Swiss president says concern over legality of UK, German deals is EC’s “internal” problem
Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey in Geneva 28 November
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland is looking for an agreement with the US that will draw a line on the past, where banks and US tax fraud or evasion is concerned, Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey said Monday 28 November. It should include an agreed method for the US to collect tax money in the future while Swiss banking secrecy laws are respected.
“We don’t want to be a place for people who are trying to evade taxes. But we want to sort out past issues, once and for all, and put some order into [things],” she said, referring to ongoing problems between Swiss banks and the US tax arm, the IRS.
“And in the same agreement, we want to deal with the future,” for example through the kind of withholding tax agreement Switzerland struck in August with German and the UK.
“That, in essence, is our position, and it’s the same as it was with the UK and Germany.”
Her remarks were made at a press conference in Geneva Monday afternoon, 28 November where the president was presenting an overview of International Geneva, and its growth in size and importance in the past decade. She earlier attended the opening of the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent in Geneva.
EU tax commissioner suggests to UK paper the EU might sue Britain
Switzerland, under the UK and German agreements, which have yet to be ratified, is to collect withholding taxes on transactions by financial institutions, then turn over the money to the other countries without divulging the name of the account owners.
But European Union Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta told the Financial Times in an interview published Monday morning that he believes Britain and Germany went too far in signing their own bilateral tax agreements with Switzerland. The FT writes that:
“Brussels is threatening to sue Britain unless ministers significantly alter a landmark tax deal with Switzerland, in a dispute that will cast doubt over the £4bn to £7bn of expected proceeds for the Treasury. European Commission lawyers concluded that the bilateral deal, which recovers billions of unpaid taxes in return for protecting the prized secrecy of the Swiss banking system, is in breach of European Union laws that are tougher on tax evasion.”
Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss president
Calmy-Rey says this is an internal matter for the European Union, and it’s not for Switzerland to comment on who is competent in this area, the EU or its member states.
Switzerland and the European Union have a tax agreement covering “taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments”, signed in 2004 and revised in 2008 and again in January of this year.
The FT reports indicates that the EU’s pressure on Britain and Germany to renegotiate their deals with Switzerland is causing some friction.
Whether or not Switzerland would be open to new negotiations remains unclear, although the Swiss Bankers Association CEO Claude-Alain Margelisch said last week that “our view is that there can be no renegotiation” and the organization’s priority is to see that all parties are convinced that the agreements are true and fair compromises.
US talks could create new agreement, but form is still unclear
The US-Swiss talks are widely expected to be completed within weeks if not days, but the ultimate form an agreement might take is not yet clear, Mario Tuor, spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Tax Office told GenevaLunch Monday evening. The two countries have a treaty dating back to 1996 that covers tax fraud, still in place, and a new treaty covering tax evasion, which goes before the Swiss parliament in December 2011.
Tuor repeated Calmy-Rey’s assertion that Switzerland also wants an agreement which covers the banks not currently being investigated by the US Justice Department for helping Americans evade US taxes. “The form [it would take] is not yet clear. But it is clear now that we will not need a parliamentary agreement,” which a treaty would require. “We won’t need an agreement that calls for a treaty because it will be based on existing law.”
Switzerland and the US signed a treaty in 2009 that covered an American request for assistance with UBS 4,450 bank accounts, whose owners had not been identified, thus putting the demand outside the existing legal framework.
The talks are raising questions among many Americans who live overseas and who are grappling with the implications for them of tax reporting changes that were designed to prevent fraud by wealthy Americans who live in the US and have offshore accounts.
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Hundreds of construction workers went on strike in Geneva and Lausanne as well as other parts of Switzerland Friday 25 November. The workers gathered in the city centres to protest the collapse of collective contracts talks. The talks ended 2 November without an agreement between unions and the Société suisse des entrepreneur; the current contract ends 31 December.
Ambassador Stephen Bosworth speaks with the press following talks between the US and North Korea - Photo Eric Bridiers US Mission
Updated: 17:32 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The second bilateral encounter between North Korea and the United States of America on de-nuclearization concluded on a somehow “positive” note.
It was “generally constructive” said outgoing US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth who responded that both governments had “narrowed differences in terms of what has to be done before [they] can both agree to a resumption of the formal negotiations.”
“We can reach a reasonable basis of departure for formal negotiations for a return to the Six-Party process,” said Bosworth.
The two-day meeting is the latest in recent months between the US and North Korea, as well as the two Koreas.
Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan of North Korea met with Bosworth, Washington’s outgoing top envoy for Pyongyang, and Special Representative Glyn Davies, who will from now on be “actively engaged” in the discussions on the North Korean nuclear program.
The US Ambassador thanked the Swiss authorities for what he called “the cooperation extended” to the talks.
“I just want to say that we’ve had some very positive and I think generally constructive talks with the DPRK delegation over the course of the last two days.
We narrowed differences on several points and explored our differences on others. We came to the conclusion that we will need more time and more discussion to reach agreement in an effort to assess whether we have sufficient agreement to resume our active negotiations both bilaterally and in the Six-Party process.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The US Mission in Geneva has confirmed State Department news Wednesday that an American interagency team will meet with representatives from the North Korean government 24-25 in Geneva to review the Asia country’s willingness to begin nuclear disarmament.
The meeting, with First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan leading the Korean group, follows several de-nuclearization meetings in recent months, between the US and North Korea, as well as the two Koreas.
The US says of the upcoming meeting that the “delegations will continue discussions to determine if North Korea is prepared to implement its obligations under UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874 and its commitments under the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks, including concrete steps toward denuclearization.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Credit ratings agency Moody’s announced 13 July that it will review the US debt rating, since the country is not yet making significant progress on resolving the budget and debt ceiling crisis that could lead to a US default 2 August if not resolved soon. The announcement was followed a few hours later by President Barack Obama walking out of heated talks between Republicans and Democrats. It also prompted the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, to say that a default would constitute a major crisis that would send ripples through the financial world.
“The review of the US government’s bond rating is prompted by the possibility that the debt limit will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes. As such, there is a small but rising risk of a short-lived default.
“Moody’s considers the probability of a default on interest payments to be low but no longer to be de minimis. An actual default, regardless of duration, would fundamentally alter Moody’s assessment of the timeliness of future payments, and a Aaa rating would likely no longer be appropriate. However, because this type of default is expected to be short-lived, and the expected loss to holders of Treasury bonds would be minimal or non-existent, the rating would most likely be downgraded to somewhere in the Aa range.”
Links to other sites: BBC, Financial Times, Moody‘s, Washington Post
Russia's Lavrov, US's Clinton kick-started the new Start Treaty talks in March 2009 in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) -The US Senate has ratified a treatycovering US-Russian nuclear arms and handed the Obama adminstration one of the few foreign policy triumphs in almost two years. The vote 22 December was 71-26 and included 13 Republican senators who joined the entire Democratic caucus.
The treaty governs strategic nuclear weapons between the former Cold War foes and reduces each side to 1,550 nuclear warheads as well as providing verification procedures.
The new treaty replaces one that expired in December 2009 and is the result of a series of talks sparked by a March 2009 Geneva meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers, Sergey Lavrov and Hillary Clinton. The talks in Geneva in December 2009 were shrouded in secrecy, prompting much media speculation about the likelihood they would indeed result in a treaty.
The ratification of the Start treaty has been portrayed as being much more important in its symbolism than its actual content, say some observers, because it sends a strong signal to other countries that the USA can be relied on. The two countries still have 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.
US TV talk show host Larry King was told by Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai in an exclusive interview that his government is holding “unofficial” talks with the Taliban in order to advance peace talks. He cited a new High Peace Council, led by former President Buhanuddin Rabbani, with the goal of bringing the Taliban into the family fold of Afghans.
Negotiations between EU (European Union) officials and Zimbabwe’s government to be held in Brussels have been delayed this week due to the airspace shutdown in Europe, with official still trying to set a date. Zimbabwe resumed flights to Europe too late for the talks to start Monday 26 April, as planned. The discussions are designed to encourage a re-engagement between the EU and Zimbabwe. The relationship between the two has been strained since the EU put up sanctions to freeze Zimbabwe’s assets and ban arm imports. The talks will address the sanctions placed on Robert Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party and the EU’s desire to see greater democracy and reform in Zimbabwe.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, CIA, Deutsche Welle, Timesonline, South Africa
Update 17:45 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Prague, Czech Republic, is the likely host for the signing of a historic new agreement in early April between Russia and the US, to reduce nuclear weapon stockpiles. National Public Radio in the US reported earlier that the two countries have apparently reached an agreement, information that was tempered by a Thursday briefing at the White House in Washington with spokesman Robert Gibbs. NPR had reported that “The U.S. and Russia reached a breakthrough agreement Wednesday for a historic treaty to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the former Cold War rivals, the most significant pact in a generation and an important milestone in the decades-long quest to lower the risk of global nuclear war.” But Gibbs refused to confirm the report, saying that “we are, I think, very close to having an agreement on a START treaty and — but won’t have one until President Obama and his counterpart, Mr. Medvedev, have a chance to speak again.” The two would talk soon, within days, he noted, but he reporters could not get him to be more specific.
Geneva has been hosting the talks since the two countries agreed in March 2009 to step up their efforts to replace the old Start treaty, which ended in December 2009. NPR notes that Prague has, however, announced that it will host the signing and that officials in Washington were called in to be briefed on the agreement.
Arab League Secretary-general Amr Moussa announced after an emergency meeting Wednesday 10 March that Palestine is withdrawing from indirect talks with Israel. Moussa reportedly had been phoned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who said that given Israel’s announcement that it will build 1,600 new settler homes, his government cannot participate in talks. Al Jazeera quotes Moussa as saying “The Palestinian president decided he will not enter into those negotiations now . . . the Palestinian side is not ready to negotiate under the present circumstances.” Al Jazeera interviewed US Vice-president Joe Biden, who is in the region to encourage the talks, which were announced Sunday, just two days before the Israeli announcement about the planned new West Bank construction. Biden told Al Jazeera that “Everyone knows the Palestinians deserve an independent state, the Israelis deserve an independent and secure state and for those kinds of actions to occur when there’s more agreement than disagreement is just destabilising.”
Israel has apologized for the timing of the announcement, and it appears that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was unaware the announcement would be made.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, CBS News commentary, CNN, Jerusalem Post, Times, UK
India and Pakistan are holding talks for the first time since the Mumbai attacks in November 2008. India blamed Pakistan for harbouring the terrorists who killed 166 people and it cut diplomatic relations. Expectations for substantive agreements are not high for this week’s talks, but they are widely considered a significant step towards improved relations between the two countries which both have nuclear arms and which are vying for influence in Afghanistan. Disputes over Kashmir remains one of the tough issues and India is wary of the US role in supporting Pakistan.
Links to other sites: Reuters UK, Tehran Times, Times of India, Xinhua
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - US State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley told reporters in Washington Wednesday 27 January that the Start talks were briefly reviewed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov when they met London Tuesday. The talks resume Monday 1 February in Geneva after a six-week break, with both sides saying they are optimistic.
Update 2 18:55 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev late Friday 4 December issued this joint statement after a week of high-level negotiations in Geneva:
“Recognizing our mutual determination to support strategic stability between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, we express our commitment, as a matter of principle, to continue to work together in the spirit of the Start Treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a new treaty on strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date.”
The treaty officially expires Saturday 5 December 2009. The two countries have said in recent weeks that while they were working towards completing a draft for a new treaty by the time the old one ends, it would more likely be the end of 2009 before a draft could be ready. The new statement avoids setting a deadline, but reinforces the commitment of both sides.
A spokesperson for the US Mission in Geneva said that “The US and Russia are continuing to work hard to complete the new Start Treaty and our delegations are making significant progress toward that end, nonetheless, some difficult issues remain.”
Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer’s current visit to Yahoo country in California has technology and business media speculating that he is meeting with Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, to try to revive talks to create a search partnership, after discussions fell through in 2008. The two are struggling to gain greater shares of the search market where Google has 64 percent. Reuters
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Turkey and Armenia have “agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner,” the two note in a brief formal statement issued jointly with Switzerland Thursday morning 23 April. Switzerland has served as mediator for the two countries, which “have been working intensively with a view to normalizing their bilateral relations and developing them in a spirit of good-neighborliness, and mutual respect, and thus to promoting peace, security and stability in the whole region. The two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have In this context, a road-map has been identified. This agreed basis provides a positive prospect for the on-going process.”
pssst - we have something to talk about -
Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Groups of 30 specialists, mainly university professors, from Iran and the United States but also from Switzerland, some Middle East countries and at times Israel, have been meeting secretly for six years, reports Le Temps. The Geneva newspaper, in a lengthy feature that probes the possibility of discreet, high level but informal talks, called Track II, between Iran and the US says this may be a sign that the two countries, which ended diplomatic relations 30 years ago, have been trying to keep lines open for talks.
