Governatives

EU countries have approved the European Commission’s proposal for fair-use limits on ‘roam like home’, the EC announced. The council of EU representatives, Cocom approved the rules at a meeting 12 December.
However, to avoid knock-on effects on domestic prices given big discrepancies across the bloc in prices and consumption patterns, the EU had to define "fair use" rules to ensure consumers did not abuse the end of roaming by buying cheap SIM cards in one EU country and using them permanently elsewhere.

This means the Commission can confirm the details ahead of its deadline of 15 December, and mobile operators will have six months to implement the changes, by the end of all roaming surcharges in June 2017.

The Eurogroup will have to wait and see what Italy’s next political steps are, what its government will do and what its president decides, President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Monday.

Attending a Eurogroup ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Dijsselbloem’s remarks came after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said he would resign after losing Sunday’s constitutional referendum.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi vowed to resign after suffering a crushing defeat on Sunday in a referendum on constitutional reform, tipping the euro zone’s third-largest economy into political turmoil.

In a late-night news conference, he said he took responsibility for the outcome, and said the No camp must now make clear proposals.
With most ballots counted, the No vote leads with 60% against 40% for Yes.

The Bank of Mexico governor, Agustín Carstens, will step down in July 2017 to become the next general manager of the Bank for International Settlements.

Carstens will serve as general manager of the BIS, which is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, for a five-year term, succeeding Jaime Caruana, who has been in the position since 2009. The bank is the world’s oldest international financial institution and serves as a bank for central banks. Its goal is to foster international monetary and financial cooperation. It hosts bimonthly meetings of top central bank officials and publishes regular research reports.

President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday that he’s leaving his “great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country” in the White House.

The Manhattan billionaire made the announcement on Twitter and said he will hold a formal press conference to discuss it further on December 15.
His tweet said that “I will be holding a major news conference in New York City with my children on December 15 to discuss the fact that I will be leaving my,” Trump wrote on social media, breaking his announcement up into multiple posts. “Great business in total in order to fully focus on running the country in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! While I am not mandated to ….do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses.”

In the third quarter of 2016 the employment has continued to grow in Switzerland, with a more moderate pace than in the previous quarter. The jobs have grown by 0.3% over the same quarter last year, to 4.918 million.

In the secondary sector, employment fell by 1.2% to 1.081 million. The decline affected both the manufacturing business (-1.1%) than that of the construction (-1.7%). In the service sector instead there was a growth by 0.7%, to 3,836 million, as reveals the employment barometer published on Tuesday by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

The health sector (+ 2.6%) continued to advance, though not as in the previous quarter (+ 3.3%). Meanwhile the hotel industry and catering (-1.5%) and the one of financial activities and insurance (-1.0%).suffered a fall in employment.

Former British prime minister John Major believes there is a "credible case" for a second referendum on Brexit; he told guests at a private dinner in Westminster that departure from the EU must not be dictated by the "tyranny of the majority", The Times newspaper reported.
"I hear the argument that the 48% of people who voted to stay should have no say in what happens. I find that very difficult to accept," as The Times newspaper reported.

The "made in Switzerland" brand is increasingly used. The new "Swissness" legislation, which comes into force in 2017, does not change the trend: 95% of industrial enterprises do not foresee any change in the value creation process, according to research of the University of Applied Sciences HTW Chur.

The institute contacted 1000 companies active in the field of machinery and metallurgy, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), receiving 326 responses. The data analysis shows that despite the tightening of the rules, the use of the label "Swiss made" as a marketing tool will increase by 7% next year.