Summary of newsmakers of the previous days – 13.-15.6.2008

CE WOOD will ask state for 2,5 bil. CZK in arbitration

The biggest inland wood firm CE WOOD will ask the state for about 2,5 billion crowns in an international arbitration proceeding due to an alleged discrimination and corruption in ordering public state commissions by the state enterprise Lesy ČR. Hospodářské noviny (HN) informs on it. According to representatives of CE WOOD the state enterprise gives a preferential treatment to some wood firms. At the same time CE WOOD sent a complaint of the Czech Republic to the European Commission due to an incorrect ordering of public commissions, Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today. The whole contention concerns liquidation of damages after this year’s windstorm Emma.

Czech and German Ministers of Agriculture solved situation in milk sector and questions of bio-fuels

Health Check, the milk sector and problems of bio-fuels – these three counts made a content of work discussion of the Minister of Agriculture Petr Gandalovič with his opposite from Germany Horst Seehofer. One of concrete conclusions of the discussion is and agreement on coordinated procedure in the milk sector. On the question of Health Check, according to the Minister Gandalovič, the Czech Republic is aware of necessity of a certain compromise in progressive modulation, so a shift of a part of direct supports determined for the biggest farms in favour of rural development. “We struggle for as less as level of progressive modulation and agree with approval of areal modulation which endangers the present support of sensitive sectors”, Gandalovič said.

Impacts of crisis in pig breeding in Europe

A significant fall in pig breeding affected countries in east Europe and Great Britain. A relatively stable situation is in France and Austria. Spain and Germany kept the stability at least in pig fattening. With actual market prices and a significant increase of production costs pig breeding is not profitable in any European country. However, in dependency on pig efficiency competitiveness of particular agricultural enterprises is very different.

To live on the Earth like Czechs we need three planets

If all people in the worlds keep the same standard of living as the Czechs, we would need more than three planets of the Earth size to survive. The fact that the Czechs live on ecological credit in the long term is shown by a calculation of so called ecological trace which finds out how much land and water people need for production of foods, energy, to secure transport but also liquidation of wastes. Nevertheless, the Czechs are not alone in that. All advanced countries of the world have too big ecological trace. “The problem is that we want to consume more than our planet can give to us, and don’t to think of consequences”, Andrew Simms, says a director of an ecological credit project of British independent organization New Economics Foundation.