Scrap Buying Old Cars

Motorists buying new cars will get a £2,000 discount if they trade in for scrappage cars that are 10 years or older, the chancellor has announced.
Alistair Darling unveiled the scheme – which will run until March 2010 – to help the struggling car industry.
He said he wanted to help the UK’s motor industry “which has been one of Britain’s success stories”.
But critics have said the scheme could hit second-hand car prices and will do little to safeguard UK jobs.
To benefit from the scheme, a buyer must have been the registered keeper of the car that is due to be scrapped for at least 12 months.
Half the scheme will be paid for by the government, with manufacturers contributing the rest.
The government has set aside £300m to pay for the scheme, which will benefit 300,000 customers.
Welcome boost
A similar scheme to the one announced by the chancellor was introduced in Germany earlier this year.

It resulted in a 40% rise in German car sales last month, in sharp contrast to the UK where sales slumped more than 30% compared with a year earlier.
Carmakers and dealers hope the UK experience will echo the German one.

Roaming Texts Cut By MEP’s

Euro MPs have voted overwhelmingly to cut the cost of texting and using the internet on mobiles abroad.
The cap for a “roaming” text will fall to 11 euro cents (10p; 14 US cents), from about 29 cents on average today.
The EU-wide caps, excluding VAT, will take effect in July. They cover text messages and data roaming services, such as checking e-mails while abroad.
The current price cap of 46 euro cents per minute for an outgoing voice call will also fall to 43 cents in July.

The legislation was passed by 646 votes in favour and 22 against. It has already been approved by EU telecoms ministers.
It is aimed at preventing “bill shock” – the nasty surprise many holidaymakers get when they return home and see how much they were charged for using their mobile phone abroad.
The BBC’s Dominic Hughes in Strasbourg says one customer was hit with a bill of more than 39,000 euros (£34,000; $50,000) for downloading a single episode of a television show.
The cap on voice calls received abroad will fall from 22 cents today to 19 cents in July and 11 cents by July 2011.

EU In Support of Blue Sky Research

The European Commission has announced a large initiative to fund high-risk information and communication technology (ICT) research.
The commission believes such blue-sky research has in the past proven to be a significant economic boon.
It will increase funding of these future and emerging technologies (FET) by 70% by 2013 to 170m euros annually.
The announcement comes at the launch of the first European Future Technologies Conference in Prague.
The conference, dubbed Science Beyond Fiction, focuses on emerging technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and robots.

UK 24th In Wellbeing Table

A table of young people’s wellbeing in 29 European states – the EU plus Norway and Iceland – has ranked the UK 24th.
The Netherlands was top while only Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta came lower than the UK.
The table, about youngsters aged up to 19, was compiled by York University researchers for the Child Poverty Action Group using mostly 2006 data.
The government commented that its policies were lifting more than a million children out of poverty.
The researchers assessed the countries on 43 separate measures, ranging from infant mortality and obesity to material resources – like poverty and housing.

Overall Ranking

1 Netherlands
2 Sweden
3 Norway
4 Iceland
5 Finland
6 Denmark
7 Slovenia
8 Germany
9 Ireland
10 Luxembourg
11 Austria
12 Cyprus
13 Spain
14 Belgium
15 France
16 Czech Republic
17 Slovakia
18 Estonia
19 Italy
20 Poland
21 Portugal
22 Hungary
23 Greece
24 United Kingdom
25 Romania
26 Bulgaria
27 Latvia
28 Lithuania
29 Malta
Source: Child Poverty Action Group

Commission Aims To Cut Fishing Costs

The EU has far too many fishing boats, and major cuts are needed to make fishing sustainable, according to the European Commission.
The commission’s green paper on Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform also says fishermen should be given more responsibility for managing stocks.
It says member states “micro-manage” decisions for political reasons.
Despite major reforms in 2002, it concludes, the reality for EU fish and fishermen consists of “overfishing, fleet overcapacity, heavy subsidies, low economic resilience and decline in the volume of fish caught”.
Eighty-eight percent of EU stocks are fished beyond their maximum sustainable yield – the highest catch that can be maintained over an indefinite period – and for some, such as North Sea cod, the vast majority of fish are caught before they have reproduced.
Fishermen would end up richer, the commission concludes, by reducing catches until depleted stocked recover – but the system is set up to ensure short-term profits are the driving factor.

SeaFish, the UK’s government-supported industry body, broadly welcomed the green paper.
“We are glad the commission recognises the fundamental issues that need to be tackled, in particular the urgent need for a solution to discards and the need for a level playing field across all member states,” said the organisation’s chief executive John Rutherford.
“We welcome… the opportunity it offers fishermen to become involved in the responsible management of fish stocks. We believe this proposal recognises the improved record of fishermen in terms of environmental responsibility in recent years.”

UK Will Have Largest Population In EU

The UK population is set to become the largest in the European Union, according to a report.
It is expected to increase from its current figure of 61 million to almost 77 million in 2060 – a rise of 25%.
This would make it the largest population in the EU, ahead of the projections for France (72 million) and Germany (71 million).
The EU’s statistical office Eurostat also predicts the EU population will be 506m in 2060, up from 495m in 2008.
It is expected to peak at 521m in 2035 but then decline.
The report predicts the average age of the EU population will rise, due to “persistently low fertility and an increasing number of survivors to higher ages”.

Do We Work Too Hard For Nothing?

The European Parliament and EU governments are starting a new round of talks aimed at resolving a dispute over the EU’s Working Time Directive.
The UK and 14 other EU member states have an opt-out from the directive, objecting to the 48-hour limit it sets on the working week.
But in December members of the European Parliament voted to scrap the opt-out.
MEPs also say on-call time counts as working time. A decision on that would affect key sectors such as healthcare.

Active or Inactive

The EU governments and the commission have sought to distinguish between “active” and “inactive” on-call time, to give employers some flexibility.
“Active” on-call time means the worker being at the workplace, while “inactive” means on-call, but not required to be at work. “Inactive” would not count as working time unless decided otherwise by national law or a workplace agreement.
But the parliament argues that any period of on-call time is to count as working time.
The conciliation involves a 27-strong delegation from the parliament, representing various countries and political groups, and a similar delegation from the 27 member states’ governments.

UK Works Too Hard

An overwhelming majority of Labour MEPs backed the decision to scrap the UK’s opt-out – defying the UK government position.
The UK government’s own impact assessment says the directive has already cost UK businesses £1.9bn annually. According to the Open Europe think-tank, the cost to the UK is as much as £3.9bn annually.
Supporters of the opt-out argue that it would also enable thousands of part-time or retained firefighters to keep their jobs.

Side Issues

David Cameron spoke about a “Broken Society” in his party conference speech last October. He said a lot of it was due to over working of parents, ignoring family time. Maybe if parents and Britain as a whole didn’t work so darn hard people might actually be able to enjoy themselves, or even see their children a bit more. It seems that greed has caught many workers these days, the more hours you work, the more money, but when do you have time to spend it. The rest of Europe seem to have the right idea, work an appropriate amount but also have time to enjoy yourself. You can always make money, but you can’t always make up for lost time.

Can MTV Stir Up Interest In The Flagging EU Elections?

It seems the EU believe that Elections can be interesting – that appears to be the message of an EU campaign using the MTV entertainment network to stir interest among young Europeans.
“Can you hear me Europe?” involves a series of TV adverts aimed at getting young people to vote in the European Parliament elections on 4-7 June.
They will be able to express their wishes and ideas on a website called www.caneuhearme.eu.
A new survey suggests 53% of Europeans are not interested in the elections.
The latest Eurobarometer opinion poll, conducted by the European Commission, concluded that “interest in the elections is not increasing”. It surveyed 27,218 Europeans in mid-January to mid-February.

UK

In the UK, 30% of respondents said they would definitely not vote – far more than in other EU member states. The next largest “definitely not” group was in Poland – 19%. The EU average in that category was 15%.
About 1,000 people are polled in each member state in the standard Eurobarometer surveys, conducted twice-yearly.
In the first European elections, in 1979, voter turnout was 63%, but it has declined steadily. In 2004 it was 45.7%.

Flagging Interest

It seems the novelty has worn off. Being a member of the EU back in 1979 was clearly far more exciting than it is nowadays. Teenagers now just don’t seem to care what is happening in Europe. Though who can blame them. There is so much bureaucracy that the EU has become a dull machine, and it will take a lot more than a few MTV adverts to regain real interest in it. The EU is so confusing, few people understand it because they don’t want to. It is too boring. it would take so long to understand its whole structure and goings on no one has the time. If the EU is to truly regain interest in future generations, it needs a huge revamp. But it seems clear that won’t happen for sometime, perhaps for now, we should just get used to adverts on music stations.

Belgium Latest to Lift Labour Restrictions

Belgium plans to lift restrictions on workers from most of the new EU member states – the latest to do so in the 27-nation bloc.

But it will keep restrictions in place for workers from Bulgaria and Romania, the newest EU members, which joined on 1 January 2007.

UK

The UK was one of the three countries, along with Ireland and Sweden, to place no restrictions on workers from the 2004 entrants. However, workers have to register and only become eligible for benefits such as Jobseeker’s Allowance and income support after working continuously in the UK for at least a year.

After an unexpectedly large influx of workers from Central Europe – an estimated 600,000 in two years – the UK announced that it would impose restrictions on workers from Bulgaria and Romania.

Up to 20,000 are allowed to take low-skilled jobs in agriculture or food processing, high-skilled workers are able to apply for work permits to perform a skilled job, and students are able to work part-time. Self-employed people from Bulgaria and Romania are already allowed to work in the UK, and this will continue.

Give them a job or Give em’ the Boot

Britain could be at home to almost 750,000 illegal immigrants according to a study for London Mayor Boris Johnson. The Home Office estimated in 2001 there were 430,000 illegal immigrants, which shows there has been a significant increase since.

Mr Johnson said an amnesty for many would be “morally right”, but the government warned it would become a “big pull factor” for more immigration.

Debate

The London School of Economics (LSE). estimated that if a minimum of five years’ residence in the UK were needed to qualify, 450,000 illegal immigrants could be granted amnesty.
Mr Johnson suggested an amnesty, which would offer some the right to work officially and eventually gain full citizenship, during the 2008 mayoral election.

What you would need to be Granted Amnesty

Mr Johnson said: “If it does look as though they could make a contribution to society, we should regularise their status or offer them the chance of regularising their status.”

He added: “There would be some very tough criteria. Obviously no criminal record would be one, an ability to support yourself and support your family, commitment to society and the most, the most important thing is they should have been here for a considerable period of time.”

Mr Johnson said it was a “hard political argument to win” but added: “If people are going to be here and we’ve chronically failed to kick them out it’s morally right that they should contribute in their taxes to the rest of society.”

What To Do?

At current rates of deportation, using the LSE figure of 725,000, it would take 34 years and cost almost £9bn to clear the illegal immigrants.

Some claim that an amnesty would lure other illegal immigrants to the UK as it would be seen as a great opportunity. Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said such a scheme would encourage more illegal immigrants.

He said: “What unfortunately would happen is that people traffickers and others would see that as a pull factor to get people to the United Kingdom illegally and we would end up with a bigger problem not just for our society, but for the people themselves involved.”

But neither the Conservatives or the government support an amnesty.

Stricter Borders

A spokesperson added: “There is now triple ring of security that protects Britain: fingerprint visas, ID cards for foreign nationals that lock people to one identity and our hi-tech electronic border controls that check people against police, immigration and customs watch-lists and will cover even more passenger journeys by the end of this year.

Immigrants getting UK Jobs?

There is more anger that jobs would be going to immigrants even though Britain is entering a huge recession, surely those scarce jobs should be going to British citizens.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, opposed the idea of an amnesty, saying: “We have the biggest recession in memory getting under way, two million unemployed, heading up for three million. Is it really suggested that British jobs should go to illegal workers? It just makes no sense at all.”

I have written about this problem before, in such a difficult time for workers, why would the government even be contemplating giving jobs to illegal immigrants. Britain can’t afford to employ europeans, the british must come first in times of hardship.