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Former Vice President of the ECB Lucas Papademos on Thursday arrived at the presidential residence where met party leaders charged with finding a new prime minister after the resignation of George Papandreou. It may be designated in the day. Lucas Papademos.

The former vice president of the European Central Bank Lucas Papademos, tipped to become the next Prime Minister of Greece, arrived Thursday at the presidential residence, where were gathered the leaders of parties responsible for appointing a successor to George Papandreou. The grand bargain between the Greek parties to designate a consensus prime minister who is the patience of the country's creditors to end, resumed Thursday morning, when right, and right-wing socialists found themselves trying to get out of a political imbroglio .

After a series of twists, the former vice president of the ECB and former Governor of the Bank of Greece Lucas Papademos, 64, was again the favorite in the press Thursday to succeed the Socialist Georges Papandreou resigned. The Orthodox archbishop of Athens Archbishop Ieronymos, head of the Church of Greece, has canceled a trip and was prepared to answer a summons to any oath as president, has also said the Greek news agency Ana, semi-formal. The leaders of three parties, George Papandreou's PASOK (Socialist), Antonis Samaras of New Democracy (right) and George Karatzaferis (far right) met again for the presidency of the Republic at 8 am, after the failure of a first meeting Wednesday night.

Mr. Papandreou spoke by telephone Wednesday with Mr. Papademos, 64, it was said a source close to PASOK.

Halfway to a series of meetings decisive for the future of the euro, Europeans always struggled Sunday to set a major response to the crisis of debt, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal , now threatens to bring Italy and Spain.

Saturday, more than ten hours of meetings were needed to reach an agreement on a recapitalization of the banking sector to the tune of 100 billion euros, which was yet largely gained at the technical level this week.

The work, however, little or no progress on the form that is chosen to leverage the fund to support the euro and to reduce the Greek mountain of debt, even if a discount up to 60% of the shares held by investors Private is under discussion.

These discussions are held with their eyes on the economic situation in Italy which puts the Europeans against the wall because the current instruments to support the single currency are not powerful enough to rescue a country of this size .

As a prelude to the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for half an hour Sunday morning.

Diplomats said the meeting was organized to increase the pressure on it so that it implements a more resolute reforms announced in September and reassures markets on its ability to maintain control in the Italian debt, which exceeds 120% of GDP.

A German government source said the head of the French state and the German chancellor had stressed "the urgent need for concrete and credible actions in the countries of the euro area", otherwise the decisions taken in the coming days n ' will have no effect.

Angela Merkel had insisted on Saturday that Italy would reduce its debt so as not to jeopardize the support mechanisms for the euro, "regardless of the height of these walls of protection."

BANKS

On his arrival in Brussels, the Chancellor warned that one should not expect final decisions at the EU summit and the euro area held Sunday.

It must now rely on the consent of the German parliamentarians to any reform of the fund to support the euro, making it difficult European negotiations.

Following an agreement reached Saturday, about sixty of the largest European banks need to recapitalize by 30 June 2012 at 100 billion euros to hold at least 9% of equity "hard" core tier one .

Some 38% of this amount, which may not be officially published, should return to the three countries already under the aid program: Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Banks will also mark their sovereign debt to market value and the institutions that will not comply with this set of rules will be banned from paying dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their executives.

The bloc have also talked Saturday reactivation of the guarantees offered to banks in the fall of 2008 at the height of the crisis, enabling them to find financing in the medium and long term, said on the same source.

According to this, three models are being studied, with varying degrees of coordination between European security mechanisms.

GREECE

Ministers are also extensively revenues Saturday on the back Greek and how to make Greek debt sustainable in the long term.

According to a report that will serve as the basis for decisions of the leaders of the euro area, private creditors of Athens may have to accept a loss of up to 60% on their sovereign debt.

The EU finance ministers, however, remain divided on the voluntariness or otherwise of the private sector to the new rescue plan for Greece.

Fearing to trigger a credit event with unforeseeable consequences, France and several other countries are reluctant to go beyond the envelope of 50 billion euros negotiated last July 21 with the banks, as called for Berlin if necessary by forcing them to go the extra mile.

Friday night, Athens received a shot in the arm with the provisional go-ahead European payment by mid-November of the next tranche of international assistance by 8 billion euros, without which Greece would default on its sovereign debt in the coming weeks.

The IMF still has to validate itself as such payment, subject to his ambitious decisions of Heads of State and Government of the euro area to reduce the mountain of debt indefinitely.

EFSF

The last part of the discussions – the multiplication of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) – has so far been barely touched by the ministers, that would leave it to decide this question and leaders.

Friday night, Minister of Economy, Baroin, confirmed that France continued to believe that change the cash in bank was the best solution even if Paris does not make a red line.

According to several sources, Nicolas Sarkozy hopes to build on a broad international support to try to convince Angela Merkel, less than two weeks of the G20 summit in Cannes where international partners in Europe hold them accountable.

Granted a banking license in EFSF would allow access to funding from the European Central Bank to increase its capacity for action by a factor of up to five.

But Berlin rejects this possibility, which would be to accept that the institution of Frankfurt finance the countries of the euro area, one of the dogmas explicitly excluded by the European treaties since the creation of the euro.

The other members of the euro area are also divided, Belgium and Spain having voted for a reconciliation BCE-EFSF while Slovakia and Austria have indicated that this solution was not studied.

European leaders are under intense pressure by their international partners to take decisive action against the crisis.

Seb SA said Tuesday it had been allowed to increase stake in its Chinese subsidiary Zhejiang Supor Co, which will allow the French leader of small appliances to enjoy strong growth in Asia.

The group, which had signed a contract with the founding shareholders of Supor last February, will raise its stake from 51.3% to 71.3% in Supor for about $ 400 million.

The family kept a 12.5% ​​stake, the balance comprising the float.

The Board of Supor, which will remain publicly traded, will not change, headed by Su Xianze.

Seb, entered the Chinese capital in 2007, having realized the operation in the coming weeks.The green light for the operation followed a period of review conducted by the CSRC (Authority of Chinese stock market).

The action of the French group has closed up 1.07% to 59.41 euros on the Paris Stock Exchange, giving a market capitalization of 2.97 billion. It was down 23.6% since the beginning of the year.

Germany's GDP should grow by just 0.8% in 2012 as planned. The first euro zone economy could contract in the same season. Germany

The growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will significantly slow the German next year, have predicted Thursday the major economic research institutes of Europe's largest economy, while the country will be affected by a financial crisis that is stain of oil. GDP is expected to increase by only 0.8% in 2012 from 2.9% expected this year, well below the previous forecast of these institutions (2%) and the official government forecast (1.8 %).

In a degraded environment, the government deficit in Germany, however, should continue to melt, reaching 0.9% this year and 0.6% next year, conservation efforts and strong revenue from this years bearing fruit.But Germany, whose economy is heavily export recovered strongly after the 2009 recession, can not escape the effects of the crisis of European public finances, about to lead to a banking crisis, economists predict .

Risk of credit crunch

"Because of the difficult situation of important partners, foreign trade should no longer participate in the growth," they write. The debt crisis raging, and the discussions that accompany it, also lead to "a crisis of confidence" that would restrain domestic demand. The problems of banks, which appear more and more fragile, will lead to difficult financing conditions that will hamper investment.

These difficulties are expected to peak in the fourth quarter of this year, with a decline in GDP (-0.2%).The institutes expect positive growth in every quarter of next year, but very modest. Any assessment is pessimistic economists, Germany should avoid a recession (two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction).

And good news, the labor market should continue to do relatively well, with a further decline in unemployment, due to 6.7% next year on average. German unemployment is at its lowest for 20 years. The bi-annual forecasts of the institutes are the basis for official government estimates, which will release its forecast adjusted Thursday.

Barack Obama lashed out at banks, on Thursday at a press conference at the White House, justifying the growing popular discontent against economic inequality.

The Democratic president, including the possible re-election in November 2012 will be played primarily on the fight against unemployment, said the Republicans had in the first place, to support the economy back on measures of financial regulation that his government s is used to push hard.

Barack Obama also said understand the frustration of "outraged" that manifest several days on Wall Street and in other cities of the United States.

"These demonstrators expressed a more widely shared suspicion towards the way our financial system," said Bush.

"We still see some of those who acted irresponsibly fight efforts to end abusive practices," he added.

Barack Obama said his financial reform known as the "Dodd-Frank" was precisely designed to prevent abuses of Wall Street.His way to insist on the subject suggests that this issue will be among the major themes of his presidential campaign next year.

"To have a sound financial system requires that banks and other financial institutions to compete on the basis of better service, better products and the best rate," he said.

"We can compete through hidden fees, deceptive practices or cocktails of derivatives that nobody understands and that expose the entire economy at huge risk.That's why Dodd-Frank was designed. "

Barack Obama also expressed regret that U.S. banks have recently raised their commissions, suspecting a practice necessitated by the inability to raise other rates. This is not a "good practice", he said, and it is "not necessarily just for consumers."

The UMP is considering the possibility of lowering unemployment benefits for top earners. Medef protests. Update on the controversy. The compensation of executives in unemployment in the viewfinder of the UMP. What exactly is the proposal of the UMP?

Speaking of "proposal" is a bit premature. It is rather a reflection outlined by Bruno Le Maire in an interview with L'Express, in the form of question: "Can we keep a system of unemployment benefits among the most generous in the world, especially for executives with high salaries? "asked the Minister of Agriculture, also supports the party platform for 2012. But this idea does not come from nowhere. It was brought by Peter Méhaignerie early years, in an interview with Marc Landre, Le Figaro journalist and host of the blog The Cartoon Network.And quickly put away in the closet.

Why is unemployment compensation cap frames?

Because the government does not know where to save money, and that the financial situation of the UI is poor: 10.5 billion euros of debt accumulated by the end of the year, and a deficit of 2 billion for 2011. Yet some executives, those who earn 11,000 euros a month and can accommodate up to 6000 euros per month. And for two years. The temptation is great to scrounge money from this population, especially as our European neighbors, the limits of compensation are much lower: 1400 in Spain, Germany 2200 or 1000 in Italy, as Marc Landré points.

It would still not a measure of social justice?

Difficult to present it as such … Managers reported more than they cost to unemployment insurance, as confirmed Unedic.Bernard Van Craeynest, the President of the CFE-CGC, for his part said on BFM TV "they account for 30% funding of unemployment insurance and consume roughly 15 or 17%." In fact, they are less affected by unemployment than other occupational groups and the contributions they pay are higher, since these contributions are a fixed percentage of salary and wages are higher. Lower the contribution limit would create a mechanical reduction of these contributions, and crop revenue so the UI, as outlined Laurence Parisot, president of MEDEF, against the proposal. Unless you do not reduce contributions … "It would be discrimination, an analysis of the trade union CFE-CGC. And it would be questionable in court for breach of equality, the principle is that you receive based on what you contribute."

The Franco-German couple offer to suspend the structural funds to countries in the euro area does not reduce their deficits. Greece may well be deprived of more than 20 billion euros. The logo of the euro to the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed Wednesday to suspend payment of structural funds and cohesion in the euro area countries unable to control their budget deficits. "In the future, payments from the Structural and Cohesion Funds should be suspended in the countries of the euro area that do not comply with the recommendations of the excessive deficit procedure," wrote the two heads of state in a letter to the President of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy."These changes should be incorporated into new regulations for structural funds and cohesion that will be proposed for the next multiannual financial framework", ie from 2014, they continue in this letter, written at the end of the Franco German in Paris on Tuesday.

Created in the 1990s, the European Structural Funds are the main instrument of solidarity between Europeans but also for his detractors, a "bottomless pit" that engulfed wasted billions of euros. Three funds with a total of 347.4 billion euros for 2007-2013, allow the EU to grant financial aid to multiannual regional development traded between regions, Member States and Commission.The Cohesion Fund and the two structural funds, namely the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF), over a third of the total budget of the EU.

Among the countries in the euro area, Portugal, Greece, Spain and Italy are among the first beneficiaries of these funds. Any part of Europe whose income (GDP) is less than 75% of the EU average is subsidized is an investment in the future. The European Commission, a total of 347 billion euros, or 35.7% of the total budget of the European Union, have been allocated for regional aid policy for the period 2007-2013, 49 billion per year.

The 27 EU states, the European Commission and European Parliament are engaged in difficult negotiations to secure the budget for the period 2014-2020 and the structural funds are in the sights of several European governments. Including Germany, which grows for several months, so far without success due to lack of consensus on the subject, so that structural funds are allocated under certain conditions. The Franco-German proposal follows the lead of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who had pleaded Tuesday for sanctions against countries undisciplined budgetary matters.

If the Franco-German proposal was acted upon, the countries of the euro area with a high budget deficit as Portugal, Greece, Ireland and Italy could miss crucial European aid to improve of their infrastructure and regional development.For 2007-2013, Portugal has thus pocketing 21.5 billion euros from structural funds and cohesion, Greece 20.4 billion, Italy and Ireland 28.8 billion 901 million, according to Figures released by the Commission on its website.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange finished Monday up%, taking in turn the path of recovery from the European and U.S. markets late last week.

The Nikkei gained 122.69 points to 9,086.41 and the Topix, broader took 8.93 points (1.16%) to 777.12.

GDP figures, published earlier today in Japan, reported a smaller than anticipated contraction in the economy, with a decline of 0.3% against -0.7% expected and 0.9% in quarter above.

As the Osaka Securities Exchange, the operator of the Osaka Securities Exchange, finished up 8.6% to 410,500 yen.The daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Saturday that the Tokyo Stock Exchange plans to become the purchaser via a takeover bid.

Toyota, Honda and Sony have outperformed the market by winning respectively 2.91%, 3.43% and 3.93%.

Officially, if the debt ceiling is not raised, the U.S. will fail, causing a global financial disaster. But in practice, the U.S. economy could continue to operate, at least in the short term. Explanations. View of the Capitol, seat of Congress.

And if the end of the world was ultimately not for next week? The White House has continued to repeat: if an agreement is not quickly find the Congress to raise the debt ceiling, then the U.S. will be in default on August 2. But that date could be arbitrary. After all, it would not be the first time that the disaster would be delayed.It was originally scheduled for March 31 and then to July 8 and finally to August 2 …

Some analysts also believe the government has enough to deal with some 23 billion dollars in social assistance for elderly and disabled due on August 3 and what redeem the $ 90 billion of treasury bonds reached expire on 4."In all projections, it appears they have a large cash reserve to cover their commitments," said Lou Crandall Reuters, economist at Wrightson ICAP.

Barclays Capital, for its part that the Treasury may find itself short of cash on August 10 only days scheduled payment of $ 8.5 billion in Social Security, which oversees welfare programs.

Wrightson and Jefferies' offices for their estimate that the U.S. really start to risk default on August 15, when the government will pay 41 billion, including $ 30 billion of debt interest.

John Carney CNBC a hypothesis still more bold. He said the United States can continue to operate for another 18 months if the ceiling is not raised on August 2.His reasoning is this: the U.S. government has a bank account at the Fed, which varies depending on the deposits and withdrawals. Friday, the reserve of cash included $ 77 billion. Withdrawals represent all government spending such as salaries of civil servants, NASA, the interest on the debt while deposits are powered by various tax revenues, profits made by the Fed itself, but also largely by public bond issues. But the debt cap applies only to this last source of financing, by prohibiting the government to issue more than good.

For John Carney, nothing prevents the U.S. government to continue to write checks to its employees and its creditors, even to be discovered, "as are millions of Americans."As a bank with his wealthy clients, the Fed will not refuse it discovered the American state and still honor his checks. Failure to do so "would defeat its dual mandate of full employment and price stability." To credit the beneficiary's account, "the Fed can either print money or sell some of these assets (especially holds 1.6 trillion worth of Treasury bills)," says Felix Salmon of Reuters. In any case, the overdraft would not be technically considered public debt and therefore not subject to the statutory ceiling. Best of all, "having an overdraft facility would only strengthen, not threaten, the triple A of the United States," said Salmon. Conclusion: "The Fed can not run out of money, said John Carney.It can only run out of money if Geithner and Obama decide to stop to draw checks to meet their obligations. "

One could certainly argue that even if it appears that the U.S. can continue to operate without raising the ceiling, no one monitors the reaction of international markets and rating agencies. If Congress fails to reach an agreement and that the Treasury is not empowered to borrow on the markets, it is likely that the United States lose their triple A, which strongly destabilize not only the U.S. economy but also global. Except now it seems that the U.S. will lose it anyway, even if a plan is adopted before August 2. According to the Washington financial blog's blog, as well as the proposal by Democrat Harry Reid than the Republican John Boehner are perceived as insufficient to address the problem of U.S. debt.

What is certain is that the use of an open can not solve the short to medium term the debt problem. However, this might help avoid a financial earthquake on August 3 in case the Congress failed once again to find a compromise to raise the ceiling.

Deutsche Bank reported Tuesday a quarterly profit before tax lower than expected, following the presentation of its new management team.

Germany's biggest bank posted a profit before tax up 17% in the second quarter to 1.8 billion euros, while analysts polled by Reuters were expecting $ 1.97 billion.

Its net banking income came out unchanged at 1.2 billion euros.

The bank expects to achieve its goal of a 2011 profit before tax of EUR 10 billion, but that it could miss its target on its corporate finance, due to the debt crisis in Europe.

Deutsche Bank announced Monday that a duo of Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen be succeeded in May 2012 at the CEO, Josef Ackermann.

Anshu Jain, 48, heads the investment bank Deutsche Bank while Jürgen Fitschen, 62, driver's German operations of the facility.