јануар 2013

On January 25, the Polish parliament (Sejm) dismissed three draft bills on civil partnership (two prepared by the opposition and one by the ruling Civic Platform – PO). Surprisingly, despite PM Donald Tusk’s calls to back his party draft bill, 46 conservative PO MPs led by Justice Minister Jarosław Gowin voted against the project, stirring widespread anger.

Soon after the vote, all dissenters along with Donald Tusk received more than 400,000 emails criticizing them for “prejudice” and neglecting “the interests of thousands of Poles living in informal unions”.

Two hundred and seventy eight European banks will reimburse €137bn to the European Central Bank (ECB), the equivalent of one third of the €489bn borrowed from a line of credit made available in late 2011 by ECB President Mario Draghi.

The early repayment is evidence of the banks wish to demonstrate their financial health, and Spanish banks will be among the first to fulfill their obligations.

Earthquakes close to natural gas drilling sites in Groningen in northern Netherlands have apparently become more frequent and more intense. An official study published on January 25 estimates that the quakes could reach 4 or 5 degrees on the Richter scale.

The state mining monitoring authority has recommended a reduction in the amount of drilling. On a visit to the region, the Minister for Economic Affairs took the view that this would be “irresponsible from an economic point of view”. In 2011, the gas field generated revenues of €11.5 billion for the state, and it currently supplies gas for 97% of Dutch homes.

From 2008 to 2011, ArcelorMittal Finance, which is registered in Belgium, generated profits of €5.8bn. However, because the steel group’s “internal bank” is “hypercapitalised” (€28bn of capital between 2008 and 2010, and €36.6bn in 2011), it was able to take advantage of “notional interest deduction”, a specifically Belgian tax break that allows companies to avoid tax if they invest using their own resources.

Over four years, the group’s “internal bank” deducted €5.6bn: ArcelorMittal was only obliged to pay tax for one year (€81mn in 2008). This amounted to an overall tax rate of 1.4 per cent from 2008-2011.

In 2003, two murderers who were members of the extreme right terrorist cell National Socialist Underground Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt spent time in the capital of Baden-Württemberg where they identified targets. According to documents consulted by the daily, police found photographs of the owners of a Turkish café and a Turkish grocery following an explosion at an NSU house in 2011.

On January 26, the country’s former social-democratic prime minister, Miloš Zeman, was elected President of the Czech Republic with 54.8 per cent of the vote, defeating conservative Karel Schwarzenberg (45.2 per cent).

The Czech Republic’s third president since the Velvet Revolution, following on from Václav Havel and Václav Klaus, will be sworn in on March 8. According to the daily, he intends to surround himself with controversial advisors with links to the business world, and supports a plan for early general elections.

Expresso, Lisbon – Cartoon. See more.

La Repubblica, Rome – Remarkably for a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Europe has been at war for close to 15 years: in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and today in the Sahel. However, an Italian editorialist argues, European intervention has consistently been marked by an absence of long-term vision. See more.