Take a break!

This week you have to do it without our vision of the Europian economy, on Monday 5 November 2007 we will be back!

Microsoft caves in to European commission

Microsoft goes agreed with a fine off 497 million euro after 3 year.

Microsoft received the fine after the European commission had discovered that Microsoft accepted swingeing price cuts for interoperability information that would enable rival servers to work smoothly with its Windows operating system.

In the past three years Microsoft received a total of 777.5 million euro plus interest of fines.

Microsoft now hopes that Ms Kroes will not levy further fines for its failure to comply with the 2004 ruling from December 2005 until today. Last week it said in an SEC filing in New York that it was potentially liable to penalties of $1.6bn up to the end of June alone.

Neelie Kroes, EU competition commissioner, said that she hopes that the nine year during battle against the European commission and Microsoft can become to an end and that they can go on in an absolutely close and constructive way.

Agreements that Microsoft strikes with rival developers will be enforceable in London's high court, seen as the premier European court for handling high-profile IPR and international contract cases.

The commission, meanwhile, extended its deadline for its inquiry into Google's $1.5bn purchase of internet advertising broker DoubleClick.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

Is the production of biofuel a crime against humanity?

Jean Ziegler, an independant expert of the United Nations says that the production of biofuel is a crime against humanity. He says that the transmutation aliment growth has as effect that their is famine of food, wich raise the price and that has as effect that millions of poor people can't afford it anymore.

Ziegler wants a five year lasting mortuary of the production of biofuel to abduce a disaster foor poor people. He says that the scientific research makes progression, and that infive years it will be possible to make biofuel with agricultural garbage.

The use of biofuel is seen as a step to decrease the CO2-emmission. The US and Brazil have made a pact in march 2007 to raise the production of Ethanol. That would be good for the employment and to decrease the antics of the oilmarket.
That pact has as effect that the price of wheat has doubled, and the price of maize also has been raised.

I think that if it is true that in five years it will be possible that there can be made biofuel out of agriculteral garbage, the world has to do what Ziegler propose, cause it will be better for the poor people.

Source

1 on 7 persons in Belgium is poor!

The poverty line for a person alone is a loan of less than 822 euro/month. And the poverty line for a family (2 grownups and 2 children) is a loan of less than 1762 euro/month. This is not much. According to the numbers of the FOD Economy almost 15% of the Belgium population lives under the poverty line. This is to much, especially for a country with so much wealth. It are especially women, children under the age of 16 and older persons who live under this circumstances.
The most of these persons are also not active on the labour market.
How can they survive? The most Belgians living under the poverty line spend 40% less than the others. They save al lot of money because they travel less (they do not go on vacation). Maybe the can not afford a car, so the save also money on private transportation.

Strange is, that they also save on health and food. I thought that food and health were some basic needs, but these peoples spend more on tobacco.
This is a strange phenomenon. More than half of the persons who live under the poverty line lives in a rent-house. Their house is in most of the cases too small.

Poverty is phenomenon that is passed on from generation to generation.
My opinion: I had no idea that so many Belgians under the poverty line live. Because we have a good social system and the OCMW’s. But apparently there are still persons who need help.

Source
(Bram)

A quarter less CO2!

Like we all know, we must all try to reduce the CO2-emission , and not only we, but much more important is that all the big companies would do something about that!

Inbev, a brew-company, has succeeded to decrease the energy use in the company and also to reduce CO2-emission since 2003 with more than one quarter.
This all mean that the InBev-group stands on the top of companies and their emission.

- They use al not of innovating installations such as:
- The new water purification station
- The renewing of the steam turbine for the production of own electricity
- The energy usage decreased by regular audits and saving programmes
- There is stoked with ground energy
- The also bought a machine to suck the substance from the malt flour-milling

All this things are due the reason for the fall of co2-emission.
But that’s not all, there are a lot of other measures such as:

Detritus recycle:
InBev succeed to recycle 99 per cent of its cousin products. The brewery makes good agreements with agriculture and animal feeding world for the sale of trot, leaven and finally the silt from the water purification station.

Less water:
The water usage has decreased the last 3 years with 17 per cent by an investment in a cleaning system and the reuse of water.

Criteria Since 2005 is that InBev its breweries have applied a management system that an incorporated treatment includes of the requirements on operational, financial, quality, security, health and environment.

I think this is a very good start to reduce the CO2-emission and the Inbev-company can be a good criterion for all other companies!
Source
(Jonas)

S&N plotting Russia sale to derail bid

Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s biggest brewer is planning to thwart Dutch and Danish rivals by refusing a takeover bid from £7,5 billon off Hartwall. Hartwall is the Finnish holding company behind its most valuable asset.

Heineken and Carlsberg who makes the following beers: Foster’s, John Smith’s and Kronenbourg, surprised last week S&N when they announced that they would takeover S&N and split the British brewer between them.

S&N’s board want to defeat the plan by selling 50% of the shares from BBH, its Russian beer business. With the selling of those shares S&N will receive £2,5 billion .

The other 50% shares of BBH are in hands of Carlsberg and they are keen to buy the other half. There will be a complex arrangement with Carlsberg.

According to the analysts a way to unlock the value in BBH is the key to S&N’s survival.

There are also other brewers who are interested such as Anheuser Busch, SAB Miller, the Spanish drinks giant Mahou San Miguel, which has a distribution deal with S&N in Brittain.

However, nobody will make a move until the Carlsberg-led bid is tabled. This is expected within 10 days.

Analysts put the value of BBH at £4.8 billion.

S&N would receive above 800 pound per share for BBH to have any chance of success.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

The biggest airplane of the World, the A380

Airbus, the European airplane constructor has delivered the biggest airplane of the history. On Monday the 15th of October they finished the first plane. It is Singapore Airlines that receives the worlds first A380, but this with 18 months delay.

This makes an end to all the disappointment of the delay. But it comes in a period where the mother company EADS is suspected of fraud. The delay did also decrease the rate of the shares.

The first commercial flight is not for this week, it will be on the 25th of October, with destination Sydney in Australia. But people who want to see the airplane have tomorrow the chance. Then leaves the A380 France with destination Singapore.

But it wasn’t al good, the delay came because of technologic problems.
The target of Airbus is to take over the first place of Boeing. The A380 is the rival of the Boeing 747.
The Boeing 747 was long the only plane that could transport 450 passengers. But now the A380 of Airbus can transport standard 525 passengers.

At the moment Airbus has 189 sales agreements, especially from Asia and Europe. But cause of the delay, Airbus lost millions of dollars. So in stead of 270, they have to sell 420 planes.

My opinion about this: This is good for the economy of Europe. Now Airbus can compete again with Boeing. But there was also bad news, the delay cost Airbus a lot of money. So it will be difficult to sell 420 types of A380.

Source

(Bram)

One corporate road Vignette in the BeNeLux?

The Dutch government is patron for a corporate road vignette in the whole BeNeLux. Ger Koopmans, a member of parliament, thinks that Camiel Eurlings, the minister of traffic in the Netherlands, must start a deliberation with his colleagues from Belgium and Luxemburg. The Flemish government had that idea some time ago, but let it go by the objection from the Dutch government.

Ger Koopmans thinks that it will be better for the countries that they deliberate about one road vignette, he thinks that would be better for the economic competition with other countries. He thinks that it would be bad for the economic position, when we would have an overlap of payment systems.

But the Flemish Government have already the idea of a road vignette as in Germany, which can be a problem in the negotiations about the corporate road vignette.

Another problem can be that in Belgium, they want a vignette for motor-trucks only, while in The Netherlands, they want a vignette for all motor vehicles.

This shows that there is still a lot of work before there will be a corporate road vignette, if there will be one ever. The idea is already there, now they have to start the negotations.

I think that it is a good idea for a corporate road vignette: it would be much easier for the inhabitants of the Benelux and the foreign people would have to pay for the use of our roads, like we already have to do in some countries,like par example France.

Source

The European markets score!

News from Belgium:
The Bel 20 wins 0.4 per cent on 4,472.13 points! 13 shares go higher and only 6 shares go lower. The largest profit in terms of percentage is for Agfa-Gevaert.
The share has had it bad since the end of July, but now it seems to pick up again. Agfa-Gevaert increase 3 per cent up to 13.95 euro.

The oil prices:
The price for a barrel harsh Brent-oil falls for the third day and stands now on 76.11 dollar.

The euro:
A euro is now 1.4035 dollar worth.

The Banks:
The financials Dexia and Fortis make the figures Brussels really beautiful.
Dexia increase 1 per cent up to 23 euro and Fortis increase 0.4 per cent up to 22.60 euro.

Fortis has now also confessed that the Fortis-consortium has 86 percent of ABN AMRO in hands. The shareholders of the Dutch bank have massively discussed the take-over bid of the three banks. If everything goes well Fortis can pick up more than 13 billion euro at its own shareholders.
KBC, the third financial heavyweight in Brussels, note 0.2 per cent higher on 99.68 euro.
Bank Degroof have raised up their aim-rate from 70 to 76 euro.

The Aviation:
Alitalia has raised up 3 per cent, up to 0.84 euro.
The Italian airline company will resume adoption negotiations with air France-KLM, Lufthansa, TPG and three other parties.

And this are only some examples of all the things that happened last time on the European markets, and I think we can conclude that the EU is doing very well!

(all these figures could be changes when you will read this post, that how the rates go)

Source
(Jonas)

Turkey fears send oil to record high

The crude oil prices are peaking after concerns that Turkey may soon launch an invasion against northern Iraq in an attempt to hit Turkish militants it accuses of attacking Turkish targets.

Such an attack could destabilize the Kurdistan region, the only relatively peaceful area in Iraq.

Rapidly declining oil inventories in developed countries ahead of the northern hemisphere winter also helped push the price higher.

The previous record for a barrel oil was $83.90 and yesterday the price peaked to $84.05 a barrel. It closed at $83.71 a barrel, up 63 cents on the day.

Iraq pumped about 2.18m barrels a day of crude oil in September, up 190,000 b/d from August.

Turkey is a key route for a crude oil pipeline from the Caspian sea that is forecast to carry about 500,000 b/d of oil by the end of 2007.

The watchdog has asked the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to boost its supplies to build up inventories. Crude oil and products inventories usually increase in the third quarter, ahead of the winter, but so far they have fallen by 360,000 barrels a day.

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

Our Podcast!

We present you:

Our first Podcast!

http://rapidshare.com/files/62257352/Final_Podcast.wav

For people who are not that technological-minded:

click on the URL
Scroll down and click on "free"
and then you must show that you are valid user!

The growth in the technological industry is going down.

The car industry in Belgium is at a loose end. Early this year there were some restructurings by VW Vorst. A cause of this, the technologic growth was only 1.9%. If there were no restructurings the growth would have been 7%. The numbers come from Agoria, this is the federation of the technological industry.

But it is not all negative. There are also some sectors who did grow. One of the biggest is the electro industry. It has a growth of 7.1%. The employment was the same, but the car industry had al loss of 7.5%. A cause of this, the technological industry lost 1.1%.

The shortage of personnel slows down the growth of the company’s. So when nothing changes, there will be no growth anymore.

Why did it stopped? According to Agoria, the reason is the low dollar price and the low expectations in the construction sector.
A solution would be: more investments, those would involve into more constructions.

My opinion about this:
Maybe the government in Belgium can make some special proposals towards the industry. They can lower the taxes, so the company’s won’t leave Belgium. Now all those company’s restart their production in the East. There is the cost for personnel lower.
Another solution would be more subsidies. With those subsidies, the company’s could invest in a better production.

Source

(Bram)

Aldi will be more expensive

Aldi has already raised their prices of almost half their products in Germany, and now they have pronounces that also in the Netherlands they will raise their prices.
The reasons are always the same: high energy prices and a raise of the prices from cereals, milk and oils. Because these raw materials are used in a lot of products, are there a lot of products which prices will increase.

Also Colruyt thinks that they won’t escape to a rise of the price level but they say that they
will hold to their generalship of lowest prices.

Some suppliers have to declaim there contracts, because of the amount of the price rise. Another problem is that the price of fungible goods will raise because their is more demand, par example rice and cereals.

Professor Gino Van Ossel thinks that Aldi makes a large price adjustment, because it has a lot of basic product in their assortment. He think’s that is the reason why the expensive raw materials have such an impact on the prices of Aldi.

But Van Ossel thinks that the price rise will have some delay, because of the concurrential situation in Belgium. Colruyt namely shows clearly their price advantage against other supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl. But he also knows that Belgium will also suffer of the high prices of raw materials: “it’s not allowed to sell with loss, the expensive raw materials are to important to be ignored” he says.

I think it’s normal that the supermarket will raise their prices because of the expensive raw materials. Professor Van Ossel explains it correct: you can’t sell with loss, so ypu have to raise your prices. The only thing we can do as customer is hoping that the price of raw materials will descend again, so the supermarkets can drop their prices.

Source: http://www.nieuwsblad.be/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleID=A51IGL39

Your savings suddenly disappeared?!

There were 23 fraud cases in 2007!

In Brussels the accounts of about fifteen Belgians with an internet account at Argenta, Dexia and KBC were plundered this year by hackers of the Russian mafia. But the banks have already did something to stop this.

In the course of spring some customers have communicated that their bank account was dismantled. The hackers have provided their selves access to the internet account of the customers.

The central systems of the banks were not cracked. The hackers obtained therefore possibly to the data of the customers of their Personal Computer.

Judicial research must identify now the accused ones of this new fraud!

The Russian mafia has to the technique in house to commit hacking.

At the beginning of this year hundreds of customers of the Swedish bank Nordea were the victim of computer fraud. That happened thanks to e-mails. They have stolen more than € 870,000 of the personal bank accounts of that people.

But thank God the touched customers were already compensated by their banks.

What is mostly strange is that Belgium stands on the top concerning security for banking on the internet and it is in Belgium that this has happened.

After this case that three important Belgian banks have taken more security measures. They think it was because some people don’t have a Digipass!

But now is the question:
Is electronically paying really safe enough?
The answer is that it is safe but the number of operations where something went wrong, amounts to one on ten millions, that is not much, but I hope I will never be the victim of that type of fraud, because I also use the internet banking-service of the banks!

Source

New member states EU have a boosting economy.

The prosperity in the new member states of the EU raises a lot faster then in the "richer" western Europe. But between the "old" member statese are also high differences.

For example in Latvia increased the income by inhabitant with 85 per cent between 1995 and 2004. Estonia and Lithuania have almost the same effect.

In Belgium was the increase in the same period a lot less, "only" 20 per cent, and in Germany it was even less then 10 per cent.

Economists from 8 European countries lanalysed the exploits of the EU member states, and looked for declarations for the high differences. They determined that the new member states from central Europe had already an increase before they entered the EU. From the new member states have Malta and Cyprus the slowest increase.

In the older member states are there coutriens who have a boosting Economy like Great Brittain, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. The reason for the boosting economy is a lot of investments in the information technologie, which increased the ICT-capital.

Other countries like Spain and Greece hav a boosting econmy because there was an increase of the labourer market.

France and Germany have a rather less growing economy, because they have a reduced labour market.

I think that it's good that the new member states have a boosting economy, because al member states of the European Union will have an advantage of boosting European Economy.

Source: tijd.be

Insider dealing scandal threatens Airbus

There is a suspect that twenty-one senior executives from Airbus and two large corporate shareholders sold their shares with inside information.

The transactions were reported as “strange, massive and simultaneous”. The shares were sold last year just before the plane-maker announced a huge delay for the A380 and that are the super-jumbo’s.

A preliminary report has been forwarded to a judge by the French financial markets. That judge is investigating possible charges of “insider trading” against those who unloaded their shares.

The Largardère company and DaimlerChrysler each sold 7,5 percent. M. Lagardère is one of France's wealthiest men and a close friend of President Nicolas Sarkozy. DaimlerChrysler is one of the largest shareholders of Airbus.

The previous December the French government was tipped off about the problems.

A day after Airbus announced that their were technical problems with the A380, the share price fell 26,8 percent. There is a report that says that 1200 individuals could have inside knowledge of the problems at Airbus. And they dumped 10 million shares before the official announcement. The profit from this inside information is estimated at 90 million euro.

Everybody who is involved with the situation denied that they used illegal inside knowledge.

A video showing the takeoff and landing of this new master peice by Airbus. The largest airliner the world has ever seen. Source

Source

(Tom Van thienen)

2010 the start of more competition into Europe's rail networks

Finally the European lawmakers gave their blessings to reform the Europe rail networks. In 2010, the passengers will have more choice and the train societies will do their best to be on time. Because, when the trains aren’t on time, the rail networks have to pay the customers a compensation.

When a train has a delay of 60 minutes or more, the passengers receive 25% of their fare. When a train has a delay of 120 minutes or more, the passengers receive 50% of their fare. This sound good but you only receive the compensation when the rail network can be held responsible for the delay.

Starting from 2010, new competitors are welcome on the railroad market. This leads to a bigger choice for the passengers, but will the new competitors be able to guarantee the safety? Not every land of the EU is happy about this new law.
The meaning of al this, is to promote the railroad. So it become a more popular way of transport.
Conclusion, it is positive for the passengers that they have more choice. Maybe the price will decrease. But if they can’t guarantee the safety it isn’t positive.
Source

(Bram)

Hugh labour shortage in the ex-communist EU states!

The 10 ex-communist states of the European Union were hit by massive unemployment.

I’m talking about these eight ex-communist countries: the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.

At the beginning of the year 2007 Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, and that brings us to al membership of 27 countries.

2 decades ago they shifted to a market economy, and there were a lot of people looking for jobs, but there were no jobs… and now they are extremely unemployed.
In the past 2 years, in some of that countries the rate of vacant jobs has more than doubled.

The domestic shortfall in skilled workers has been amplified due to the emigration to other EU member states (Britain and Ireland).

A few little solutions:

They must do something about the early retirement, their median retirement age is 57, eight years less than in Belgium.
There was also urged to increase the investment in education, and also in “in-service training” for workers, in order to help reduce the skill shortages which are needed the most!
They also must open their markets to foreign workers. They must find a balance between the labour market needs and the employing of migrant workers!

Source

(Jonas)