This story about the Eurozone financial crisis was originally published on 11th January 2010 by EurActiv.

The European Central Bank threw Portugal a temporary lifeline yesterday (10 January) by buying up its bonds, as market and peer pressure mounted on Lisbon to seek an international bailout soon. But analysts said that in the euro zone’s simmering debt crisis, the Battle of Spain would likely prove decisive in 2011.A senior eurozone source said on Sunday that Germany, France and other eurozone countries were pushing Portugal to seek an EU-IMF assistance programme, following Greece and Ireland, to prevent contagion spreading to much larger Spain, the fourth biggest economy in the euro area.

The eurozone source said Lisbon would need between 50 billion and 100 billion euros in loans, similar to Ireland, which accepted an 80 billion euro EU-IMF rescue in December after a banking crisis caused by a burst real-estate bubble lumbered the state with huge liabilities.

Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates said last Friday his country had no need of outside assistance because it was ahead of schedule in reducing its budget deficit.

Socrates, who heads a minority socialist government, is stubbornly avoiding a bailout, mindful of the traumatic history of Portugal’s two International Monetary Fund rescues since its return to democracy in 1974.

The memory of the IMF’s involvement, in 1977 and in 1983, is so etched on the Portuguese psyche that the country’s media is not even mentioning that it would primarily be the European Union that would finance any bailout this time.

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This story about French opposition to Hungary’s media law was originally published on 5th January 2010 by EurActiv.

France said yesterday (4 January) that a new media law passed by Hungary, which took up the EU’s rotating presidency on 1 January, violated EU laws on press freedom, and called on other members of the bloc to take action against it.

French government spokesman and Budget Minister François Baroin told France Inter radio the law was “incompatible with the application of ideas on press freedom that have been validated in European treaties”.

Several EU members have criticised Hungary over the law, which calls for a new media authority, dominated by appointees of the ruling Fidesz party, to oversee all public news production. It can also levy big fines on private media, which are required to be “balanced”.

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This story about press freedom in Hungary in the EU was originally published on 23rd December 2010 by EurActiv.

The European Commission took a cautious stance Wednesday (22 December) over a controversial “media constitution” in Hungary that has been heavily criticised for restricting press freedom in the country taking up the EU’s rotating six-month presidency. EurActiv.hu contributed reporting from Budapest.

The Commission’s “wait and see” attitude came in sharp contrast to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which issued a strong statement on the controversial media law.

The Hungarian ruling centre-right party Fidesz, using its parliamentary supermajority, has enacted two bills and a constitutional amendment on Tuesday (21 December) that will tighten the government’s grip on the media.

The ruling party calls the changes the country’s “new media constitution”.

The new laws impose a strict supervisory regime on all print, broadcasted and online media, including “online media abroad that has been located in another country in order to circumvent stricter regulation in Hungary”.

Since it won the lections in April, Fidesz has amended the country’s constitution ten times.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn criticised the law, saying it would put Hungary in a similar boat as the authoritarian regime in Belarus.

“It’s a direct danger for democracy,” Asselborn said in a telephone interview with Reuters. “The state will control opinion.”

“Until now [Alexander] Lukashenko was considered to be the last dictator in Europe. When the law takes effect, that won’t be the case any more,” he added.

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This story about starting a business in the EU was originally published on 22nd December 2010 by EurActiv.

The European Union adopted the Small Business Act in 2008, with the intention of making it easier to start and run a business. Two years on, the EurActiv network takes a look at the achievements and challenges ahead.

Starting her own online art gallery in London this year took Gina Cross about a week and cost £70 (€82), about the average for entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom.

Likewise, in Bulgaria, France and Ireland, registering a new business costs less than €100 and takes less than a week.

“It’s quite easy,” said Cross, founder of A Little Bit of Art, a small company which sells printed artworks.

But in Poland and Spain, entrepreneurs still wait about a month for their initial paperwork to be approved. In Italy, Luxembourg, Greece and the Netherlands, the process is faster but expensive – more than €1,000.

That discrepancy highlights the challenges facing efforts in the European Union to jumpstart the economy. When it comes to economic initiatives the EU has no powers to enact rules with teeth. They host meetings, promote programmes and share best practices, but at the end of the day their recommendations are only as strong as the political will to enact changes at the national and regional level.

“Certain member states moved on certain elements, but not all […] There’s definitely space to push further. We’re very much aware of that,” said Marko Curavi?, head of unit for entrepreneurship in the European Commission.

Four years ago, leaders from all 27 member states set a 2007 deadline for their own countries to create one-stop-shops for setting up a company quickly – ideally within a week. Start up fees, the European Council concluded, should be as low as possible, and hiring the first employee shouldn’t involve more than one public administration point.

Clearly many countries are years behind schedule.

But why does that matter?

Small and medium-size businesses create 80% of new jobs in Europe. That means entrepreneurs and small and medium businesses will play a critical role as Europe recovers from the economic and financial crisis. So anything that hinders new businesses hinders growth.

This is especially important now because while the unemployment rate in the EU averages around 10%, and it’s double that for job seekers under the age of 25, according to research published last week by the Organisation for Economic Coordination and Development. The highest youth unemployment rate was in Spain, followed by Ireland, Slovakia and Greece. Only Germany posted a slight decrease.

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This story about Hungary’s energy summit was published on 14th December 2010 by EurActiv.

Hungary plans to concentrate on the big picture of EU energy policy as it takes on the EU’s rotating presidency in January. Energy will feature prominently at the new presidency’s first EU summit on 4 February.

At the February summit, EU heads of state and government are to discuss the functioning of the European energy market.

Issues on the table will include energy infrastructure, promoting innovative energy technologies and coordinating the EU’s energy policy towards third countries.

The meeting, which has already been dubbed an ‘Energy Summit’, will also include innovation aspects as concerns mount in Europe over growing competition from China on clean energy. Any urgent items could be added later on.

Defining strategies

Energy will also keep the Hungarian Presidency busy earlier in the year as it wants EU energy ministers to adopt joint conclusions on two major strategic documents when they meet on 28 February.

These are the EU’s ‘Energy 2020′ strategy, which sets energy priorities for the next decade, and its energy infrastructure priorities for 2020 and beyond. Both were presented by the European Commission in November, and Hungary plans to kickstart discussions among member states in January in order to endorse the priorities in February.

Another important strategy-setting document that Hungary will drive forward is the EU’s updated Energy Efficiency Action Plan, which the Commission will present in early March. The presidency hopes to endorse its recommendations at the second formal meeting of energy ministers in June.

The flow of medium-term strategies will be complemented with the start of discussions on the EU’s 2050 energy roadmap.

The Commission is not expected to publish the document until autumn 2011, but the Hungarian Presidency intends to collect input from member states to channel it into the drafting process. This will be done at an informal ministerial meeting in Budapest on 2-3 May, where ministers are scheduled to debate a technical paper on various energy demand scenarios.

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This story about pension reforms was published on 14th December 2010 by EurActiv.

The European Commission confirmed yesterday (13 December) it had reached an agreement with Poland on giving countries that have reformed their pension systems more leeway over fiscal policy. In the meantime, the parliament in Budapest voted to effectively dismantle pension reform. The issue will be on the agenda of EU leaders at their 16-17 December summit.

The European Union’s executive arm gave few details about the deal, which emerged on Friday, saying it needed unanimous backing from the EU’s 27 finance ministers.

The Commission said that when assessing whether a country should face EU budget discipline steps, the EU executive would take into account whether the state had carried out pension reform.

“The assessment would be carried out on a case-by-case basis. It will take into account whether the [budget] deficit is justified by systemic pension reform,” Commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj told a regular news briefing.

Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk clinched the deal by telephone late on Friday. Barroso will send a letter to Tusk with details on Monday or early on Tuesday.

Polish officials have said the agreement would allow Poland to have a budget deficit of up to 4.5% of economic output, 1.5 points more than the official ceiling, without facing the EU’s disciplinary steps.

Altafaj would not confirm the figure and said that to count on leniency, a country’s public debt must be below 60% of gross domestic product.

As part of its reform from late 1990s, Poland is transferring sums worth up 2.5% of GDP annually to private pension funds which invest them in securities, mainly Polish treasury bonds.

EU disciplinary steps could in principle lead to fines for eurozone members and freezing some EU aid for other countries of the bloc.

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This story about a potential harmonised fiscal policy was published by EurActiv on 13th December 2010.

As European Union leaders meet in Brussels this week to create a lasting lending facility for indebted countries, France and Germany have surprised observers by stating their openness to discussing whether countries that share the euro currency should harmonise fiscal policy.

Berlin has opposed calls by Spain and others to move towards a full-fledged ‘fiscal union’ in the euro zone, arguing that tax and employment policies should remain fully decided at the national level.

However, it appeared last week to have agreed to a limited form of policy coordination between the 16 nations that share the euro currency.

Germany and France pledged on Friday (10 December) to better align their tax and labour policies to foster convergence in the euro zone, although little detail was offered.

“We have agreed to the convergence of German and French tax policies and I thank the German chancellor for this opening,” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in the southwestern city of Freiburg.

“We are talking about labour law, about tax law and if we are to improve the coherence of the economic aspects of the euro zone, then we should target these issues step by step and propose solutions,” added Merkel.

The two leaders said they would present “structural” proposals next year in the area of economic coordination, but declined to elaborate.

However, Merkel and Sarkozy rejected calls to increase the bloc’s rescue fund and dismissed suggestions to issue joint sovereign bonds in the euro zone as a way of reducing borrowing costs of indebted nations.

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This story about Nabucco’s battle for Azeri gas supplies was published on 10th December 2010.

Pressure is growing on the Nabucco consortium to reveal its hand over its tender for Azeri gas. The winner, to be announced in April, will be the master of Europe’s Southern Gas Corridor, designed to bring gas from sources other than Russia.

Azerbaijan, a key potential supplier country for the Nabucco project, heaped pressure on the pipeline consortium to reveal its intentions, or recognise its alleged weaknesses.

Elshad Nasirov, the country’s top negotiator for a tender to access ten billion cubic metres (bcm) of Azeri gas from the Shah Deniz II field, said that two Nabucco competitors, namely the Turkey-Greece-Italy Interconnector (ITGI) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), would “turn out to be more attractive”.

“We are not going to pay for the empty capacity of Nabucco,” said Nasirov in a much-noticed interview, published by the European Energy Review.

Nasirov was referring to the fact that Nabucco has a designed capacity of 31 bcm, while for the time being, no gas is available to fill the pipeline – except for the 10 bcm at Shah Deniz.

“We do not promise additional gas. Everything depends on the price,” Nasirov said, adding that Azerbaijan would not put “all its eggs in one basket” and hinting that the 10 bcm could be sold to more than one bidder.

“We tell Nabucco: quote your tariff’,” Nasirov said, adding that he was waiting for “a serious proposal from Nabucco” in order to compare it with other proposals. But he made plain that in his view, Nabucco was “still uncertain” without a second source of gas.

A similar message came on Wednesday (8 December) from Umberto Quadrino, CEO of Edison, the Italian energy company promoting ITGI.

“Nabucco doesn’t justify investment for a pipeline with a capacity of 30 bcm,” he said.

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This story about inconclusive Euro talks was published on 8th December 2010.

The head of the IMF criticised the EU’s piecemeal approach to rescuing the euro currency from contagion as ministerial talks in Brussels yesterday (7 December) gave no succour to countries with worsening sovereign debt problems.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn failed to persuade finance ministers from the 16-nation single currency area on Monday to increase the size of their 750bn financial safety net or the European Central Bank to step up government bond purchases.

“The euro zone has to provide a comprehensive solution to this problem. The piecemeal approach is not a good one,” Strauss-Kahn said.

Yesterday’s ministerial talks on buffeting the euro zone against a worsening sovereign debt crisis will spill into tomorrow and next week, as countries prepare a summit to rescue the euro.

Today diplomats from the 27-member states are meeting to take stock of yesterday’s talks to rescue the euro and pave the way for discussions next week on a permanent EU loan facility to be up and running by 2013.

In the wake of more possible EU bailouts in Portugal and Spain, EU leaders will be meeting in Brussels again on 16 and 17 December to lay down plans for an EU loan facility to set in stone bailouts such as the ones that were granted to Greece and Ireland.

Yesterday’s meeting also saw a revival of discussions on eurobonds after the head of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti called on leaders to introduce common bonds to shield the troubled currency from speculators

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