While Standard & Poors (S&P) is largely being blamed for the downgrade of credit rating, it may be useful to understand the basis of its assessment. After all Standard & Poors is only a messenger.

AALEP has been invited to attend a special hearing of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs on interest group's activities of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to be held on 24 January 2012.

The forint has slid to record lows; two rating agencies have downgraded Hungary's public debt to junk; bond yields have topped 10%. Unemployment is nudging 11% and the labour force participation rate is among the lowest in Europe. Hungary has about € 4.6 billion of foreign debt maturing this year and probably sufficient resources to get through to the third quarter. But it's financing costs have risen to unsustainable levels and the forint suffered a sell-off as conditions in the eurozone, its main export market, deteriorated and growth prospects dimmed.

 In Europe the top Global Financial Centres include: London (1), Zurich (8), Geneva (9), Frankfurt (14), Paris (20), Luxembourg (21), Jersey (23), Munich (25), Guernsey (27), Edinburgh (29), Amsterdam (32), Dublin (33), Stockholm (33), Isle of Man (35), Madrid (37), Brussels (41), Milan (41), Vienna (43), Copenhagen (46), Glasgow (46), Rome (48), Monaco (51), Oslo (53), Prague (55), Gibraltar (56), Helsinki (56), Warsaw (59), Malta (59), Lisbon (64), Moscow (68), St. Petersburg (69), Istanbul (71), Budapest (72), Athens (73), Tallinn (74) and Reykjavik (75).

The Association Paris Europlace which represents key players in the French financial world speaks strongly against a French-only trading tax. The move comes after President Sarkozy said France should not wait for other European countries to get on board. The Association argues that such a tax would hurt the country's economy unless it was implemented across the European Union.

Back on 9 December 2011, the Eurozone heads of state and governments agreed on a 'fiscal compact', automatic correction mechanisms in the event of deviation from the target of 0.5 percent of an annual structural deficit of nominal GDP, and a deepening of fiscal integration. They also agreed on stronger policy coordination and governance under the enhanced cooperation procedure, and on the strengthening of the EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) through leveraging, and the objective to have an operational European Stability Mechanism (ESM) by July 2012.

This is my first article of 2012. Happy New Year to All!

For this first article I chose to write about Turkey because AALEP has been approached to organize a special Lobbying Workshop in Istanbul.

The priorities of the Association have been outlined in an Action Plan for 2012. The main features of the Action Plan can be found in the Members' Only section. 

The following are AALEP's predictions for 2012.

By 2018 China will overtake the United States in terms of gross domestic product at purchasing power parity. A new economic order will come to pass in 2020 led by China and followed by the U.S., India, Japan, Russia, Germany, Brazil, UK, France, Mexico, South Korea, Indonesia, Italy, Canada and Spain.