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Europe
Greek PM declares Sunday's elections a "referendum" on bailout and austerity;
Government approval ratings hit new low
The FT reports that Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has raised the stakes of this Sunday's local elections by declaring them a "referendum" on the €110bn bail-out package and accompanying austerity measures. Papandreou says he will call a snap general election in December if his Pasok party fails to win 13 key regional governors' posts. "I'm not bluffing," Mr Papandreou said in a newspaper interview. "The country is at risk if we adopt the opposition view and roll back the reform programme." The article notes that a recent opinion poll for Mega television showed the government's approval rating at 23%, its lowest to date, as austerity bites deeper.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Greek police warned today that more parcel bombs may be on their way to other EU leaders, following the discovery of packages sent to the German Chancellor and Italian Prime Minister. Greece has suspended overseas shipments of mail and packages for 48 hours, with Chancellor Merkel calling for the EU to agree common rules on air cargo security.
The WSJ reports that the cost of insuring Irish government debt against the risk of default set another record yesterday. In the Irish Independent, Emmet Oliver argues that Ireland should take the EU's lecturing on its finance with a "pinch of salt" since France and German "behaved shockingly when their own budget deficits breached the terms of the Stability and Growth Pact in 2003."
FT Telegraph Guardian Sueddeutsche Zeitung FAZ Welt Tagesspiegel Handelsblatt WSJ Irish Independent: Oliver
Richards: "Europe has ceased to be a toxic issue in British politics";
Spectator: Europe will explode unless Cameron acts "tough"
In the Independent, Steve Richards argues, "Europe has ceased to be a toxic issue in British politics and the detoxification will last". He continues: "In many ways the Euro-sceptics in Britain have won. During the mid-1990s they were demanding that Britain kept out of the single currency and pushed instead for a wider membership of the EU. Both demands are met."
However, the Spectator's leader looks at the increase to the EU budget and argues, "If Cameron wants to stop Europe exploding as an issue during his premiership, he should try acting tough."
The Times notes that the EU's Galileo satellite project's costs are spiralling, with spending of €554 million planned for 2011, when four more satellites go into orbit, a rise of 22.2% on the €453.5 million in this year's budget.
Eurozone sanctions under fire
Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt has criticised the proposals for sanctions for eurozone countries which run excessive budget deficits, warning that they will be difficult to use in practice. "We're concerned that this new system, which is difficult to implement in the first place, opens up for [the sanctions] not actually being used when it's needed", he said according to Swedish Radio. The leader of the Irish opposition party, Fine Gael, yesterday warned against any EU agreement on financial rules that could result in Ireland losing its voting rights, saying "I believe that would be catastrophic and it would have my outright opposition", reports the Irish Times.
Meanwhile, an opinion piece in Handelsblatt argues that the German government "should tread carefully, as an early start [for the permanent crisis mechanism] could determine domestic political debate",which would bring about "unwanted attention" that could eventually do more harm than good to the overall proposal, particularly for Greece and Portugal.
Swedish Radio Irish Times Handelsblatt
The Portuguese Parliament voted yesterday to approve a new budget and austerity plan for 2011. The vote came after Portuguese PM José Sócrates blamed an increase in government bond yields on "speculative movements", which he said had "no justification from an economic point of view", reports the FT.
Last night the House of Lords decided to send an objection to the Commission to oppose new EU regulations on a system for distributing food to deprived people. The move was made under new rights permitted by the Lisbon Treaty, allowing objections from national parliaments on the grounds of subsidiarity.
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In FT Deutschland, Ansgar Belke, Director for international macroeconomics at the DIW in Berlin, argues that the ECB is slowly becoming a 'bad bank', with its continuing loans to struggling eurozone countries Ireland and Portugal.
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New EU proposal to regulate nuclear waste
Energy Commissioner, Günther Oettinger, yesterday put forward a proposal for a directive on the removal of nuclear waste, reports El Pais. An opinion piece in Wirtschaftswoche criticises the move arguing decisions over nuclear energy and waste "should be taken by national parliaments in dialogue with citizens and not through backroom deals in the form of a European decree".
El Pais El Mundo Wirtschaftswoche Deutsche Welle
AFP reports that EU Commissioner Viviane Reding is proposing changes to internet legislation to increase data protection for users of sites like Facebook and Google street view.
Reuters reports that UK Financial Services Minister Mark Hoban has warned that the EU's readiness to go further in regulating bankers' pay and bonuses than the US and the Far East "risks creating an uneven playing field and perpetuating the mismatch between the risks and rewards for managers and traders on the one hand and shareholders' interests on the other."
About 200 specialists from Frontex, in its first emergency mission, have been deployed to guard Greece's border against illegal immigration, reports El Pais.
The EU is to propose stricter regulations in an attempt to make air-conditioning in cars more environmentally friendly by 2017.
De Standaard reports that the Flemish building sector and federation of architects have warned that EU rules on energy efficiency in buildings will impose very high costs on people building new houses.
Standaard
De Standaard reports that a Belgian employer's organisation has attacked plans by the European Parliament to extend maternity leave, warning that the Belgian system of paid leave is already unaffordable.
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