Business View

The general coordinator of IU, Cayo Lara, was held today that Germany, France, Spain and Italy have become “common sense” with the agreement to promote measures for the economic stimulus amounting to 130,000 million euros.

At a press conference before attending a dinner with militants in the Asturian town of Grado, Lara pointed out that this decision of investing funds in the amount of 1 percent of EU GDP, is “positive” and that came IU claiming such measures “from the beginning of the crisis.”

In his view, failure to adapt initiatives to stimulate the economy and kept the deficit reduction as the new “golden calf”, the consequences result in a progressive increase in unemployment which is taking place in Spain.

For the IU leader, to succeed this stimulus to the economy, the planned investments amounting to 130,000 million euros should be undertaken in the various EU member countries in proportion to their rate of unemployment “to achieve redistributive justice on projects that should boost the economy. ”

“Welcome to common sense even if they reached this conclusion on the risk to the euro,” he pointed Lara, who has reiterated that even the government deficit is solved “through hard adjustment, which leads to more recession and more unemployment “, but by combating tax evasion and tax reform.

For the coordinator of the coalition, an example of the consequences of this adjustment is proposed to cut coal mining, where workers are on indefinite strike and are leading protests in recent weeks to avoid “a usurpation of rights won” .

In his view, cutting the 63 percent expected this year in subsidies to coal production condemn the coalfields to become “a social and economic desert” and demanded the government to fulfill the commitments agreed in the existing Plan for Coal miners “will not stop at their mobilization until justice is done with this mess that has organized the PP”.

Banks and savings banks operating in Spain reduced its workforce by 14,367 employees last year and closed 2,905 branches, mainly due to restructuring of the sector.

At the end of 2011, the Spanish financial institutions had 223,492 employees, 107,492 and 116,000 in banks in boxes, according to data from the Spanish Banking Association (AEB) and the Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks (CECA).

This represents 14,367 fewer jobs than at the end of 2010, when it had 237,859, and the biggest adjustment relates to the boxes, responsible for removing 12,165 of these jobs.

With respect to branches, at the end of 2011 amounted to 35,118, 2,905 less than a year earlier.

The banks had last year with 14,331 branches, 387 less than the previous year, mainly due to the 135 offices closed Guipuzcoano Bank, the 128 Barclays, the 46 of Banesto, the 45 Banco Sabadell, the 30 Banco Pastor and Banca March 20.

The boxes, meanwhile, closed 2,518 offices, which at the end of 2011 had 20,787 branches.

Since UGT indicate that the job cuts and office closures should be “especially” the process of restructuring of former savings banks, because the group has dispensed with many branches.

The union stresses the need to find “non-traumatic solutions” to this restructuring, ie that the process be done by agreement between the companies and workers.

At this point coincides general secretary Comfia-CCOO, José María Martínez, who demands that the restructuring “is done as usual” with “social agreement”.

The job losses follow the trend of recent years, as recalled Martinez, who estimated that the financial sector has eliminated 30,000 jobs since the crisis began, half due to the fall of the business and the other half to the restructuring of sector.

Moreover, the unions point out that this trend is increasing.

UGT estimates that only with the measures already announced, 2012 will end with 2,900 offices and 13,200 fewer workers, “a very strong restructuring because it is a short period of time.”

From CCOO data do not provide forecasts, but caution that the adjustments to be made from now “will depend on the conditions that put Europe on the loan” to be granted to the Spanish financial institutions for recapitalization.

In this regard, Martinez calls “that are cleaned of uncertainty as thick as liquidation words” in the sense that this may involve the absorption of some entities and not necessarily for other disposal.

Looking ahead, UGT calls for the creation of a “public bank” with the four state-aided institutions (Valencia Bank, Catalonia Bank, Novacaixagalicia and Bankia) because it would clear up uncertainty about their future, allow credit to flow and avoid “taking people removing deposits.”

The general coordinator of IU, Cayo Lara, praised the agreement reached today by Germany, France, Italy and Spain to spend 130,000 million policies for growth, although the amount considered “insufficient” and “shy.”

Lara has argued that this money is a first step to bet on measures to revitalize the economy and that is shared proportionately by the number of unemployed people who are in each EU country.

IU leader has referred to the measures agreed by the four powers of the eurozone in remarks to reporters before participating in the PCE Policy Conference, which takes place at the headquarters of CCOO in Madrid.

In the view of Cayo Lara, after the uncertainty has seen the euro in recent weeks, the investment plan was agreed in Rome “is not enough, but important to support the productive economy.”

“If this is so, surely so can cause a break in that it begins to shift the focus of EU operations and to report that they are putting at risk the euro without investment,” he commented.

The general coordinator of IU has argued that the 130,000 million more beneficial to the countries that have a higher unemployment rate, as the case of Spain, where the number of unemployed more than five million.

The decision to support growth policies was adopted yesterday by the leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain in the European Summit doors scheduled for 28 and 29 in Brussels.

Lara has emphasized that the output of the crisis is to stimulate the economy with investment and also for control of the deficit, but with adjustments, but more with raising taxes on higher incomes.

IU leader stressed that the Spanish economy is “intervention” in a “modulated” since it was imposed actions such as lowering the salary of civil servants.

To avoid a total intervention has encouraged citizens to mobilize against policies that call for more cuts and tax measures and the increase in VAT.

Lara also made reference to the loan that the EU will provide Spanish banks are in trouble and that the government of Mariano Rajoy formally request next Monday.

It reiterated that financial institutions receiving aid should be nationalized in a “definite and permanent”, and as a basis for creating a public bank in Spain.

He also claimed that recapitalized banks are being forced to stop the evictions that have applied to citizens who can not pay their mortgages.

The creation of worker cooperatives has become a lifeline against the closures and job layoffs in Euskadi, one of the regions where most have proliferated so far this year.

The Basque Autonomous Community has been a pioneer of the cooperative movement in the whole of Spain, as it were born companies like Eroski, Fagor, Irizar or Caja.

Currently they are registered in Euskadi about 2,000 cooperatives of which 868, which employ over 56,000 workers, are associated with the Federation of Worker Cooperatives (ERKIDE).

To create a cooperative partner the minimum required is two and a capital of 3,000 euros.

ERKIDE director, Agustín Mendiola, stressed that in the first six months of the year and have become Euskadi 63 new cooperatives, more than half of which were created around 2011, which placed the Basque Country to the head State the number of new firms of this type.

This trend in the creation of cooperatives is “moved by the circumstances,” the crisis of businesses that close or do without workers, who are associated and create a new way of working.

“For seven or eight years, companies expect graduates of vocational training at the doors of schools to accommodate them, but now it is the workers who have to take the step to create the activity,” said Mendiola.

Of cooperatives that have been created in the Basque country so far this year many are related to the service sector and construction and related sectors such as wood, furniture or electricity.

Also are cases of transformation of enterprises into cooperatives because, Mendiola, at times like the present “if there is something to reckon with the joint effort.”

Cooperators seek to solve the stiffness of the companies in which the relationship between the owner and employees “is not flexible.”

In the co-worker partner regulates all the labor and working time, work time or encompass the activity to the actual orders that the company has.

These were some of the reasons why a foundation that is dedicated to training in Bizkaia in employment, especially for groups at risk of exclusion, the cooperative became Peñascal.

Juan Manuel Cano, a member of this cooperative which employs 180 people, she explained that all decisions are made by the partners, which have “a say” in determining the future of the company.

The world has evolved Euskadi cooperative so that it has come to constitute a specific cooperative, Elkarlan, to promote these businesses and from its formation in December 2002, has supported the birth of nearly 500 new cooperatives, many of them in recent years marked by the severe crisis.

The Yanacocha mine, whose main shareholder at the American Newmont, confirmed today that it has agreed to implement the recommendations of an international expertise and approaches of the president of Peru, Ollanta Humala, to develop the project Conga.

The manager of the mine, Carlos Santa Cruz, said in a statement that they had accepted the recommendations, which include preserving two of the four lakes that were to be drained to develop the project, to increase the water reservoirs in the Cajamarca region and create 10,000 direct jobs.

“The construction of reservoirs contribute to strengthening our relationship with Cajamarca and at the same time it will show that modern and responsible mining can protect the environment and significantly improve quality of life of the population through economic development and infrastructure, “said Santa Cruz.

The president of Peru, Ollanta Humala, Newmont said Thursday it had identified itself with the proposals made by the Government to make sustainable and copper gold deposit, which is opposed by a broad sector of the northern region of Cajamarca.

“A Newmont already had made an approach for the project and welcome them finally identified with our proposals,” the president said.

The Conga project is stalled since last November by the opposition of regional president of Cajamarca, Gregory Santos, and various social organizations that promote an indefinite strike.

President Buenaventura (Yanacocha Newmont’s partner), Roque Benavides, had said Tuesday that the company is committed to do “extra effort to give more water” to Cajamarca.

Last Tuesday, local media circulated a letter signed by Gregory Santos Humala requesting to grant them an opportunity for leaders and authorities of “listening”, although not explicitly referred to a request for dialogue.

Humala said, however, who had not received any document from the authorities of Cajamarca, but expressed his willingness to talk with them and even the Government set up a negotiating team led by Housing Minister René Cornejo.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said today “tremendous success” that currently 20% of the energy produced in Germany from renewable sources.

In his usual audiovisual message on Saturday, the head of government explained that the first European economy is “on track” to the “blackout” nuclear Executive passed its 2022, but there are still “some problems to solve.”

These tasks pending, the Chancellor stressed the need to connect gas plants or plants ‘biogas’ to renewable energy and current technical difficulties to store energy once produced.

Changes in the way of producing electricity and transport, said Merkel, necessarily involve a cost to the end user and some concessions by the environmental associations and the private sector.

“Who wants to live in the country of renewable energy in the future who want renewable energy, must be willing to change and infrastructure that everyone must do their part,” he said.

Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to amend the national energy plan that she had approved six months earlier and accelerate the closure of nuclear plants in the country in 2022, whereas before it had extended its life.

President of Asturias, Javier Fernandez, said today that “the abrupt closure of mining operations will only bring more unemployment and despair” to a region that needs of industry “and the more the better.”

The In the speech that he delivered this evening at the award ceremony Margaride Alvarez – SabadellAtlantico the employer Plácido Arango, Fernandez defended the maintenance of mining to consider the closure of farms “will not facilitate economic diversification, much less help the social and territorial cohesion of Asturias “.

“We are not able to let go of anything, but to take advantage of all, we need industry and the more the better but on anything,” said the president of Asturias.

Fernandez has criticized the central government’s measures to reduce the deficit, saying that “are a sort of hidden because devaluation does not change the nominal exchange rate but instead are acting on the real exchange rate.”

“Do not devalue the currency, but if the quality of life,” he added.

Fernandez presented the award to the employer Plácido Arango, an act which was accompanied by the president of Banco Sabadell, Joseph Oliu, the general director of Banco Herrero, Pablo Junceda, the Mayor of Gijón, Carmen Moriyón and President of Asturias Patria Querida organization that calls the award.

The president of Banco Sabadell has valued the business as an engine of social and economic development and especially the history of Arango.

Argentina nationalized the oil company YPF and opposes the action of oil in the Falkland Islands based on the principle of the sovereignty of each country over its resources, dedicated 20 years ago at the Summit of Río’92, said the head of delegation Argentina to the Rio +20.

“It was based on this idea recently acted to recover for all our main Argentine oil company,” said Director of Environmental Affairs of Argentina’s Foreign Ministry, Silvia Merega, in a speech to the plenary of the UN Conference on Development Sustainable Rio +20.

“And it is with this idea that we reject unilateral British activities in the Falkland Islands, including the exploitation of renewable and nonrenewable resources,” added the diplomat.

The official, in another reference to the Falklands, regretted that despite several attempts at negotiation, multilateral agencies have yet to agree a mechanism to allow the development of management measures in maritime areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Merega, chief negotiator of Argentina in the Rio +20, was in charge of representing their country in full after the president, Cristina Fernandez, returned to Buenos Aires on Wednesday by an internal crisis and the Foreign Minister, Hector Timerman, be included in its mission on Thursday Unasur to Asuncion to the political crisis in Paraguay.

In his statement before the summit, which met this week in Rio de Janeiro about a hundred heads of State and Government, the diplomatic Argentina highlighted the decision of the Rio +20 to reiterate the principles adopted 20 years ago in this same city.

“The ideas of 1992 are now in full force and we are here to review its implementation and to reaffirm our commitments to future generations,” he said.

Merega cited the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which provides greater efforts for countries that have historically been more responsible for environmental degradation, and the principle of full sovereignty over natural resources.

The diplomat said that despite these principles, Argentina has adopted various policies and environmental projects financed mainly from domestic sources.

“That debt (rich countries) is still pending and there is no doubt that the recipients of the new arrangements are still the most needy,” he said.

Merega said Argentina expects a ‘green economy, “whose definition has no international consensus” does not serve to justify a “green protectionism” or discriminatory policies.