Franco-German differences over the eurozone crisis were put aside as the two leaders stressed their common purpose.

MEPs on both sides of the argument are putting their case.

“In Brussels we expect both leading powers of the eurozone, Germany and France, to come to a conclusion,” said Elmar Brok EPP from the European People’s Party and a member of Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU. “The fiscal pact is not renegotiable. On the other hand it is clear: we have to strengthen economic growth by structural measures to become more competitive. But it must be clear: this must not lead to more debt!”

In contrast, another German MEP wanted the French leader to take Merkel on:
“Francois Hollande made it very clear in his campaign: he wants to create more jobs, he wants to create higher growth. The Merkozy-package has to be corrected! And we support him in doing so!” said Udo Bullmann, an MEP from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats and a member of the German opposition SPD.

President Hollande said he was ready to put all issues on the table at the next meetings on the euro crisis, including those known to raise hackles in Berlin.

The extent to which both leaders are ready for showdown or compromise should soon become clear.

Pollsters IPSOS say Sarkozy would take 47 percent of the second-round ballot – a rise of one point – while Socialist rival Francois Hollande is still six points ahead.

Monday’s poll comes as a left-leaning news website claimed it has fresh evidence that Sarkozy’s 2007 presidential campaign was offered financing by late Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

Mediapart claims it has a letter offering 50 million euros in funds. Sarkozy says he’ll file a complaint against the website.

Challenger Francois Hollande told supporters at a rally outside Paris on Sunday that Sarkozy was “without doubt headed for the exit.” Despite the socialist’s confidence, analysts say that he can’t necessary count on far-right support.

Surprisingly, neither can Sarkozy – according to the IPSOS poll. 54 percent of National Front voters now say they’ll switch to Sarkozy, down from 60 percent earlier.

Sarkozy plans to hijack at least one of Tuesday’s Labour day rallies to reach out to undecided voters.

Marches are held across France to celebrate the battle for workers’ rights.

National Front leader Marine Le Pen has promised that she’ll “comment” on the second round on Tuesday and is expected to tell supporters to leave a blank vote.

And that’s backed up by the latest opinion poll, suggesting as many as a third of National Front supporters won’t vote at all on Sunday.

Sarkozy raised the immigration issue at a campaign rally as polls show he faces a tough battle for re-election in April and May.

“The Schengen agreement no longer lets us respond to the seriousness of the situation. It needs revising. We have to put into force for Schengen a reform that is as structural as the one we have just put in place for the Euro. We cannot leave managing the flow of migrants to the technocrats and courts,” President Sarkozy told supporters in Paris.

Centrist leader and presidential rival Francois Bayrou was quick to react:

“What does it mean to pull out off Schengen? I will tell you, it means to put in place once again the barriers and the borders and the customs officers between France and Spain, France and Italy, and between France and Germany can you believe it?”

Critics say Sarkozy ‘s proposal is aimed at trying to siphon off support from the extreme right, National-Front candidate Marine Le Pen who is snapping at his heals.

Most of the candidates including front runner Socialist Francois Hollande have in recent weeks tapped into French concerns over illegal immigration – concerns which have grown as the country struggles against recession.

Twenty-four more children aboard the bus, all thought to be aged around 12 years old, were injured. Some are in a serious condition in hospital.

The bus was returning from the Swiss resort of Val d’Anniviers in the canton of Valais, which borders Italy.

Reports say the bus was travelling through the A9 motorway tunnel heading back to the cities of Lommel and Heverlee in the Flanders region of Belgium, when it crashed into the wall.

Swiss newspaper Blick is reporting that the bus was involved in a head-on collision in the tunnel.

Two of the bus drivers were also killed.

Around forty centimetres of snowfall on the outskirts of Rome and only five per cent of children made it into school.

There have been some benefits as the streets usually busy with traffic are almost deserted.

“Rome has turned into a city for pedestrians for the first time, and isn’t overtaken by public transport and cars,” said one man.

Around 400 flights will be cancelled at Europe’s busiest airport on Sunday, as Heathrow’s chief operating officer claimed changing the schedule before snow fell would actually minimise disruption to passengers.

In Ukraine, where more than 120 people have died and nearly 1,600 have been hospitalised with hypothermia, shelters for the homeless were handing out hot meals to help with the cold snap.

The leaders of Croatia and Serbia have been snowed in, after travelling to Bosnia’s Jahorina mountains for a meeting with their Bosnian counterpart. Skiers at a resort in the mountains were also trapped by the bad weather.

Production at car manufacturers Audi and Volvo has stopped as workers protest austerity plans proposed by a government hoping to save 11.3 billion euros.

Standing outside an Audi plant, leader of the socialist FGTB union Ben Ali said: “We are afraid because it won’t be the last austerity plan. We hear of more plans coming up. This is why we are here. They are targeting the retirement benefits, the early retirement benefits, unemployment benefits and time credit.”

Transport has been hit the hardest with the entire rail network closed. High-speed international trains running in and out of Belgium, like Eurostar, stopped on Sunday evening.

Many low-cost operators had their flights cancelled because of a plan by protesters to block the access road leading to Charleroi Airport.

Some European leaders arriving for the Brussels meeting will have to use Zaventem military airport.

The International Labour Office (ILO) published its annual report on Tuesday, a 121-page tome on employment trends. Buried within the report, however, was one surprising bit of analysis. Contrary to wide held views that Europe should look to Germany as a model of economic propriety amid a persistent debt crisis, the ILO blamed the eurozone’s strongest economy for having largely contributed to the bloc’s woes.

“One could consider Germany more of a break in, rather than the engine behind European growth because of the economic policy it has imposed since the beginning of the 2000s”, said German economist Till van Treeck.

The report points to labour market reforms initiated by former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s government in 2003 as one of the underlying factors behind the eurozone crisis. In a bid to stimulate the economy, Germany cut unemployment benefits and moved to deregulate the labour market.

“The cost of reunification meant many lean years in Germany, and the country wanted to regain its competitive edge”, said economist Sandrine Le Bayon, who specialises in Germany’s economy.

As a result of the country’s economic reforms, German exports flourished, marking a period of renewed economic growth. Despite this, wages had more or less stagnated since the early 2000s, meaning that German consumers were buying little, thus depriving other European countries of a key market.

The situation had a severe impact on trade with countries such as Spain and Ireland, and ultimately contributed to their growing deficits.

“The economic growth we saw as a result of the increase in exports came at the expense of other European countries”, said Van Treeck.

According to Le Bayon, when the global economic crisis hit in 2008, it “highlighted the latent problems with Germany’s growth model and Europe’s economic structure”.

While Le Bayon agreed that Germany’s economic policies played an important role in Europe’s debt crisis, she feels they are not entirely to blame. She argues that other eurozone countries such as Portugal and Greece also greatly contributed to the situation by accumulating an “excessive” amount of debt.

German selfishness?

With that said, Le Bayon admits that “Germany has had a non-cooperative economic strategy for a long time”.

According to Van Treeck, Germany’s “non-cooperative” attitude toward its European partners “is symbolic of the fact that there is little solidarity among eurozone countries”.

More alarming than that, Van Treeck said, is the fact “no one has challenged Germany’s growth model since Greece’s economic crisis exploded, despite the fact that it probably poses the greatest threat to the eurozone”.

As eurozone countries struggle to rein in their national deficits with austerity measures, consumers are coping by tightening their belts and buying less, a reaction that could have serious consequences on German exports. In the end, Germany’s push for greater austerity across Europe could cripple the very foundation of its economy.

“If Europe really wants to get out of its crisis, one of the first things that needs to happen is that Germany needs to stimulate domestic consumption to help its neighbours’ exports”, Van Treeck explained.

To do so, Germany’s government would have to push for higher salaries in the labour market, an initiative the country began to take in 2010 while economic growth was still high, according to Le Bayon.

Yet as economic experts project that Europe is heading for a major recession in 2012, there are fears Germany may halt these very efforts to increase salaries.

Source:France24

Captain Francesco Schettino is blamed for causing the accident by steering the vessel too close to shore and is accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew was complete.

At least 16 people died and another 16 are still missing after the 290-metre long ship struck a rock close to the Tuscan island of Giglio, tearing a gash in its hull which let water pour into the engine rooms.

Passengers have complained that the evacuation was chaotic and uncontrolled, with some left waiting in lifeboats for two hours before being able to leave the ship.

Several of the bodies were found by divers in submerged evacuation assembly points, wearing life vests.

“If you consider that there were 4,200 people on board, you could say things went well, but if the captain hadn’t wasted a precious hour, it would have been comfortable,” Marco Brusco, head of the port captain’s service, a maritime authority, told a Senate committee hearing.

“The lifeboats could have been launched calmly, people could have been reassured. Instead of that, the first hour was lost, people were working under stress, he (Schettino) left and there were contradictory orders,” he said.

Schettino is under house arrest near Naples. His lawyer has said he is ready to accept his share of responsibility for the accident but says that the ship’s owner Costa Cruises was closely involved in the evacuation.

Italian media have speculated that the investigation into the case could be extended to include other Costa officials but there was no confirmation from state prosecutor Francesco Verusio, who inspected the site of the accident on Thursday.

“At this point, there are no others under investigation,” he told reporters.

Almost two weeks after the accident, officials have given up hope of finding anyone alive on the ship, which lies half-submerged in about 20 metres of water in a marine reserve.

Salvage crews are preparing to pump more than 2,300 tonnes of diesel from the Concordia’s 17 fuel tanks with work expected to start by Saturday to prevent an environmental disaster.

Lawyers are preparing to launch damage claims against Costa, a unit of the world’s largest cruise ship operator, Carnival Corp.

Consumer protection association Codacons has declared itself a civil party in the case and has invited passengers to join an international class action against the company, aiming to win at least 125,000 euros compensation for each passenger.

In the opening speech of the annual meeting of decision makers, she warned that Europe needs structural reforms to tackle the economic crisis. That is why she rejects calls for Germany and others to simply boost the eurozone’s rescue fund for debt-crippled nations.

“Do we want coherence without ambition?” she asked delegates at the five-day forum. “If we do, we will meet somewhere in the middle. Or do we want to see who is best and try to do like the best in Europe, so we have a chance to play a role on the world markets?”

Wintry conditions in the Swiss resort have done nothing to deter anti-capitalist protesters who have set up camp in igloos to ensure their voice is heard.

Activists claim the wealthiest one per cent is deciding the fate of the rest of the world. It is a reminder to the leaders of finance and industry that resentment is increasingly giving rise to questions about the future direction of capitalism.