Croatia price of natural-gas to go up

18. 12. 09. - 09:00

Croatian Times

Croatian residents will pay more for natural-gas from 1 January 2010.

The Croatian media have reported the government has approved the request by Hungarian MOL, Croatian oil company INA’s majority owner, to raise the price by 0.33  kunas  or 0.045 Euros per cubic meter.

In Zagreb, there will be a 13.6 per cent increase.

For preferred consumers, HEP,  the National Electricity Company, Petrokemija and fertilizer company Kutina, the price will go up by 0.3 kunas or 0.04 Euros per cubic meter.

But, the real prices will be established by new Croatian Minister of Economy Djuro Popijac, who is responsible for lowering prices for end-users in negotiations with gas distributors.

Croatian national television has reported the price of electricity is also likely to go up.

http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/Business/2009-12-18/7877/Price_of_natural-gas_to_go_up

Croatia | 18 December 2009 | Zagreb

According to the Austrian news agency APA, Sanader helped Hypo bank do business in Croatia and allegedly received a massive commission for doing so.

Earlier this week, Sanader denied the allegations, saying: "I have never received any commission from Hypo bank, and it has not financed the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Such allegations are malicious lies and calumnies, the aim of which is to discredit my family and me.

"The same people and media have already tried to do that several times. I reserve the right to take certain measures in self-defence," he added.

According to Javno.hr, Austrian journalists "received this information from the long-standing member of the Hypo Board of managers, Wolfgang Kulterer, who in the meantime got convicted for forging balance sheets. Kulterer said that Sanader introduced this bank to Croatia."

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/24511/

By Sebastian Heller Published on December 18, 2009

A CLASS action suit seeking $400billion in damages for occupied Greek Cypriot property from the Republic of Turkey and the ‘TRNC’ was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia on October 19, 2009.

The suit was filed by three Greek Cypriots, Mihalis Toumazou, Nicolas Kantzilaris and Maroula Toumpazou, by Washington DC-based attorney Athan Tsimpedes.

The lawsuit is asking the court to decide that Turkey and the ‘TRNC’ should pay compensation for the denial of access, use and enjoyment of Greek Cypriot land in the north.

Turkey is being sued as a foreign state in violation of its duty of care. The lawsuit is based on the fact that Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and is maintaining an illegal occupation with the use of American weapons.

According to US law Turkey had the duty not to use the weapons obtained from the US in violation of international law or offensively. People whose rights are affected by this violation can sue Turkey through the American courts.

Tsimpedes said during a news conference yesterday, that the lawsuit seeks $400 billion in compensation, not only for the properties but also for the infrastructure including, utilities, ports, ancient sites and the monies received by Turkey from using the properties belonging to displaced owners and local municipalities.

According to Tsimpedes, the TRNC would most accurately be classified in the USA as an organised crime outfit, as it’s not recognised as a state, and it is engaging in commercial activity within the US itself for example in its advertisement of properties for sale in the north.  Thus the TRNC portion of the case would come, at least in part, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO).

“The outcome of the action will be much sooner than the ten years or so it takes at the European Court of Human Rights.  Most importantly, the court has power to compel the liquidation of assets belonging to the defendants in the US,” explained Tsimpedes.

This means that if the case was successful the US government could seize and liquidate assets held in the US by Turkey itself and by the ‘TRNC’ in order to pay the compensation due the claimants.

He said pre-trial issues were estimated to take approximately two to three years to resolve with the trial itself taking around a year.

Asked what he thought his chances of succeeding were he said: “I wouldn’t be here if I thought my chances of success were small”.

The fee to participate in the trial is 25 per cent of the gross amount of any compensation received and $300 per land deed.

Tsimpedes recognises that he would be opening a Pandora’s box in terms of international legal precedent with this case by prosecuting the basis of arms dealing, addressing the basis on which war is conducted and the spoils arranged, and classifying the ‘TRNC’ as a mafia-style  entity.  “I set the precedent on suing foreign governments,” he said.

Tsimipedes has already won a case against the French state, and the next case he is planning is against the Government of Iraq.

Anyone who owns or has right to property, businesses, assets or has suffered individual injuries can take part in the lawsuit. Tsimpedes called on every person interested to join in case the court denies the certification of the class action and only individual cases go forward.

The lawyer explained that in case of a solution in Cyprus before the conclusion of the trial or the settlement of the case, the plaintiffs who have filed their actions will preserve the rights to the compensation determined by a court as opposed to the compensation for property rights that will be determined by such a solution.

http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/greek-cypriots-sue-turkey-400b-us-court/20091218

GREECE
SandP downgrades two Greek banks, watches two more

Fri Dec 18 2009

ATHENS (AFP) --

Credit rating agency Standard and Poor's announced on Friday that it had downgraded top Greek banks, Eurobank and Alphabank, and put two others on negative watch.

SandP, which had downgraded Greek soverign debt on Wednesday, said it had downgraded the long-term ratings with negative watch of Eurobank, the second-biggest bank and Alphabank, the third biggest, to BBB from BBB plus.

It also placed their short-term A2 rating under negative watch.

The agency put the biggest private bank, the National Bank of Greece, under negative watch in respect of its equivalent BBB plus and A2 ratings.

It did likewise for the fifth-biggest bank, the Banque of Piraeus for its BBB and A2 ratings

http://www.timesoftheinternet.com/139198.html

Greece aims for tax reform by March -finmin

12.18.09, 06:47 AM EST

ATHENS, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Greece wants to enact tax reform by next March to boost budget revenues and convince creditors it is serious about restoring fiscal health, its finance minister said on Friday.

Hit with two rating downgrades in a week and fearing a third from Moody's ( MCO - news - people ), the euro zone's weakest member has seen its borrowing costs shoot higher on worries over its capacity to service a debt load that will top 300 billion euros next year.

"We must convince (markets) that Greece is walking a different path," Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou told a news conference.

"Tax reform will be key in shoring up public finances," he said, adding that he expects the reform to begin yielding results in 2011.

Papaconstantinou has been touring European capitals telling his counterparts and investors that the socialist government will reduce this year's 12.7 percent budget hole to 8.7 percent of GDP next year.

The tax reform will include a capital gains tax, higher tax rates on large incomes and property holdings, and a uniform progressive tax scale for all sources of income.

"The big bet of our tax reform is the broadening of the tax base," Papaconstantinou said.

He said Greece had the highest percentage of non-captured value added tax (VAT) revenues in the European Union and widespread tax avoidance.

To highlight this point, he said 85 percent of individual income tax filings reported incomes of less than 30,000 euros, with only 3,000 reporting incomes above 200,000 euros.

More than 5 million Greeks report annual incomes below 12,000 euros annually, he said.

Fitch and Standard & Poor's have cut Greece's sovereign ratings to BBB+, the lowest in the euro zone.

Yield spreads of 10-year Greek government paper over bunds have widened to 270 basis points, up 10 bps on the day.

The minister said Greece's EU partners were waiting to see it implement plans to improve its fiscal situation, repeating his line that the downgrades largely reflected the country's credibility deficit.

Asked about the likelihood of a further downgrade by Moody's, Papaconstantinou said: "We have talked with Moody's, we have no information (on a possible downgrade). Moody's will take its decisions in the coming weeks."

A senior finance ministry official said later on Tuesday that Greece had no plans to further prefund its 2010 borrowing needs this year.

Earlier this week Greece privately placed 5-year floating rate notes, raising 2 billion euros ($2.88 billion). The deal will settle on Jan. 4.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/reuters/2009/12/18/2009-12-18T114740Z_01_LDE5BH0SD_RTRIDST_0_GREECE-FINMIN-UPDATE-2-TV-PIX.html

ROMANIA

13:51, 18 decembrie 2009

Romania’s’ Prime Minster-designate Emil Boc asked former liberal Sebastian Vladescu to be his Cabinet’s finance minister and Vladescu accepted, people familiar with the talk told MEDIAFAX Friday.

Vladescu was finance minister in the liberal Cabinet of Calin Tariceanu, between 2005 and 2007 and was Romania's chief negotiator in the privatization of carmaker Automobile Craiova, bought by Ford Motor Co.

Central bank adviser Lucian Croitoru had also been rumored among proposed finance ministers.

Romania's newly reelected President Traian Basescu designated democrat liberal leader and acting Prime Minister Emil Boc to head the country's new government. Boc said the future government will have 14 or 15 ministries.

Basescu said Thursday, after designating Boc for prime minister, a confidence vote on the new government should be held by December 23.

http://www.mediafax.ro/english/romanian-pm-designate-wants-fmr-liberal-vladescu-for-finance-minister-5189226

Filat told MOLDPRES that the government would pass a decision establishing the mechanism of removing the barbed wire. As we have state-protected areas in this border zone, we will take specific actions and will see from what segments the wire will be taken away and where it will remain, Filat said. The prime minister said that in technical terms, removing the barbed wire is a complicated process, but from a political point of view, the decision has been already taken.

At a 16 December government meeting, Prime Minister Vlad Filat gave instructions to the new head of the Border Guards Service, Gen Alexei Roibu, to prepare the documents necessary to remove the barbed wire along the border with Romania.

http://www.moldpres.md/news/default.asp?Lang=en&ID=123888

18. December 2009. | 09:40

Source: STA

A total of 94,591 people were out of a job in October, which is 3,300 (7%) more than the month before and 51% more than the same month in 2008, the Statistics Office said on Wednesday.

Slovenia's registered unemployment rate rose 0.6 percentage points to 10% in October, reaching double digits for the first time since April 2006.

A total of 94,591 people were out of a job in October, which is 3,300 (7%) more than the month before and 51% more than the same month in 2008, the Statistics Office said on Wednesday.

The office said that the large increase in October was due to a combination of the economic downturn and seasonal factors.

Contributing the most to the rise was a significant increase in unemployment in the Pomurje region (NE), where unemployment rose 3.6 percentage points to 18.4% after the collapse of the clothing giant Mura.

The region's unemployment rate is more than 5 percentage points higher than that in Podravje (NE), the region with the second-highest unemployment rate.

The seasonal factor contributing to the rise was the university graduation period, as a total of 4,200 university-leavers were added to the unemployment tally in October.

The unemployment rate among men stood at 9.1%, while it was at 11.1% among women.

According to the office, a total of 850,422 people had a job in October out of an active population of 945,013

http://www.emportal.rs/en/news/region/107881.html

SLOVENIA/CROATIA
Slovenia Again Blocks Croatia's EU Progress

Ljubljana, Zagreb | 18 December 2009 |

Earlier this week, Slovenia – in an ongoing dispute with Croatia over unresolved borders – blocked the opening of talks in three new areas during a meeting with Croatian and EU representatives, news agencies quoted unnamed diplomats as saying.

Things had been looking up for Croatia after its prime minister signed a deal with her Slovenian counterpart in mid-November to allow international arbitration to resolve the long-running border dispute.

Before that, Slovenia had blocked Croatia’s EU accession for the past year.

Despite the frequent setbacks, Croatia did make some gains this week, clinching the closure of two more ‘negotiating chapters’ on freedom to provide services and social politics and employment, which will be formally closed on Monday, according to Croatian news agencies. The finalization of these two additional chapters will mean that Croatia is half way to EU accession. On Thursday, the EU gave Zagreb the go-ahead open additional chapters. The country has 16 chapters left to close, five of which have not yet been opened.

Among the unopened chapters are those on the judiciary and fundamental rights (concerning cooperation with the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY) and on the submission of the artillery logs to the international court.

Slovenia has kept Croatia from opening chapters on foreign, security and defense Policies, the environment, and fishery – the latter due to the ongoing dispute over territorial waters, specifically over the boundaries of the Piran Bay.

Reuters quoted an unnamed Slovenian diplomat as saying on Monday that “we have reservations,” adding that they could unblock talks again early next year. The diplomat did not detail Slovenia’s concerns.

Agence France Presse likewise quoted a European diplomat as saying that Slovenia still had “reservations regarding the start of negotiations about the new chapters.”

Croatia is hoping to become the EU’s 28th member by 2012. To meet that goal, accession negotiations would have to be wrapped up by the end of next year, and this will require Slovenia’s agreement.