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mutual misunderstanding .....

mutual misunderstanding .....

To cancel one high-level Franco-German meeting is unfortunate.

To cancel two in less than a week implies a bank of freezing fog is descending over the Rhine. 

French and German officials sought yesterday to play down the significance of the abrupt postponement – both by Paris – of two meetings between the countries' most senior politicians. 

Privately, and not so privately, the talk in both capitals is of a serious rift in the single most important national partnership in Europe. Officials blame an increasingly difficult relationship between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel. 

With France scheduled to take the presidency of the European Union in July, the Franco-German tiff could not be timed worse. 

Berlin has been especially annoyed by M. Sarkozy's determination to push ahead with a so-called 'Club Med' or formal union of countries on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Chancellor Merkel believes that such an organisation would be either a pointless distraction or a threat to the unity of the EU. 

Europe's Closest Friendship Falls Apart  

Gus: It appears Sarkozy is doing the US's bidding overtly... The alliance between the French and the Germans should be sacrosanct... It is an alliance that the US has been trying to break up since General De Gaulle snubbed them big time... Merkel is right of course... Sarkozy appears to be so "bof" — like a French loafer in a Belgian comic strip, contrary and stupid just because... Annoying elusive attitude to the extreme...

sewer tax in the Alps...

Europe vs the super-rich
 
By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor
Tuesday, 4 March 2008

The European Union will declare war today on Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and Switzerland. Weary of losing billions of tax euros, the EU's 27-strong high command of economics and finance ministers, Ecofin, is meeting in Brussels to agree a strategy aimed at bringing the continent's tax havens under control.

Their weapon of choice will be a strengthened version of the EU's 2005 savings tax directive, which has proved pathetically easy for armies of accountants, lawyers and specialist tax planners to outflank.

Urged on by Peer Steinbruck, the German Finance Minister, the new directive will seek to close the loopholes. Mr Steinbruck says tax evasion costs Germany about €30bn (£23bn) a year in lost revenue; the UK loses a similar sum; the EU may lose €100bn (£77bn) in all.

The stakes are high. But tax experts remain sceptical about the prospects for this new offensive. Mike Warburton, senior tax partner at Grant Thornton accountants, commented yesterday that, while he and his firm condemned tax evasion, which is illegal, "tax avoidance is the second oldest profession in the world, and just as difficult to control. The tax havens will survive. There are stacks of money out there. If they close down the ones in Europe, the money will move to Dubai and Singapore".

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Gus: money money money... it's a rich man's world... See cartoon above and this one too where a fair tax system was sighted in the Bahamas... Yes, our old treasurer did the trick to get AWB off the front page with the poor is mugged amendment with the introduction of AWAs...

What the Europeans should do is to secretly encourage super-tax evasion in their own countries... at least the money would leach into their own system via the sewers and kickbacks...

But by clamping down on tax evasion, the Europeans might destroy the economies of their small neighbouring states — that rely strongly on tax evasion industry — such as Switzerland, eventually having to give these countries the equivalent in foreign aid for survival... Not a good result...

Dubai and Singapore laughing... 

Tourism in the Alps may not be enough...

Sarkoland...

Father and daughter trade insults in the bitter battle for 'Sarkoland'

 ...

The mayor of nearby Levallois-Perret, Patrick Balkany of – a senior figure in the UMP – has endorsed M. Teullé. M. Balkany is one of President Sarkozy's oldest and closest friends.

All of this may seem unfortunate for M. Sarkozy at a time when his popularity has already slumped, but according to a book published last month, this is the normal business of politics in Hauts-de-Seine.

The book, 9-2 le Clan du Président, by Helene Constanty and Pierre Yves Lautrou, describes violent political and family feuds, corruption and clientelism over the last 30 years. The putsch and counter-putsch resembles a campaign in 1983, when a 28-year-old junior politician seized the town hall after a series of bold double-crosses. His name was Nicolas Sarkozy.

still married...


Germany pours cold water on Sarkozy union

President Nicolas Sarkozy was last night forced to back away from an ambitious scheme to launch a French-led "Mediterranean Union" linking the EU's southern states in a political club with the Maghreb, Turkey and Middle Eastern countries including Israel.

Sarkozy had planned to launch the bold new union when France took over the presidency of the EU in July, but climbed down after fierce opposition from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.

At an EU summit in Brussels last night, Sarkozy and Merkel jointly proposed a much looser grouping, to be initiated at a summit of EU and Mediterranean countries in Paris in July.

Worried that the Sarkozy scheme would split the EU while leaving the wealthier countries of Germany and Scandinavia footing the bill for an exercise in French aggrandisement, Merkel was said to have threatened to boycott the Paris summit unless Sarkozy scaled back his plans.