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Three months after agreeing on the outlines of a major reform of EU economic governance, finance ministers from twenty-seven had to lean on Monday include the issue of more effective sanctions for breach of the Stability Pact and growth.

On the menu for the meeting re-entry working group chaired by Herman Van Rompuy: study of the arsenal of available sanctions, reflecting on how they should be fired and "half the European budget", that is to say, presentation by Member States to the European Commission of their proposed budget before adoption by national parliaments.

"We must ensure that those sanctions can be more automatic, they can be accelerated in order to play a role in the preventive (Stability Pact)," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker in his arrival in Brussels.

Mentioned before the summer break, any suspension of voting rights in the Ecofin Council or a freeze on payment of structural funds and agricultural subsidies, however, seems more relevant.

Many countries consider that these measures would be very difficult to implement and might ultimately penalize people more than their governments.

According to one European diplomat, the exercise of that Monday is similar to "duties of re-entry.

"The idea is to list what is already approved – to 27 economic government, half the European budget – and to go a little further into the technical discussion on sanctions before the October European Council where these options be endorsed by EU leaders, "he said personal loans.

MECHANISM ANTI-DEPRESSION

The discussion about creating a permanent mechanism for crisis management should be postponed for a later date due to technical questions posed by the device, but also differences of view on the shape and scope of Twenty Member States between -September

"Mechanism (crisis management) should be discussed in the next few weeks and it might be wiser to defer this matter to a later date (…) This requires, as perceived by some, a change treaty. I do not think we are prepared to amend the treaty, "said Jean-Claude Juncker.

The European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Olli Rehn echoed the statements of the President of the Eurogroup.He believes that sanctions pact to become "quasi-automatic" and that time does not press for an agreement on anti-crisis ongoing.

"It's probably better to postpone the debate on the aid mechanism (…) We have a credible mechanism that works and we can give time for reflection," he said.

The European Union agreed in early May on a plan to support the euro 750 billion, consisting of a community fund of 60 billion euros and loan guarantees of 440 billion euros supplemented by a budget of 250 billion euros from the International Monetary Fund.

This plan is intended to assist for a period of three years from any country of the European currency area that would have the need and request it.

It will complement existing bilateral loans to Greece for a total of 110 billion euros.

American International Group (AIG) reported a quarterly loss as its results were recipients a year earlier, due to the recognition of a significant impairment charge.

The American group, owned about 80% by the state, issued under a second quarter net loss of $ 2.7 billion (2.05 billion euros), or $ 3.96 per share, against a profit of $ 1.8 billion ($ 2.3 per share) over the corresponding period last year.

The deficit is mainly due to the insurer an impairment charge of $ 3.3 billion.

In data adjusted, AIG reports a profit of 1.3 billion dollars (1.99 dollars per share), against 1.1 billion dollar ($ 1.71 per share) a year earlier.

In pre-market, the title earned 5.3%, after closing at 39.90 dollars Thursday in New York.

Since the early action took 33% against 7% growth posted by the S & P's insurance industry.

Several groups have urged the French government this week to catch up on overdue payments estimated at two billion euros due to a failure of a computer system.

On Friday, the giant European aerospace and defense group EADS, which published its interim results, has come to be inscribed on a list of providers dissatisfied with the state which already Safran, Thales and Dassault Aviation.

According to several speakers, these delays are attributed to the introduction of payment system inter Chorus, which records problems since late 2009.

On 12 May, the French Ministry of Defence said he was determined to catch up on by the end of the summer.To date, some 3.8 billion euros of commitments had been paid since January 1, or 55% of the amount paid to manufacturers last year at the same time.

"For the defense sector as a whole, delays (current) is estimated at around two billion euros," said Friday a spokesman for the grouping of French aerospace industries (GIFAS).

A cell involving two other organizations have asked the government to act, "he added.

Dassault Aviation said on Thursday waiting for payments equivalent to 200 million euros.For Safran, the addition amounts to some 270 million.

"We are also concerned," said Friday Hans Peter Ring, chief financial officer of EADS, in conjunction with the presentation of interim financial statements of the company, without giving further details.

A spokesman of the Directorate General for Armaments (DGA) stressed that the system delay payments Chorus affected several departments.

According to the Ministry of Budget, the Chorus system was designed by the German specialist software and SAP software.

An SAP spokesman declined to comment Friday and said that this case should be reviewed by the French government.

Six U.S. bank Friday were declared bankrupt by the regulatory authorities, bringing to 102 the number of establishments in this situation the United States since the beginning of the year.

In 2009, the figure of one hundred banks in bankruptcy had been reached in October.

The banks involved in Friday's announcement is the Sterling Bank of Lantana (Florida), the Crescent Bank & Trust Company Jasper (Georgia), Williamsburg First National Bank of Kingstree, South Carolina (), Thunder Bank Sylvan Grove (Kansas), the Community Security Bank of New Prague (Minnesota) and the Southwest USA Bank in Las Vegas (Nevada), said the authority of deposit insurance, the FDIC.

The largest of the six, the Crescent Bank and Trust, has eleven branches and approximately $ 1.01 billion in assets.Its deposits reach 965.7 million dollars.

According to the FDIC, which guarantees individual deposits up to $ 250,000, the six failures will cost about 394 million dollars added to its compensation fund.

Nokia reported a sharp drop in earnings in the second quarter, increasing a little more pressure on his ailing CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.

The Finnish group, which manufactures mobile phones sold in three in the world, proceeded to the quarter two profit warnings and a reshuffle of his leadership when he barely keep pace with Apple in the smartphone.

We learned this week that Nokia sought a replacement for Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who has spent more than half his life in the company.It could even be removed from duty as this month, The Wall Street Journal.

A Nokia spokesman declined to say after the publication of results if the Director-General retained the support of the board of directors.

Aged 57, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who is married to a longtime advocate of Finnish group, has called for an end to the rumors about his departure.

"There have been many rumors about my position on myself, in recent weeks and it is not good for Nokia and should be completed one way or another," he said on TV channel CNBC.

At 13:15 GMT, Nokia shares gained 3.2% to 7.215 euros while the Stoxx 600 index of European technology stocks took 1.5%.

"The issue of change management is more important for the course of action that results in time," said Thomas Langer, an analyst at WestLB.

Competition intensifies

Earnings per share excluding exceptional items fell 27% as expected to fall to 0.11 euros per share.

Nokia had warned June 16 that sales and profits of its mobile division would be lower than what was previously anticipated, the group has been forced to sharply reduce its prices to meet competition from the iPhone Apple and phones using Google's operating system.

Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, who is known as "OPK" within the group, said that Nokia was counting on the N8, its first phone using the new Symbian software, which should give users a superior experience for all other smartphones until been manufactured by the company.

"OPK said that the N8 will bring the best user experience ever experienced with Symbian.This is good but what about this experience unmatched by the competition? That's what matters and we do not think it will be enough, "said Carolina Milanesi, analyst at Gartner.

Nokia said its operating margin on its mobile phone division fell to 9.5% in the second quarter and warned that this trend may continue in the third quarter.

In this case, the group expects a non-IFRS operating margin of its mobile division and service of between 7% and 10% the third quarter of 2010.Nokia also expects that its market share by volume remained stable in 2010 compared to last year.

"What is slightly worrying is the margin guidance for Q3 (…) Now, everything depends of the fourth quarter. Competition is intensifying," said Kulbinder Garcha from Credit Suisse.

The N8, which should be commercialized at the end of the current quarter, will compete with Apple's latest iPhone and google-phones "Samsung and Sony Ericsson in the fourth quarter, which is strategically with the Christmas holidays.

Nokia shares tumbled about 20% since the beginning of the year, sharply underperforming the index of technology stocks which gained 7%.

Sony Ericsson Friday reported a second consecutive quarterly profit, while reaffirming its forecast for a slight increase in volumes of the global market for mobile phones this year.

The mobile manufacturer, owned jointly by Ericsson and Sony, posted pretax profit of 31 million euros in the second quarter against an average forecast of analysts of 16.5 million according to Reuters.

During the same period of 2009, the group had suffered a loss of 283 million euros.

"Sony Ericsson maintains its forecast of a slight increase in the global market in 2010," the company said in a statement.

The number of registered unemployed persons decreased by 2.1% in June from the previous month, bringing the number of unemployed people below four million, 3.98 million, according to data of Ministry of Work published Friday.

In May, the number of unemployed was 4.06 million.

Spain's unemployment rate the highest in the euro area. It was 20% of the workforce in the first quarter, according to the National Institute of Statistics INE.

Societe Generale announced Thursday that entered into exclusive negotiations to sell its Belgian subsidiary ECS group Econocom.

The offer values the shares ECS 210 million (including dividend for 2009 due to the seller), of which 30 million would be financed by a share issue underwritten by Econocom SocGen.

After the transaction, Societe Generale would become a shareholder of Econocom by 9%.

ECS specializes in the management and piloting information systems.Present in 17 countries including Western Europe and East, Morocco, the United States and China, employing over 1,500 people in 2009 and achieved a turnover of 840 million Euro.

"This will allow the new entity to make a breakthrough in the IT services market concentration, where size is a strategic issue," said the SocGen said in a statement.

Econocom, specializing in the management of IT infrastructure and telecom companies, employs 2,300 people and achieved a turnover of 759 million euros in 2009.

Completion of the transaction will be subject to approvals from competition authorities.

The U.S. economy grew 2.7% annualized first quarter, according to final estimates released Friday, an increase below the expectations of economists and projection previously announced.

The estimate published last month by the Commerce Department reported a rise of 3.0% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected a confirmation of this estimate.

The fourth quarter of 2009, the American economy grew by 5.6% annualized.

This revision mainly reflects a lower estimated expenditure of households and businesses, which grew by 3.0% and 2.2% in the first quarter against 3.5% and 3.1% in previous estimate.

Although final figures for the GDP are lower than previous estimates, they mark's third straight quarter of expansion of economic activity in the U.S. after its worst recession since the 1930s.

The leaders of the European Union should give the green light Thursday to a policy support mechanism to Greece combining bilateral loans from countries in the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, diplomatic sources say on the eve of EU summit.

The objective of this mechanism is to ensure the stability of the euro, which hit a low of 10 months Wednesday after Fitch lowered by the credit rating long term Portugal, and he is not triggered so that Greece will manage to refinance themselves on the market, say these sources.

"We are not in view to publish a simple declaration in the policy or to take money out at once (…) What we seek is a clear political agreement, "said one European diplomat of high rank.

This strategy could be endorsed at a meeting of Heads of State and Government of the euro area, held before the summit opens, and then endorsed by all leaders of Twenty-Seven, even these sources suggest .

The discussion initiated on certain conditions imposed by Germany – a trip as a last resort and tighter European rules of budgetary control – could in turn be subject to further discussions at ministerial level.

The volume of aid is not clear at the summit, but highly placed sources within the European Commission reported that an envelope between 20 and 22 billion euros is planned, with participation of IMF could go up to 15 billion euros.

MATURITY

Diplomatic sources disclose that the next two meetings of the Eurogroup, in Madrid in mid-April in Brussels in mid-May, could be used to clarify these points if necessary.

"The art of the exercise is to give (George) Papandreou assistance requested while leaving, why not care for ministers to specify that possibly the next weeks," said one diplomatic source.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, facing the hostility of a majority of Germans and its coalition partners to any aid to Greece, faces May 9 to major elections in North Rhine-Westphalia .

For its part, Athens will refinance about 16 billion euros of debt between April 20 and May 23 and then hopes to qualify for a lower rate than that imposed upon the markets currently.

The German authorities, who suggested on Tuesday for the first time they could agree to provide aid to Greece to strict conditions, repeated that the issue was not on the official agenda of the summit and they not expect any decision Thursday or Friday.

For its part, Greece, which had threatened to appeal to the IMF if the Europeans brought him no clear support at the summit, now insists that a solution is found purely European.

"We are at a moment when Europe speaks for the future of the euro area (…) We insist that a solution must be found in a European framework because we believe that Europe can and must raise High colors, "said a spokesman for the Greek government.

THE EURO ZONE "not out of"

In Brussels, the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, has abounded in this direction and defended a mechanism based on the euro area.

He then called on leaders of Twenty-Seven to reach an agreement as early as Thursday, if necessary by bringing together the Eurogroup level of Heads of State and Government, because "the euro area is still not off the hook ".

Several European diplomats, the positions of France and Germany, two heavyweights of the single currency have converged in recent hours both on the IMF's participation in the mechanism, to which Nicolas Sarkozy is reluctant, as the organization of a summit of the eurozone, the idea does not appeal to Angela Merkel.

The lowering of the rating by Fitch of Portugal and that doubts about the Greek case led to a fall of more than 1% of the euro against the dollar at 1.3335 dollars, its lowest level since May 2009.(see)

The yield spread between Greek and German bonds (Bunds) to ten years has in turn strengthened slightly, to a level close to 330 basis points against 344 pdb Monday.