French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday he would make proposals for eurobonds at an upcoming European summit as he outlines his ideas to stimulate growth and help ailing economies within the eurozone.
“I will outline all growth proposals at this informal meeting on May 23,” Hollande told reporters at the end of a G8 leaders’ meeting in Camp David. “Within this packet of proposals there will be eurobonds and I will not be alone in proposing them. I had confirmation on this at the G8.”
The Brussels meeting is expected to focus on the French president’s call for measures to kick start growth across the 27-country bloc, especially in the 17-nation euro zone, while maintaining efforts to cut budget deficits.
Photo: Reuters
Hollande has said he will press Berlin to lift its veto on issuing common eurozone bonds — debt issued for the whole currency and implicitly guaranteed by countries such as Germany, or to allow the European Central Bank to lend directly to governments.
Both ideas are “red lines” for the center-right German government, although German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not ruled out eurozone bonds as a long-term prospect if Europe takes more steps towards a tighter political and fiscal union.
Hollande appeared to have had a political success at the G8, with the leading global industrialized nations, including the US, Russia and Germany, agreeing to balance austerity with a new dose of US-style stimulus.
“We had a frank discussion on growth, but budgetary commitments are not under question. There’s no reason to think any country was isolated,” Hollande said when asked if the meeting had marginalized Merkel.
“If we want to move forward we have to do it with everybody that counts in Europe, Germany naturally, but also the rest of the world,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hollande will meet with German and Italian leaders at a summit in Rome next month, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday.
The meeting will take place before the June 10 and 17 legislative elections in France, Monti said on the sidelines of the G8 summit.
The three-way event is expected to focus on the eurozone’s deepening crisis amid fears that Greece may be forced to quit the euro, sending shockwaves around the bloc and endangering major economies.
“We should not just wait for structural reforms and the reduction of deficits to generate growth,” Monti said.
He urged EU leaders meeting for a Wednesday dinner ahead of a formal summit at the end of next month to “identify concrete paths, like reinforcing the capital of the European Investment Bank, project bonds and an evolution toward eurobonds.”
Monti said he was “confident about the options” that emerged after G8 leaders agreed they needed to take measures to shore up consumer confidence and boost economic recovery.
G8 leaders earlier backed a “strong and cohesive” eurozone, that should retain Greece, and committed to boosting growth and demand, alongside measures to fix debt-laden fiscal balance sheets.
Reflecting differences on strategy to fight the lingering economic crisis, the leaders said in a statement that “the right measures are not the same for each of us.”
Fears that debt-stricken Greece may be headed for a chaotic eurozone exit loomed large as the G8 leaders gathered for the crisis talks.
The G8 top economies come together as Greece faces its second election in just six weeks, putting its eurozone future in doubt and dragging down Spain, where the government is struggling to keep its banks afloat.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained