10.03 Sarkozy recoils from EU plan


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(email exchange)

Right, thanks!

>   
>   On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:01 AM, wrote:
>   
>   In a message dated 10/3/2008 01:00:23 Mountain Daylight
>   Time, wrote:
>   
>   Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank,
>   said the EU’s structure was ill-suited to a common bail-out
>   scheme.
>   
>   ”We do not have a federal budget, so the idea that we could
>   do the same as what is done on the other side of the Atlantic
>   doesn’t fit with the political structure of Europe.” Silvio
>   Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, will want to be seen
>   supporting Mr Sarkozy in proposals for greater regulation. But
>   with the desperate state of Italy’s public finances – debts of
>   more than 103 per cent of gross domestic product – he will
>   not be in a position to offer much in terms of an EU bail-out
>   package.
>   
>   Bingo! Berlusconi gets it!


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Indexing French wages

A bit of structural inflation being introduced:

Sarkozy Plans to Index Civil Servants’ Salaries to Inflation

by Helene Fouquet and Francois de Beaupuy

(Bloomberg) French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he’d index civil servants’ salaries to inflation and make good on unpaid overtime hours to improve their purchasing power.

“It’s a fact that some civil servants have lost some purchasing power in recent years,” Sarkozy said today in a speech to civil servants in the northern city of Lille. “We’re going to introduce a purchasing power guarantee” to ensure that pay increases match “at least the inflation rate.”

He reiterated that he wants to reduce the number of civil servants and to use half of the savings for pay raises.