TheChek News Flow

Friday Morning Papers Summary

LA REPUBBLICA

-As part of a wider reform of competition laws, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s government wants to give full rights to transport companies like Uber. And it plans to increase the licensing costs for taxi drivers. Draghi’s intentions have not escaped the independent taxi drivers’ unions (from Ugl Taxi to Or.SA Taxi), which have already threatening strikes and mobilizations.

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG

-Alleged jihadists killed at least 69 people in Niger. According to the authorities on Thursday, the attack occurred on Tuesday in the Tillaberi region in the west of the country. 15 people survived the attack. Most of the dead are members of a citizen militia.

- Central banks all over the world are struggling to determine their monetary policy in view of the sharp rise in inflation. The US Federal Reserve has just announced a gradual exit from its bond purchases - and triggered a real price firework on the stock exchanges on Thursday. At 16,050.60 points, the Dax temporarily reached the highest level in its history. Meanwhile, contrary to market expectations, the British central bank decided not to raise the key interest rate on Thursday from its record low of 0.1 percent. The big question now is: How much pressure does the Fed's decision put the European Central Bank (ECB) under pressure to normalize itself faster than planned?

HANDELSBLATT

-Despite denials from some media, Germany is gradually coming to terms with the need for nuclear power. In view of the increasing demand for electricity and the ever higher energy prices, the call for a comeback of nuclear power is growing louder in the economy. Steve Angel, the head of the Linde Group, and his designated successor Sanjiv Lamba see the German nuclear phase-out as a mistake. “We will need an energy mix. This also includes nuclear power,” said Lamba in an interview with Handelsblatt.

-There are remarkable things that are happening at Volkswagen at the moment. The employee representatives on the Volkswagen supervisory board are ever more distrustful of Board Chairman Herbert Diess because, in their opinion, he is no longer doing his job properly. This is an exceptional situation in German corporate history. Because Volkswagen is a special company. Even a CEO like Diess has to understand that he cannot revoke the historically conditioned special rights of the works council and the state of Lower Saxony. He has to work closely with the works council, whether he wants to or not. Therefore it was completely incomprehensible that he initially did not want to appear at the works meeting scheduled for Thursday.

IL SOLE 24 ORE

-President Sergio Mattarella's next Saturday will be the first visit by a European head of state to Algiers since the inauguration in December 2019 of the new president Abdelmadjid Tebboune, former prime minister at the time of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Italian Political and economic government officials frequently visit Algeria; especially, Eni's CEO, Claudio Descalzi who has contributed to strengthening relations with the local energy company Sonatrach partner in the Transmed project that brings Algerian gas to Italy in Mazara del Vallo via Tunisia. The pipeline is named after Enrico Mattei, a key figure also in the Algerian decolonization process and for the role played in favor of Algeria in the Evian negotiations with France concluded in '62.

-Autoliv and the Piaggio Group (maker of the Vespa and Moto Guzzi motorcycles) have collaborated to develop the world’s first airbags for scooters and motorcycles. The airbags will be mounted on the vehicle chassis and deploy in milliseconds.

LES ECHOS

-American borders are opening. As of Monday, November 8, Europeans, so long as they have been vaccinated against Covid, will once again be able to travel freely in the United States. This had not happened since… March 2020, when Donald Trump had banned US entry to any non-American who had circulated in the previous two weeks in the Schengen area.

- The dispute over the licenses granted to French fishing vessels has still not been settled but "the dialogue has resumed at the political level" said the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune, after his meeting in Paris with the British Minister responsible for Brexit, David Frost. "We have agreed to intensify and accelerate" the negotiations and "seek to put in place a new methodology" to deal with French license applications.

ABC

Spain boats enormous and valuable yet unexploited mineral resources. In its subsoil there are important deposits of the so-called critical raw materials; Those that are essential to manufacture mobiles, computers, wind power mills, cells for solar energy, electric cars, batteries and countless technological or industrial products. However, some 25 projects to exploit these strategic minerals are paralyzed as a result of environmental protection and related protests from some sectors of society, the immobility of the Administrations or, even, complaints from competing companies. Despite having sufficient resources that could even be exported, Spain - like the rest of Europe - continues to depend on supplies from China.