A curated selection of links we hope can enlighten us all; some come from our corner, some do from other corners of the net. And as always, our comment widgets are anxious to get your suggestions: Humor: What service the next president of Spain should call for… Europe is developing rescue fatigue Get used to the euro crisis: it’s the new normal China worried about banks’ loans to construction companies and…
On Thursday Spain had to pay 6.975% interest to borrow money at 10 years: a spread of 480bp against the German rate. It is the highest rate Spain has had to pay since it became part of the euro zone. However, analysts at JP Morgan remarked that France’s differential compared to Germany’s “is not only the highest since the euro exists, but the highest of all time.” On the other…
The chairman of Telefónica César Alierta defended at the opening of the Latibex Forum the strength of the European economy. Here is an extract from the Cinco Días chronicle of the event, with some interesting statements made by Mr Alerta. “César Alierta, chairman of Telefónica, said that the Spanish operator is the largest investor in Latin America, adding that this year it will invest more than €5 billion. Mr Alierta…
Ferrovial has now completed the purchase of Poland’s Przedsiebiorstwo Napraw Infrastruktury (PNI), specialised in civil engineering and railway design, construction and maintenance. The Spanish firm said the cost was close to €51 million euro or 225 million zlotys. Ferrovial, which is the owner of BAA in the UK, carried out this operation through Ferrovial Agroman’s Polish subsidiary Budimex. Alejandro de la Joya, CEO of Ferrovial Agroman explained why the company is interested…
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg and chairman of the Eurogroup Jean Claude Juncker made stark remarks on the “disturbingly large amount of the German debt,” which the Bonn paper General Anzeiger published on Thursday. “‘Germany has a higher debt than Spain. But nobody here wants to acknowledge this,’ said Juncker, who expresses understanding regarding the fears of Germany caused by the current financial crisis. “‘Here (in Germany) they witnessed, twice,…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The shared understanding between Berlin and Paris, that is, between chancellor Angela Merkel and president Nicolas Sarkozy, has suffered a breakdown for the first time since the euro crisis began. The reason is their different views on what role the European Central Bank (ECB) should be playing for the euro crisis to find a way out. While France defends giving the European Financial Stability…
LONDON | Most company leaders forecast that business structures will inevitably change. A 63 per cent predict a shift to decentralised mechanisms with a far-reaching devolution of business decision-making authority. The majority assume that customers will generate almost as many new ideas for the improvement of business processes as employees. And by 2020, customers will generate the most new product or service ideas. Business leaders are expecting wrenching change to…
By Julia Pastor, in Madrid | The European debt crisis is not just the result of the rescued euro zone member countries, neither a problem worsened by the two southern-Europe biggest economies, namely Spain and Italy. According to a report appeared on Wednesday in El País “the risk premium of 12 countries out of the the 17 states adhered to the single currency has reached not only a record high,…