The European Commission is warning the Spanish and Italian governments that their draft budgets for 2014 do not comply with new debt and deficit rules. The Commission also said that France and the Netherlands barely qualified for the new standards.
According to the European Union’s charter, countries that do not comply will likely have to revise their tax and spending plans before they can be submitted to national parliaments. The warning marks the first time the EC has taken this step.
Eurozone members states are required to cut deficits until they reach a balanced budget. They also have to reduce levels of public debt. The Commission usually gives countries flexibility if their deficit is below the EU ceiling of 3% of the nation’s gross domestic product.
The Commission said that France, while just below the 3% threshold, was making only “limited progress” in reforms.
The Eurozone economy grew by .1% from July to September in data released Thursday, down from .3% growth in the previous quarter.
An Italian prosecutor says the Christ-like ways of Pope Francis and his desire to reform the church is causing him to be viewed as a threat by at least one mafia organization.
State prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said that the ‘Ndrangheta crime organization is “very nervous” about the Pope’s attempts to reform the church.
“Those who have up until now profited from the influence and wealth drawn from the church are getting very nervous,” Gratteri told the Washington Post. “For many years, the mafia has laundered money and made investments with the complicity of the church. But now the pope is dismantling the poles of economic power in the Vatican, and that is dangerous.”
Pope Francis has spoken out against organized crime and even mentioned the ‘Ndrangheta in a speech given in May. The Pope spoke on Monday against corruption quoting the Gospel of Luke: “It would be better for (the corrupt man) if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea.”
Security officials for the Vatican are concerned about mafia action because of Pope Francis’ continual unwillingness to stick with establish protocol and go out into the masses that visit St. Peter’s Square.
Police in Italy have broken up an international ring that conspired to kidnap children who were at the center of custody battles.
The statement from police says those involved were special forces veterans and frequently put the lives of the children at risk. The kidnappers would charge tens of thousands for the abductions, mostly from northern Africa to Europe.
The group began in October 2012 by abducting a child in Tunisia and taking them to Norway. Police stopped the group’s second operation in November who intercepted phone calls of the group’s boat provider.
Investigators found plans for operations in Cyprus, Lebanon and Egypt. The four arrested members of the gang face kidnapping and human trafficking charges.
The number of refugees fleeing Africa and Syria have grown to the point that Sicily has been forced to declare a state of emergency.
Italian officials say 370 migrants were rescued from boats between Libya and Sicily on Tuesday. All the migrants were being taken to the island of Lampedusa.
The state of emergency means that Italy’s civil protection service will be able to more efficiently carry out their work in dealing with people entering the country illegally according to the BBC.
Over 400 migrants have died from capsized boats in the last two weeks. Officials say the victims were fleeing war and poverty in Africa believing in a better life in Europe.
EU officials are being called upon to step in and provide funding help with the refugee crisis.
Divers entering the wreckage of a sunken boat that carried refugees from Africa to Italy reporting finding 38 bodies in the hull that were “so entwined one with the other” that they’ve had difficulty bringing the remains to the surface.
The discovery of the bodies has raised the death toll from the accident to 232 people.
The boat caught fire and sank near the Sicilian island of Lampedusa carried more than 500 refugees from Somalia and Eritrea.
“Some [bodies] we have found with their arms outstretched. We try not to notice this kind of thing too much, otherwise the task is too difficult,” police diver Riccardo Nobile told the BBC. “We can see a woman’s hair floating out of a broken porthole. But we haven’t been able to get to her.”
The United Nations says that 3,000 people try to flee Eritrea every month.
A crater six feet wide and three feet deep appeared overnight near the end of a runway at Rome’s airport, spewing clouds of toxic gas 15 feet into the air.
The crater was discovered by drivers Saturday morning in the middle of a roundabout 900 feet from a runway’s end. Crowds had gathered to look at the crater until firefighters and vulcanologists closed the area because of deadly gas believed to be a mix of carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide and methane. Continue reading →
The World Health Organization says the deadly MERS-CoV virus has spread to Italy.
Two women and one man have been confirmed as suffering from Middle East Respiratory Virus. The 45-year-old male victim reportedly had traveled to Jordan and could be the source of the virus’ spread to Italy. Continue reading →
Some residents of northern Italy were forced into the street after an earthquake rocked the region.
The 4.8 magnitude quake was less than 10 miles deep just north of the city of Lucca. The quake was felt as far away as Milan and Florence. Continue reading →
Unemployment in the Eurozone has risen to 18.2 million after releasing economic data for August. The rate of unemployment remained the same after the rate for July was revised upward at 11.4%, however there was an increase of 34,000 out of work in the month.
The highest unemployment rate for an individual nation was Spain where one out of four eligible workers are unemployed. Austria had a rate of 4.5%. The rate in Germany, the Eurozone’s most stable economy, was 5.5%. Continue reading →
On the same day that Italy’s prime minister proclaimed he could see a “light at the end of the tunnel” for the Eurozone debt crisis reports surfaced that the unemployment rate is at a record high.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti met with French President Francois Hollande in Paris for discussions on the euro. Hollande agreed their had been “significant progress” in recent weeks and that the euro should be “defended, preserved and consolidated.” Continue reading →
