European leaders agreed on Friday to police thousands of eurozone banks beginning next year as they sought to create much-needed jobs in their austerity-battered economies.
By the close of a two-day summit, France and Germany had patched up differences over how to beat the debt crisis, with the new watchdog for 6,000 banks a key condition for allowing a dedicated rescue fund to re-float troubled lenders.
Leaders cited “significant progress” on a 120 billion euro (US$155 billion) package of measures to try to kickstart a climb out of recession as social and political unrest hits Spain as well as Greece.
However, the bank deal appeared to come too late for Spanish lenders, who need recapitalization to the tune of some 40 billion euros that Madrid had hoped would not be added to its public debt burden for fear of sparking new pressures on money markets.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters that direct recapitalization by the eurozone rescue fund could not be retroactive, that it “will only be possible for the future.”
Fellow hardliners the Netherlands and Finland adopted the same view when finance ministers from the three states met last month in Helsinki, seemingly reversing plans carefully laid down by the eurozone in June.
France is still pleading for the “Helsinki” trio to come round.
A top EU official speaking anonymously after the summit ended said Paris has concerns about spillover effects from Spain, and maintained Merkel’s remark came as “a surprise” as the 27 EU bloc leaders “did not settle this.”
This official said the Spanish bank bailout could benefit from some direct recapitalization later in the process, once the watchdog is up and running — supposed to be later next year.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy faces growing political problems with a general strike called for Nov. 14 and key elections in the autonomous Basque Country yesterday and independence-minded Catalonia next month.
Rajoy said the direct aspect of recapitalization was not an “urgent” issue for Spain, while talk of sovereign aid — expected to take the form of a credit line initially — also remains on the back-burner.
With market pressures considerably eased since the summer, the fresh commitment bird’s eye bank supervision led by the European Central Bank (ECB) is supposed to anchor a re-designed economic and monetary union.
Leaders are beginning to believe — after three years in full crisis mode — that the euro can be made more attractive to influential EU states still outside the currency bloc like Poland, one of the bloc’s strongest economies.
After an 11-hour session into the wee hours to reach the bank supervision deal, Merkel said it was about ensuring a “solid legal framework” as the ECB puts in place “hundreds” of staff.
The target date here is Jan. 1 next year, Merkel citing a need for “democratic legitimacy,” including a change to voting rights to assuage concerns in non-euro territories where eurozone banks operate, namely the global financial center of London.
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
‘SACRED MOUNTAIN’: The chipmaker can form joint ventures abroad, except in China, but like other firms, it needs government approval for large investments Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) needs government permission for any overseas joint ventures (JVs), but there are no restrictions on making the most advanced chips overseas other than for China, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. US media have said that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and a major supplier to companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp, has been in talks for a stake in Intel Corp. Neither company has confirmed the talks, but US President Donald Trump has accused Taiwan of taking away the US’ semiconductor business and said he wants the industry back
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
RSS