Obama Tries to mitigate damage from EU fallout over US spying claims

Barack Obama has sought to limit the damage from the growing transatlantic espionage row after Germany and France denounced the major snooping activities of US agencies and warned of a possible delay in the launch next week of ambitious free-trade talks between Europe and the US.

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and French president, François Hollande, demanded quick explanations from Washington about disclosures by the Guardian and Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European embassies and offices. Berlin stressed there had to be mutual trust if trade talks were to go ahead in Washington on Monday.

Hollande went further, indicating the talks could be called off unless the alleged spying was stopped immediately and US guarantees were provided.

The diplomatic row came as Edward Snowden – the fugitive National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower, who faces espionage charges in the US and is holed up in Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport – applied for asylum in Russia. Snowden used his first public statement to attack the US for revoking his passport and accused it of bullying countries that might grant him asylum. Read more >>

Greece’s Largest Company Flees

Coca-Cola Hellenic Bottling SA, the world’s second-largest Coca-Cola bottler, plans to move its main stock listing from Athens to London as Greece’s largest company by market value flees the epicenter of Europe’s debt crisis.

The move will make it eligible for inclusion in the benchmark FTSE 100 Index. A new company established in Switzerland by one of the bottler’s main shareholders will make a share-exchange offer for Coca-Cola Hellenic and seek a primary listing in London, according to an Athens bourse filing today. Coca-Cola HBC AG will also seek to list in New York.

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The move comes as European officials try to convince investors that Greece’s future belongs in the euro region three years after the country’s debt crisis broke out. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Athens to assure Greek citizens she wants them to stay in the euro, the largest opposition party says Greece should renege on all its bailout agreements and a report today showed unemployment rose above 25 percent in July. Read more >>

Italian PM warns of the break-up of the Eurozone and the European Union

The big news this morning is coming from an interview Italy’s Mario Monti gave to German magazine Der Spiegel, in which he warned that growing Italian resentment against Germany risks the break-up of not just the eurozone but the European Union itself.

He said the eurozone tensions “bear the traits of a psychological dissolution of Europe,” adding that Europe “must work hard to contain it.” Asked about a strengthening in resentment between the allegedly profligate southern European nations and the bloc’s thrifty northern members, Monti told Der Spiegel “it is very alarming, and we have to fight against it. Yes, there is a front line in this area between north and south, there are reciprocal prejudices,” according to AP’s report of the interview.

 In the meantime, tensions between Germany and Italy appear to be on the rise. The news comes after an Italian newspaper splashed its front page on a photo of Angela Merkel with her arm raised and the headline “Quarto Reich.” Read more >>

Europe’s Debtors Must Pawn Their Gold for Eurobond Redemption

The German scheme -- known as the European Redemption Pact -- offers a form of "Eurobonds Lite" that can be squared with the German constitution and breaks the political logjam. It is a highly creative way out of the debt crisis, but is not a soft option for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other states in trouble.

The plan is drafted by the German Council of Economic Experts and inspired by Alexander Hamilton’s Sinking Fund in the United States -- created in 1790 to clean up the morass of debts left by the Revolutionary War. Flourishing Virginia was comparable to Germany today.

Chancellor Angela Merkel shot down the proposals last November as "completely impossible", but Europe’s crisis has since festered, and her Christian Democrat party has since suffered crushing defeats in regional elections. Read more >>

Germans Warn Greece: No Cuts, No Bailout

An election on Sunday in Greece failed to deliver a parliamentary majority for the two big pro-bailout parties, plunging the country into political limbo and increasing the risk that another vote may be required to resolve the impasse.

On Tuesday, the leader of the Left Coalition party, which benefited from rising anger over austerity to take second place in Sunday's poll, declared Greece's policy pledges under its EU/IMF rescue null and void. As Europe's largest economy, Germany has contributed the biggest share of the financial guarantees under the banks Greece's bailout, which is paid out in installments on the condition that Athens meets specific savings goals.

"The agreements must be respected. I don't think we can or should renegotiate," said Martin Schulz, a German politician and president of the European Parliament, on a visit to Berlin. Gerda Hasselfeldt, a senior member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, echoed Schulz in warning Greece against any backsliding. More...

German Chancellor and cabinet members to get adjuvant free H1N1 vaccine

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Just a week after it emerged that the German armed forces was getting a different kind of A/H1N1 vaccine to the general population, Der Spiegel magazine reports that the government will also get special treatment.

The general population will be offered the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, called Pandemrix, which contains a new booster element, or adjuvant, as well as a preservative containing mercury.

Controversy has grown around the rapid licensing of the GSK vaccine – and a similar one being made by Novartis. Critics said not enough testing had been conducted before European licensing authorities rushed an approval.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, her cabinet members and ministry civil servants as well as those working for other agencies will get Celvapan, produced by US firm Baxter, which does not have the adjuvant or the preservative, according to Der Spiegel.

It is thought the adjuvant may lead to a stronger reaction in the patient – which to a certain degree is the point, meaning the vaccine can contain less of the virus yet still provoke the crucial immune system reaction.

But this is also what some say is the additional risk – and has led to stocks of the traditional kind of vaccine being bought in for pregnant women and young children.

Celvapan does not contain the adjuvant or the preservative. Rather, it contains entire dead viruses rather than the pieces which are in the traditional vaccine. The Baxter version is the one being given to the armed forces, as well as being made available for pregnant women and children.

It seems now that ministers and civil servants are to be included in that category.

“We have bought 200,000 doses of the non-adjuvanted vaccine Celvapan from the company Baxter,” Christoph Hübner, spokesman for the Interior Ministry confirmed to Der Spiegel.

It will be used for "state servants responsible for the maintenance of public order," the magazine reported. Next to members of the cabinet and civil servants, this includes staff of the Paul Ehrlich Institute, which took the decision to order the new vaccine from GSK for the rest of the country. No explicit reason was offered as to why they should get the Baxter vaccine rather than the GSK version.

Chairman of the German Medical Association’s Drug Commission Wolf-Dieter Ludwig said the situation was a scandal. “We are unhappy about this vaccination campaign,” he said. The point of it was unknown, he suggested. “The health authorities have succumbed to a campaign by the pharma companies, which simply want to earn money from a supposed threat.”

Meanwhile some medical associations are advising their members not to administer the new vaccine. President of the German Association of General and Family Medicine, Michael Kochen, has called on German general doctors not to give it to patients. “The risks outweigh the benefits,” he said.

Wolfram Hartmann, president of the Association of Paediatricians, accused the government of making false scientific statements. He said children under the age of three should not be given the shots.

“The vaccine has not been tested on them, thus the risk is simply too great for it to be used,” he said, adding that children’s immune systems tend to overreact, which could be exacerbated by the adjuvants. He also criticised the use of mercury-containing preservatives. “One has deliberately kept this stuff out of vaccines for small children,” he said.