BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders concluded their latest summit early Thursday with few concrete steps to fix the continent’s festering financial crisis even as the potential for a messy Greek exit from the euro appears to be rising. Some leaders stressed the importance of planning for just such an event but offered no measures that might help Greece avoid it.
Also left unresolved was what Europe should do to spark economic growth and restore the confidence of investors, who have driven some countries’ borrowing costs to unsustainable levels. The fiscal austerity agenda that Germany has promoted as the solution to Europe’s problem of too much government debt has been met with rising skepticism in other euro countries.
The leaders of the 27 EU countries agreed to give institutions such as the European Investment Bank the task of drawing up proposals for growth in time for another summit in June. But there was discord over more aggressive actions promoted by some leaders heading into the summit, such as issuing bonds jointly as a way of reducing borrowing costs for heavily indebted nations among the 17 countries that use the euro.
The perception that European leaders lack the political will to tackle the continent’s financial and economic problems has left markets on edge for weeks. Recession is spreading. Banks are under pressure. The biggest fear is that if Greece cannot be saved, other larger economies — like Spain or Portugal — might face the same fate.
The euro countries “have to consider all kinds of events,” Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters after a European Union summit, but insisted that “the working assumption” was that Greece would remain part of the euro. Leaders gathered in Brussels recognized that Greece had endured significant hardships and promised to release development funds aimed at spurring growth.
But the statement from Juncker, who also chairs meetings of eurozone finance ministers, was a frank admission that Greece could wind up abandoning the euro. The country’s fringe political parties, which are threatening to renege on commitments made to secure bailout loans, saw their popularity surge in recent elections. No party has been able to form a government, and the country will vote again June 17.
Many analysts have said that Greece, already in its fifth year of recession, has no hope of recovery if it sticks to the spending cuts and tax hikes it agreed to in order to secure bailout loans.
“We want Greece to remain in the euro area,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the meeting. “We expect that they will stick to the commitments that they have entered into.”
Political uncertainty in Greece is just one of the fires the Europe needs to put out. Leaders are also worried about rising borrowing costs in Spain and Italy that could force them to seek bailouts, just like Greece, Portugal and Ireland did.
Markets had expected the latest EU summit to disappoint and it did. Europe’s stock markets had fallen heavily during trading on Wednesday and the euro hit a near two-year low against the dollar.
Asian stock markets retreated Thursday as the lack of a breakthrough in Europe unnerved traders. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 0.5 at 8,514.53 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.6 percent to 18,682.38.
Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, said Thursday: “Europe is not doing enough, and the market may not wait for them.”
One of the biggest questions facing Europe is whether it’s time to cut Greece some slack. Some European countries seemed ready to ease the pressure, and international organizations have called for the pace of austerity measures to be slowed in some struggling countries.
But Thursday’s summit of 27 European Union leaders ended with no apparent concessions. A final statement said Greece had to respect its commitments and trumpeted the money the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund had loaned Greece as a sign of their “solidarity.” It did say that funds for economic development would be sent to Greece — though it’s unclear how much of an immediate impact on growth they would have.
Juncker insisted early Thursday that he had not asked the euro nations to prepare national contingency plans for a possible chaotic departure of Greece from the currency.
French President Francois Hollande said that to evoke the even the possibility was dangerous — and would send a signal to the markets that the eurozone wasn’t standing behind Greece.
The debate reflects the fine line European leaders must walk between pressuring Greece to stick to a program of spending cuts and tax hikes that have exacerbated its economic slowdown and trying to ensure its presence in the eurozone.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suggested the European Central Bank resume some of its emergency measures, such as buying the bonds of weak countries, which has the impact of lowering countries’ borrowing rates. The ECB has suspended the purchases because, as an independent body, it does not want to be seen supporting governments directly. Instead, it has given European banks massive amounts of cheap loans to bolster confidence in the financial system and allow banks to buy up their country’s debt.
Leaders on Thursday also addressed the contentious issue of whether the countries that use the euro should spread the risk and borrow money jointly – issuing so-called “eurobonds.” This would mean every country could borrow funds at the same rate, substantially lowering the costs for the more indebted countries.
Hollande has pushed for them as an important way to ensure such a crisis never happens again, but Merkel has rejected them, fearing they would reduce the pressure on heavily indebted governments to heal their finances and force Germany to borrow at higher rates.
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Don Melvin contributed to this story.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The chief of the European Union’s head office says he will not go to Ukraine during the European soccer championships in June unless there is a swift improvement in the human rights situation there.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other European leaders piled the pressure Monday on the leadership in Kiev in support of jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.
Barroso’s announcement followed that of EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is skipping the ceremonial Euro 2012 opening on June 8.
“It is clear that as things stand now, the president has no intention of going to Ukraine,” Barroso’s spokeswoman said.
The tournament, more important to Europe than the Olympic soccer tournament, is being co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine from June 8 until July 1.
Activists have called for protests against Ukraine where Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year jail sentence in a case the West has called politically motivated. Ukraine’s president is a fierce rival of Tymoshenko’s but government officials have denied any claims of bias in the case.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s environment minister has urged top European government officials to boycott the Euro 2012 matches. Also, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported that Merkel will abstain from attending any matches and urge her Cabinet members to do so as well unless Tymoshenko is freed to undergo medical treatment abroad.
Germany government has offered to treat her in Berlin, but Kiev has rejected the offer.
Also Monday, Czech President Vaclav Klaus canceled his visit to a summit of Central European leaders being held May 11-12 in Ukraine because of Tymoshenko’s treatment, his spokesman said.
German President Joachim Gauck said he will also not travel to the Yalta gathering.
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Voloshin tried to downplay the announcements.
“I hope that German statesmen won’t reactivate the methods of the Cold War and try to make sports a hostage to politics,” he was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying.
Poland, as co-host of Euro 2012 but also an EU member, was in a tough position.
“We believe that at this point calls for a boycott of the Euro 2012 are totally unfounded,” government spokesman Marcin Bosacki said. “These two things should not be linked together.”
He stressed that Poland has made it clear to Ukraine’s authorities that it did not approve of the trial and the treatment of Tymoshenko but added that she herself had asked others not to link the two events
“Poland will follow that appeal,” Bosacki said.
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Juergen Baetz in Berlin, Jim Heintz in Moscow, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this story.
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union parliament on Friday condemned Argentina’s move to seize control of the YPF division of Spanish oil and gas company Repsol and demanded that the EU take action against Buenos Aires at the World Trade Organization.
The parliament also called on the EU to look at the “possible partial suspension of the unilateral tariff preferences” as a way of punishing any country that attempts to nationalize a European company’s assets.
Argentina says it is making the move — which would take control of 51 per cent of YPF, leaving Repsol with a 6 percent stake — because Repsol has not invested enough in the country’s oil industry.
Repsol YPF SA and Spain have slammed Argentina’s re-nationalization of YPF as outright “pillaging” and an attack on their interests. The company’s chief executive, Antonio Brufau, told reporters Wednesday that YPF is worth $18.3 billion, and he valued Repsol’s stake at $10.5 billion.
Argentine Planning Minister Julio de Vido, meanwhile, met Friday with Brazilian officials about the move, and told reporters that his country would like Brazil to increase its Argentine market share from 8 percent to 15 percent. He also said that assets of Brazil’s state-run oil giant, Petrobras, would not be expropriated.
Brazilian Energy Minister Edison Lobao said that Petrobras invested $500 million in Argentina last year, and planned to invest an equal amount this year because “it is good business” for the oil company.
The European parliament called the re-nationalization “an attack on the exercise of free enterprise and the principle of legal certainty” which hurt Argentina’s investment climate.
The resolution, backed by the major parties in the Strasbourg-based legislature, also calls on European Commission to take up the issue at the WTO and the G-20 and explore measures to better protect EU interests in future.
Spain also took its first retaliatory step Friday, announcing it would approve a measure promoting domestic biodiesel fuel production, thereby reducing biodiesel imports from Argentina. Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said political and diplomatic retaliatory measures were under consideration but that no decisions had been made.
Last year Spain imported €700 million ($923.4 million) of Argentine biodiesel that was used as agricultural fuel, the Industry Ministry said Friday.
The Group of 20 industrial powers has a summit in Mexico in June that could bring Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy together face to face for the first time.
Repsol shares on Friday reversed three days of steep losses since Argentina made the nationalization Monday night, rising 2.1 percent to €14.98 ($19.76) each in late afternoon trading in Madrid. But the gain, in line with a 2 percent rise for Spain’s benchmark Ibex index, didn’t come close to erasing the company’s share prices losses for the week.
The European parliament complained that Repsol had “been the target of a public harassment campaign” in Argentina, resulting in the plummeting of its shares.
Spain is the top foreign investor in Argentina, ahead of the United States. Spanish direct investment in Argentina totaled $23 billion in 2010. That was 26.3 percent of the total invested in that country, compared with 16.8 percent for the United States, according to the Argentine central bank.
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AP Business Writer Alan Clendenning contributed from Madrid, and reporter Marco Sibaja contributed from Brasilia.
BRUSSELS (AP) — ‘Tis the season to paint Easter eggs in Europe. Now children, listen: Handle with care, they break easily — and this year there are not too many about so they are very expensive.
Demand for eggs traditionally reaches its peak around the Easter holiday. This year, the egg industry has been hit by the European Union’s new requirements for bigger, more animal-friendly cages for hens. The changes it brings have affected production and, combined with high feed cost, boosted consumer prices.
Ahead of Easter Sunday, on April 8 or 15 depending on the religious denomination, it makes for a costly tradition on a continent where millions have grown up painting or dyeing eggs as children and are now facing economic crisis.
At Warsaw’s Hala Mirowska market, the egg sales of Jacek Bechcicki are down as he faces customers grumbling about high prices. “The holiday will be poorer for some of my customers,” Bechcicki said.
Pekka Pesonen used to color and dye eggs as a kid in his native Finland. As a rite of spring, “it was a celebration of new life,” he remembers. Now, Pesonen is secretary general of a major European farm federation and is seeing how the new EU legislation has put a damper on this Easter season.
“Obviously it has had an impact,” he said.
The European Egg Processors Association says that EU-wide production of eggs since the Jan. 1 legislative change has dropped by 10 to 15 percent, or about 200 million eggs a week.
Prices have sometimes tripled on international markets over the past month, peaking at over 2 euros ($2.60) per kilogram, said Philip Van Bosstraeten of Ovobel, an international company which makes equipment for egg processing.
Van Bosstraeten was speaking from Venice, Italy, where he was attending a conference of the International Egg Commission and said the place was abuzz with talk of the egg crisis. “All you hear is deals being sealed for imports from outside of Europe,” he said in a telephone interview.
There is concern of a doubling in price in some EU nations and supermarkets. The European Commission said that overall the price for table eggs in early March was 55 percent higher compared to the previous year and officials said the increase has somewhat tapered off in past days.
Price differences across the EU are big though.
While half a dozen premium eggs at a Warsaw market cost some 6.60 zlotys ( €1.6, $2.12), they stood at €2.71 in a Brussels supermarket. The Polish poultry chamber said that in the second week of March, prices were 63 percent higher than in the last week of January and over double the price that the year before.
Eggs — whether scrambled, fried or painted — are such a central part of European life that higher prices have become a political issue at a time when many families have to limit spending.
Even presidents get involved.
Czech President Vaclav Klaus has long presented himself as a staunch defender of national sovereignty in the face of what he calls EU meddling from Brussels.
Now, he says that Brussels has egg on its face with a sinister plot of market manipulation.
“We all know should know that such massive changes in prices don’t take place in a normal market economy — they take place only where the market is manipulated,” Klaus said this month.
“The main reason for the jump in eggs prices was again a state intervention,” Klaus said. “But of which one? We don’t have just a state called the Czech Republic in place, but also another one, which is more dominant in many matters, and is called the European Union.”
The EU acknowledges that there has been a clear reduction in eggs because of the cage ban but blames the industry for not taking action earlier. The EU gave producers a dozen years to adapt their equipment to the animal friendly rules — but many still haven’t complied.
Because of the legislation, some farmers have shut down rather than face the cost of transformation. Some are busy renovating their installations and others can continue using their old systems until August but can only sell eggs in liquid form.
And everybody knows liquid eggs make lousy decorations.
On the other hand, those who did prepare have reaped high profits as prices soar. And even Pesonen of the farm association sees the possibility of the new EU rules leading to an Easter rebirth.
“We hope that these higher prices have given farmers incentive to produce more,” said Pesonen.
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Karel Janicek in Prague and Vanessa Gera in Warsaw contributed to this story
BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium’s Catholic Church announced Thursday that priests and clergy who abused children will be required to pay damages, even when victims make their claims after the country’s statute of limitations has expired.
The church — in an overall response on how to deal with the abuse scandals that have enveloped it — urged victims to initially take their cases to civil authorities.
But it also said it was willing to impose penalties ranging from apologies to financial compensation, both for recent cases and for those so old they can no longer be brought to court. Over the past two years, more than 500 witnesses have come forward with accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy in Belgium, spanning several decades.
“If the culprit is still alive, he will certainly have to pay,” Bishop Guy Harpigny said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The culprits “may say civil authorities have told them the statute of limitations has expired, but we will say ‘you have to pay,’” Harpigny said. “They have committed evil. They are responsible and we will try to make them pay.”
He added that if individual priests were unable to pay, the church itself would compensate. The Belgian church, however, has not offered any figures regarding potential compensation.
The Vatican is the sole decider of whether to defrock priests.
In Belgian cases, however, Harpigny said in all instances of reports of serious pedophile cases being sent to Rome, the Vatican left the decision of leaving the priesthood to the pedophile priests themselves. So the options of the Belgian church have been limited.
If the guilty “no longer want to be priests, then we will say yes. (But) the priest has to ask’,” he said of the Vatican’s response.
For years, victims organizations have complained that church hierarchy had ignored their pleas and protected abusive priests by moving them from parish to parish instead of punishing them.
Prof. Manu Keirse, who helped the church write “Toward an overall approach of sexual abuse in the Church” in close cooperation with the bishops, said it was “not a good attitude to let everything depend on the priest.”
The Vatican was far too aloof and “infinitely slow,” he told the AP, moments after presenting the Belgian policy text with Harpigny.
“Do I really trust the policies of Rome?” Keirse asked. “No, in fact, I don’t. I have more trust in the intentions of the Belgian church.”
The Vatican has long been accused by abuse victims and bishops themselves of dragging its feet when it comes to dealing with pedophile priests: American bishops in the 1980s begged the Vatican to let them laicize pedophiles without cumbersome and time-consuming church trials, but Rome refused.
Irish bishops in the 1990s proposed reporting molester priests to police but the Vatican came back with a warning that doing so posed serious canonical problems.
Belgium’s abuse scandal broke two years ago when former bishop Roger Vangheluwe admitted to the sexual abuse of two nephews, including 13 years of abuse of one which started at age 5.
Vangheluwe said last year he had fully realized what he did was wrong, and often went to confession about it. The 75-year-old Vangheluwe resigned in 2010, just as the sex abuse scandal was spreading across Europe.
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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story
BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium’s Catholic Church announced Thursday that priests and clergy who abused children will be required to pay damages, even when victims make their claims after the country’s statute of limitations has expired.
The church — in an overall response on how to deal with the abuse scandals that have enveloped it — urged victims to initially take their cases to civil authorities.
But it also said it was willing to impose penalties ranging from apologies to financial compensation, both for recent cases and for those so old they can no longer be brought to court. Over the past two years, more than 500 witnesses have come forward with accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy in Belgium, spanning several decades.
“If the culprit is still alive, he will certainly have to pay,” Bishop Guy Harpigny said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The culprits “may say civil authorities have told them the statute of limitations has expired, but we will say ‘you have to pay,’” Harpigny said. “They have committed evil. They are responsible and we will try to make them pay.”
He added that if individual priests were unable to pay, the church itself would compensate. The Belgian church, however, has not offered any figures regarding potential compensation.
The Vatican is the sole decider of whether to defrock priests.
In Belgian cases, however, Harpigny said in all instances of reports of serious pedophile cases being sent to Rome, the Vatican left the decision of leaving the priesthood to the pedophile priests themselves. So the options of the Belgian church have been limited.
If the guilty “no longer want to be priests, then we will say yes. (But) the priest has to ask’,” he said of the Vatican’s response.
For years, victims organizations have complained that church hierarchy had ignored their pleas and protected abusive priests by moving them from parish to parish instead of punishing them.
Prof. Manu Keirse, who helped the church write “Toward an overall approach of sexual abuse in the Church” in close cooperation with the bishops, said it was “not a good attitude to let everything depend on the priest.”
The Vatican was far too aloof and “infinitely slow,” he told the AP, moments after presenting the Belgian policy text with Harpigny.
“Do I really trust the policies of Rome?” Keirse asked. “No, in fact, I don’t. I have more trust in the intentions of the Belgian church.”
The Vatican has long been accused by abuse victims and bishops themselves of dragging its feet when it comes to dealing with pedophile priests: American bishops in the 1980s begged the Vatican to let them laicize pedophiles without cumbersome and time-consuming church trials, but Rome refused.
Irish bishops in the 1990s proposed reporting molester priests to police but the Vatican came back with a warning that doing so posed serious canonical problems.
Belgium’s abuse scandal broke two years ago when former bishop Roger Vangheluwe admitted to the sexual abuse of two nephews, including 13 years of abuse of one which started at age 5.
Vangheluwe said last year he had fully realized what he did was wrong, and often went to confession about it. The 75-year-old Vangheluwe resigned in 2010, just as the sex abuse scandal was spreading across Europe.
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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this story
Greek Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos addresses the media after an EU summit at the EU Council in Brussels, Wednesday, May 23, 2012. The leaders of the 27 countries that make up the European Union met in Brussels Wednesday to try and find a way to keep the debt crisis in Europe from spiraling out of control and promote jobs and growth. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)(Credit: Geert Vanden Wijngaert) 
Member of the Ukrainian team react after Polish and Ukrainian celebrities played a friendly soccer match on the National Stadium in Warsaw, Poland, Sunday, April 29, 2012. The game was the last event on the stadium before the opening of the Euro 2012 soccer championships, which will open on this stadium. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)(Credit: Alik Keplicz) 
A man shops for eggs in a supermarket in Antwerp, Belgium on Tuesday, March 27, 2012. Demand for eggs is traditionally reaching its peak around this festive Easter season and the industry has been hit hard by the European Union's mandatory use of more animal friendly battery cages for hens since the beginning of the year. Because of the legislation, some farmers have closed up rather than face the cost of transformation. Others are busy renovating their installations and others can continue using their old systems until August but can only sell eggs in liquid form. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)(Credit: AP) 
Belgian bishop Guy Harpigny gestures during a media conference in Brussels, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2012. The Belgian church wants priests and clergy who abused children to pay damages in case the victim seek compensation beyond the date that the case can be brought to court. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)(Credit: AP) 