The European Union (EU) has officially started the membership negotiation with the Republic of Montenegro. The talks are held to persuade other countries in the Western Balkan that the reforms are paying off. The Montenegrin government submitted an EU membership application on December 15, 2008.

The negotiation might take several years before the country can be an official member of the Union. Also, Montenegro has conducted improvement in the judicial system to curb corruption and organized crime.

In January 2011, some of Montenegro’s senior municipal officials faced accusations of corruption. The former Prime Minister, Milo Djukanovic, was investigated by the Italian police and faced charges, over one billion US dollars, for a cigarette smuggling operation based in Montenegro in 2009. Montenegro has made additional efforts to further strengthen its anti-corruption by legalizing anticorruption legislation and strategies in governmental anticorruption institutions and agencies to help the government’s effort in fighting it. Also it made efforts in independence, impartiality and efficiency of the judiciary.

According to the official European Commission website, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Štefan Füle said, “Montenegro already did a lot. But much more still needs to be done. This next phase of the accession process will mean even more work in more areas, with continued focus on fundamental freedoms, judiciary, fight against corruption and organized crime.”

The EU leaders have approved to begin the talks at the summit on Friday, June 29. The next screening of the Montenegrin progressive would be in September 2013.

Of the former Yugoslav republics, Slovenia, as of 2004, and Croatia, which will be an official member in July 2013, have joined the EU, while the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Serbia are recognized candidates of the EU. Bosnia and Herzegovina Republic and the Kosovo Republic are potential candidates with no submitted membership applications.

Montenegro is a small country that lies on the Adriatic Sea with a population of about 680,000 and an area of 13,812 square kilometers (5,333 square miles). It became an independent state from Serbia in 2006.

The Montenegrin economy is mainly based in tourism and real estate industries. Montenegro has very rich natural and historical tourist destinations in all regions of the country. Also, it has a coast line of 293 kilometers, making more than 120 great beaches in Ulcinj, Bar, Budva, Tivat, Kotor and Herceg Novi municipalities. the Natural and Culture-Historical Region of Kotor and Durmitor National park are two destinations with UNESCO’s world heritage list.

Between 2006 and 2007, Montenegro experienced a real estate industry boom. Most Russian and UK  investors in the country bought properties in the Montenegrin coast. The direct investments in Montenegro made a rapid growth of the economy. The investments in tourism and real estate fields supported the government to meet the requirement of EU membership program.

Montenegro has no national currency, but uses the Euro. Prior to 2002, it used the German Mark as the official currency. Although it was in federation with Serbia between 1992-2003, it stopped using the Serbian Dinar in 1999.

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On June 20 The Week of Sustainable Energy 2012 will host an interview with European diplomat Sven Giegold. The Twitterview, as interviews via Twitter are colloquially known as, will occur between 4:30 and 5:30 PM.

The European Commission, The Executive Agency for Competition and Innovation, and the partners of the “Sustainable Energy for Europe” campaign will support the initiative. The Twitterview is a great opportunity to ask all of those questions about energy and sustainability that anyone could have and to read the responses in less than 140 characters, something that seems like it would be difficult for the eloquent European diplomat.

Sven Giegold was a prominent member of the TEDxChange conference in Berlin that was about the changes Germany has done regarding sustainability in the last thirty years. Ultimately, Germany has been an inspiring message with the essence of change that will certainly be revisited in this Twitterview during The European Week of Sustainable Energy 2012.

Sven Giegold was born November 17, 1969 in Las Palmas. He studied Political and Economic Sciences in Luxembourg. He received his MA in Political Economics and Economic Development from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

He has collaborated on the creation of the Ecological Center in Verden, with forty work positions in ecological business and social finances. He is the co-founder of ATTAC Deutschland and the representative of the BUND Federation in the Coordination Circle and the Council of ATTAC. He is also the co-founder of International Network for Fiscal Justice. He has worked on the creation of the European Coordinator of ATTAC. He has also been a member of the European Parliament since 2009 and Coordinator of the Verts/ALE Group in the Commission of Economic and Monetary Issues.

He is an exceptionally busy man as he is a presenter of papers and author of interventions in all forms of communication about themes as critical as globalization, ecology, and fiscal politics and policies since 2001.

European Week of Sustainable Energy 2012

One of the most important events in the world of energy is just around the corner. From June 18 to June 22 2012 the world will celebrate the sixth edition of Europe’s week of Sustainable Energy. The objectives are clear: demonstrate, promote, analyze and celebrate efficient and renewable energy.

Since the first year of the week in 2006 until now there has been a huge leap regarding the events and participants. The first year there was only one event in Brussels, but 2010 saw more than three hundred events and more than 30,000 participants. Participants and companies endorsed good developments in ecology, social, and economics. In 2012 there will be even more with at least one thousand events.

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Paris, France — In a landmark ruling that should signal the end of a hugely destructive commercial fishing practice France’s advertising authority ruled June 19 that the French supermarket giant Intermarche must pull all advertisements that claim its deep-sea fish are sustainably caught.

The non-profit BLOOM Association, based in France, challenged consumer ads run by Intermarche that claimed its deep sea fleet, Scapeche, used sustainable fishing practices. The French Authority for the Regulation of Professional Advertising – known by its French acronym, ARPP – declared that Intermarche’s ads were misleading in their claims of sustainability and that their fishing did not contribute to “the preservation and the renewal of marine resources,” as Intermarche had claimed.

ARPP also warned that Intermarche’s own label claiming “Responsible Fishing” bore too close a resemblance to the Marine Stewardship Council label and risked confusing consumers. The ARPP ruled that Intermarche’s ads must be discontinued.
“This decision sends a clear signal to the seafood industry that deep-sea bottom trawling cannot be marketed as ‘sustainable’” said Matthew Gianni, co-founder and policy advisor at the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. “We hope the ruling convinces Intermarche to get out of the business of deep-sea bottom trawling, given the damage this fishery causes to its reputation.”
The ARPP ruling echoes the findings of a number of recent studies which found that deep-sea bottom trawling had a far greater impact on the deep seabed in the Northeast Atlantic than all other activities combined, and that deep-sea trawling was responsible for the depletion of whole communities of deep-sea species. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, the lead intergovernmental body providing scientific advice on fisheries, estimates that 100 percent of the French and other European fisheries for deep-sea species have been fished “outside Safe Biological Limits.”

In recent years, the United Nations has called on fishing nations to take urgent action to protect deep-sea ecosystems, and the Rio+20 Conference this week reaffirmed this call to action. The European Commission plans to release a proposal for a major overhaul of the European’s deep-sea fisheries management legislation in the coming months.
“We hope the ARPP ruling will bolster the resolve of the European Commission to propose a timely phase out of deep-sea bottom trawling as a core element of much needed reform of the EU’s deep-sea fisheries management regime” added Gianni. “A phase-out of deep-sea bottom trawling in European waters would be a major victory for the conservation of vulnerable deep-sea species and ecosystems.”

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In recent weeks Spain’s banking crisis has gone from bad to worse. Spain’s credit rating has recently been downgraded from an A to BBB+ by Standard & Poor’s because of the debt it will most likely take on from its banks and regional government failures. Spain is the fifth largest economy in the Eurozone, leaving many worrying about the ramifications of these recent developments on the rest of Europe.

Currently Spain’s deficit is too high for the Eurozone. The European Commission says that Spain can be given more time to reduce their deficit from the 8.9% of the GDP – as it stands currently – by 2013. However, the high deficit in Spain is causing fewer individuals and countries to risk investing in the country.

Bond yields in Spain are up to 6.7% meaning that they are high risk. Yields on bonds are higher when they are riskier because investors want a higher return if they are putting money into something that is unstable. In contrast the German and US bond yield is at 1.28% and 1.64% respectively. Therefore, instead of investing in Spain’s government bonds more people are investing in the US and Germany. However, this high bond yield also means that Spain will accumulate more debt and have to pay a higher interest when borrowing money.

Despite all recent efforts the Spanish economy is expected to shrink 1.8% this year alone and another 0.3% next year. However, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy insists that Spain will not require a bailout like Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, and Greece have needed; Spanish banks, on the other hand, have already asked for bailout money.

Bankia, a recently formed banking group of seven banks, asked for a 19 billion Euro bailout. Bankia originally reported a 309 million Euro profit for the year of 2011 when it actually had lost 2.98 billion euros. It is unknown as of yet how Spain will get the bailout money when it is already struggling under its own deficit.

The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has suggested that they use the Eurozone’s new 500 billion euro stability mechanism to inject some capital into the banks, but Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has already rejected the plan. Another option is for Spain to give Bankia government bonds to then trade with the European Central Bank (ECB) for money.

Although it has been reported that the ECB has already rejected this plan a recent article by the BBC claims that these reports are false and that the solution is not yet off the table. The European Commission has also suggested creating a “banking union” to monitor all Eurozone banks in the future.

In addition to struggling with the mounting bank debts, Spain is also forced to rescue several regional governments who are no longer capable of borrowing money. Several regional governments have gone bankrupt and rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s, have put these regions at junk status. Most recently Catalonia, the wealthiest autonomous region in Spain, has asked for help from the central government; Catalonia accounts for one-fifth of the Spanish economy.

Spain is giving these regions government-backed bonds which they can then use to borrow money. However, as stated previously, these bonds are at a high yield which makes this solution temporary. A Spanish economy ministry spokesperson stated, “the goal is to reduce the pressure on the regions, which is often greater than the pressure on the state in general, with some regions not ale to borrow on the market.”

Regional banks have tried to strengthen each other through mergers. Ibercaja, Liberbank, and Caja3 merged in late May to become more resilient. This merger created the seventh biggest lender in Spain with 120 billion euros in assets. Liberbank and Caja3 were previously mergers of four and three regional banks respectively.

Spain’s unemployment as of April is at 24.3%, the worst in the Eurozone – even worse than Greece. It is expected to climb to 25.1% by 2013 even with the recent precautions taken by the newly elected center-right government. Prime Minister Rajoy has made several labor market cuts including cutting back on severance pay and restricting inflation-linked increases in salary; these decisions have been unpopular with unions and workers. Spain’s high unemployment also means that there are fewer people who are paying higher tax rates or even paying taxes.

Spain’s economy is heavily tied to the economy of Italy, the fourth largest economy in Europe. These close ties lead investors to worry that if there is a run on the Spanish banks there will also be a run on the Italian banks, throwing both countries into a deeper crisis. Italy is now borrowing at a rate over 5.66%; borrowing at a consistent 7% rate is considered unstable and has triggered the bailouts for Greece, Portugal, and the Republic of Ireland in the past.

The Spanish debt crisis was not caused by irresponsible government spending such as in Greece. Spain ran a balanced budget every year until the recession hit in 2008. The problems were planted when Spain joined the euro in 1999 and interest rates fell because Spain’s economy was good and other economies, such as the German economy, were not.

Investors wanted to invest in Spain which is what drove the interest rates lower. While the Spanish government resisted taking out more loans because of the cheaper interest rate the Spanish people did not. The country experienced a long housing boom that also affected the construction sector. When the recession hit, the housing and credit bubbles burst leaving many banks with toxic debt – debt that was unlikely to be repaid.

Image Courtesy of  Alberto Carrasco Casado

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A new report published on April 3, by Transcrime, the Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime, warns that policy options being considered by the European Commission as part of the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) carry a significant risk of increasing crime and the illegal trade in tobacco.

The report by Transcrime uses a widely endorsed crime proofing methodology that assesses opportunities for crime inadvertently created by regulation.

Analyzing all the proposed policy options for the revision of the TPD, Transcrime found three major policy areas which are likely to increase crime: generic packaging for tobacco products, implementation of a “polluter pays principle” and a ban on the display of tobacco products at the point of sale.

“The crime proofing exercise we have conducted has shown that some of the policy options envisaged by the European Commission carry significant risks of creating unintended opportunities for the illicit trade in tobacco products.

In particular, there is a high risk that a measure such as generic packaging may increase the counterfeiting of tobacco products and make it difficult for consumers to distinguish legitimate products from illegitimate ones,” said the report’s author, Professor Ernesto Savona.

Available information on the currently on-going impact assessment for the revision of the TPD indicates that the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) paid almost no attention to the potential impacts on the illegal trade in tobacco products.

“Contrary to their own guidelines, European policymakers rarely consider the crime risk implications when drafting new legislation and the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive by DG SANCO seems to confirm this,” continued Professor Savona.

In the report, Transcrime emphasizes the need for further research and attention by policy makers to assess, among the many consequences, also the crime impact of proposed tobacco policy measures, something that has been systematically overlooked so far.

“Regulation should be thoroughly proofed against the risk of creating opportunities for criminals. We know that the EU tobacco market is already extremely vulnerable to illicit trade and so greater caution should be exercised when considering the introduction of new policy measures in the tobacco market,” concludes Professor Savona.

The report “Crime proofing of the policy options for the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive” is available online: http://www.transcrime.unitn.it/tc/664.php

About Transcrime:

Transcrime (http://www.transcrime.it) is the Joint Research Centre on Transnational Crime of the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milan and the Universita degli Study of Trento. Founded in 1994, its Director is Ernesto U. Savona, Professor of Criminology at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.

Transcrime analyses criminal phenomena and strategies for preventing and combating crime and identifies innovative solutions for improving the efficacy and effectiveness of policies to prevent and combat criminal activities at local, national and international level.

Transcrime’s initiative to conduct crime proofing research on potential tobacco policy was welcomed by Philip Morris International who agreed to contribute financially to the research. Transcrime retained full control and stands guarantor for the independence of the research and its results.

About crime proofing of legislation:

Crime proofing is a scientific approach used to assess the impact of legislation on crime, a key element of which is Crime Risk Assessment.

The Crime Risk Assessment consists of three steps:

1) The Initial Screening based on a checklist of 7 risk indicators revealing

legislation requiring further assessment.

2) The Preliminary Crime Risk Assessment identifies crime risks unintentionally

created by regulation, focusing on the vulnerability of the market and the possible

risks arising from specific options

3) The Extended Crime Risk Assessment provides an analytical assessment based on

a set of indicators that assess the likely impact of the possible policy options on

the crimes, the perpetrators, the victims and the social costs.

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2012 looks set to be the best year yet as the European Commission offers new thinking and support to quit smoking with their innovative campaign, “Ex-Smokers are Unstoppable.”

A New Year is a new start – and the European Commission is dedicated to helping smokers across the European Union to become unstoppable; finally stopping smoking and enjoying a better life. According to a recent survey, nearly 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions will fail to stick to them, as many lose motivation and focus instead on the downside of not achieving their goals.

Uniquely, “Ex-smokers are Unstoppable” offers an inspiring and motivating approach to quitting smoking, inviting smokers to think again about the benefits of giving up cigarettes, which include better health, better social interaction, more money, and of course, a better quality of life.

In less than half a year, over 150,000 smokers in the European Union have registered with the European Commission’s innovative digital tool iCoach, launched in June 2011. This step-by-step personalized support tool has already helped thousands of smokers across the EU to quit and aims to support thousands more to achieve their New Year’s resolutions and become unstoppable ex-smokers in 2012.

iCoach offers:

- Personalized tips and advice to support smokers to kick the habit

- Regular emails to provide support at every step of the journey to a smoke-free life

- A forum to allow smokers to support each other and share their own inspiring stories

- Graphs showing the user’s progress towards their end goal: Becoming an unstoppable ex-smoker

“I am delighted that “Ex-Smokers are Unstoppable” has helped 150,000 smokers so far,” said Commissioner Dalli. “We look forward to supporting many more thousands of smokers to achieve their goal of a smoke-free life in 2012.

As we enter this new year, there is an opportunity to make 2012 the best year it can be as the “Ex-smokers are Unstoppable” campaign will be even bigger and better. I gave up smoking myself some years ago, and I really understand just how great it feels to be an ex-smoker.”

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The European Commission decided to extend the list of goods subject to export controls, to prevent their use for capital punishment, torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment. As of today, trade of certain anesthetics, such as sodium thiopental, which can be used in lethal injections, to countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty, will be tightly controlled. Furthermore, the scope of the European Union regulation has been enlarged to include other products such as spike batons that previously were not prohibited.

“I wish to underline that the European Union opposes the death penalty under all circumstances,” said Catherine Ashton, High Representative for the Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission. “The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that no one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed. In this regard, the decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish death penalty worldwide. This is a first step in response to the calls of civil society organizations and the European Parliament to strengthen the EU legislation. It will be followed by a full review of the relevant regulation next year.”

Council Regulation, concerning trade in certain goods which could be used for capital punishment, torture, or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, was adopted on June 27, 2005. It comprises an import and export ban for certain goods listed in Annex II and an export control regime for certain other goods listed in Annex III.

In March 2010, Amnesty International published a report asking for a number of amendments to this regulation. The European Parliament repeated these requests in a resolution adopted on June 17, 2010. Since then, the Commission has examined possible ways to move forward in order to respond to these calls.

Today, the Commission adopted regulation amending the previous one, concerning trade in certain goods which could be used for capital punishment, torture, or other cruel, inhuman acts. As a result:

• exports of short and medium acting barbiturate anesthetic agents are subject to prior authorization by national authorities;
• imports and exports of spiked batons are prohibited;
• imports and exports of electric shock sleeves and cuffs are prohibited (electric shock belts were already banned before).

The Commission will carry out an in-depth review in 2012 which may result in a proposal for an amendment of the regulation to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council. The lists of goods may be further amended in parallel, if other goods are identified as needing particular surveillance.

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