The End

After each memeber had posted 10 posts, we've decided to quit!
So this is the end of our blog, this was the last week we’ve posted!
Thanks for reading!
The EU-team!

British Gas warns of big price rises in the pipeline

Centrica, the owner of British Gas, positioned itself to take the lead in an anticipated wave of gas and electricity rate rises from energy suppliers after warn-ing yesterday of "challenging conditions" in the wholesale gas markets.

As the UK's leading energy supplier – Centrica has 10 million gas customers and 6 million electricity users – the company is typically the first to increase its rates, providing cover for its smaller rivals which then usually follow suit. Karen Darby, of the price comparison service SimplySwitch, said: "Historically, when one of the big suppliers increases prices, the others are quick to follow." She said that a 15 per cent increase would mean an extra £131 to annual energy bills.

Last winter, wholesale gas was trading at about an average of 37p per therm. That compares with 53p per therm now. The rising price is due to myriad factors, including the highly illiquid European market for natural gas, which has kept prices artificially high. The high oil price, against which many gas prices are indexed, and a cold weather snap are further factors.

Centrica said it had managed to end the year with about 16 million customers despite losing more than 250,000 early in the year after it raised its prices. Analysts expect the company to report a profit of between £1.8bn and £1.9bn when it reveals its annual results in February.

source

(Tom Van thienen)

Veolia Cargo becomes the new competitor of the NMBS!

The French railway society “Veolia Cargo” hopes to become the new competitor of the Belgian railway society “de NMBS”. Veolia Cargo received an approval for his rolling staff and hopes to receive another approval for his material (trains). Veolia Cargo is not an unknown in our country, Veolia Transport (the mother company of Veolia Cargo) is the biggest controller of our city- and region lines for “De Lijn”.

Nowadays, Veolia Cargo is active in 3 countries: French, Germany and the Netherlands. In 2006, the French railway society had a turnover of 100 million Euro. This with 850 employees and 189 engines. The turnover for this year would be estimated to 226 million Euro, an increase with 126 million.

This is not good news for “de NMBS”, because with Veolia Cargo the competition in Belgium grows to 9. Now there are 4 companies who submitted an application: CFL Cargo, the British EWS, the Dutch ACTS and Veolia Cargo. The other 5 companies have already an approval to ride on the Belgium net: Dillen & Le Jeune Cargo, SNCF Fret, Rail4Chem, Trainsport and ERS. So the competition is raising.

But there is one obstacle that prevents a fast grow: there is not a balance in the supply and demand of engines and the most important obstacle is a shortage of train drivers.

My opinion: I think that for the consumer nothing will change. Because the competition is for the transport of cargo. But I think that it is not a good thing, “de NMBS” needs a lot of money to exist. So when there is more competition, they lose a lot of money.
Source: http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/942/Economie/article/detail/96884/2007/12/08/Veolia-Cargo-wordt-nieuwe-concurrent-NMBS.dhtml
(Bram)

The central banks join forces to deal with credit crisis

Five central banks launched a coordinated attempt to boost the liquidity in the financial markets, in the hope of avoiding a repeat of the credit crisis in the summer.

In a joint announcement this afternoon, the Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, and the Swiss National Bank said they were addressing "elevated pressures in short-term funding markets".

The plan sent the FTSE 100 index back into positive territory having earlier been down on the day. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened over two hundred points higher.

However, the celebrations appeared short-lived. Just ahead of the market's close in London, the FTSE 100 had moved back into negative territory, with a loss of a couple of points.

Concern has been growing in recent weeks that financial institutions are again unwilling to loan to each other.
By allowing commercial banks to borrow more money from them, the central banks are hoping to avoid a repeat of the Northern Rock crisis.

The Bank of England has agreed to allow commercial banks to borrow a total of £11.35bn through two auctions on December 18 and January 15 - £10bn will be available in loans repayable after three months.
The auctions are part of its usual long-term open market operations, but until today the Bank was only offering £2.85bn.

As usual all loans must be secured against a bank's assets, but on this occasion the Bank is relaxing its rules on securitisation. It will accept a wider range of securities, including bonds issued by G10 government agencies and sovereign funds.
The Federal Reserve said it would offer US banks up to $40bn (£19.5bn) through two auctions next week. It plans to hold two further auctions in January, but has not decided how much to offer.

It is also entering into foreign exchange swap agreements with the ECB and the Swiss central bank, to try to tackle the shortage of dollar funds in Europe.

I think it's a good thing that the central banks anticipate to avoid a new crisis. This pact is also good for the customers: they won't lose their money like they almost have at the Northern Rock crisis.

Source

Fight for a Christmas tree!

The shortage and price increases last time are certainly for the next four years!
The Christmas trees become about 10 percents more expensively this winter. Especially the more expensive “Nordmanspar”, which doesn’t lose his needles, become continuously scarcer.

The women of present want no ordinary spar more as a Christmas tree. It must be a silver blue Nordman, because that doesn’t lose his needles!

They have planted, however, massive of those Nordmans, but it lasts still five years before they are ready to sale.

The Ardennes are good for about five millions Christmas trees per year, of which 85 per cent remain there in Belgium. In former days existed that for 70 per cent from ordinary trees, and scarcely 20 per cent Nordmans. For this year Raymackers expect 65 per cent Nordmans, 15 per cent traditional trees and already 10 per cent Fraseri. The remaining types take together scarcely five per cent.

This year still turns out better than expected damage: a traditional Christmas tree of 2 meters with mound costs 7 euro and a Nordman 19.95 euro.

The shortage to Nordmans is not only a Belgian problem: rather what supplies northern countries, such as Denmark, traditionally a considerable part of Europe. But has been introduced there for ecological reasons cap restrictions, as a result of which there is there also a shortage. At the same time with those restrictions the question increases in Europe, because also the Eastern-European countries choose, such as Poland, for the Nordman trees.

Source

(Jonas)

Airbus may move production to US as euro soars

Airbus, the European plane maker, is considering plans to relocate production to a new plant in Alabama and other parts in the dollar zone because of the effects of the soaring euro.

As the euro rose marginally against the dollar to $1.46 - three cents off its all-time peak - Gallois called for a new G7 meeting devoted to the euro-dollar exchange rate because "there is a deep crisis in a number of industries solely due to the fact that the Americans are carrying out a policy that translates as the endless fall of the dollar."

Tom Enders, Airbus chief executive, said last month on a French radio that the dollar's weakness was "life-threatening" for the plane maker. EADS says that each 10 cent rise in the value of the dollar costs the group €1bn (£712m) in earnings.

EADS sources confirmed that Airbus could set up a new plant in low-cost Mobile, Alabama, in the southern US for the final assembly of civil aircraft - alongside the A330-based air-to-air refuelling plane for the US air force. "But a precondition would be that we win the tanker contract," they said.

EU finance chiefs, meanwhile, confirmed that the bloc faced economic slowdown because of financial turmoil caused by the US sub-prime crisis.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

British women still have lower-paid jobs through chilcare

British women are working in lower paid and lower status jobs than British men because they still have more responsibility for housework and childcare; That is the conclusion of a Cambridge University study.

The comprehensibility that women do the domestic duties, creates a vicious circle because then they are less able to work the long hours needed to win top jobs. They then earn less and are obliged to do household tasks.
The divide also leaves women with a longer working day, despite earning less, according to the study. The average working week for a woman in Europe is 68 hours, including paid and domestic work - for a man this is 55 hours in full-time employment.

Only if the lifestyle divide changes will women have equal opportunities in the world of work, say the researchers. "The working lifestyles of most people in Europe still are determined by gender," they say. "In many cases, we were surprised by how little the results for EU nations like Britain, Germany and France have changed since 1991." The best way to break the circle would be to assimilate gender inequality in employment and the household" . Encouraging men to do more in the household would be a step towards this target.

I think that every man has to do as much as his wife in the household, because women also deserve a change to make career.

Source

Colruyt is doing better than expected.

Colruyt has booked good results over the first half year of exercise 2007/2008. Better than they expected. They had bad market circumstances: it was a bad summer and there is more competition. But Colruyt held his results.The turnover (revenue) was 2.714,7 million Euro, this was also the expects of the analysts. The company profit was 197,3 million Euro, against an average expect of 186,5 million Euro. The net profit was 143,1 million Euro against the 132,1 million Euro the analysts had expect. All of this has a result of a profit/share of 4,36 Euro. And I think that is great for al the shareholders.

Despite of the circumstances this is a very good result. And because of this reason, the management of Colruyt raises the profit expectations with 2 million Euro. To achieve this 2 million Euro extra profit, Colruyt has invented a new extra-discount card and on the tickets they show the price comparison with the competition.

The activities in the retail made the best results of the whole group, an increase of the turnover with 6%. Colruyt is one of the biggest groups on the market, and they are still growing. In the 3th quarter of 2007 to 21,04%. There is only one problem coming. The increase of the food prices! Till march next year the price of some good will increase, but it will not be a big problem.
Source: http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_674297.html?wt.bron=hlnBottomArtikels
(Bram)

Belgian inflation doubled in two months almost!

The inflation in Belgium has again strongly increased in November. On an annual basis the inflation has been encouraged up to 2.94 percent, of 2.24 percent in October. The increase is blame especially to the higher prices for fuels.

It is the second successive month that inflation on an annual basis with 0.7 percent point increases. In September inflation 1.51 amounted to percent.

The strong increase of the inflation in November is especially the consequence of higher prices on engine fuels, gas and liquid fuels. Also milk, cheese and eggs, fresh vegetables and to a lesser degree bread and granen became more expensive. Lower pricing was noted down for foreign travel and holiday villages.

The remuneration lane in October with 1,34% compared with October 2006. Compared with the increase of the remuneration stand a increase of the index of the consumption price with 2,24% between October 2006 and October 2007. That means a reduction with 0,90%.
The general Executive Board statistics and economic information calculates 4 times per year an index concerning the development of the remuneration lane of the male workers as from 21 years.
The Belgian index for the consumption price for the month of November amounts to 108.10 points compared with 107.10 points in October.

Source

(Jonas)

Second break!

This is the second week you’ll have to do it without our vision of the European economy, on Monday December 3 of 2007 we will be back!