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The Christian Democrats (CDP) under Angela Merkel received only 23% of the vote in the 2011 Berlin elections. The Free Democrat party (FDP) with 2% of the vote did not reach the 5% threshhold for seats in the Berlin legislature. This was the fifth time the FDP failed to win enough votes to get seats in the regional parliaments. This endangers the CDP-FDP coalition. The FDP campaigned against Merkel's policy of financial support for Greece. The Social Democrats support the euro currency union and issuance of euro bonds, which suggests voters are not choosing parties based on opposition to bailouts of troubled European Union countries. The Social Democrats-Green coalition will have a majority in the state legislature, as the Greens won 18% of the vote. The Pirate party of internet free-speech activists and leftist voters dissatisfied with existing parties were expected to win 9% of the vote, which is a first for regional parliaments for a party of this type. Some of this vote could have increased the Greens vote....

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Questions raised in this Hindustan Times report about whether India's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization makes sense now after the pandemic and the new arrangement in global affairs. New supply chains and trade alliances formed after the pandemic are likely to be very different after the pandemic and formed with dominant consideration of each nation's economic interests including manufacturing in the home country.  India joined the SCO to forge ties with the central Asian countries. But this no longer makes sense as India's manufacturing ties with individual nations such as Britain, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., European Union may make more sense and build on "Made in India" initiatives than older thinking and approaches. Britain after Brexit, Japan and Taiwan after a realignment of trade relations, are keen on expanding business and trade, investment ties with India. India has many opportunities to pursue for mutual economic benefit with these countries. Germany, France and other EU countries, the U.S. are also keen on expanding trade and investment with India to boost their economies after the pandemic. This is a crucial juncture for India to plan for the next 10 years for a changing world in which India becomes a dominant story in manufacturing. Australia's participation in the RCEP may also not be long term under the prevailing climate of trade relations with China. Australia India trade can be expanded with new efforts.  ...

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Some local governments in China are making vaccination mandatory. China is setting a goal of getting 64%  of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. In European Union countries mandatory vaccination by country or region is now being put in place to fight new coronavirus variants that spread faster in the population. The reopening of economy, business and tourism is increasing the risk from variants in summer 2021. The mandatory vaccination is a way to increase the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Getting younger people who lag behind to get vaccinated is important to protect the percentage of the elderly population that is still not vaccinated. There are risks also to the younger population as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. The initial hesitation to make health pass showing a person is vaccinated mandatory was because only a small fraction of the population was vaccinated in Europe. Now that over 50% are vaccinated in most EU countries and UK, that hesitation thinking that it is discriminatory to those people who did not have access to vaccines no longer exists. Ample vaccine supplies and the misinformation spread about vaccines are making action on health pass necessary to protect the overall population. National governments in France, Denmark, Austria, Greece, and local governments in Germany, Portugal and other EU countries such as Ireland, Italy, see the danger from coronavirus variants that spread quickly as too big to take any risks a second time. ...

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The German people offer a heart warming welcome to refugees suffering enormous hardships as they make their way through countries in Eastern Europe to Germany.

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Baker and Erlanger describe Russian president Putin's effort to finance parties on the right and the left to oppose western sanctions on Russia. The effort by Russian television RT to spread disinformation in the European Union. The goal is to create fractures in European unity and weaken the European Union and NATO. Other experts such as former national intelligence officer, Fiona Hill, and former assistant secretary of state, David Kramer, are skeptical about the effectiveness of these methods. These methods may also come from an old book of methods from the Cold War period because of president Putin's experience in Dresden during the Soviet days, which current European Union leaders would see as having little relevance to the global economy and global scene of today. The rise of the smaller parties in Europe in opposition to the traditional parties has more to do with the difficult economic conditions in Europe, and has little in common with Russia and its problems with its oil dependent economy and its interests in Eastern Europe. As the 2015 Pew Research survey on Europe shows, opinion is shifting towards greater support for the European Union as economic conditions improve, and is likely to move further in this direction with a return to economic growth. Favorable views of the EU which dropped from 60% in 2012 to 53% in 2014, was up to 61% in 2015, according to the survey. The Euroskeptic parties are viewed "as a good thing," as a way to shake up the complacency of the major ruling parties in tackling the economy, according to the Pew Europe Survey. In the percentage of people who see the Euroskeptic parties as a good thing for the country- Podemos left party in Spain gets 70% favorable rating, UK Independence Party 66% favorable, Five Star Movement in Italy 58%, AfD in Germany 50%, and much less so in France with 36% saying this for the National Front, and 36% for the New Right in Poland....

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The mood in the UK is becoming less receptive to foreigners as job losses mount and the economy declines. For a long period under Labor administrations openness to foreign investment served Britain well. From 2004 to 2007 foreign investment accounted for 7.4% of UK's GDP compared with 1.4% in the USA and 1.6% in Germany. Immigration tripled under Labor governments. Now the mood is shifting as job losses mount. Unemployment which was 4.7% in 2005, was 6.3% in the 4th quarter of 2008. Estimates by IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm, shows that unemployment could reach 10.5% by early 2011. Government figures indicate that the number of British workers in the country went down by 234,000 to 27 million in the last quarter of 2008. The number of foreign workers went up by 175,000 to 2.4 million. About 104,000 jobs were lost in the 4th quarter of 2008. During the period from 1995 to today manufacturing accounts for a smaller portion of the British economy, going from 21% to 14%. In this new climate French owner Total SA faced strikes at it Immingham oil refinery for not hiring British workers for an expansion at the refinery. It offered to set aside 102 of 200 temporary construction jobs for British workers. And public anger is evident about things that earlier would have aroused passing interest. One example was for a plan to sell part of the British postal service with the Dutch or the Danish as buyers. Another an award by the government to the Japanese of acontract to build and operate a fleet of high speed trains. And immigration is emerging as the third biggest ocncern of in the country, according to a survey by Ipsos MORI, after the economy and crime, the fourth being unemployment. Actually immigration and unemployment are strongly related, and both are related to the economy, all issues related to the steep downturn, especially to the collapse of the financial industry in London....

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Boone and Johnson point to the problems facing Portugal as being worse than that faced by Argentina when it defaulted on its debt in 2001. Portugal they say spent too much in recent years with the help of Euro-money letting debt rise to 78% of GDP compared to Greece's 114% of GDP and Argentina's 62% of GDP at default. The lack of the option for a necessary devaluation under the euro currency makes the situation worse. At this point the situation is simply being postponed as the European Central Bank will continue to let the governments issue bonds, which European commercial banks buy and deposit at the ECB as collateral for fresh printed money.

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Elsa Fornero is an economics professor who is Labor Minister in the government of Mario Monti. After several decades Italy has finally tackled the much needed changes to the 1970 Workers' Charter that forms the basis of Italy's labor laws. The Charter protected workers jobs but was designed during a different period and had long since lost its relevance in a modern economy. The laws led to Italy losing its competitiveness and entrenched small family firms in the economy. The new labor law protects the individual instead of jobs, by increasing the safety net to cover unemployed workers for shorter periods and lower benefits, and makes it possible for firms to layoff employees for economic reasons. Fornero says Italians need to recognize that work is not a right to be enshrined in laws but something that is earned through hard work. Article 18 of the Worker's Charter was originally intended to remove discriminatory practices in the workplace, but was enlarged to provide blanket protections to workers so that companies could not fire workers and avoided hiring. Under the new law discrimination is illegal, but now companies can layoff employees for economc reasons and not face long legal disputes and be forced to rehire the workers. The new law will increase productivity says Marcello Giustiniani, a labor specialist at Milan law firm Nonelli, Erede & Pappalardo. Italy's productivity gap with Germany has widened to over 30% since the introduction of the euro. The ASPI, new unemployment insurance plan, goes into effect in 2013, older programs will be phased out by 2017, giving time for the culture change in Italy for workers and business. Another major change is designed to help 2 million workers earning less than 18,000 euros. Businesses will have to give these workers proper contracts. Fornero's effort to tackle the pension system also includes linking retirement checks to how much is contributed over the lifetime- a practice common in other countries- not the final and highest salary. This simple change was not not implemented by 10 governments since a law was passed in 1995, showing why the Monti government was needed to get things done....

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The ECB and the Bank of England cut interest rates to near zero.

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This editorial in the Economist says Spain's economy has recovered to pre crisis levels by 2018 with growth at 3 percent. It says Spain had a bigger crisis than Italy and took stronger measures under prime minister Rajoy to fix problems in its banking system, address the housing crisis, and unemployment. Italy's steps by comparison were timid and faltering. Mr. Rajoy had his problems including corruption scandals in his party and a poor handling of the Catalan drive for independence. Yet Spain owes muchas gracias to Rajoy for his leadership in bringing Spain out of the housing and economic crisis, and for running the country for two and a half years after losing his majority in parliament.  Another difference with Italy is the generally favorable attitude to immigration for all parties. Of the newer parties Ciudadanos remains at the centre and the Podemos party remains to the left in politics, as part of the populist changes in Spain during the economic crisis. The new government of Pedro Sanchez has a positive attitude to immigrants and to women, with the largest number of women in the cabinet of any European country. ...

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Demographic trends and Muslim populations around the world. some of the fastest growing populations are in Pakistan, India, Nigeria. Slower growth in Indonesia. In Europe faster growth in Spain and France relative to other countries. The Muslim popullation in Europe will be about 10% in places like Sweden and France in 2030. Where multiculturalism has been denounced, in Germany the Muslim population grows from 5% in 2010 to 7% in 2030, and a little over 4% to 8% in Britain. In France it goes up from close to 8% to a little over 10% in 2030. This is from research and forecasts done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in January 2011. It does not suggest a huge problem especially if the Muslim populations are affected by the trend to democracy in their home countries and improving standards of living, and a move towards integration in the different societies in Europe.

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The CDU convention in Leipzig, Germany passed a compromise resolution that lays the ground for a EU country to voluntarily leave the euro zone and still maintain membership in the European Union. The resolution called for changes to the Lisbon Treaty to allow a euro zone member that is "unable or unwilling to permanently obey the rules connected to the common currency... to voluntarily... leave the euro zone without leaving the European Union." Merkel told delegates that Europe must change the EU treaty to allow for strong automatic sanctions for violations of the monetary union treaty. "We need to send a clear signal. We don't whine; we don't complain. We know instead that we have a job to do." On the issue of voluntary withdrawal from the eurozone, the earlier decision by Merkel and President Sarkozy of France- when prime minister Papandreou of Greece decided to put the issue of membership to a referendum- was to tell Greece that leaving the eurozone would mean leaving the European Union. This CDU resolution provides a basis for Greece to resolve its debt problems outside the euro currency, as experts suggest....

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The planned merger of Random House owned by Bertelsmann, and Penguin owned by Pearson, creates the largest consumer book publisher in the world with a 25% market share. Bertelsmann will control 53% of the new entity, and Pearson 47%. The merger will help the new entity better handle the challenges presented by the shift to electronic books and internet retailing, and respond to the power of large companes such as Apple, Amazon and Google in this field. This creates pressure for mergers among the other large publishers, Hatchette owned by Lagardere in France, HarperCollins a part of News Corporation, Macmillan part of Georg von Holtzbrinck in Germany, and Simon & Schuster a part of CBS.

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The IMF promised to increase the aid package to Greece from $45 billion to $120 billion. Together with aid from the EU and Germany the total would come to $160 billion. This after the markets responded negatively to efforts by Greece to obtain funds. With the junk rating for Greek bonds Greece is effectively cut off from the markets and it makes it increasingly difficullt to roll over debt including $8 billion euros due May 19, 2010. Equally significant are the rumblings being heard about Spain, which is a much larger country than Greece, and an economy 5 times as large. An IMF loan to Spain would have to be significantly larger.

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Gazprom's Chairman, Alexei Miller, says Ukraine owes $1.89 billion for gas deliveries after missing a March 7 payment deadline for Feb. deliveries. Transit shipments through Ukraine to Europe will continue. Russia provides 30% of Europe's gas needs and 15% of all Europe's gas demand goes through Ukraine, particularly Germany, Italy and Britain's utility companies. Europe's dependence on Russian supplies of natural gas gives a new twist to the crisis in Ukraine. Russia also needs the revenue from the natural gas exports to finance its own development as growth has slowed down sharply in 2013-2014, making this a situation where both sides in Europe need to resolve the standoff in Ukraine wihout escalation.

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Adolf Merckle, a native of Dresden, left for West Germany after World War II and built up businesses RatioPharm a generics pharmaceutical maker, and Heidelberg Cement. After making a bad bet in shortselling of VW shares, just when the Prosche family moves ran up the price of VW shares from 210 euros to 1000 euros in 2 trading sessions to obtain majority control of VW, Merckle faced losses of several hundred million euros and possible loss of RatioPharm. A badly timed acquisition by Heidelberg Cement also created worsening finances for Merckle's business. When he failed to get a bridge loan Merckle committed suicide. A public outcry prevented the state government there to provide any loans to Merckle.

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Gisele Freund's photographic account of how a world changes, the world of her childhood at the turn of the century Berlin (she was born in 1908) and then after her return to Berlin in 1957 before the wall went up. This was an unfamiliar world to her. Her pictures are at the Willy Brandt Haus exhibition in Berlin, and at the Ephraim Palais for the pictures from 1957 and 1962. In the subsequent 50 years the Berlin Wall was to go up and come down, bringing more change and a new Berlin different from that in the late fifties, and a even more different Germany. A story of change told in photographs of Berlin.

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The European Central Bank left all its interest rates unchanged on September 7, 2016. No changes were made to asset purchase program, which will run until March 2017 or beyond as needed. The ECB left interest rates at 0% for its lending operations, and for overnight deposits at 0.4%.  Inflation is a special concern, as inflation was at 0.2% for August. Business activity and investment in the EU and in the U.S. is weak, and Brexit is still a concern.

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The EU summit under the presidency of Germany completes its task for setting up the European Recovery Fund and providing nonrepayable aid to countries hardest hit by the pandemic that would otherwise have to spiral their already high debt levels to unsustainable levels or provide little assistance to their suffering public. These countries include Italy, Spain, Greece mostly in southern Europe. Also needing aid are eastern European countries Hungary and Poland. For the first time the European Union is jointly taking on this debt of nonrepayable aid to member states most in need. This is a historic step. The Dutch prime minister, almost ruined the solidarity of Europe with his continual effort to cut the amount of funds and place conditions. The Dutch have favored austerity in Europe but at what cost and at what does it say about the Dutch in Europe. Reports show the Netherlands have gained back billions of dollars that would have gone in taxes to the governments of France, Spain and Italy by setting up tax haven. The Netherlands population 17 million, Sweden population 10 million, Denmark population 7 million, together make up less than half the population of any one of the major countries of Europe, Spain and Portugal, France, Germany, Italy. The combined population of about 350 million people in southern, eastern, and western Europe was arrayed against these 34 million northern countries in the long negotiations, that show solidarity but are also a sign of the changes in Europe as these countries in northern Europe were always guided by their own personal or country interest. Rutte fought hard because of elections he faces a second time against the far right wing parties, for a second time since the 2017 election. It could not get more personal than that. Even Britain if it was still in the European Union is likely under Boris Johnson to have reversed policies of Cameron to support solidarity in Europe and aid for recovery, considering how the government has tackled the pandemic in Britain. Setting conditions would only go part of the way is the reality today. The bigger part of preventing mismanaging of funds comes from the individual experience and hardship of people in southern European nations of Italy, Greece, Spain and other countries after the missteps in the eurozone finances in the last two decades. This provides the necessary dose of internal financial discipline. Not acting quickly in solidarity today would have been a serious mistake for Europe. Still Mr. Rutte and the Dutch have cut the European Recovery Fund's nonrepayable aid by 110 billion euros from the initail target set by Macron and Merkel of 500 billion euros. The agreed target now is $390 billion euros. ...

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Fiat under Sergio Marchionne has come a long way since he joined in June 2004, and has since executed a most remarkable recovery. At the time he joined in 2004, Fiat was only using 70% of its 2.5 million capacity. Now by 2010 Fiat expects to make 3.5 million vehicles. At the time debt was 4.4 billion euros and cash flow was draining at a rapid rate. The $2 billion from GM as part of their agreement, came in handy to make several new car models. But Marchionne had to start with a whole new team, and tear up the old ways of doing business and the old hierarchy and management. He put a group of younger managers in charge, and brought in a style that was open honest and straight talking, with plenty of direct communication. By 2007 on the back of the Punto and the Fiat 500 and the Bravo and other new models, Fiat had made a record profit of 3.2 billion euros while eliminationg its industrial debt. Its a new way of doing business in Italy. Marchionne had moved quickly and decisively in making changes at Fiat. He flattened out the structure, and gave a small number of younger people the freedom to take the initiative. He also put the former design chief of Pininfarina in charge, and brought all the designers together in Turin's Mirafiori complex in Oficina 83. He put design at the core of the manufacturing process, and cut time to build new models for the Bravo and Fiat 500 from design freeze to production to 18 months from 26, by relying entirely on computer simulations and not building any prototypes. He also gave designers freedom, and took risks when it came to styling to come up with really original and exceptional designing. He also continued developing Fiat's advantage in fuel efficiency of its engines, so that its engines have lower average emissions than any competitor. On the other hand Fiat has been slow to take advantage of the growth in emerging markets in India, China and Russia. Russia for instance will soon become the largest market in Europe, larger than Germany. Fiat shows that the right manager can and does make a difference between disaster and making a big success. Alitalia is now in the situation that Fiat was then, it isstruggling to find its future. With Chrysler's collapse in the US, and the efforts to revive Chrysler, these are lessons applicable in the US also. ...

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The 90 minute nationally televised debate in Germany between Angela Merkel and Peter Steinbruck before the September 22, 2013 national elections.

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France's union and business representatives reach agreement on improving competitiveness by providing new flexibility in labor rules. Unions agreed to cooperate with business in ways similiar to the German "kurzarbeit" program where workers work shorter hours but are guaranteed employment when demand is down. Workers on temporary contracts get health care benefits and incentives are given for businesses to take on more permanent employees.