Berlin backs plan to raise euro firewall

The European Commission on Wednesday backed Estonia's plan to adopt the euro in 2011, the Baltic state's foreign ministry said."On May 12, 2010, the European Commission evaluated Estonia's readiness to adopt the euro and proposed that Estonia join the eurozone in 2011," the ministry said in a statement on its website.By switching from its national currency, the kroon, on January 1 next year, Estonia would become the 17th member of the EU to adopt the euro, which has been in circulation since 2002.

European Commission has recommended almost doubling the size of the euro zone’s rescue system by combining the existing, temporary bailout fund with a facility that is due to start this summer

Eurozone bureaucrats keep upping the ante as to how big a "firewall" is needed. And at every critical juncture, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proven she is nothing but a liar. With every demand for additional firepower, comes an inevitable cave-in from Merkel supporting the move, no matter what she says in advance. Meanwhile, the entire idea that firewalls can accomplish anything is ludicrous, given the key point that no currency unions in the absence of fiscal unions cannot and will not work.

Google's mobile software target of new antitrust complaint filed by Microsoft-led group

The president of the European Union struck a major blow Tuesday to the concept of a Europe-wide tax, proposed last month by the European Commission but opposed by heavyweights France and Germany."I do not think that redesigning the way the EU gets its revenue is a top priority," Herman Van Rompuy said in a speech in Berlin."I am personally open to new ideas, but since most alternative sources of income would risk hitting member states unequally, this would weaken the fairness of the current system, its built-in solidarity.

Japan called on Germany on Friday to step up and help plug the widening hole in Europe's finances, saying Berlin should play a leading role in creating a debt "firewall".Finance Minister Jun Azumi said the continent's largest economy needed to do more if Europe was to get out of the downward spiral of debt that is threatening to tip the global economy into recession."It is important for Germany to (play) a central role in creating a firm funding scheme that we can refer to as a firewall," Azumi told a news conference, Dow Jones newswires reported.

Editor’s Note: The following post comes to us from Franco Castelli, attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz focusing on antitrust aspects of U.S. and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. This post is based on a Wachtell Lipton memorandum by Mr.

The European Commission has objected on competitive grounds to US business software giant Oracle's proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems, Sun said on Monday.Sun, in a filing with US regulators, said the EC has issued a so-called preliminary "statement of objections" to the proposed 7.4-billion-dollar deal.The EC objections were limited to the combination of Sun's open source MySQL database product with Oracle's enterprise database products and "potential negative effects on competition in the market for database products," Sun said.