Europe’s bonus cap s one of a number of measures aimed at ending market excesses

By Alexander Hagelüken

April 12, 2013

It must have been a shock for David Cameron. For a long time, the British prime minister believed that he could prevent Europe from drastically capping bankers’ bonuses. Now continental powers like Germany and France are demonstrating just how little they care about resistance from eternally euro-skeptic Britain. The European Union plans to limit individual bonus payments – some as high as €100 million – to the equivalent of a year’s salary. Since base pay rarely exceed €1 million, the new Brussels legislation re­presents a serious intervention into the high-flying salaries of investment bankers.

Germany should encourage its entrepreneurs to put their money into European industry instead of buying bonds, says Emanuele Gatti, president of the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Germany

April 12, 2013

The German-Italian business partnership is one of the most important in the EU. On June 18 this year, leading representatives of politics and business from the two countries will meet in Frankfurt for the German-Italian Economic Forum, organized by the Maleki Group and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Germany (ITKAM). German Times Executive Editor Theo Sommer spoke with ITKAM President Emanuele Gatti (picture).

The SPD looks back at a history of 150 years

By Lutz Lichtenberger

April 12, 2013

The SPD’s candidate for chancellor stands in the lobby at party HQ, an elegant glass palace in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, surrounded by a phalanx of TV cameras and microphones. Peer Steinbrück is presenting a new postage stamp, issued to mark the party’s 150th anniversary. He smiles for the photographers and quips with reporters. In the background there is a large group of men and women, gray-haired but colorfully attired in rucksacks and trekking shoes. This is the age group that is referred to as “hale and hearty pensioners” in Germany. One woman complains to her husband that she can’t hear what Steinbrück is saying. “Yes, but all this isn’t for us. It’s for TV,” he replies.

The last SPD chancellor left office in 2005. Gerhard Schröder went to the country one year before the scheduled date for elections partly due to the difficulties he had keeping his own rank and file in line. In the end he narrowly lost the election to the CDU’s Angela Merkel although the Social Democrats remained in government as part of her grand coalition. But the SPD has had no role in federal government since the 2009 elections. Right now it is in opposition but keen to get its hands on the lever of power again.