Samsung and Apple Duel in Enterprise Tech

Last summer, health-care startup Preventice asked Samsung Electronics if it would create a custom version of its popular Galaxy S II phone. Preventice was putting the finishing touches on a product that used a smartphone to transmit data from a patient’s heart monitor to a doctor, and it needed Samsung to disable downloads, which might interfere with a cellular connection. In less than six weeks Samsung made the necessary changes and agreed to pick up roughly $ 40,000 in engineering costs. “I saw a huge company with huge resources move very quickly,” says Preventice Chief Executive Officer Jon Otterstatter. “Samsung was very aggressive.”

Samsung’s mobile-electronics empire was built mostly on consumers. Now it’s making its first big push to woo companies. This so-called enterprise market includes companies that distribute smartphones and tablets to employees, who use them for checking e-mail and tasks such as tracking sales, as well as companies like Preventice that want to resell the devices as part of their own products. “We’ve made the decision to be No. 1 in enterprise,” says Timothy Wagner, who runs the Texas-based Samsung unit that’s leading the effort.

Few think that’s likely to happen unless Apple (AAPL), which has already made a strong move into the enterprise market, slips up. Thanks to the popularity of the iPhone and iPad with professionals, Apple passed fast-fading Research In Motion (RIMM) to become the top seller of company-issued smartphones this year and will remain in that position at least through 2016, says IDC analyst Stacy Crook. With its small number of products and carefully policed App Store, Apple has made itself safe in the eyes of chief information officers. In its last quarter earnings call on Oct. 25, CEO Tim Cook said more than 80 percent of large companies are at least testing iPhones and iPads for employee use.

Still, Samsung does have an opportunity. While Wagner is aware how difficult it will be to get businesspeople to ditch their iPhones, he says there’s plenty of new business to be had from companies that need something beyond Apple’s one-size-fits-all formula. Apple doesn’t customize its products for anyone, or partner with third-party software makers to target specific industries. Samsung will, Wagner says. “We’re in a unique position to take advantage of an opening that’s being left there by one of our competitors,” he says. Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison declined to comment on the company’s enterprise business.

IDC’s Crook says the timing of Samsung’s offensive will allow the company to take advantage of BlackBerry’s problems (according to IDC, RIM’s global smartphone market share has dropped from 19.9 percent in 2009 to 4.7 percent this year). Microsoft (MSFT), she notes, has yet to make inroads with its Windows Phone 8 software, introduced in October.

Samsung, which dominates the booming market for devices built on Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system, also could distance itself from other Android rivals in the enterprise market. Its push comes as HTC is struggling and Google focuses elsewhere. In early December, Google closed what was left of 3LM, a mobile enterprise software maker that was acquired by Motorola Mobility in 2011, months before Google bought Motorola. “The fact that Google is shuttering 3LM shows that they’re very focused on the consumer space—but they’re not realizing that consumer devices are being used in enterprise,” says Chris Hazelton, an analyst with 451 Research. “It seems incredibly shortsighted.” Google declined to comment.

Part of Wagner’s strategy for Samsung is to find ways to lower companies’ mobile-computing costs. Many corporations buy smart devices for their employees, but increasingly employees are buying their own and getting reimbursed for a portion of the cost of their data and voice plans. Wagner says Samsung is developing docking stations that would let employees rely on their smartphones’ processing power for their work, eliminating the need for companies to buy them a deskphone or laptop. “As soon as you walk in the room with your phone in your pocket, your monitor, keyboard, and mouse will light up,” Wagner predicts.

Samsung needs to persuade more CIOs to give Android a chance. According to IDC, roughly half of the 125 million iPhones sold by Apple in 2012 were used to run corporate applications, compared with only about 20 percent of Android phones. The biggest obstacle for Samsung is that every Android phone manufacturer uses a slightly different version of the operating system. That means info-tech shops must spend time and money testing each for malware.

With Google showing little desire to solve this problem, Wagner’s team has created a collection of security and management software called SAFE (Samsung for Enterprise) that he says will make all Samsung devices operate the same way. American Airlines is giving Samsung’s Galaxy Note II, a tablet/telephone hybrid, to 17,000 of its flight attendants, who will use it to process payments for onboard purchases of drinks and movies. “The Note was much more enterprise-ready” than other Android devices, says American Airlines CIO Maya Leibman. SAFE lets American disable the device’s camera to protect passengers’ privacy but leaves enough imaging capability to scan bar codes.

Wagner won’t reveal his group’s enterprise sales, but SAFE impressed Samsung’s brass enough that the company will install SAFE products available in Canada, Europe, and South Korea. The company says it’s adding hundreds of new corporate clients each quarter and has recently launched its first corporate-focused ad campaign, with airport ads promising “The Next Big Thing in Business.”

“Some of our partners are calling it Sam-droid,” says Kenneth Daniels, senior director of strategy alliances. “I like that.” Still, Samsung has far to go to prove itself a bona fide corporate power. “They are newbies in the enterprise game,” says Forrester Research (FORR) analyst Frank Gillett. The company is known for high-volume manufacturing efficiency, not for the software expertise and customer support big companies expect. It also has work to do in getting the word out about its new initiatives, says Matt Wallach, co-founder of Veeva Systems, a maker of software for pharmaceutical salespeople. “I asked around,” he says, “and nobody here has even heard of SAFE.”

The bottom line: Samsung aims to pick up enterprise business from RIM and offer better service than Apple and other rivals.

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Nigeria governor, 5 others die in helicopter crash

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — A navy helicopter crashed Saturday in the country’s oil-rich southern delta, killing a state governor and five other people, in the latest air disaster to hit Africa’s most populous nation, officials said.

Nigeria‘s ruling party said in a statement that the governor of the central Nigerian state of Kaduna, Patrick Yakowa, died in the helicopter crash in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta. The People’s Democratic Party’s statement described Yakowa’s death as a “colossal loss.”

The statement said the former national security adviser, General Andrew Azazi, also died in the crash. Azazi was fired in June amid growing sectarian violence in Nigeria, but maintained close ties with the government.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said four other bodies had been found, but he could not immediately give their identities.

The crash occurred at about 3:30 p.m. after the navy helicopter took off from the village of Okoroba in Bayelsa state where officials had gathered to attend the burial of the father of a presidential aide, said Commodore Kabir Aliyu. He said that the helicopter was headed for Nigeria’s oil capital of Port Harcourt when it crashed in the Nembe area of Bayelsa state.

Aviation disasters remain common in Nigeria, despite efforts in recent years to improve air safety.

In October, a plane made a crash landing in central Nigeria. A state governor and five others sustained injuries but survived.

In June, a Dana Air MD-83 passenger plane crashed into a neighborhood in the commercial capital of Lagos, killing 153 people onboard and at least 10 people on the ground. It was Nigeria’s worst air crash in nearly two decades.

In March, a police helicopter carrying a high-ranking police official crashed in the central Nigerian city of Jos, killing four people.

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Samsung Smart TVs: The next frontier for data theft and hacking [video]

Smart TVs, particularly Samsung’s (005930) last few generations of flat screens, can be hacked to give attackers remote access according to a security startup called ReVuln. The company says it discovered a “zero-day exploit” that hackers could potentially use to perform malicious activities that range from stealing accounts linked through apps to using built-in webcams and microphones to spy on unsuspecting couch potatoes. Don’t panic just yet, though. In order for the exploit to be activated, a hacker needs to plug a USB drive loaded with malicious software into the actual TV to bypass the Linux-based OS/firmware on Samsung’s Smart TVs. But, if a hacker were to pull that off, every piece of data stored on a Smart TV could theoretically be retrieved.

[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]

[More from BGR: Dell confirms it will exit smartphone business, drop Android]

As if the possibility of someone stealing your information and spying on you isn’t scary enough, according to ComputerWorld, “it is also possible to copy the configuration of a TV’s remote control, which would allow a hacker to copy the remote control’s settings, and remotely change the channel.”

ReVuln told The Register it hasn’t informed Samsung of the vulnerability and plans to sell the details of in hopes of “speeding up” development of a fix. A video of the exploit as proof from ReVuln follows below.

This article was originally published by BGR

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It’s OK to crank up the music, Florida Supreme Court rules

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) – Motorist Richard Catalano‘s five-year quest to crank up Justin Timberlake tunes on his way to work won the blessing of the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday.

In a unanimous ruling, the state’s highest court affirmed a pair of lower-court opinions that a 2007 state law prohibiting loud music while driving violated the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression.

Catalano received a $ 73 ticket in 2007 for violating the newly enacted law that prohibited motorists from playing music that is “plainly audible” 25 feet away. Motorists traveling by hospitals, schools and churches were subjected to even stricter standards.

Catalano, a Clearwater lawyer, challenged the law as subjective, arguing that determining whether music was too loud was in the ears of the beholder.

Further, the law provides listeners with fewer protections than drivers of vehicles emitting political or commercial speech, who have more explicit protections under the U.S. Constitution.

Calling the law overly broad, Justice Jorge Labarga wrote that noncommercial speech was also protected. Though rejecting the notion that the law was too vague, Labarga said the state showed no compelling interest in muzzling audiophiles who also prefer to feel their favorite music.

“The right to play music, including amplified music, in public fora is protected under the First Amendment,” Labarga wrote.

A message left with Catalano was not immediately returned Thursday.

(Editing by Jane Sutton; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Venezuela’s Chavez has “full intellectual capacity” after surgery

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has recovered “full intellectual capacity” after a six-hour cancer operation in Cuba this week, an official said on Saturday, but offered few details on the socialist firebrand’s physical condition.

Chavez’s health weakened sharply after his October re-election, casting doubt on the future of his “21st century socialism,” which has won broad popular support but also infuriated adversaries who call him an aspiring dictator.

Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza, who is also Chavez’s son-in-law, said in a phone call from Havana broadcast over state television that Chavez was continuing to recover.

“He is in a process of progressive stabilization and has full intellectual capacity, sufficient to send this message to the Venezuelan people,” said Arreaza, who is accompanying Chavez during his recovery.

“We recognize that there were some moments of tension, mostly on (Tuesday and Wednesday), but we have overcome them one by one,” he said.

The call came during a celebration of the eighth anniversary of the founding of the leftist ALBA bloc of nations championed by Chavez as an anti-U.S. alliance of socialist nations.

Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino joined a celebration in downtown Caracas largely dedicated to celebrating Chavez’s leftist policies and wishing him a swift recovery.

The government has provided no details on the situation of his cancer, which has returned twice since it was originally diagnosed in June 2011 and has required four operations. Chavez has said the cancer struck his pelvic region, but has not given any further details.

The information minister this week conceded Chavez may not be in condition to begin his third term on January 10, as mandated by the constitution.

If he cannot, fresh presidential elections would be called within 30 days, with Vice President Nicolas Maduro running as the ruling Socialist Party’s candidate.

The opposition would likely field the youthful Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in October but gave the opposition its strongest showing in a presidential race against him.

That will depend on Capriles winning reelection for governor in the state of Miranda against Chavez protege and former Vice President Elias Jaua in Sunday’s regional elections.

If Caprles loses that vote, other opposition hopefuls might push him aside. Chavez’s adversaries hope to retain seven of the 23 governorships they currently hold, and may view the ballot as a dry run for a possible presidential election down the road.

Energy companies are keenly watching events and hope a change in government will lead to greater access to the country’s vast crude oil reserves – the world’s largest. Years of combative state takeovers have alienated major oil companies.

Investors drawn to Venezuela’s highly traded bonds are hoping for more fiscal responsibility after a year of blowout campaign spending.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; editing by Todd Eastham)

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Japan votes in election seen returning LDP to power

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan voted on Sunday in an election expected to return the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power after a three-year hiatus, giving ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to push his hawkish security agenda and radical economic recipe.

Polls opened at 0700 a.m. (1700 ET) and will close at 8 p.m. (0600 ET), when major TV broadcasters will issue exit polls forecasting results.

An LDP win would usher in a government committed to a tough stance in a territorial row with China, a pro-nuclear power energy policy despite last year’s Fukushima disaster and a potentially risky prescription for hyper-easy monetary policy and big fiscal spending to beat deflation and tame a strong yen.

Media surveys have forecast the LDP will win a big majority in parliament’s powerful 480-seat lower house, just three years after a devastating defeat that ended more than 50 years of almost non-stop rule by the business-friendly party. However, many voters remained undecided just days before the vote, the polls showed.

Together with a small ally, Abe’s LDP could even gain the two-thirds majority needed to break through a policy deadlock that has plagued successive governments for half a decade.

Abe, 58, who quit abruptly as premier in 2007 after a troubled year in office, has been talking tough in a row with China over uninhabited isles in the East China Sea, although some experts say he may temper his hard line with pragmatism once in office.

The soft-spoken grandson of a prime minister, who would become Japan’s seventh premier in six years, Abe also wants to loosen the limits of a 1947 pacifist constitution on the military, so Japan can play a bigger global security role.

The LDP, which promoted atomic energy during its decades-long reign, is expected to be friendly to nuclear utilities, although deep public safety concerns remain a barrier to business as usual for the industry.

ECONOMY IN DOLDRUMS

Abe has called for “unlimited” monetary easing and big spending on public works – for decades a centerpiece of the LDP’s policies and criticized by many as wasteful pork barrel – to rescue the economy from its fourth recession since 2000.

Many economists say that prescription for “Abenomics” could create temporary growth and enable the government to go ahead with a planned initial sales tax rise in 2014 to help curb a public debt now twice the size of gross domestic product.

But it looks unlikely to cure deeper ills or spark sustainable growth, and risks triggering a market backlash if investors decide Japan has lost control of its finances.

Japan’s economy has been stuck in the doldrums for decades, its population ageing fast and big corporate brands faltering, making “Japan Inc” a synonym for decline.

Consumer electronics firms such as Sony Corp are struggling with competition from foreign rivals and burdened by a strong yen, which makes their products cost more overseas.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda‘s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) surged to power in a historic victory in 2009 promising to pay more heed to consumers than companies and put politicians, bureaucrats, in charge of policymaking.

Many voters now feel the DPJ pledges were honored in the breach as the novice party struggled to govern and to cope with last year’s huge earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster and then pushed through an unpopular sales tax increase with LDP help.

Voter distaste for both major parties has spawned a clutch of new parties including the right-leaning Japan Restoration Party founded by popular Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto.

Surveys show the DPJ, hit by a stream of defections, is likely to win fewer than 100 seats, less than a third of its tally in 2009.

(Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.

The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.

____

Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.

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Roll Up! “Magical Mystery Tour” gets U.S. TV debut

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Give four pop stars turned hippies a movie camera in 1967 and what do you get? The Beatles‘ “Magical Mystery Tour” film, which will receive its long-awaited U.S. broadcast television debut on Friday on PBS.

Long a curiosity in the United States, the film will be accompanied by a new documentary about its making. A restored version was released on DVD and blu-ray in October.

The third film for The Fab Four, after a “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964 and “Help!” a year later, “Magical Mystery Tour” is a shambolic trip through the English countryside on a bus filled with odd characters, but thin on plot. It first aired on BBC television the day after Christmas 1967.

Although it was initially panned by British critics, time has delivered some justice to the project, Jonathan Clyde, the producer of the documentary, told Reuters.

“‘Magical Mystery Tour‘ has always been the black sheep of the Beatles family, but I think it’s been rehabilitated into the Beatles canon,” Clyde said. “It’s no longer the ‘mad uncle in the attic’ that nobody wants to talk about. It’s been let out.”

In the United States, little was known about the film at the time of its release.

Beatles fans only had the album of music, or saw a poor print of the film in a double-feature midnight showing with “Reefer Madness,” a 1936 anti-marijuana propaganda film often screened decades later for comedic effect.

“I first saw it in 1974 at a university,” Bill King, the longtime publisher of Beatles fanzine Beatlefan, said of “Magical Mystery Tour.” “By then, though, it had taken on mythic status. I loved it.”

At the time of its making, The Beatles were arguably at their creative peak on the heels of a seminal album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and their summer of love anthem “All You Need Is Love,” which debuted on global TV.

SCRIPT WANTED

But even before “Sgt. Pepper’s” release in June 1967, Paul McCartney had already conceived of the film project. The only thing he was missing: a script.

“Paul had drawn out a pie chart,” said Clyde, also a longtime consultant for The Beatles‘ company, Apple Corps. “It just said things like ‘Get on coach,’ ‘Dreams,’ ‘End Song.’ They really had no idea what it was going to be like.”

The group hired a bus, a film crew, and a handful of extras and set out around England, creating scenes with everything from magicians to Ringo Starr’s oversized Aunt Jessie being stuffed with spaghetti by waiter John Lennon.

McCartney did most of the directing.

“It really had something for everyone, which is something I like about it,” Clyde said. “It was really a nod not only to the younger people watching, but to their parents’ generation, as well.”

The film also was loaded with six new Beatles songs, presented as what now would be considered music videos.

The music itself, including songs “I Am the Walrus” and “The Fool on the Hill,” was as innovative as any of the band’s music that year – and mostly recorded just before filming started.

“The Beatles were driven and inspired by having a deadline,” said Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin. The younger Martin remixed the songs at the legendary Abbey Road studios for the DVD and broadcast.

“And songs like ‘Walrus’ are a brilliant mix of both The Beatles as a rock and roll band and as masters of groundbreaking experimental recording,” Martin added.

(Editing by Eric Kelsey and Nick Zieminski)

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Bayer seeks FDA approval for cancer drug radium-223

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German drugmaker Bayer said on Friday it requested approval from U.S. regulators for an experimental prostate cancer drug that could eventually generate more than 1 billion euros ($ 1.31 billion) in annual sales.

Radium-223 dichloride, which Bayer used to call Alpharadin, is designed to target bone metastases from prostate cancer that cannot be treated by standard hormone therapy.

Bayer licensed radium-223 from Algeta in 2009, and if approved in the United States, radium-223 will be co-promoted by Bayer and Algeta, the Oslo-based company said on Friday.

Bayer, which on Wednesday said it was requesting EU approval for the drug, will market radium-223 alone in Europe if the treatment is approved there.

Bayer said last year that Radium-223 dichloride could become a “blockbuster” product with annual sales of least 1 billion euros.

The drug has some properties of calcium, which makes it cling to cancerous bone cells and then destroy them via alpha rays, which is more targeted that the shotgun approach of conventional radiotherapy.

(Reporting by Jonathan Gould; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)

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Deeper eurozone union ‘agreed’

14 December 2012 Last updated at 08:55 ET

EU leaders have agreed on a roadmap for eurozone integration beyond the deal on centralised banking supervision, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Specific dates have not yet been agreed for the phases of integration.

But the EU summit chairman, Herman Van Rompuy, said a deal should be reached next year on a joint resolution scheme for winding up failed banks.

Mr Van Rompuy’s far-reaching roadmap was the main topic of the two-day Brussels summit.

Speaking after the summit talks, French President Francois Hollande said: “There is no doubt today about the integrity of the eurozone – Europe cannot now be taken by surprise.”

But beyond the banking reforms, he said, Europe must address the problems of unemployment and feeble growth.

The deal to make the European Central Bank (ECB) the chief regulator should pave the way for direct recapitalisation of struggling eurozone banks by the main bailout fund, the 500bn-euro (£406bn; $ 654bn) European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Spain is especially anxious to get that help for its debt-laden banks.

Direct recapitalisation would help break the “vicious circle” in which bank debts have put a crippling burden on national budgets and led to massive taxpayer-funded bailouts.

However, Germany insists that the ESM should not be used to write off the existing “legacy” debts that have burdened Spain, Greece and the Republic of Ireland. Any ESM loans will be accompanied by tough rules on budget discipline.

June deadline

Continue reading the main story

Eurozone integration – next steps

• ECB takes charge of bank supervision no later than March 2014


• Joint scheme to wind down broken banks, planned for launch in mid-2014


• Joint deposit guarantee scheme, to prevent bank runs


• Main bailout fund – ESM – gets power to recapitalise banks, under strict conditions


• More centralised economic governance, including enforceable “contracts” between governments and EU Commission


• Tighter co-ordination of national budget targets

At a late-night news conference, Mrs Merkel said “we agreed a roadmap for the future development of the currency union and talked about different aspects of this that are important.

“Above all, it was important to define when we do what.”

Mr Van Rompuy aims to present detailed plans for deeper economic integration in time for the June 2013 EU summit. They would include “mutually agreed contracts for competitiveness and growth between governments and EU institutions”.

Much closer EU scrutiny of national budgets is envisaged, including penalties if governments rack up unsustainable debts.

Contractual agreements on things such as taxation and labour market policy are likely to require changes to the EU treaties – so these are likely to be put off until after the European elections in mid-2014.

The UK, along with Denmark, has a formal opt-out from joining the euro, and will not be part of the new banking union. But the UK’s banking pre-eminence in Europe means it is taking an intense interest in the negotiations.

UK ‘at heart’ of EU

At a news conference after the summit, UK Prime Minister David Cameron said a “multi-faceted” Europe, with countries going at different speeds, did not leave the UK in an uncomfortable position.

Continue reading the main story

Eurozone banking deal

• ECB to act as chief supervisor of eurozone banks and lenders


• ECB to co-operate closely with national supervisory authorities


• Direct oversight of banks with assets greater than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) or with 20% of national GDP


• National supervisors to remain in charge of other tasks


• Non-eurozone countries that wish to take part can make close co-operation arrangements

He stressed that the UK had been “at the heart of decision making” on important issues like sanctions and EU enlargement, and “we wrote the rules of the single market and benefit from it today”.

He said the eurozone countries were committed to protecting the euro, but deeper integration involved big sovereignty issues. “I personally believe Britain won’t ever join, certainly not while I’m prime minister,” he said.

Referring to the EU’s crisis response, he said that “as this plays out it’s changing the European Union… so I believe there are opportunities for others, like Britain, to make changes themselves”.

‘Good example’

New rules on prudent banking are seen as vital to bolster the euro, as bank failures triggered the financial crash.

Under the deal expected to take effect in March 2014, banks with more than 30bn euros ($ 39bn; £24bn) in assets will be placed under ECB oversight.

The ECB would also be able to intervene with smaller lenders and borrowers at the first sign of trouble.

Speaking after the summit, Mr Hollande said Europe had been unprepared for the financial crisis but now had a “crisis management authority” which allowed for the “return of confidence and growth”.

The agreement on a financial transactions tax was, he told reporters, a good example of how countries could be brought into eurozone integration through closer co-operation, signing up to agreements at a later stage.

A non-eurozone country, Lithuania, joined the group adopting a financial transaction tax.

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