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Germany confirms EU plans for €130bn rescue package
Germany’s finance minister Michael Glos has confirmed that Brussels is planning a €130bn rescue package for ailing EU businesses, the European papers write.
Le Figaro notes that Glos was speaking in advance of the full package being launched next Wednesday and that details are therefore sketchy.
It also adds that the leaking of the package by Germany was no accident, with Berlin still undecided as to whether the plan is a good idea.
Le Monde notes that the figure amounts to one per cent of EU GDP, a figure considered “sufficiently significant” to help kick-start European economies in recession.
The Times adds that the European commission has refused to confirm the figures put forward by Glos, and has stressed that negotiations are still ongoing, with some countries reluctant to contribute such substantial sums.
Kirkhope returns as Tory leader in EU parliament
The British Tory delegation in the European parliament has elected its third leader in just over a year.
Timothy Kirkhope has been elected to lead the group - the largest British delegation in parliament - and immediately pledged to pursue party leader David Cameron's "vision" of the EU.
His return as leader comes in the wake of the recent decision by David Cameron to expel Den Dover, the Conservative party's former chief whip in parliament after the parliamentary authorities ruled that he had breached its rules and demanded that he pay back just over €550,000.
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EU farm ministers back CAP reform
EU farm ministers reached agreement late on Thursday to revamp their farm support policy with increases in milk quotas and cuts in subsidies for production, following marathon talks, reports France24.
The BBC reports that more subsidies will be transferred to conservation rather than providing a safety net linked to farm production.
Liberalisation of the EU dairy sector was one of the more thornier issues, with ministers eventually agreeing to progressively lift milk quotas before scrapping them entirely by 2015
French agriculture minister Michel Barnier was reported as saying that there was "virtual unanimity" backing for the new round of CAP reforms.
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EU plans online library project to rival Google
The EU plans to set up an online library to rival Google, reports the Telegraph.
It is hoped that the online library project, known as Europeana, will act as a single portal, the website http://www.europeana.eu, to access history, art, literature, cinema and music, containing items have been collected from 1,000 museums, national libraries, galleries and archives, including the Louvre in Paris and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
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EU to lend Hungary €6.5bn through IMF-led package
The EU has signed an agreement under which it will give Hungary a loan of €6.5bn as part of an IMF-led package, reports the Guardian.
"The condition for drawing on the first 2 billion euro tranche is a budget bill submitted (to parliament) for next year which targets a deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP, and contains the fiscal measures backing this target," the Hungarian finance ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
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EU member states keen to send extra help to Congo
Some EU nations are eager to send teams to Congo to help secure humanitarian aid until more UN peacekeepers can be deployed, reports the IHT.
French Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert said on Wednesday that France, Belgium and Sweden were in talks about the best way to help Congo by arriving ahead of the Security Council's expected addition of 3,100 troops to boost the existing peacekeeping mission.
