need to be a
lot more radical".He praised the Commission's emphasis on conservation of stocks, but said more carefully targeted
measures would be needed to stop discards.The environmental group Oceana called for proper management plans
for a much larger number of fish stocks.It voiced concern that the Commission plan "doesn't establish any
mechanisms to deal with landed by-catch". There is a risk that the surplus fish landed - instead of being discarded at
sea - will simply be sold and that could incentivise overfishing, Oceana says.

11.How halloumi took over the UK

Until recently halloumi was a niche food in the UK. Now it's a staple of the British barbecue season. How did it
become so popular?To some it is "squeaky cheese". To others it is a pleasantly rubbery addition to salads, while for
vegetarians it's that thing on barbecue skewers that they have to double-check isn't chicken before tucking in. This
salty cheese from Cyprus - made from sheep's, goat's and often cow's milk - has a high melting point, allowing it to be

grilled or even fried. Halloumi has made a classic British culinary journey from ethnic speciality to commonplace
item. Its charms have long been recognised in its homeland of Cyprus, where the average resident gets through an
average of 8kg (17lbs) of it each year.But now Britons are said to consume more halloumi than any other European
country outside Cyprus, with Sweden coming in behind.
Recipes ideas for halloumi

Grilled pear and spinach salad with halloumi

Butternut squash with rosemary and halloumi

Deep-fried halloumi with potato rostis

Halloumi kebabs with salsa verde and couscous

Halloumi and mango with a minty dressing

Beef koftas with grilled fig and halloumi salad

It's a far cry from just a decade ago, when a request for the cheese in a mainstream supermarket would probably have
been met with blank looks. Now every chain stocks the stuff. Tesco is a useful barometer - it sells six varieties. Its
halloumi sales rose 35% for the year 2011-2012, with its Tesco Finest line increasing by 132% over the same period.
Similarly, a spokesman for Waitrose reported that their sales were up 104%.So why is halloumi having a moment?
Daily Telegraph food columnist Rose Prince believes it's "a reflection of three things - our love for Mediterranean
cuisine, our eagerness to try whatever is new and the effect of TV chefs".She adds: "It only has to be used by Jamie
Oliver in a recipe and it goes stratospheric." Indeed, it seems halloumi is no longer exclusively enjoyed as an
ingredient in Mediterranean or Middle Eastern cooking but has been incorporated into a variety of British and
European dishes.It has become a very popular choice in many restaurants such as Nando's, which serve slices of
halloumi as a side order. Its sales have risen 138% since 2010.Halloumi also features on the menu of Pret a Manger
in the form of a falafel and halloumi hot wrap, and a halloumi and red pepper toastie, as well as on the Leon menu,
served at lunch time in a grilled halloumi wrap or halloumi burger, but also at dinner time in a grilled halloumi
dinner pot.Greek cheese companies such as Yamas have also capitalised on its status as a barbecue favourite, selling
prepared halloumi burger slices. Key to its success has been its convenience and its versatility.What constitutes
halloumi is a matter of dispute . The fact that it is kept in brine allows it to be stored unopened in the fridge for up to
a year whilst giving it a satisfying salty taste."You can do so many things with it," says Antonis Evangelou, owner of
London's Lemonia restaurant.
Buying, storing and using halloumi

Buying: Best halloumi is made from sheeps' milk, and often comes from Cyprus
Storage: Halloumi can be refrigerated for many months if left in original packaging; once opened, submerge
in salt water and refrigerate

Preparation: In Middle East halloumi is usually fried or grilled but can be eaten straight from packet; some
chefs recommend soaking it in buttermilk for a day or two before preparing, for richer, less salty flavour

Evangelou recalls selling it in the delicatessen he opened when he moved to the UK in 1958, but says the dish wasn't
nearly as popular as it is today. Evangelou's Lemonia restaurant sells 60kg (132lbs) of halloumi per week. "More
people are requesting it now," he says."It's not just growing in Britain but everywhere - in the US, in Europe. I was in
Dubai recently and they served it in the breakfast lounge, it was very popular, they ate all of it."It's a unique taste.
You can't compare it with any other cheese. It's just unique."Harry Nicola, proprietor of London's Kolossi Grill
Cypriot restaurant, says halloumi is one of his most popular starters, with "about a third" of their customers now
ordering it. Anecdotal evidence for this growing taste among Britons for halloumi comes from a story told by Nicola
where he oversaw the catering for an annual Church of England event at a local church. "We supplied them with
plates of taramasalata, hummus, olives, halloumi and watermelon. By the end there was no halloumi left on the trays
at all, it had all been eaten."It is also, as Nicola tells, a hugely popular breakfast option in Cyprus, served with olives,
bread and fresh watermelon, with a sizeable part of Cypriot culture based around the cheese."In a quarter of a
century hummus has gone from fringe food to a staple in British supermarkets, so is its adoption a sign of changing
tastes?"Keen to capitalise on the halloumi boom, producers in Cyprus are fighting to gain a protected designation of

origin (PDO) status from the European Union. This would lay down criteria which a cheese would have to meet in
order to be labelled as "halloumi" and protect the Cypriot industry from foreign competitors.Efforts thus far to secure
a PDO for halloumi have been unsuccessful, meaning the correct way to prepare the dish is subject to
dispute.Traditionally it is made with milk from a sheep or goat, but with no PDO to ensure that any cheese labelled as
halloumi adheres to this, many variants are made with a mixture of cow's and sheep's milk. Some UK companies
such as Milky's have even started producing the cheese exclusively from British cow's milk. A further complication is
the presence of Turkish producers in northern Cyprus. Turkey, and indeed Turkish dairy farmers in Cyprus, produce
an identical cheese called hellim. This means that if Cyprus were granted a PDO for the production of halloumi it
wouldn't necessarily apply to the hellim, and thus would protect half the nation's dairy farmers and not the
other's.Whatever its legal status, the dish looks certain to remain a permanent fixture on British dinner tables.

12. Romania, invata de aici! Studiu de caz asupra

exploatarii bogatiilor naturale: Canada vs. Norvegia
Contractele se pot negocia "la sange", cu redevente de peste 50% in favoarea statului, nu 5-6%. Este o lectie pe care ar
trebui sa o stie si guvernantii romani, economistii si mai ales cei implicati in negocierile privind exploatarile de
resurse naturale de pe teritoriul tarii.Canada este a treia tara in lume ca rezerve de petrol, insa provincia Alberta taie
fonduri din educatie si sanatate, in timp ce, per total, datoriile externe ale Canadei se ridica la peste 600 miliarde de
dolari canadieni*.Mai mult, Canada este supranumita Arabia Saudita a Nordului si totusi statul duce lipsa de cash.
Cum se poate ca provincia Alberta, atat de bogata in petrol, sa reduca fondurile scolilor, invatamantului si sanatatii
lucru care se intampla de ani buni si in Romania, in conditiile in care se scalda in petrol? Exemplul pozitiv se afla
pe Batranul Continent, mai exact in Norvegia, stat care doar anul acesta se va bucura de un surplus la buget de 44
miliarde de dolari. Tara este doar a 22-a din lume ca rezerve dovedite de petrol si produce cu circa 40% mai putin,
comparat cu Canada. Pe langa surplusul masiv la buget, Norvegia nu are nicio datorie externa si, mai mult, au pusi
deoparte 634 miliarde de dolari intr-un sistem de pensii private recunoscut pe plan mondial. Se estimeaza ca fondul
va avea o valoare de o mie de miliarde de dolari pana in 2020. Mai simplu spus, Norvegia se tavaleste in bani si
sectorul numarul unu aducator de venituri este chiar exploatarea, producerea si exportul petrolului si a gazelor
naturale.Sunt multe diferente intre Norvegia si Canada, diferente care pot explica de ce Norvegia este atat de bogata
si Canada nu atat cat ar putea.Una dintre diferente este extrem de vizibila si, de aici, pot invata si alesii
Romaniei: redeventele pe care le primesc statele in cauza. Redeventele reprezinta sumele de bani pe care guvernele le
cer companiilor de exploatare pentru permisiunea de a extrage bogatiile naturale ale subsolului.Norvegia cere
companiilor internationale circa 70% din profiturile rezultate pentru drepturile de a extrage si a vinde petrolul
norvegian. Practic, pentru fiecare 100 de dolari pe care companii precum ExxonMobil sau British Petroleum ii obtin
in Norvegia, guvernul statului in cauza primeste 70 de dolari. Acesti bani, ulterior, se intorc sub forma de investitii
catre populatia Norvegiei. Un director al Ministerului Energiei si Petrolului din Norvegia a explicat foarte bine
filozofia tarii in ceea ce priveste exploatarea acestei bogatii naturale. Statul [norvegian] opereaza pe principiul ca
firmele internationale ofera ajutor in exploatarea resurselor naturale dar, intr-un final, petrolul apartine natiunii.
De cealalta parte, guvernul canadian nu are niciun fel de redeventa asupra profitului pe care companiile extractoare
de petrol il fac in Alberta, ci doar guvernul provincial din Alberta are. In 2009, guvernul provincial din Alberta a atras
insa mai multe venituri din jocuri de noroc si casino-uri decat din redeventele petroliere. In anii recenti, guvernul din
Alberta a colectat circa 5% redeventa din extragerea petrolului (calculele sunt complexe, dar, per total, suma ajunge
la aceasta pondere).Practic canadienii nu primesc sumele pe care le-ar merita pentru bogatiile lor naturale,
mostenite. Companii precum ExxonMobil, care anul trecut a facut circa 104 milioane de dolari/zi din exploatarile
globale, extrag petrolul din solul canadian si il vand apoi, canadienii alegandu-se cu foarte putini bani, dar mari
probleme ecologice si scurgeri toxice care se infiltreaza in sol si apoi in ape. Parte din redeventa se scurge in
incercarea de a mentine natura cat mai intacta si spre populatie se duc foarte putini bani, in final.Este o afacere buna
daca esti ExxonMobil. O afacere extrem de daunatoare si gaunoasa pentru canadieni.Solutia este una simpla: taxeaza
mai mult companiile care, pana la urma, vor sa profite de bogatiile solului statului tau. Politicienii, desigur, vor spune
ca lucrurile nu sunt atat de simple dar exemplu sta Norvegia se poate. Si companiile extractoare sunt tot acolo,
facand profit, adevarat, mai mici decat in Canada, dar fiind profitabile si, mai mult, investind mai mult ca niciodata.
Reprezentantii tarii s-au batut cu pumnii in piept pentru ca au ridicat redeventa exploatarilor de la Rosia Montana la
6%, similar cu redeventele primite de Canada. Este suficient sa ne uitam la ce se intampla in acea regiune, pentru a
observa ce ar putea urma si in Romania daca proiectul va primi aprobare.Ironic este, poate, faptul ca statul din
America de Nord si-a invatat lectia (pe romaneste, a incasat-o) si acum incearca aceeasi strategie si in Romania,
prin compania controlata de canadieni, Gold Corporation.Daca acest contract ar fi fost negociat la sange, si
Romania s-ar fi putut afla acum in situatia Norvegiei: redevente de peste 50%, exploatari ecologice, bogatiile solului
reinvestite in infrastructura de care avem atata nevoie pentru a atrage investitii straine si astfel, roata s-ar fi invartit
si aici.

13. Zona euro incepe sa isi revina timid, insa

diferentele N-S se adancesc
Analistii EY au remarcat o revenire timida a zonei euro, desi pentru acest an se estimeaza o contractie economica de
0,5% din PIB. Din 2014 totusi, economia zonei euro ar putea avansa cu 0,9%, iar in perioada 2015-2017 ritmul va
accelera la 1,5% pe an."O revenire economica generala incepe sa se faca simtita in zona euro insa, in ciuda semnalelor
pozitive, cresterea economica se asteapta sa fie lenta. Relaxarea masurilor de austeritate si accelerarea activitatii
comerciale la nivel global vor contribui la redresarea estimata pentru sfarsitul anului, insa vor fi resimtite efectele
somajului in crestere si ale adancirii diferentelor de la nivelul continentului", se arata in raportul de toamna al EY Eurozone Forecast (EEF).Astfel, exporturile vor sustine cresterea de 0,9% din 2014, an in care se asteapta ca somajul
sa atinga un varf, de 12,6%.EY Eurozone Forcast estimeaza pentru Romania o crestere de 1,9% a PIB-ului si o
accelerare a cresterii pana la 2,2% in 2014, pe masura ce conditiile externe, in mod special starea economiilor din
zona euro, vor incepe sa se imbunatateasca.Cresterea va fi sustinuta in acest an, pe langa exporturi, si de productia
agricola buna. Economia va beneficia, de asemenea, de relaxarea politicii monetare, dupa ce banca centrala a redus
dobanda de politica monetara atat in iulie, cat si in august.Analistii EY au remarcat ca, in ciuda revenirii timide,
continua sa se inregistreze diferente tot mai mari intre tarile din centrul si cele de la periferia zonei euro. Germania
ramane centrul de putere al zonei euro, cu o crestere de 0,6% in acest an, insa tot mai multe dintre economiile
marginale cu probleme continua sa se contracte in 2013, chiar daca vorbim de un ritm mai lent de scadere.Conform
previziunilor, este de asteptat o stabilizare a economiilor Italiei si Portugaliei, in 2014, si a Greciei in 2015.Somajul
din Zona Euro va continua sa creasca atingand un varf de 12,6% la mijlocul anului 2014. Diferentele semnificative ale
ratei somajului la nivelul intregului continent vor persista, in Spania si Grecia atingandu-se 27,6% si, respectiv, 29%,
in 2014, in timp ce in Germania se estimeaza o rata a somajului de doar 5,4%.Se estimeaza, de asemenea, ca
redresarea economica va continua sa fie incetinita de procesul de reducere a gradului de indatorare atat in sectorul
public cat si in cel privat, precum si de lipsa unor surse avantajoase de finantare. Ambele aspecte vor avea un impact
mai mare asupra economiilor marginale, conducand la diferentieri si mai accentuate fata de tarile nucleu din zona
euro.Pentru prima data in ultimele opt prognoze realizate de EY, estimam o crestere modesta pentru urmatorul
trimestru si pentru anul viitor in zona euro. Cu toate acestea, factorii de decizie politica nu trebuie sa se multumeasca
doar cu atat. Diferentele intre conditiile de finantare si evolutiile pietei fortei de munca de pe intreg continentul
raman semnificative. Calmul relativ de pe pietele financiare trebuie sa fie, de asemenea, folosit pentru a accelera
procesul de restructurare, in special in sectorul bancar", a spus Marie Diron, Senior Economic Adviser EY.

14. Roia Montana: o soluie pragmatic

Conform Constituiei, fiecare cetean se poate considera ndreptit s aib o opinie cu privire la utilizarea
resurselor subsolului i la protecia mediului Despre problema Roia Montan s-a vorbit destul, despre soluii mai
puin. Deloc ntmpltor. n absena unui common sense despre rolul i limitele statului care s permit inclusiv o
evaluare rezonabil a externalitilor ecologice asociate cu exploatarea, nimeni nu se hazardeaz s spun ce e de
fcut. Ezitarea este vizibil, att n rndurile protestatarilor ct i (mai ales) ale politicienilor. Nicio for politic din
Parlament nu se grbete s se erijeze n purttoarea de cuvnt a interesului naional. Dincolo de vocea pe ct de
strident pe att de minoritar a celor care n mod clar, fie sunt n favoarea, fie se opun exploatrii aurului,
majoritatea celor ieii n strad sunt nemulumii de modalitatea specific prin care s-a urmrit realizarea acestei
exploatri miniere printr-o lege care creeaz privilegii, minimiznd beneficiile sociale i maximiznd ctigurile
private, n mod duplicitar i incoerent. Aa cum s-a remarcat, protestele din ultima perioad sunt reacia nervoas a
societii la frnicia, indolena i neghiobia din actul de guvernare. Totui, ce este de fcut? n opinia noastr, nu
putem decide aici i acum care este soluia corect dar putem propune o metod prin care s-o aflm. Iar dac
soluia se va dovedi tardiv la cazul de fa, poate ne va folosi pentru a evita s ajungem n situaii similare. n primul
rnd, trebuie s identificm cauzele situaiei actuale. Ele sunt de ordin instituional i in, n parte, de mitologiile i
contradiciile incluse n documentul numit Constituie. Astfel, n articolul 135 (al. d, e, f), Constituia spune c Statul
trebuie s asigure [...] exploatarea resurselor naturale, n concordan cu interesul naional; refacerea i ocrotirea
mediului nconjurtor precum i meninerea echilibrului ecologic; crearea condiiilor necesare pentru creterea
calitii vieii. Interesul naional nu este definit i nu se precizeaz explicit cine-l definete, dar, innd cont c
suveranitatea naional aparine poporului romn, care o exercit prin organele sale reprezentative [...] precum i
prin referendum (art 2, al. 1) se pare c interpretarea depinde de polticienii momentului. Mai mult, ... bogiile de

interes public ale subsolului [] fac obiectul exclusiv al proprietii publice (art. 136 al. 3), iar bunurile proprietate
public sunt inalienabile (art. 136 al. 4). Prin urmare, conform prezentei Constituii, fiecare cetean se poate
considera ndreptit s aib o opinie cu privire la utilizarea resurselor subsolului i la protecia mediului, dar trebuie
s accepte c decizia va fi luat de stat, adic de politicieni. Acetia din urm, lsnd la o parte interesul lor
individual, vor ti cum s exploateze resursele, s refac mediul i s asigure creterea calitii vieii, totul n ordinea,
la termenele i n proporiile potrivite interesului naional... Mitologie i contradicii, cum spuneam. Oponenii
exploatrii aurului la Roia Montan, prin protestele lor, recunosc implicit c democraia reprezentativ este
nepotrivit pentru a decide n cazul proprietii publice. Dar dac am face un referendum? Cine ar trebui s
participe? Cetenii Romniei? Cei din Roia Montan? Cei din bazinul hidrografic al Roiei, Someului, Tisei,
Dunrii? Voturile lor ar trebui s fie egale, chiar dac nu ar fi afectai egal de proiect? Blocajele instituionale i
conflictele rmn. De fapt, chiar s-a vehiculat ideea derulrii unui referendum care s indice ce vrea majoritatea
naiunii i astfel s ajute statul n luarea unei decizii. Pe lng slbiciunile teoretice enumerate anterior, ideea are
cteva neajunsuri practice, precum riscul unui absenteism masiv (ceea ce ar devaloriza referendumul), riscul unui
rezultat incert (un raport sensibil egal ntre cei care spun Da i cei care spun Nu), dar i interminabilele controverse
cu privire la manipularea opiniei publice i chiar a eventualelor fraude. O abordare alternativ ar fi n termeni de
proprietate privat, de natur s rspund mai bine provocrilor economice i etice asociate problemei de la Roia
Montan. n opinia noastr, soluia optim ar consta n implementarea unui amplu program de reform, al crui
prim pas s fie revizuirea Constituiei i desfiinarea regimului proprietii de stat asupra resurselor subsolului, adic
extinderea dreptului de proprietate al deintorilor de terenuri asupra resurselor de sub pmnt. Aceast soluie
poate prea prea puin pragmatic i chiar mpotriva curentului opiniei publice care pare a se situa mai degrab pe
poziia Nu vrem ca statul s renune la avuia naional. O soluie mai pragmatic poate fi urmtoarea: constituirea
unei companii naionale a exploatrii aurului sau a resurselor subsolului la Roia Montan avnd ca acionariat
ntreaga populaie adult a Romniei. Fiecare cetean cu vrsta peste 18 ani ar urma s primeasc o aciune cu
valoarea nominal stabilit simbolic la 1 leu. Practic, ar trebui derulat o cuponiad asemntoare cu cea gndit i
implementat la nceputul procesului de privatizare a economiei, n anii 1990. Ar trebui evitate erorile de atunci, iar
detaliile pot fi dezbtute. Din punct de vedere al eficienei, ideal ar fi ca dup distribuirea titlurilor nominative,
tranzacionarea s poat fi fcut ct mai repede. Pentru reducerea costurilor de tranzacionare, aciunile ar putea fi
dematerializate. Dac exist temerea c unii oameni ar putea fi pclii, netiind valoarea aciunii primite, s-ar putea
stabili ca distribuirea gratuit s priveasc doar 90% din capitalul viitoarei societi, iar restul aciunilor s fie
vndute liber pe burs. Astfel, beneficiarii mproprietririi i-ar putea face o idee despre valoarea titlului primit.
Pentru protecia mediului, s-ar putea prevedea ca decizia exploatrii s se fac numai cu o majoritate calificat (dou
treimi din acionari? Trei sferturi?) i cu protejarea drepturilor acionarilor minoritari. Indiferent de aceste detalii
care sunt extrem de importante, pasul urmtor care ar trebui ntreprins este deci asigurarea cadrului instituional
pentru tranzacionarea acestor aciuni. Scopul final al procesului de pia trebuie s fie constituirea unui acionariat
stabil, eventual a unei majoriti care s poat decide asupra managementului companiei. n esen, propunerea ar
realiza privatizarea Roiei Montane prin mproprietrirea tuturor romnilor. Aa cum spuneam, aceasta abordeaz
frontal problemele etice i economice avnd, spre deosebire de referendum, urmtoarele avantaje: Reprezint
un proces mai democratic de gestionare a situaiei, deoarece responsabilizeaz i cointereseaz cetenii prin faptul
c valoarea de pia a titlului de proprietate va crete semnificativ; - Contribuie la internalizarea externalitilor de
mediu asociate exploatrii miniere, prin definirea i tranzacionarea drepturilor de proprietate (aciunilor); cei care
preuiesc mai mult exploatarea i i asum riscul de mediu trebuie s plteasc pentru aceasta, cumprnd aciunile
celorlali; Reprezint un proces de cretere a avuiei colective i de stopare a risipei; practic, statul, care i-a
dovedit n repetate rnduri capacitatea de prost administrator, este scos din joc, iar valoarea zcmntului de aur se
va transfera direct n buzunarele i conturile romnilor; Elimin corupia i asaneaz spaiul public de
acuzaiile de trdare naional sau de subminare a economiei; Creeaz cadrul favorabil att pentru luarea unei
decizii n prezent n ceea ce privete exploatarea, ct i pentru revizuirea acesteia n viitor deoarece vnzareacumprarea aciunilor las permanent deschis posibilitatea redefinirii acionariatului majoritar al companiei. Cu
alte cuvinte, scpm de problema (ar trebui s fie deja familiar) organizrii unui nou referendum dac preferinele
sociale se schimb n anii urmtori; Rspunde sentimentului cvasi-mrturisit de majoritatea celor ieii s
protesteze, care nu mai vor s asiste impasibili la nc o afacere dintre stat i bieii detepi. Logica respectrii
drepturilor de proprietate nu se oprete aici. n caz c se decide exploatarea minier, firma respectiv va trebui s
repecte drepturile de proprietate ale tuturor locuitorilor din zon afectai de aceast decizie, fr niciun fel de
exproprieri de interes public. De asemenea, compania va fi obligat la subscrierea unei polie de asigurare n
conformitate cu pagubele poteniale n aval. n mod paradoxal, ntr-un astfel de cadru instituional, oponenii
proiectului ar avea mai mari anse pentru blocarea acestuia, prin pstrarea aciunilor primite i prin cumprarea
altora de pe pia, prin convingerea altor deintori s voteze mpotriva exploatrii pn la descoperirea de tehnologii
acceptabile din punct de vedere ecologic, sau prin cumprarea de terenuri chiar pe locul potenielei exploataii.
Respectul absolut al dreptului de proprietate este, n ultim nstan, adevrata i singura protecie a celor slabi din

punct de vedere politic i economic. Cei care au puterea economic i politic n-au nevoie de drept pentru a se apra.
De fapt, adesea, dreptul i chiar ncurc.

15. Ce avere are Heinzmann, managerul privat de la

Tarom, care va prsi compania n noiembrie.
Pascariu i Demetriade nu i-au depus declaraiile
Belgianul Chriastian Heinzmann, al crui mandat pentru funcia de manager privat la Tarom se ncheie pe 19
noiembrie, nu are o declaraie de avere stufoas: o cas, dou maini, un depozit i un credit. TIRI PE ACEEAI
TEM Ramona Mnescu nu-i mai d nicio ans belgianului de la Tarom: Manda... Dup ce Fenechiu l-a presat s
accepte reducerea mandatului la efia T... Scandalul Tarom ia amploare. Managerul privat Heinzmann dezvluie
pres... Belgianul deine, mpreun cu soia sa Anastasia Perez Heinzmann, o cas de 250 de metri ptrai n
Luxemburg, cumprat prin credit bancar n anul 2000. mprumutul a fost contractat n acelai an de la BGL Bank,
iar Heinzmann mai are de pltit rate de 85.000 de euro, potrivit declaraiei de avere. Tot n 2000 ns, belgianul i-a
deschis la aceeai banc un depozit n valoare de 145.000 de euro. El are dou maini, una marca Renault, cumprat
n 2010 cu cash, i alta BMW, cumprat n 2009 prin credit. Salariul lui Christian Heinzmann este de 10.000 de
euro pe lun. Mandatul CEO-ului Tarom, Christian Heinzmann, se va ncheia pe 19 noiembrie, a declarat ieri
ministrul Transporturilor, Ramona Mnescu, dup ce belgianul anunase anterior c i dorete s-i continue
activitatea n cadrul companiei aeriene i dup aceast dat. Ea a menionat c deocamdat nu au nceput
procedurile pentru alegerea unui nlocuitor al lui Heinzamann. La finalul lunii iunie, Heinzmann declara c a
semnat un document la solicitarea preedintelui Consiliului de Administraie, Dan Pascariu, care prevede printre
altele c durata mandatului su a fost redus de la patru ani la un an, menionnd c pn n luna noiembrie i va
pstra funcia de CEO i responsabilitile aferente. Declaraiile de avere ale lui Dan Pascariu, preedinte al
Consiliului de Administraie (CA) al Tarom, i Nicolae Demetriade, numit n iunie director executiv al companiei, nu
sunt postate pe portalul Ageniei Naionale de Integritate. Agenia Naional pentru Integritate ar urma s dea
amenzi membrilor Consiliului de Administraie al Tarom pentru c nu i-au depus la timp declaraiile de avere.
Preedintele Consiliului de Administraie, Dan Pascariu, declara n iulie c, din cauza unor contracte de
confienialitate, nu va depune declaraia de avere. Nu am fost, nc, ntiinat de ANI. Nici eu nu mi-am depus
declaraia. Ar fi trebuit s o depun cu ceva timp n urm, cu o lun sau mai mult, dar nu o s-o depun, pentru c am
clauze de confidenialitate cu alte companii cu care sunt asociat i nu pot s ncalc acele clauze. Probabil mai sunt i
alii n aceeai situaie. Mai bine pltesc amenda ANI dect s nu respect clauza, noi nu suntem funcionari publici,
declara Pascariu. Potrivit informaiilor de pe portalul Tarom, Dan Pascariu, preedinte CA Tarom, dar i ceilali
cinci membri ai Consiliului, ncaseaz o indemnizaie lunar medie de 1.500 de euro, la care se adaug 500 de euro
remuneraie suplimentar pentru participarea n cadrum Comitetului Consultativ. Michael Moriaty, director general
adjunct, cu funcia de chief financial officer, ncaseaz lunar o indemnizaie net de 7.500 de euro.

16. Germania de azi, modelul austeritii de acum trei

secole
Criza economic folosete din plin Germaniei, care, dup mai bine de o jumtate de secol de munc tenace i
prezen discret, se reafirm ca principala putere european. Devine aproape o fatalitate aceast capacitate unic de

regenerare, n cursul unei generaii-maxim dou, ntotdeauna dup o prbuire aparent apocaliptic.Instaurarea
dominaiei germane asupra Uniunii Europene are loc, de aceast dat, graie unei fore economice fr rival pe
continent. Ascensiunea provoac ngrijorare i revolt nu numai din cauza efectelor sociale dureroase ale austeritii
impuse de Berlin rilor din sudul UE, ci i prin prisma ecourilor istorice pe care le trezete o Germanie revenit n
postura de a dicta ntregii Europe.Poate tocmai pentru a menaja astfel de temeri fa de ideea renaterii prusace,
aniversarea a trei secole de la urcarea pe tron a regelui Frederic Wilhelm a fost mult mai modest dect cea de anul
trecut, cnd s-au mplinit 300 de ani de la naterea fiului su, Frederic cel Mare. i totui, ridicarea Prusiei ca for
relevant la nivel european a nceput odat cu nscunarea regelui-soldat, n 1713.Una din primele msuri ale lui
Frederic Wilhelm, cnd, n 1713, la numai 25 de ani, a devenit rege, a fost vinderea trsurilor, a obiectelor de lux i a
vinurilor scumpe, rmase de la printele su, Frederic I. Acesta trecuse la cele venice dup 12 ani de domnie
domnie semnificativ prin acordul primit de la mpratul austriac Leopold I ca Prusia s devin regat. n schimbul
acordului, acest prim Frederic l-a susinut pe Leopold mpotriva Franei lui Ludovic al XIV-lea, n rzboiul de
succesiune pentru tronul spaniol.Argumentul folosit a fost c Prusia nu fcea parte din Sfntul Imperiu Roman de
Origine German, precum Brandenburg, cealalt posesiune a Hohenzollernilor. Doar Bavaria putea avea rang de
regat n imperiul fondat la 962 i alctuit dintr-o puzderie de sttulee. Dar deplina recunoatere a regalitii prusace
mai are de ateptat. Abia Frederic cel Mare se va putea intitula, n 1772, rege al Prusiei, tatl i bunicul su fiind
regi n Prusia.Austerul i grosierul Frederic Wilhelm I s-a lipsit i de castelul tatlui su i a eliminat cheltuielile
vestimentare, prefernd uniforma militar. Proiectul su de rigoare bugetar a inclus i concedierea artitilor Curii
i reducerea personalului acesteia la o treime. Pasionat doar de armat, vntoare i abundena mncrii simple,
acest al doilea Frederic al seriei fondatoare prusace a fost un despot violent i coleric. A dublat efectivele armatei,
care a devenit una dintre cele mai puternice din Europa vremii. A impus rigoarea bugetar i o disciplin drastic
statului militarizat pe l-a creat. Prudent ns, nu l-a angajat n conflicte externe. Regele Prusiei nu e un lup dect la
stna sa, se spunea despre el, n batjocur.A murit n 1740, dezamgit c fidelitatea sa fa de Habsburgi nu fusese
rspltit de mpratul Carol al VI-lea cu cele dou ducate promise. Iat-l pe cel care m va rzbuna, a artat
profetic de pe patul de moarte spre fiul pe care-l terorizase pn atunci, n strdania de a-l pregti pentru tron.Cel
care va intra n istorie drept Frederic cel Mare fusese un copil efeminat i un adolescent boem. Sunt mrturii c ar fi
fost homosexual. A vrut s fug cu un prieten n Anglia nrudit dinastic, dar au fost prini. A fost nchis i obligat s
asiste la decapitarea tovarului de nesbuin. Fiu al unui obsedat de inspecii militare, care-i numea pitori de
cerneal pe scriitori, Frederic al II-lea s-a format sub influena culturii franceze i antice (a nvat franceza de la
bona sa i latina n secret). Va fi protectorul lui Voltaire i se va impune n epoc drept prototipul despotului
luminat. Pasionat de muzic i literatur, el nsui cu reuite creatoare, supranumit regele-filosof, colecionar de
art, Frederic a fost, ns, nainte de toate, ceea ce i-a dorit tatl su: un comandant militar strlucit, de un curaj
mpins la nesbuin i o ambiie fr limite.n plan intern, a acionat convins c e un servitor al statului, nu un
monarh de drept divin. A reformat justiia, administraia i finanele. i, mai ales, a dus armata ntemeiat de tatl
su la rzboi, nc din primele luni de domnie. Legalist n plan intern, a devenit celebru n exterior pentru lipsa de
respect fa de tratate i pentru viclenia imprevizibil. Diplomaia fr arme e ca muzica fr instrumente aceasta
a fost filosofia lui geopolitic.n 1740, Prusia era un mic regat, fragmentat, dar care avea a treia armat din Europa. E
semnificativ raportul ntre numrul militarilor i populaia total, de 30 de ori mai mare dect n statul polonolituanian nvecinat. Cinilor, vrei s trii venic?, le-a urlat Frederic, intrat n istorie drept cel Mare, soldailor
epuizai, cnd au ovit n cursul unei btlii. Avea atuul celor ase cai mori sub el n lupte. A smuls, dup trei
rzboaie distrugtoare pentru ambele beligerante, bogata regiune minier a Sileziei, care furniza o cincime din
veniturile Austriei. A mprit, n 1772, Polonia, cu Rusia i Austria.Cnd a murit la masa de lucru, la 74 de ani, n
1786, nconjurat doar de cini n mizantropia n care czuse, era alintat btrnul Fritz de poporul recunosctor.
Prusia era, alturi de Frana, Anglia, Rusia i Austria, una dintre cele cinci mari puteri europene. Iar n lumea
germanic, ntietatea Austriei era pus sub semnul ntrebrii. Frederic a ubrezit coroana Habsburgilor iremediabil,
mpiedicnd-o s realizeze unificarea german. Domnilor, dac mai tria acest om, noi n-am fi fost azi aici, a fost
omagiul adus de Napoleon la mormntul su de la Potsdam, n 1807.Un Potsdam care, la 1713, era doar un oragarnizoan i care ajunsese, n doar cteva decenii, una dintre marile capitale europene. i chiar dac Sfntul
Imperiu Roman de Origine German a pierit, dup opt secole de existen, sub tvlugul francez, proiectul
Confederaiei Rinului s-a dovedit la fel de efemer ca visul napoleonian. Confederaia German a continuat, nc o
jumtate de secol, marul prusac culminnd cu victoria decisiv asupra Austriei, n 1866, la Sadowa. Rivalitatea din
centrul Europei a fost, atunci, tranat definitiv n favoarea Germaniei unite sub sceptrul Hohenzollernilor. A fost
nevoie, apoi, de dou cataclisme mondiale pentru a ngenunchea o for dezlnuit dincolo de puterile
raiunii.Devastat de rzboi, divizat decenii la rnd, Germania reunificat domin iar Europa; creia-i impune
modelul unei austeriti nscute acum exact trei secole, cnd un conductor prusac, abia urcat pe tron, s-a grbit s
se descotoroseasc de luxul regalitii, impunnd statului su rigoarea unui mar care nu s-a oprit nc.

17. UE reacioneaz la presiunile Rusiei: Bruxelles-ul

vrea liberalizarea de urgen a importurilor de vinuri
din Republica Moldova
Comisia European (CE) vrea s deschid complet piaa UE pentru vinurile din Republica Moldova, dup ce Rusia a
interzis
din
10
septembrie
importul
acestor
produse,
invocnd
calitatea
nesatisfctoare,
informeaz Mediafax."Comisia European propune s deschid complet piaa Uniunii Europene pentru importurile
de vinuri din Republica Moldova, nainte de intrarea n vigoare a Acordului de Asociere ntre UE i Republica
Moldova i a Acordului privind Zona de liber schimb aprofundat i cuprinztoare, ca o msur pentru a compensa
dificultile cu care Republica Moldova se confrunt n exportul vinurilor pe unele dintre pieele sale tradiionale", se
arat ntr-un comunicat transmis miercuri de CE. Acordul de asociere va fi parafat la Summit-ul Parteneriatului
Estic, care va avea loc n noiembrie la Vilnius. Acordul i zona de liber schimb vor intra n vigoare imediat dup
semnarea acestuia. CE propune Consiliului i Parlamentului European modificarea de urgen a reglementrilor,
astfel nct importurile de vinuri din Republica Moldova n UE s fie complet liberalizate nainte de intrarea n
vigoare a acordului i a zonei de liber schimb."Piaa Uniunii Europene este o alternativ durabil i un pol de
stabilitate viabil pentru sectorul vinicol moldovean. Deschiderea complet a pieei Uniunii Europene pentru vinurile
din Republica Moldova, ntr-un moment n care agricultorii moldoveni sunt n dificultate, demonstreaz c Uniunea
European nu este numai un proiect de integrare economic, ci i un spaiu al solidaritii", a declarat n comunicat
Dacian Ciolo, comisar european pentru agricultur i dezvoltare rural.Serviciul rus pentru Protecia
Consumatorilor a interzis, ncepnd cu 10 septembrie, importurile de vinuri din Republica Moldova, invocnd
"calitatea nesatisfctoare" a produciei de alcool.Preedintele rus Vladimir Putin a afirmat joi c vinurile
moldoveneti nu vor fi primite n UE nici dup semnarea acordului de asociere ntre Republica Moldova i Uniunea
European, potrivit RIA Novosti.Putin a menionat c, n prezent, cel mai mare volum de exporturi al Republicii
Moldova se ndreapt spre pieele din Rusia, Belarus, Ucraina i Kazahstan.El a subliniat c cea mai mare parte din
vinurile moldoveneti este importat n Rusia, care este ngrijorat de calitatea produciei din Republica Moldova. n
opinia sa, problema importului de vinuri "nu este una politic, ci economic".

18. UE a aprobat Reforma Ciolo n agricultura

european
Subveniile pe suprafa vor crete pn la 196 de euro/hectar, iar fermierii care se asociaz i tinerii care se mut la
ar vor primi mai muli bani, anun comisarul european pentru Agricultur. Reforma Ciolo, cum a fost botezat
n UE schimbarea Politicii Agricole Comune, a primit o surprinztoare susinere politic n toate instituiile la vrf ale
Uniunii, cu toate c iniiatorul su, comisarul european Dacian Ciolo, a fost adesea criticat pentru c ar fi tras prea
mult pentru Romnia. Pentru noi este important nu att succesul politic n sine, ct modul n care ne va avantaja,
concret, viitoarea Politic Agricol Comun (PAC) ce se va aplica n perioada 2014-2020 - despre aceste avantaje am
discutat, ntr-un interviu exclusiv pentru Adevrul, cu Dacian Ciolo. Redm pe scurt, n continuare, principalele
idei desprinse din acest interviu. Cum vom mpri banii n primul rnd, vor fi 19 miliarde de euro i o serie de
msuri noi care nu exist n momentul de fa i care permit autoritilor s ia anumite decizii ce in cont de
specificiti ale agriculturii din Romnia. Meninerea plilor directe la hectar i creterea acestora din 2014 pn n
2020, cnd vor ajunge la o medie naional de 196 de euro, a menionat ca avantaje, pentru nceput, comisarul
european. Reamintim c este vorba despre 19,8 miliarde de euro destinai Romniei n cadrul PAC 2014-2020, din
care 11,7 miliarde sunt alocate ca pli directe i 8,1 miliarde pentru Programul de Dezvoltare Rural. Un alt avantaj
pentru fermierii din Romnia i are ca beneficiari pe tinerii care se vor muta la ar. Acesta const n acordarea unui
sprijin complementar obligatoriu pentru tinerii fermieri n primii cinci ani dup ce se instaleaz, respectiv un
supliment de 25% la hectar din plata direct, pentru suprafee ntre 25 i 90 de hectare; pe lng prima de instalare,
pe care o pot primi prin Programul de Dezvoltare Rural, tinerii vor avea i acest supliment de plat la hectar, ne-a
mai spus comisarul. Mai exist, de asemenea, i posibilitatea acordrii unor pli cuplate cu producia, reprezentnd
o sum anual care s nu depeasc 13% din valoarea total a plilor directe. Dacian Ciolo a dat ca exemple, n
acest sens, susinerea cresctorilor de vaci pentru lapte sau a produciei de furaje, la care adugm noi Romnia
are cel mai mare deficit extern (cele mai mari importuri agricole sunt cele de furaje pentru animale, potrivit
statisticilor oficiale). Chiar i productorii de orez ar putea obine aceste pli cuplate, a mai punctat oficialul. Ct

despre suprafaa minim pentru care se pot primi subvenii, acel hectar minim nu va crete n mod obligatoriu.
Dac ai auzit cumva c de la Bruxelles a pornit aceast decizie, precizez c nu este aa, ci doar Guvernul poate
decide s creasc suprafaa minim, a spus Dacian Ciolo. Subvenii doar pentru agricultorii activi Deintorii de
terenuri nu vor mai primi subvenii pe suprafa dect dac vor face dovada c au desfurat o activitate minim
agricol pe acele terenuri. Spre exemplu, acum pot primi subvenii la cerere i proprietarii de aeroporturi, ci ferate
sau terenuri de golf; din 2014 se va ntocmi o list negativ cu astfel de proprietari, care nu vor mai primi subvenii
dect dac fac dovada c au activitate agricol. Guvernul fiecrei ri n parte va ntocmi aceste liste negative, a
precizat comisarul european. Grupurile vor ctiga cu 10% mai mult Spre finalul interviului nostru, Dacian Ciolo a
artat care vor fi avantajele agricultorilor organizai ca grupuri i dezavantajele celor care vor continua s acioneze
individual. Ca s ncurajm asocierea, i prin Programul de Dezvoltare Rural 2014-2020, cofinanarea din fonduri
publice va fi cu 10% mai mare pentru investiiile fcute de ctre grupuri dect dac sunt fcute de individuali, a
conchis comisarul european. Prima ar vizitat de comisarul european pentru Agricultur, Dacian Ciolo, dup
recenta ncheiere a unui pact politic la vrf n UE privind viitoarea Politic Agricol Comun (PAC) este Romnia. i
nu ntmpltor: ara noastr se numr printre cele care vor avea de ctigat ceva mai mult n tronsonul bugetar
comunitar 2014-2020 dect n cel prezent. Comisarul a explicat, ntr-o conferin, ce oportuniti se deschid pentru
Romnia. UE a aprobat Reforma Ciolo n agricultura european UE negociaz la snge reforma Ciolo din
agricultur Bncile nu v ajut s luai bani de la UE? Soluia ar putea fi desemn... n noua Politic Agricol Comun
se regsesc o serie de elemente care in cont i de specificul Romniei, a afirmat Dacian Ciolo. Subvenii mai mari i
mai verzi Potrivit comisarului european, n noua PAC apar elemente n premier, cum ar fi condiionarea plilor
de practicile agricole ecologice, sustenabile (verzi, ntr-o terminologie specific), dar i apariia unei subvenii
complementare acordat tinerilor fermieri, n primii cinci ani de instalare. Un alt element discutat a fost cel de
nverzire a plilor directe, respectiv condiionarea plilor de practicile agricole sustenabile (30% din total), iar
aceast idee a fost acceptat, a spus oficialul. Plile directe se menin, apare i o variant simplificat Pentru plile
directe, am dat posibilitatea ca statele membre s-i menin sistemul de plat direct la hectar pn n 2020. Apar i
alte elemente: o plat fix, simplificat, pentru fermele mici care se va acorda, iar agricultorii nu vor mai trebui s
completeze n fiecare an cereri de plat. Plata va fi fix i aceeai n fiecare an. Apoi, subvenia complementar pentru
tinerii fermieri care se instaleaz, n primii cinci ani de instalare, care dein suprafee cuprinse ntre 25 i 90 de
hectare. Subvenia nu va depi 25%, a spus oficialul european. De asemenea, Dacian Ciolo a menionat c
Romnia va avea posibilitatea s acorde o parte dintre subveniile directe, cuplate cu producia, dar i creterea
subveniei la hectar pentru agricultorii din zonele defavorizate. Favoruri pentru zonele defavorizate Romnia va
putea acorda o parte din subveniile directe cuplate cu producia pentru a susine anumite tipuri de producie, pn
la 13% din total. Alte 2% au fost introduse pentru stimularea proteinelor vegetale. S-a stabilit, de asemenea, creterea
subveniei la hectar pentru agricultorii din zonele defavorizate. Statul va interveni din ce n ce mai puin n gestiunea
pieei. Prima condiie pentru a beneficia de faciliti de intervenie pe pia este ca acetia s se organizeze, a
subliniat Ciolo. El a mai adugat c, n urma negocierilor, a fost aplicat o corecie bugetar (nu v speriai, corecia
e n sus, nu n jos) pentru programul viticol din Romnia, ncepnd din 2014 i pn n 2020. Totalul pentru
programul viticol va fi de 47 de milioane de euro pe an, fa de cele 42 de milioane anual din execuia bugetar
actual. Romniei i revin aproape 20 de miliarde de euro n data de 26 iunie, negociatorii Uniunii Europene au
ajuns la un acord asupra unor modificri substaniale ale Politicii Agricole Comune, fixnd regulile care guverneaz
repartizarea unor subvenii anuale n valoare de 50 de miliarde de euro pentru perioada 2014-2020. Comisarul a
afirmat, dup acest acord, c noua PAC va aduce mai muli bani agricultorilor din Romnia n urmtoarea perioad,
ceea ce nu se ntmpl pentru toate statele membre. Agricultura rmne principalul capitol de cheltuieli al UE cu
aproximativ 38% din bugetul global, n pofida unei reduceri de 12% a anvelopei pentru urmtorii apte ani (20142020) pn la 373,2 miliarde de euro. Romniei i sunt alocate peste 19 miliarde de euro prin PAC 2014-2020,
respectiv 11,7 miliarde de euro pentru plile directe i 8,1 miliarde de euro pentru dezvoltare rural, a mai spus
Dacian Ciolo. Nu ratai duminic varianta video a unui interviu n exclusivitate pentru "Adevrul" acordat de
comisarul european pentru Agricultur, Dacian Ciolo, n care oficialul detaliaz mai explicit ce oportuniti li se
deschid
fermierilor
din
Romnia
odat
cu
aplicarea
viitoarei
Politici
Agricole
Comune.

Parlamentul European, Consiliul de Minitri al UE i Comisia European au ajuns n urm cu scurt timp, la un acord
privind o reform a politicii agricole comune (PAC) pentru perioada de dup 2013. UE negociaz la snge reforma
Ciolo din agricultur Fermierii care arendeaz terenurile vor primi subvenii cu 20% mai mar... Sunt foarte
mulumit de acest acord, care d o nou orientare politicii agricole comune. El ine cont ntr-o mai mare msur de
ateptrile societii, exprimate cu ocazia dezbaterii publice din primvara anului 2010. Acest acord va conduce la
schimbri profunde: pli directe mai echitabile i mai verzi, consolidarea poziiei agricultorilor n cadrul lanului
alimentar i asigurarea unei mai mari eficaciti i transparene a PAC. Aceste decizii constituie un rspuns ferm al
UE n faa provocrilor legate de securitatea alimentar, schimbrile climatice, creterea economic i crearea de
locuri de munc n zonele rurale. Politica agricol comun va aduce o contribuie important la realizarea

obiectivului global de promovare a unei creteri durabile, inteligente i incluzive a declarat Dacian Ciolo, Comisarul
european pentru agricultur i dezvoltare rural. Comunicatul oficial citeaz c instrumentele PAC vor permite
fiecrui stat membru al UE s rspund obiectivelor comune n mod eficace i flexibil, pentru a ine cont de
diversitatea celor 27, n curnd 28 de state membre. Mijloacele de sprijinire a cercetrii, inovrii i schimbului de
cunotine vor fi dublate. Programele de dezvoltare rural vor fi mai bine coordonate cu celelalte fonduri europene,
iar abordarea pe axe va fi nlocuit cu o abordare strategic naional sau regional. O schem de ajutoare
simplificat pentru micii agricultori va fi pus la dispoziia statelor membre care doresc acest lucru. Toate ajutoarele
din cadrul PAC vor fi fcute publice, cu excepia sumelor foarte reduse, alocate micilor agricultori. Toate elementele
reformei se vor aplica de la 1 ianuarie 2014, cu excepia noii structuri a plilor directe (pli verzi, sprijin
suplimentar pentru tineri etc.), care va intra n vigoare ncepnd din 2015, pentru a da timp statelor membre s-i
informeze pe agricultori n legtur cu noua PAC i s-i adapteze sistemele informatice de gestionare a PAC.

19.De ce Kittila nu e Roia Montan?

Aflat n vizit oficial n Finlanda, premierul romn Victor Ponta a declarat c Romnia are multe de nvat din
experiena Finlandei n exploatarea resurselor naturale folosind tehnologii prietenoase cu mediul nconjurtor
Avem foarte mult de nvat de la o ar ca Finlanda, care, pe de o parte are resurse naturale importante pe care i le
exploateaz. Fac aceste exploatri cu cele mai mari standarde n ce privete protejarea mediulu, folosind cianuri n
exploatarea aurului, dar fr s polueze, a declarat Victor Ponta, conform ziare.com. Prim-ministrul se referea, n
mod indirect, la mina Kittila din Laponia, o min de aur ce utilizeaz aceeai tehnologie de extracie i prelucrare a
minereului ca i cea ce ar uma s fie folosit la Roia Montan. n toi aceti ani, unul din argumentele
reprezentanilor RMGC i al susintorilor proiectului a fost tocmai faptul c tehnologia de prelucrare cu cianuri e
folosit cu succes n alte pri ale globului, unul din locurile date ca exemplu fiind mina Kittila din Finlanda. Dei
ultimele explorri privind existena unor zcminte aurifere n zon s-au ncheiat n anul 1991, exploatarea aurului la
mina din Kittila a nceput n anul 2008, n dou cariere de suprafa, iar din anul 2009 exploatarea se face i prin
intermediul galeriilor subterane. Tehnologia de prelucrare a minereurilui folosit este asemntoare cu cea ce se
dorete a fi utilizat la Roia Montan. Mina este deinut tot de o companie canadian, Agnico Eagle Mines Limited,
cu operaiuni n Canada, Finlanda i Mexic. ns, asemnrile se opresc aici. Exist cteva diferene eseniale ntre
proiectul de la Roia Montan i mina Kittila din Finlanda: 1. Dimensiunea minelor: Conform datelor publicate
pe site-ul companiei Agnico Eagle, la mina Kittila zcmntul este estimat la 4,8 milioane de uncii (136 tone), la o
concentraie de 4,5 grame per ton. Extragerea aurului presupune procesarea a 33 milioane de tone de minereu.
Conform raportului anual pe anul 2009 al RMGC, la Roia Montan extragerea aurului presupune procesarea a 214,9
milioane de tone de minereu, la o concentraie medie de 1,46 grame per ton; De asemenea, dac se compar
adncimea carierelor: Mina Kittila -150 metri. Roia Montan - 400 metri sub nivelul centrului istoric, adic peste
700 metri excavaie n cariera Carnic, se poate constata cu uurinta diferena de dimensiune ntre cele dou proiecte;
La Roia Montan, concentraia de aur este mult mai slab i, deci, este nevoie s fie excavat mult mai mult minereu
pentru a obine o cantitate de aur asemntoare. 2. Cantitatea de cianur: Tot conform agnicoeagle.com, la mina
Kittila se utilizeaz aproximativ 300 de tone de cianur pe an. La Roia Montan s-ar utiliza peste 13.000 de tone de
cianur pe an, adic de peste 43 de ori mai mult dect n cea mai mare min de aur din Europa. 3. Localizare: Mina
Kittila se afl la peste 36 km n linie dreapt i peste 55 km pe osea de localitatea Kittila. La Roia Montan, cele
patru cariere propuse de proiectul RMGC se afla n imediata vecintate a localitii Roia Montan, numeroase case
intrnd n zona de impact i fiind vizate de expropriere i demolare. Iazul de decantare de pe valea Cornei aflat n
spatele unui baraj de roc de 185 metri nlime este la doar 2 km n amonte de oraul Abrud (cu 5.000 de locuitori);
n timp ce mina Kittila se afla n tundra arctic, ntr-o zon pustie, la o distan considerabil de orice localitate,
proiectul de la Roia Montan se va implementa ntr-o zon populat, cu un peisaj natural deosebit. 4. Patrimoniul
cultural: n timp ce construcia minei Kittila nu a afectat n niciun fel patrimoniul cultural finlandez, avnd n vedere
ca aceasta a fost construit n pustiu, aa cum s-a artat, proiectul Roia Montan va conduce la dispariia mai multor
vestigii antice de pe teritoriul uneia din cele mai vechi localiti atestate documentar din Romnia. Datorit faptului
c masivul Carnic va fi exploatat, dinamitat, vor fi distruse unele din cele mai valoroase galerii romane, medievale i
premoderne, cu faimoasele corande (camere de exploatare de peste 300 m nlime) i camere cu pilieri, sisteme
hidraulice romane .a.m.d, pe care le conine. Avnd n vedere toate acestea, comparaia celor dou proiecte nu se
constituie ntr-un argument n favoarea exploatrii de la Roia Montan, ci mai degrab ntr-unul contra. Prin
amploarea sa, proiectul Roia Montan reprezint unul din cele mai mari proiecte miniere din lume, ns cu un
randament extrem de sczut (vezi concentraia sczut de aur). Este cert, ns, c prin implementarea acestui proiect
s-ar provoca o pierdere definitiv a unei pri importante a patrimoniului cultural naional, pierdere ce nu poate fi
suplinit prin eforturi de ecologizare sau despgubiri baneti.

20. Capitalismul slbatic

Am s citez o fraz a unui cunoscut om de televiziune: [Capitalismul slbatic] este acel capitalism care trece pe lng
ine cnd tu stai pe canapea i leneveti i nu te ntreab ce-i doreti n via i cum ar putea el s te ajute s ajungi
acolo cu minim de efort, nesimitul! Rndurile acestea au avut un mare succes n diaspora. Ele au ntrit senzaia c
Romnia lsat n urm e una trndav, miloag, nesimit, prosteasc i au ridicat la rang de axiom cteva excepii
prezente n toat lumea. i au originea n cele cteva pancarte anti-corporatiste din rndul demonstranilor. Toate ca
toate, numai capitalism cu fa uman s nu ceri, c miroase a bolevism. i mna lung a Moscovei, desigur. Aa o
fi? Este tnrul stat capitalist romnesc unul n pericol? Cuceririle economiei de pia sunt nesigure? Fug investitorii
de frica naionalizrii? nainte de a purcede la evaluarea corect a situaiei, s convenim un lucru: salariatul romn
(da, la pe care ideologi puini la simire l fac necalificat i milog) muncete cu 25% mai mult dect omologul lui
occidental i ctig cel mult jumtate, de regul nici un sfert. Capitalismul romnesc este nfloritor cnd bag mna
n buzunarul statului. Dac afacerea are cea mai mic legtur cu resursele, companiile i administraia public,
succesul e garantat. Nici nu trebuie s implice vreo abilitate sau valoare adugat prin munc i tehnologie. E
suficient, de exemplu, s iei energie ieftin de la stat i s o vinzi scump. Se cheam c eti un capitalist destoinic. E
bine ca, n acelai capitalism de cumetrie, s-i plasezi omul de ncredere n fruntea unei regii autonome i, imediat,
tu i toate rubedeniile tale vei fi nurubai la ugerul cel gras, n defavoarea populaiei. Acesta e profilul standard al
omului de afaceri, care d lecii de etic a muncii i de chibzuin economic. Lucrurile sunt mult mai grave. Dei
cei care s-au declarat salariai, la recensmnt, depesc 6 milioane de persoane, n contabilitatea statului nu-s dect
4,5 milioane. Asta nseamn c 1,5 milioane muncesc la negru. Supravieuiesc, mai exact. Nu au drepturi
fundamentale: omaj, sntate, pensie. Ei pun n balan sigurana zilei de mine i aleg supravieuirea de azi. Am
ajuns n situaia paradoxal ca fiscul s nu intre peste ei, de team s nu ne trezim, statistic i peste noapte, cu 2
milioane de omeri. Ar fi o mare nenorocire. De aceea, aprecierea c 40% din economia romneasc e netaxat nu
mai pare att de absurd. Dar nu numai aici e slbticie. Am mai povestit cazul unei salariate, cu acte n regul, care,
ajuns la porile maternitii, a constatat c angajatorul nu pltise nici o asigurare medical. Aproape tragice sunt
cazurile celor care s-au trezit, fr voie, datori vndui la stat, pentru c angajatorul a pus, n secret, pe numele lor,
propriile lui profituri. Angajatorul s-a dus, datoria a rmas. Statul n-a sughiat cnd s-a hotrt s-i impoziteze
retroactiv, cu dobnzi fabuloase. Da, Romnia e un paradis capitalist, pentru c totul e permis. Adepii pieei libere
au de ce s-i frece minile. Haotic, piaa romneasc a introdus, n premier, la tranzacia dintre angajator i
angajat, frica. Cnd te uii ci flmnzi stau n spatele tu, la coad, nghii n sec i semnezi orice. sta e cu adevrat
capitalism slbatic. Dar ce machiaj frumos!

21. Magiunul de Topoloveni va fi promovat n Elveia,

Norvegia i Rusia pn n 2016. Contractul a fost
semnat mari cu APIA
Magiunul de Topoloveni va fi promovat n Elveia, Norvegia i Rusia, pe o perioad de trei ani, respectiv 2013-2016,
dup ce mari reprezentanii companiei Sonimpex i cei ai Ageniei de Pli i Intervenie pentru Agricultur (APIA)
au semnat contractul de finanare din fonduri europene n valoare de 981.613 euro, informeaz agerpres.ro.
"Dup aproape doi ani, astzi, 30 iulie, a fost definitivat contractul de promovare a magiunului de Topoloveni n ri
extracomunitare, respectiv n Elveia, Norvegia i Rusia, datorit proiectului de aproape un milion de euro aprobat
de Comisia European. Ateptam s fim "copiai", n atragerea fondurilor europene cu aceeai vitez cu care am fost
copiai, n mod fraudulos, n inscripionarea borcanelor cu titulatura "magiun de prune" dei conineau concentrate
cu sulfii sau pectine. Considerm c am finalizat o datorie de onoare prin promovarea n ri tere a celui mai
sntos dulce realizat ntr-o fabric de conserve. Eforturile noastre, nu doar financiare, de a proteja singurul produs
tradiional romnesc recunoscut de ctre UE, prin indicaie geografic protejat (IGP), la OSIM, OHIM i recent la
ASRO prin standardizarea finalizat luna trecut, sunt un succes", a declarat directorul general al companiei
Sonimpex, Bibiana Stanciulov. Aceasta a precizat c de la 1 august vor demara primele aciuni de promovare n
Elveia n cadrul primului proiect aprobat Romniei de CE pentru pieele din Norvegia, Federaia Rus i Elveia,
magiunul urmnd s fie "plimbat" n trguri, unde oamenii pot degusta, dar i n magazine, cu mostre. Magiunul de

Topoloveni va beneficia pe aceste piee i de publicitate."Cultura gastronomic romneasc va face nconjurul

Europei, din centru, la nord i n est. Am fost, din nou, deschiztori de drum, un exemplu care trebuie urmat. Ne
aparine primul produs certificat de ctre UE i acum i primul program acceptat de ctre UE pentru promovare.
Europenii vor mnca pine cu magiun de prune Topoloveni peste care vom pune brnza bio greceasc", a menionat
Stanciulov. Comisia European a aprobat Romniei, n luna aprilie, un program de promovare a produselor agricole
n Elveia, Norvegia i Federaia Rus, n valoare de total de circa 4,2 milioane euro, din care partea aferent
Romniei este de 981.613 euro. Programul este derulat de productorul magiunului de Topoloveni - SC Sonimpex
Topoloveni SRL, n comun cu un consoriu de productori din Grecia. Din valoarea total a proiectului n primul an,
respectiv 2013/2014, suma alocat pentru promovare este de 322.823 euro, n cel de-al doilea 2014/2015 de 329.289
euro, iar n cel de-al treilea an, 2015/2016 de 329.501 euro. Compania Sonimpex este singurul productor romn din
domeniul prelucrrii i conservrii fructelor fr zahr adugat, fr aditivi i fr ageni de conservare, avnd n
portofoliu, pe lng Magiunul de prune Topoloveni, i gama de dulceuri fr zahr adugat i fr conservani (afine
ecologice, ciree negre, viine, cpuni, prune ntregi cu migdale dulci, gutui, ctin, topinambur s.a.), dar i o
zacusc de vinete i o past de tomate. Magiunul de prune Topoloveni deine certificarea de Indicaie Geografic
Protejat (IGP) la nivel european din 8 aprilie 2011, aceasta fiind prima distincie de acest fel primit de un produs
romnesc tradiional. Magiunul natural de prune Topoloveni este produs dup o reet pstrat din anul 1914.
Produsul deine i titlul de Furnizor al Casei Majestii Regale a Romniei.

22. 1,21 pensionari la un salariat, la finele lunii

martie; pensia medie reprezenta 50,22% din salariul
mediu net
Numrul total al pensionarilor era, la finele lunii martie 2013, de 5,258 milioane persoane, n scdere cu 92.550
persoane fa de perioada corespunztoare a anului 2012 i cu 28.960 persoane fa de sfritul lunii decembrie
2012, informeaz agerpres.ro.Astfel, avnd n vedere efectivul salariailor, de 4.360.500 persoane la sfritul lunii
martie 2013, comunicat de Institutul Naional de Statistic, s-au nregistrat 1,21 pensionari la un salariat, fa de 1,23
pensionari la un salariat, la finele anului trecut, conform statisticilor publicate de Ministerul Muncii, Familiei,
Proteciei Sociale i Persoanelor Vrstnice. Din total, 88,98% erau pensionari de asigurri sociale de stat (4.678.750
persoane) i 11,02% pensionari agricultori (579.220 persoane). Conform informaiilor furnizate de Casa Naional de
Pensii Publice, n luna martie 2013, din totalul pensionarilor de asigurri sociale de stat, 29,52% aveau pensii sub
650 lei (pensia medie fiind de 812 lei). Salariul minim brut pe economie era, la nivelul lunii martie 2013, 750 lei i
ctigul salarial mediu brut 2.231 lei, pensia medie reprezentnd 36,39% din ctigul salarial mediu brut i 50,22 %
din ctigul salarial mediu net (1.617 lei). La 31 martie 2013, comparativ cu perioada similar a anului trecut,
numrul pensionarilor de asigurri sociale de stat a fost mai mic cu 36.200 persoane, iar pensia medie a fost mai
mare cu 34 lei. Astfel, n aceast perioad pensia medie, pentru pensionarii de asigurri sociale de stat, a crescut cu
4,37 %, n timp ce indicele preurilor de consum a crescut cu 5,25 %, rezultnd o depreciere n termeni reali a pensiei
medii. La sfritul lunii martie 2013, proporia cea mai mare din cadrul pensionarilor de asigurri sociale de stat o
aveau pensionarii pentru limit de vrst - 70,21 %, corespunztoare unui numr de 3.284.996 persoane. Raportat
la pensia total a pensionarilor de asigurri sociale de stat (812 lei), pensia acestora (935 lei) a fost n luna martie
2013 cu 15,15 % mai mare, respectiv cu 123 lei. Din totalul pensionarilor de asigurri sociale de stat cu pensie
anticipat i pensie anticipat parial, femeile reprezentau 58,84%, iar pentru limit de vrst 53,7%. Pentru toate
categoriile, femeile aveau pensii mai mici dect brbaii. n ceea ce privete pensionarii provenii din fostul sistem de
asigurri sociale pentru agricultori, n numr de 579.223 persoane la sfritul lunii martie 2013, 89,86% primeau
pensii pentru limit de vrst, 1,10% pensii de invaliditate i 9,04% pensii de urma. Pensia medie era de 328 lei, cu
15 lei mai mare dect n luna martie 2012. Pensionarii cu limita de vrst aveau o pensie medie de 347 lei, cu 15 lei
mai mare dect n luna martie 2012. La sfritul lunii martie 2013 se aflau n plat 868 de beneficiari de ajutor social
tip pensie, cu 189 persoane mai puin dect n perioada corespunztoare a anului trecut, ajutorul social mediu pe
care l-au primit fiind n cuantum de 200 lei. n trimestrul I 2013 s-au acordat conform Legii nr. 49/1991 privind
acordarea de indemnizaii i sporuri invalizilor, veteranilor i vduvelor de rzboi i Legii nr. 44/1994 privind
veteranii de rzboi, precum i unele drepturi ale invalizilor i vduvelor de rzboi, drepturi n valoare medie de 133
lei/persoana pentru 160.547 persoane, cu 24.725 persoane mai puin fa de perioada corespunztoare a anului
trecut. n privina evoluiei pensiilor private (Pilonul II) din Romnia, la 31 martie 2013, tendina manifestat de la
nceputul funcionrii sistemului este n trend ascendent constant. La sfritul lunii martie 2013, 5.886.606 persoane
participau la fondurile de pensii administrate privat Pilonul II, cu 237.388 (4,20%) persoane mai mult dect n
perioada corespunztoare a anului trecut. Cei mai muli participani la sistemul pensiilor private sunt cei cu vrste
cuprinse ntre 25-35 ani (2.307.268 persoane).