German Chancellor Angela Merkel has shot down calls for full mobilisation of the eurozone's bail-out funds to halt the raging bond crisis in Spain and Italy, ignoring unprecedented pleas for action from the International Monetary Fund.
"Each country wants to help but if I am going to call on taxpayers in Germany, I must have guarantees that all is under control. Responsibility and control go hand in hand," she said after a crucial summit of the eurozone's Big Four powers in Rome.
Mrs Merkel -- or La Signora No in Italy -- doused hopes of a break-through on proposals by the "Latin Bloc" leaders of Italy, France, and Spain to deploy the funds (EFSF and ESM) to cap the bond yields of "virtuous" countries vulnerable to contagion, or to recapitalize banks directly to take the strain off sovereign states.
"If I give money straight to Spanish banks, I can't control what they do. That is how the treaties are written," she said, before racing off to Danzig to tonight for Euro 2012 quarter final between Greece and German..
Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, warned before the summit that the eurozone is under "acute stress" and at risk of a downward spiral.
"The viability of the European monetary system is questioned. There must be a recapitalisation of the weak banks, with preferably a direct link between the EFSF/ESM and the banks, in order to break the negative feedback loop that we have between banks and sovereigns."
For all the rhetoric at Rome's Villa Madama -- a Rennaissance retreat of the Medici family designed by Raphael -- the trio of Latin leaders seemingly failed to shift German Merkel one inch in the direction of debt pooling or genuine fiscal union.
The contrast between pro-forma talk of "more Europe" in the Roman hills and the festering reality on the ground in austerity Europe was not lost on those at the summit. Across the Tiber, much of Rome was paralysed by a bus and metro strike, evidence of the growing resitance to the harsh fiscal squeeze imposed by Mr Monti's technocrat government.
French president Francois Hollande did not hide his frustration, warning that France would not accede to German demands for a step-change in EU integration until Berlin puts the neuraligic issue of shared debts on the table. "There will be no transfer of sovereignty without greater solidarity, " he said acidly.
The Latin Bloc's soft diplomacy has essentially failed. Europe's key leaders will converge on Brussels for next week's crucial summit as divided as ever on the great issue of the day.
The leaders were left offering the thin gruel of infrastructure projects and long-term investment worth 130bn or 1pc of eurozone GDP, financed by leveraging an extra 10bn of base capital at the European Investment Bank.
Critics say this type of spending will take years to bear fruit and and will do little to halt the insidious process of debt-deflation already at work across much of Southern Europe.
#1
Not the biggest Merkel fan, yet all of the rest of the Euro Nations and the US is calling for Germany to open their banks and she seems to be holding in there alone. Kinda gutsy
#2
Tell France to follow your lead, Germany. They are going to flush themselves and you down the drain otherwise and they just elected another pampered idiot pandering "leader" for them to the the stupid lemmings they already were.
[Daily Nation (Kenya)] The trial of Anders Behring Breivik ended Friday, exactly 11 months after he massacred 77 people in Norway, with the confessed killer insisting his attacks were justified and demanding acquittal.
The court announced that the verdict would be issued on August 24, while Breivik claimed at the end of his 10-week trial that his attacks were necessary to defend Norway against multiculturalism and a "Mohammedan invasion".
"The July 22 attacks were preventive attacks in defence of my ethnic group and I can therefore not acknowledge guilt," the 33-year-old right-wing Death Eater said.
"I was acting on behalf of my people, my religion and my country. I therefore demand that I be acquitted," Breivik said, concluding his 45-minute-long final remarks.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik first set off a car boom outside government buildings in Oslo, killing eight people, before going to Utoeya island, northwest of the capital where he shot and killed another 69 people, mostly teenagers.
The victims, the youngest of whom had just celebrated her 14th birthday, had been attending a summer camp hosted by the governing Labour Party's youth organization.
Before Breivik made his final remarks Friday, many survivors of his attacks and family members of his victims stood up and left the Oslo courtroom in protest.
"He has a right to talk. We have no duty to listen," Christian Bjelland, the vice chair of the support group for the attacks' survivors and victims' families, told the NTB news agency.
#2
Current poll has 59.1% of Norwegians in favor of extensive psychiatric treatment. When we speak of this event to them they remind us of our Timothy Mcveigh.
French airline Air La Belle France has announced it is to cut more than 5,000 jobs by the end of 2013 in an attempt to reduce costs and return to growth.
The figure represents just under 10% of the total workforce of 53,000.
The job cuts form part of a restructuring plan to restore profitability, in the face of increased competition and soaring fuel costs.
Air La Belle France says it is hoping to avoid compulsory redundancies through natural turnover and voluntary redundancies.
The company estimates some 1,700 jobs could be lost through natural turnover.
Air La Belle France, one component of the French-Dutch air carrier Air La Belle France-KLM and the first air carrier in Europe, launched a major cost-saving programme, Transform 2015, earlier this year, after posting a loss of 809m euros (£653m) for 2011 and a first quarter net loss in 2012 of 368m euros.
Shares in Air La Belle France-KLM shot up by 6% after the job cuts announcement, the AFP news agency reports.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The trial of Anders Behring Breivik ended Friday, exactly 11 months after he massacred 77 people in Norway, with the confessed killer insisting his attacks were justified and demanding acquittal.
