Regulation Matters

EU Crackdown on Credit Swaps May Shatter a Myth - CNBC

2011-04-30T23:06:00.000+02:00

EU Crackdown on Credit Swaps May Shatter a Myth - CNBC:

"The European Union’s antitrust investigations into derivatives will very likely demonstrate how banks use regulations to stifle competition.

All too often we imagine that businesses—especially financial firms—hate regulation and love deregulation. The truth is that many businesses support regulations that make it harder for competitors to do business."

Public consultation on environmental impact assessment

2011-01-16T22:47:00.002+01:00

Results awaited from this European Commission consultation

Better regulation in US

2011-01-10T21:48:00.001+01:00

Oversight head to release business requests for regulation rollbacks - TheHill.com

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has promised to publicly release responses he receives from 150 companies, trade groups and think tanks that he asked to compile wish lists of regulations they would like rolled back.

“Chairman Issa fully intends to publicly release all of the responses he receives,” said spokesman Kurt Bardella, although he noted that his boss planned to do so once he's received all of them and he and his staff have had the chance to analyze the suggestions.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Friday called on Issa to release the 150 letters he recently sent to the corporations and groups and to post their responses.

Bardella said there is no reason to post the letters online because the same letter was sent to all the companies, associations and think tanks, and media reports have cited the entirety of its contents. He also said The Hill published the full list of companies who received the letters earlier this week, so that’s already public, too.

German banks fear for profits because of regulation

2011-01-10T17:46:00.001+01:00

Deutsche Banken fürchten wegen Regulierung um Erträge | Unternehmen | Reuters

Berlin (Reuters) - The private banks are trembling about their profits because of the government regulatory offensive in the wake of the financial crisis.

The Bankers Association warned on Monday in Berlin about a taxation burden of around 70 percent. Internationally, Germany was indeed the star pupil in the implementation of G-20 decisions on the bank regulation. But this makes it more difficult for competitiveness to stay on track.

According to calculations of the Association, the entire industry has made over the past ten years on average a net profit of around 7.6 billion euros. On top of the current tax burden of 2.3 billion euros, levies would now add an amount of 3.1 billion euros: a billion euros from the planned financial activity tax, 900 million euros from the payments into the banking restructuring fund and 1.2 billion euros for the net deposit insurance following a planned EU directive.

Association Chief Executive, Michael Kemmer warned, that this would give a total burden of about 5.4 billion euros, or 70 percent of pre-tax profits . Costs from the new Basel III capital rules were not included.

On the other hand, it is not taken into account in the bill that charges are based on current income. Thus the industry in bad years have to pay significantly less than 900 million euros into the bank restructuring fund. This is to secure against future bank failures and remove the financial burden from the taxpayers, who, during the financial crisis supported the industry with billions of dollars of funds and guarantees. In addition, a financial activity tax is not yet certain and also the EU Directive has not yet been decided upon.

Kemmer mahnte, neue Belastungen dürften nur international abgestimmt eingeführt werden, um Standortnachteile zu vermeiden. Im weltweiten Vergleich sei die deutsche Branche nicht sehr profitabel und deshalb besonders anfällig für die neuen Kosten.

Kemmer warned that new charges should be introduced only with international agreement in order to avoid the disadvantages according to location. In a global comparison, the German industry was not very profitable and therefore particularly vulnerable to new costs.

Customers must be better informed.

The private banks also criticise the series of new regulations in the investor protection law, which the Coalition will publish in the spring. Among other things, the financial institutions will be subject to new rules about their investment advice. The supervisory authority BaFin will be asked to create a list of all 300 000-bank financial advisers who also need an appropriate qualification. For violations, BaFin may prohibit the advice provision for up to two years.

Kemmer also criticized the idea that banks must be prepared to maintain a "information package insert" for financial products. This will provide information in a simple form about risks, revenues and costs. This was hardly feasible for 15,000 shares and 500,000 certificates,"said Kemmer. The provision of the leaflet is a matter for the issuer.

Accounting standards

2010-08-26T09:32:00.000+02:00

UK bank accounting rules 'fatally flawed', warns influential watchdog - Telegraph:

"An influential watchdog has written to the Department of Business listing a catalogue of staggering regulatory errors that allegedly contributed to the collapse of several banks in 2008 – and still threatens the system today.

While reviewing the proposed expansion of the International Financial Reporting Standards for accounting, Tim Bush, a member of the “Urgent Issues Task Force” that scrutinises the work of the Accounting Standards Board (ASB), claims to have uncovered “fatal” and “dangerous” flaws in the system.

The City veteran has argued that applied to banks, the standards “produced false profits and overstated capital” which have “misled creditors, misled shareholders, the Bank of England, FSA and others”."

This is debatable and Regmat is sure it will be.

Schäuble protects small investors in real estate-regulation

2010-08-08T09:30:00.000+02:00

Abgespeckte Version: Schäuble schont Kleinanleger bei Immobilienfonds-Regulierung | FTD.de

Since the Treasury's plans for reform published in May, the industry has been in a state of shock. Now they can breath again. Open real estate funds are not going to be as strictly regulated as planned. For savers with small amounts almost nothing will change.

The open real estate funds have been in shock since May when the office of the Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) published his first bill to reform the industry. Many frightened investors reacted to the plans, which included a two-year minimum holding period and a notice of up to two years. A total of € 1.4 billion was taken out by investors alone in May.

Three funds were forced to close. And even with the open items, sales have been running slowly since then, because the uncertainty about the future structure of the products has paralysed new business. But now the first details are leaking out of the revised draft regulation, demonstrating that it will not hit the industry as hard as feared. This is true at least for those providers with a high proportion of private investors.

EPA - enemy of dust

2010-08-05T15:28:00.000+02:00

The Winds of Over-Regulation | Western Journalism.com: "The EPA is on the verge of declaring that naturally occurring dust is a pollutant. This means they will penalize farmers whose livestock and horticultural operations create what the Washington bureaucrats consider to be too much of it. Needless to say, the proposal has become a huge issue in farm states. Twenty-one senators recently signed a letter to the EPA."

Off topic- friends in the Middle East

2010-08-03T10:05:00.001+02:00

The dangers of nationalisation

2010-08-01T17:01:00.000+02:00

What was true in this cartoon of Osbert Lancaster in the 1950s, apply in any age including our own.

Can regulation beget innovation?

2010-07-27T12:13:00.003+02:00

Steven Pearlstein writing in the Washington Post

"It's been 20 years since Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter provided scholarly support for the notion that, rather than hamper economic growth and competitiveness, well-crafted regulation could actually promote it. Porter's first observation was that some of the world's most prosperous and economically vibrant countries were also those with some of the most stringent business regulations, such as Germany and Japan. His studies of specific industries also turned up numerous examples of new products and more efficient ways of doing business that came about only because companies and industries were forced to comply with rules.

Porter's musings, introduced in an article in Scientific American, have since spawned a cottage industry of researchers intent on proving or disproving his hypothesis. Its most controversial aspect was to suggest that profit-maximizing companies were ignoring opportunities to produce profitable new products or adopt more-efficient production techniques. Such a notion not only runs counter to the most basic principles of economics and efficient markets, but it also offends the sensibility of corporate managers, who find it preposterous that such opportunities could be revealed only when the EPA or an OSHA inspector knocks on their company's door.

But subsequent research confirmed what some of us have long since discovered -- namely that corporate executives can be stuck in their ways, averse to risk and unwilling to sacrifice short-term profitability for long-term gain. And as a result of these market "imperfections," sometimes a new regulation comes along that spurs innovation by forcing companies to look at things in new ways. That doesn't mean that regulation is costless, but it does suggest that, on an economy-wide basis, those costs can be offset by subsequent investment and innovation."

Less than stressful stress tests

2010-07-26T09:24:00.002+02:00

Stress tests under fire as German banks hide debt | EurActiv: "Analysts have been heaping criticism on the test scenarios, claiming they were designed to leave the sector looking stronger than it is.

'I see nothing stressful about this test. It's like sending the banks away for a weekend of R&R,' said Stephen Pope, chief global equity strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Market watchers were disappointed that the tests' sovereign stress scenarios were applied to banks' trading books alone and not to their banking books, where nearly 90% of sovereign holdings lie."

Loss of control of US public expenditure is not new

2010-07-25T19:50:00.001+02:00

Obama is following a path already paved by FDR. After 1942, this expenditure was drowned by the military expenditure in a ratio of 10.1 by 1945.

Off-topic Chance for New Right Wing Party in Germany

2010-07-25T13:47:00.002+02:00

Jeder Fünfte würde neue konservative Partei wählen

One in five would vote for a new conservative party
POLLSTER SPEAKS OF "YEARNING" FOR NEW PARTY

According to a recent survey by the polling institute Emnid for "Focus" every fifth German can imagine voting for a "bourgeois-conservative party to the right of the CDU". 74 percent of the respondents would not choose such a newly established party, six per cent abstained.

20 percent for such a conservative rival party - this is an alarming number, especially for the Union, as Emnid CEO Klaus-Peter Schöppner writes in an analysis for Bild am Sonntag . The pollsters feel a "desire for a new party." Because: "CDU / CSU have only ten months after the election almost 40 percent, the FDP 75 percent of their voters lost. Not even half of these have "gone over" to the enemies camp.

Particularly worrying according to Schöppner: "Paradoxically, the most loyal voters of the Union are presently flocking in droves to the non-voting: Christian orientated values based conservatives wish to associate the economy with values but face more and more, 'the social democratising of their party". Already the idea to vote Green or SPD is a horror for them. Instead, they are politically homeless. "

According to findings Schöppner they choose either the Union or not at all ". Or soon a new party? The forecast of the pollster, "If they could embody in politicians such as Roland Koch again, business expertise, Friedrich Merz openess to argument, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg modernity and Joachim Gauck values , it could immediately win 20 percent of voters . "The Union, however, was in danger of being marginalized by a new party .

A new party would be governed according to Schöppner's analysis by the focus on a "fair contract" (play on words in the original German) "between citizens and politics" instead of the current "financial manipulation and rip-off". In times of permanent recession and unjust distribution of life opportunities, there platform would have to be called "market and morality are". Schöppner already has a new name: "Unity and justice and freedom".

Decline and fall of Christian Democracy in Germany- their vote in two decades of elections.

German regional banks pass stress tests

2010-07-23T15:29:00.003+02:00

Wackelkandidaten: Landesbanken haben Stresstest bestanden - Unternehmen - Wirtschaft - FAZ.NET

The regional banks are considered the weakest part of the German banking system. Nevertheless, according to information given to the FAZ all have passed the stress test of the bank supervisors.

On Thursday afternoon, the banks banks receive the audited results of the European Committee for Banking Supervision (CEBS) results, which are published together this Friday by 18 clock.

The performance of public regional banks is surprising, as the leading saving institutions are considered the weakest part of the German banking system.

BayernLB, Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW), HSH Nordbank and WestLB have needed since the 2007 major capital injections and guarantees from their public owners and the bank rescue fund Soffin to survive the financial crisis. The capital increases of 10 billion euros (Bayern LB), 5 billion euros (LBBW) and the 3 billion euros for HSH Nordbank and West LB are apparently sufficient and also now, to take the pressures simulated in the tests in the years 2010 and 2011 .

Core capital ratio of the Nord LB falls in the test to less than 7 percent

The Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba), the Nord LB and Landesbank Berlin, which did not require government assistance, have passed the tests, although not as well as those based regional banks. Thus, the Helaba comes under the assumptions of the worst scenarios tested, although reportedly with a core capital ratio of more than 7 percent, but Nord LB less.

With the initial publication of the results of a stress test this Friday, it is the intention of the European banking supervisor to strengthen the fragile confidence of investors in the banking sector. 91 European banks have been tested, among the 14 German banks tested seven regional banks. Banks should determine how much core capital they have, if they assumed a worsening economy and the expansion of European sovereign debt crisis, to cope with higher risks and loan losses in 2010 and 2011 . They had not only to reckon on losses on the bonds of highly indebted countries such as Greece, but also to determine the effect of 4.7 percent yield reductions for low risk federal loans on their equity capital.

Criterion: Core capital ratios of at least 6 percent under stress

As indicated in a footnote to the audit sheets of banking supervision, the line between "pass" and "failed" was given as a ratio of risk weighted assets such as loans and securities to core capital of 6 percent.

However, Bafin, the German banking said that it is possible that investors will not be satisfied with a core capital ratio of more than 6 percent . In a letter to bank managers on the conduct of stress tests, which is FAZ has seen a supervisor writes: "If it appears that in the the stress test scenario you arrive at a core capital ratio, which is under the minimum rate required by the market, I would also ask you to estimate what are the realistic possibilities of demonstrating that you can raise the core capital ratio. It would be counterproductive, in my view, on 23/7/2010 to present problems without solutions."

The Department of Deutsche Bank which offers other banks capital market communications doubts the effect of the stress tests. If nearly all banks had taken the test, its credibility would be questioned, is their concern. In a conference call to analysts at Deutsche Bank, three representatives of other banks have reported that private investors think that the European banks still need € 100 billion of additional equity. If the stress test are not detecting a gap of this size , it is questionable whether the test is failing to meet the goal of providing confidence in and among the banks . The more banks fail the test on the other hand, more and more banks would be forced to raise new capital - and the more stable the financial system will become, the analysts argued.

Regmat- which could of course all mean that there is something wrong with the stress tests.... and with the banks.

Online Gambling: French regulator gives notice to 19 illegal sites

2010-07-18T14:40:00.000+02:00

Jeux d'argent en ligne : l'Arjel met en demeure 19 sites illegaux - high tech - Nouvelobs.com

The Regulatory Authority for online games threatens to block access to these sites if they do not withdraw. This is the second and largest wave of warnings launched by Arjel.

A month after issuing the first licenses to operate in early June, the Regulatory Authority for online games (Arjel) gave notices to several operators to cease their operations in France. If they do not cooperate, the 19 sites may be blocked outright by the hosts and ISPs, following a decision of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris.

They are not the first sites to be put on notice. In mid-June, Arjel had already examined the case of a first site (unknown) for non-compliance with the law relating to player accounts.

The goal is to "tighten" the French market for online gaming, estimated at one million players and 200 to 300 million euros turnover. A market now diffused among the 23 licensed operators, which are added to by the illegal operators, with gains, the time slots and betting forms are less restrictive for players, since they fall outside the new French regulations.

Impact of China’s Antitrust Law and other Competition Policies on US Companies

2010-07-18T14:29:00.001+02:00

Video of House Judiciary Committee via Antitrust & Competition Policy Blog

State capitalism versus free market capitalism in competition policy.

German Monopolies Commission recommends regulation of water

2010-07-17T11:52:00.000+02:00

EUWID Wasser und Abwasser: Monopolkommission empfiehlt Regulierung der Wasserwirtschaft

(15:07:10) The Monopolies Commission advises the Federal Government and the Länder, the German drinking water suppliers to establish a unified sector specific regulatory framework, also directed to the efficient delivery of drinking water. This is from their Eighteenth Report entitled "More competition, few exceptions" show, which the Monopolies Commission passed to the Federal Minister of Economics and Technology on Tuesday. In the context of the structure of water management in Germany and a possible regulation of the water, the associations and the relevant environmental groups back these wishes vigorously. The Federal Government will take a position on the Monopolies Commission report after consultation with industry and submit this to the Bundestag and the Bundesrat to the end of the year, says the Federal Ministry of Economics.

Exemption in competition law for milk

2010-07-16T10:49:00.000+02:00

European Milk Board: Press release: A step into the right direction: a change in European competition law – milk producers and dairies on an equal footing

"The European Milk Board (EMB) presented Georg Häusler, cabinet chief of the European Commissioner of Agriculture Dacian Ciolos, with a draft of a block exemption regulation. This exemption from European competition law would enable milk producers to organise themselves independent from the dairies to develop common marketing rules. “This regulation is a vital prerequisite for milk producers and dairies to negotiate on an equal footing. Block exemption regulations are a common practice, especially for small- and medium-sized companies and can easily be applied to the market position of milk producers. We could thus avert the disappearance of tens of thousands of European dairy farms” says Sieta van Keimpema, vice-president of EMB, during the meeting with Georg Häusler.

The EU High Level Group on Milk (HLGM) published its report on June 15th and acknowledged the existing imbalances on the dairy market and has invited the EU Commission to consider legal possibilities to develop a special arrangement for milk producer organisations concerning the European competition law. By presenting such a special arrangement EMB takes up and concretises the proposal of the HLGM."

Liberal Party also in trouble in Germany

2010-06-28T12:01:00.000+02:00

In coalition with the conservative CDU/ CSU and revealed today that they have been loosing 15000 members a day on average since the election.

Germany may have won yesterday, but the big match is rescuing their economy- and that of Europe. There is no other political permutation available that would be able to carry out this task.

Dozen Eggs under threat

2010-06-27T20:56:00.000+02:00

The European Parliament voted at First Reading last week on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the provision of food information to consumers
(COM(2008)0040 – C6-0052/2008 – 2008/0028(COD)).

Still some way to go before this becomes legislation and then up to five years before it is implemented.

However, the key article is Article 24- amendments on the day italicised.

Net Quantity
1. The net quantity of a food shall be expressed, using litres, centilitres, millilitres, kilograms or grams, as appropriate:
(a) in units of liquid in the case of liquids within the meaning of Council Directive 85/339/EEC of 27 June 1985 on containers of liquids for human consumption ;
(b) in units of mass in the case of other products.
2. The expression of the net quantity for certain specified foods in a different manner than the one described in paragraph 1 may be established by the Commission. Those measures designed to amend the non-essential elements of this Regulation by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 49(3).

Replace the previous sentence with- by means of delegated acts, in accordance with Article 49a and subject to the conditions of Articles 49b and 49c.

3. Technical rules for applying paragraph 1, including specific cases where the indication of the net quantity shall not be required, are laid down in Annex VIII.

Article 49 (1) and (2) read

1.The Commission shall be assisted by the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health.

2. Where reference is made to this paragraph, Articles 5 and 7 of Decision 1999/468/EC shall apply, having regard to the provisions of Article 8 thereof.

The period laid down in Article 5(6) of Decision 1999/468/EC shall be set at three months.

So the fate of the British Dozen is in the first instance in the hands of an unelected and unaccoutable committee buried deep in the machinery of the Commission whose membership, although not minutes is not published on the internet.

But lo, it gets worse- as the European Parliament also amended Article 49 (3), as part of their eternal turf war with the Commission. So even if the Commission do the right thing, the Parliament can potentially block them.

Article 49a

Exercise of the delegation

1. The power to adopt the delegated acts referred to in Articles 9(1)(i), 10(2), 14(1), 20(e), 22(2), 24(2), 26(2), 29(1) second subparagraph, 30(2) and (4), 31(2), 34(6), 44(2), 46(2) and 47 shall be conferred on the Commission for a period of five years following the entry into force of this Regulation. The Commission shall make a report in respect of the delegated powers not later than six months before the end of the five-year period. The delegation of power shall be automatically extended for periods of an identical duration, unless the European Parliament or the Council revokes it in accordance with Article 49b.

2. As soon as it adopts a delegated act, the Commission shall notify it simultaneously to the European Parliament and to the Council.

3. The power to adopt delegated acts is conferred on the Commission subject to the conditions laid down in Articles 49b and 49c.

Article 49b

Revocation of the delegation

1. The delegation of powers referred to in Articles 10(2), 14(1), 20(e), 22(2), 24(2), 26(2), 29(1) second subparagraph, 30(2) and (4), 31(2), 34(6), 44(2), 46(2) and 47 may be revoked at any time by the European Parliament or by the Council.

2. The institution which has commenced an internal procedure for deciding whether to revoke the delegation of powers shall endeavour to inform the other institution and the Commission within a reasonable time before the final decision is taken, indicating the delegated powers which could be subject to revocation and possible reasons for a revocation.

3. The decision of revocation shall put an end to the delegation of the powers specified in that decision. It shall take effect immediately or at a later date specified therein. It shall not affect the validity of the delegated acts already in force. It shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Article 49c

Objections to delegated acts

1. The European Parliament or the Council may object to a delegated act within a period of two months from the date of notification.

At the initiative of the European Parliament or the Council this period shall be extended by two months.

2. If, on expiry of that period, neither the European Parliament nor the Council has objected to the delegated act it shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and shall enter into force at the date stated therein.

The delegated act may be published in the Official Journal of the European Union and enter into force before the expiry of that period if the European Parliament and the Council have both informed the Commission of their intention not to raise objections.

3. If the European Parliament or the Council objects to a delegated act, it shall not enter into force. The institution which objects shall state the reasons for objecting to the delegated act.

Wall Street reform

2010-06-26T10:58:00.000+02:00

puts Europe on regulatory back foot from Reuters

The EU has already rejected a Volcker style rule as France and Germany back a universal banking model. There is also no sign the EU will follow suit on swaps desk spin offs either when it publishes a draft law in September.

"While everyone argues for convergence in regulatory repair, you need to add the words 'where possible'," said Anthony Belchambers, chief executive of the Futures and Options Association, an industry lobby.

"Neither the United States or the EU will follow each other for the sake of it as the political imperative is different in both countries," Belchambers said.

German commentary on French football fiasco

2010-06-23T10:24:00.002+02:00

Frankreichs WM-Auftritt: Die „Tricolore“ am Abgrund - WM 2010 - Sport - FAZ.NET

France's World Cup appearance

The "Tricolore" on the Edge

The disintegration of the French World Cup team has a social dimension. For decades, France is not just about football, but historical and political football. This is shown in a comparison of the events of 18 June 1940 with those of 2010.

By Jürg Altwegg

21stJune 2010

As unexpected as the defeat of 1940, which had been longed for by many, was not so surprising against Mexico. But no one has mentioned that it was the seventieth anniversary of Pétain's offer to collaborate. All were about to celebrate the memory of de Gaulle's call for resistance from London on the following day: 18 June 1940. Militarily, the Resistance was rather insignificant. But she saved France's honor and in 1944 was suddenly on the winning side and was able to feel more like a great power. Decades later the myth crumbled and the land was overtaken by her suppressed history and fell into a frenzy of reappraisal, overcoming the past, penance and remembrance.

The salvation came from football: the World Cup in Germany was transfigured into catharsis for Vichy and the triumph of the anti-fascist footballers to victory over the demons of the past. 12 July 1998 with the final match, the French celebrated as the most beautiful day - and victory - since the end of the Second World War. The multicultural team "black, white, butter" the blacks, whites, and children of Arab immigrants was made a model as a model for a new social contract, as the Resistance had been in 1944. The euphoric singing of the country could be equated with their national team. The intellectuals were involved in this process.

All against all and all against Gourcuff

But these illusions were shattered more quickly even than the hopes of the Resistance. 2002 saw Le Pen, who had ridiculed the black players in the runoff, and a few weeks later, the defending champions scored no goals in the World Cup in Asia. The suburbs were burning, and Sarkozy became president. As failure to qualify for 2006 threatened, the national coach Raymond Domenech reluctantly took the retired Zidane & Co. out of retirement. In an excited Germany, the French mobilized once again all their anti-fascist force and brought it to the final in Hitler's Olympic Stadium, where Zidane under pressure from the historical responsibility towards Mussolini's grandson (reference to Zidane’s team of Lazio, supported in his day by Mussolini) ran amok and gave the French the undeserved re-conquest of the world championship.

Being runners up in the Cup was deceptive, reinforcing the loss of reality. The Euro 2008 was a fiasco. Equally embarrassing was the immoral qualification for South Africa. Boundless love of "les Bleus" gave way to a progressive alienation. They became perceived as arrogant and self-centered. They do not play for each other and not for an ideal, but only for money and themselves. The national team was divided into rival clans and cliques, "reported Le Monde before the game against Mexico:" the blacks of the Antilles, the blacks from Africa, the whites, the Muslims, the foreign mercenaries, the players from the French clubs' . And no one likes Gourcuff, the son without an immigration background from the French educated middle class. The national team became the mirror image of society.

No one wants such a France

If France feels weak or is in crisis, it sticks with Charles de Gaulle. Never before has a 18th June been celebrated so intensely as his seventieth anniversary.Sarkozy, far from being a Gaullist directed the cult so as not to leave the inheritance to his dangerous rival, Dominique de Villepin, who at the weekend launched his new party and was already instrumentalising the defeat: "We want to prevent what happened to our national team, happening to France" Also on 18 June, General Marcel Bigeard died, who had fought in the war with de Gaulle - and the Allies. He had been a torturer in the Colonies and remained loyal to de Gaulle, when the other generals in Algiers planned a coup against him.

In a way, the new national debacle has been set in the context of the day of remembrance. "They say, in modern football there are no more any small teams, " wrote Le Monde: " This shows the opposite, we are a small footballing nation. " She has failed it in political and ideological influence all the way through to historic mission. This drama could only lead to chaos and also unless a scapegoat was found, the group could not hold together ant more. Maybe in the stadium tonight as the theater of war in 1940: Without the help of others, France will come unstuck. But the strikers have even given up the chance of moral vindication. The intellectuals Jacques Attali and Alain Finkielkraut wish the French - as the elite of 1940 - defeat. The resurrection is coming. Marcel Bigeard has arranged to have scatter his ashes over Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam - the emblematic place of his lost battles.

Text: FAZ

EU leaders agree to publish bank stress test results - bobsguide.com

2010-06-20T16:09:00.000+02:00

from bobsguide.com

"Last week, Deutsche Bank chief executive officer Josef Ackermann stated his belief that publishing stress test results could be damaging unless 'backstop facilities' are put into place.

While stressing that he was not opposed to the idea in principle, Mr Ackermann said market instability could be increased if publication was not carried out carefully, reported Bloomberg."

Regmat comments- he is right to be concerned- especially for the German Landesbanks who are very vulnerable to this publication if the results are presented in the wrong way. But if the results are released in the wrong way, there could be much more damage than that. One commentator said that the stress testers were asking all the wrong questions- what is the point at worrying about the barking dog when there is the silent panther behind you.

The imperative is to create a virtuous circle of confidence- or all will be lost to the Far East.

Firms claim regulation will hamper recovery

2010-04-04T16:03:00.001+02:00

Protest by business leaders against the requirement for counter party trading in the Derivatives Directive.

Important new EU consultation on standarisation

2010-04-04T12:35:00.001+02:00

Public consultation on the review of the European Standardisation System - European standards - Enterprise and Industry

In the context of the Better Regulation policy of the European Union, the European Commission is initiating a process of review of the European Stardardisation System. This process aims at strengthening the European Standardisation System for the benefit of all the relevant stakeholders.
The goal of this Open Consultation is to gain an understanding of stakeholders’ view on the review of the European Standardisation System and to gather opinions and suggestions on the potential avenues the Commission should explore in order to shape concrete proposals.

Some Aspects of Standardisation in the USA and Europe.

Legal Aspects of Standardisation in the Member States of the EC and EFTA: Comparative Report v. 1