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Polish LOT to pick Boeing in $500 mln deal - source Tue Sep 6, 2005 5:25 PM IST WARSAW (Reuters) - Polish airline LOT will choose long-haul jets from Boeing over rival Airbus at a supervisory board meeting on Wednesday, a board source told Reuters. Industry sources have estimated the value of the tender to lease around six long-haul jets at $500 million or more. Boeing's 787 is competing with the Airbus A350 in the tender. "As far as I understand, and based on what board members have said, there will be a decision tomorrow, and it will be in...

Paris Olympics failure is a blow for Chirac Wed Jul 6, 2005 7:16 PM BST By Timothy Heritage PARIS (Reuters) - Paris's defeat by London in the race to host the 2012 Olympic Games was a bitter blow for French President Jacques Chirac that was all the more painful because he lost out again to his rival Tony Blair. Chirac badly needed a victory to lift his political fortunes after a French "No" vote on the European constitution that left him sorely wounded and a furore over comments attributed to him criticising British food. The prime minister not only emerged...

They used to uncork their best bottles for festivals on July 14, but French wine growers such as Bernard Farges have little to celebrate next week. Far from evoking the triumphant storming of the Bastille, the date makes him and other bordeaux vignerons queasy. “I feel sick to the heart,” said Farges, from Mauriac. The source of his melancholy is a European Union-funded process in which some of the quality red wine he produces will be distilled into undrinkable ethanol for use as factory fuel. The deadline for participating in the scheme is Bastille Day, a cruel irony. Farges has...

Nine years ago on a train I had a chance conversation with Tony Blair about Europe. He concluded: "The thing is, you have to get in there, be as constructive as possible, and they will come round to our way of thinking." I was astonished by this apparent naivety and replied: "I have seen this film before and I know the ending." I hope the UK prime minister will forgive me for breaking this confidence. But I want to say that I was wrong. His recent poisonous exchanges with Jacques Chirac may sound like previous British failed attempts at constructive...

The eurozone is sliding towards a Japanese-style "liquidity trap" and may have trouble holding monetary union together unless the EU authorities take prompt action, according to a report yesterday by HSBC. The bank warned that eurozone GDP growth was likely to "grind to a halt" as exports weaken in the second half. "The dangers of a liquidity trap are rising in the region," it said. "Germany is perilously close to deflation. We believe it is only a question of time before there are generalised price falls in the country. This will in turn raise more questions about the rules governing...

EU's 'Waterloo' summit angers press As one French paper invokes the Battle of Waterloo, Europe's press depict the summit as a battlefield for national interests - and many editorials condemn leaders for treating it as such. French papers are infuriated at the summit haggling, but elsewhere Tony Blair wins approval for raising questions of where Europe is headed. Europe has been left high and dry, with neither a plan nor a strategy. Blair is proposing to set a course for globalisation by speeding up the free-market process and the reform of its social model... reducing Brussels to the role...

BRUSSELS, June 18 - Something shattered in Europe Friday night. The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all. The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders in the face of rising popular opposition to the project called...

BRUSSELS, June 18 - Something shattered in Europe last night. The leaders of the 25 European Union nations went home after a failed two-day summit meeting in anger and in shame, as domestic politics and national interests defeated lofty notions of sacrifice and solidarity for the benefit of all. The battle over money and the shelving of the bloc's historic constitution, after the crushing no votes in France and the Netherlands, stripped away all pretense of an organization with a common vision and reflected the fears of many leaders as they face rising popular opposition to the project called Europe....

EU deeper in crisis after summit budget failure   swissinfo   June 18, 2005 1:05 PM   EU deeper in crisis after summit budget failure   By Mark John and John Chalmers BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union was plunged deeper into crisis on Saturday after its leaders failed to agree on a long-term budget, two weeks after French and Dutch voters rejected a proposed EU constitution. The summit breakdown threatens the enlarged 25-nation bloc with financial paralysis on top of the political uncertainty wrought by the double referendum defeats, unnerving financial markets and weakening the euro, the EU's single...

A more extensive listing can be found under our Keyword Database:  KEYWORDS: EU; EUROFREUDE; EUROPE; EUROPEANUNION; EUROPEDECLINE; ============================================ First, required background reading:   Review of “A Throne in Brussels” by Dr. Paul Belien -- an extremely readable book which should be paid attention to by the citizens of EU member states, and those wishing to understand how such a monstrosity came into being--  You can read the entire EWWW Constitution HERE If you really want to. It has over 400 articles...one of the most interesting is that the "EWWW" can take away your personal property if it is in the...

At a summit in Brussels, leaders have agreed to put the European Union’s proposed constitution on hold, but a deal on the EU's budget looks unlikely. Nor is much progress expected on the long-term challenges of economic reform and enlargement THE European Union has faced crisis before. The 1970s are widely considered a lost decade for European integration. In the 1990s, Danish voters rejected the Maastricht treaty. And Irish voters did the same with the Nice treaty in 2001. So while French and Dutch voters have recently delivered a stinging slap in the face for “ever closer union” between the...

Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business. Since French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed constitution of the European Union, we've heard countless theories as to why: the unreality of trying to forge 25 E.U. countries into a United States of Europe; fear of ceding excessive power to Brussels, the E.U. capital; and an irrational backlash against globalization. Whatever their truth, these theories miss a larger reality: Unless Europe reverses two trends — low birthrates and meager economic growth — it faces a bleak future of rising domestic discontent and falling global power. Actually, that future...

FRANCE's triumphant campaign against the European constitution is now turning its guns toward the single currency as the crisis in European politics continues to spread.Phillipe de Villiers, the nationalist MEP who spearheaded the referendum fight against the European constitution, is now calling for a popular vote on France's continued membership of the single currency. The French establishment remains united behind the euro, just as it did behind the constitution. But an opinion poll conducted by Ifop has suggested that the Elysee is out of touch with public sentiment, with 61 per cent of French voters saying they miss the franc....

France buries the EU constitution By David Rennie in Luxembourg (Filed: 14/06/2005) France performed a historic about-turn yesterday and abandoned the European Union constitution to its fate, dropping demands that other nations ratify the treaty. The unexpected move appeared to seal the constitution's doom, even if its most passionate supporters still refuse to accept its demise for several months more. Days before a crisis EU summit, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French foreign minister, simply waived Paris's insistence that the treaty still be put to the vote, country by country. Philippe Douste-Blazy "Our humble and modest position says we simply respect the...

The basic laws of economic gravity are so idiotically denied in Europe. One of the more hilarious calls made during this week's Ba'ath Party convention in Damascus was to permit the restructuring of ailing state firms, but without firing anyone. Faced with such economic alchemy, one wonders where else in this day and age anyone in his right mind still thinks that basic laws of economic gravity could be so idiotically denied. Well, such a place does exist, and it's called Europe. The morning after the effective demise of the United States of Europe vision, it is clear that the...

Nobody should be surprised that Europe’s politicians are in denial after their referendum defeats. Politicians are usually slow to understand truly historic events, especially when they involve economics. Remember John Major after Black Wednesday: Britain had not been ejected but “temporarily suspended” from the ERM? Politicians often behave like bad actors who find it impossibly difficult to deviate from their prepared and rehearsed scripts, even when the theatre is on fire. Anyway, why should we care what Europe’s leaders are thinking? After all, Gerhard Schröder and Jacques Chirac are finished and so, presumably, is their concept of Europe. This may...

Decadent Europe The EU crisis can be read as evidence of a declining civilisation. Let's stop neocons gloating Timothy Garton Ash Thursday June 9, 2005 Guardian Contemplating the European Crisis (I think a capital C is called for) I find myself driven even to reading Toynbee. Not Polly Toynbee of the Guardian, whose work I always follow with the greatest pleasure, but her long-dead and largely forgotten ancestor, Arnold Toynbee, the philosophical historian of the rise and fall of civilisations. For one plausible long-term interpretation of the chaotic reaction in Europe since the French non of May 29 is that...

Officials are already implementing parts of the constitution before it has been approvedTHE European constitution may have been rejected by France and the Netherlands, and been put on ice by Britain, but in Brussels the work of implementing it is forging ahead. European officials started working on many of the constitution’s innovations as soon as it was written, insisting that they should not wait until it was ratified. In some cases the work has no legal basis and is dubbed preparatory; in others, a special legal basis has been developed so that policies could be specially implemented even before the...

After years of losing market share to its European rival, Boeing is now quickly making up ground. Its new Dreamliner looks to be a hit and Airbus seems to prefer squabbling to strategizing. Delays in manufacturing their super-jumbo A380 could turn the prestige project into the company's biggest-ever flop. June 14, 2005 could have been a big day for Gustav Humbert, 55. The affable native of the German state of Lower Saxony had intended to make his first public appearance as the new CEO of Airbus at the upcoming Paris Air Show, the Aerosalon, at Le Bourget Airport near Paris....

Lucca, Italy – Don't let the dateline fool you. I'm not on holiday. On Wednesday, Dutch voters finished off the unwieldy and absurd EU constitution. That afternoon I got a hasty phone call from the organizers of a conference here in Tuscany. I had just published an article arguing that the defeat of the constitution was in fact a good thing for both Europeans and Americans — could I please fly over the next day to repeat the message to a roomful of anxious Italian politicians and journalists? "Don't panic" is not a very complicated message, but it's one that...