France and Germany, Europe's two central powers, have stepped up their war of words over whether the European Central Bank should intervene more forcefully to halt the euro zone's debt crisis after modest bond purchases failed to calm markets. Facing rising borrowing costs as its 'AAA' credit rating comes under threat, France urged stronger ECB
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Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos's crisis coalition cleared its first hurdle on Wednesday night by winning a vote of confidence, but faces a Herculean task keeping fractious parties behind painful reforms needed to avert national bankruptcy. The 300-member parliament endorsed by 255 votes of a national unity government that unites bitter rivals from the Socialist
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October was another good month for tourism with total arrivals rising by 7.5% compared with the year earlier to 259,863 in October 2011 compared with 241,698 in October 2010. Arrivals from Russia continued to bound ahead, rising by 45.8% over the year earlier to 32,995, from 22,637 in October, 2010. This was on top of
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* Noble says 3-9 Tcf, not “more than 10 tcf” * Block 12 may not hold as much natural gas deposits as some led us to believe, with Noble Energy’s initial estimates at a disappointing 3 to 9 trillion cubic feet, at best, below the 10 Tcf initially estimated by Cyprus government officials. VIEW
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* Second gas round could be before year-end, says Minister * Cyprus can benefit from the relative decline of other gas producers in the region, but will have to work quickly to get the gas to market and secure stable markets. This was a clear conclusion that could be drawn from the Economist Conferences Fourth
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* Conservatives, Commission conflict on written pledge * Greek conservatives set themselves on a collision course with the European Commission on Tuesday, refusing its request to sign a pledge to meet the terms of a bailout designed to save the country from bankruptcy and safeguard the euro zone. Members of the New Democracy party, a key
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Shareholders of Greece's Alpha Bank and Eurobank approved on Tuesday a plan to merge the two lenders in an attempt to protect them from the fallout of the country's debt crisis. Greece's second- and third biggest bank respectively, Eurobank and Alpha agreed in August to pool forces to create the country's biggest bank. Qatar will
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Cyprus’ GDP marked a decrease of 0,7% in the third quarter of 2011, compared with the previous quarter, according to estimates published on Tuesday by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The decrease is the highest among the countries of the European Union. Compared with the same period of 2010, Cyprus’ GDP decreased
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Europe's leaders have less than a month to strike another grand bargain to rescue the euro zone from a worsening sovereign debt crisis. Contagion in financial markets may have to get still worse to concentrate their minds. In that short time scale, German Chancellor Angela Merkel must unite her coalition behind potentially unpopular decisions and
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** Previous quarters revised down ** The destruction of Cyprus’ main power station on July 11th as a result of an armaments blast pushed the economy into recession in the third quarter according to the flash estimate. GDP declined in seasonally adjusted terms by 0.7% compared with the previous quarter (0.6% not seasonally adjusted) and
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