23/10 – Today’s headlines from across the EU

EUROPEAN HEADLINES

FT – Draghi signals ECB ready to boost QE if recovery falters. December move likely. Deposit rate under review. Euro and bond yields fall.

WSJE – ECB signals stimulus boost. Amid tepid recovery, European Central Bank may cut its already negative deposit rate.

INYT = Clinton faces her critics over deaths in Benghazi. She denies any role in requests for security at diplomatic mission.

FRANCE

Le Monde – Le Pen is at the centre of Hollande and Sarkozy’s strategies. The Socialist Party and the Republican Party each try to impose themselves as the greatest opponent towards the Front National Party.

Les Echos – ECB ready to provide additional support to the economy. Mario Draghi opens the door to a new monetary easing. French managers more optimistic.

GERMANY

Frankfurter Allgemeine – A far-right terrorist group dismantled in Franconia. Apparently they were preparing attacks on homes of refugees. Weapons and explosives were seized.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung – Playing with Fifa does not always mean losing. DFB President Wolfgang Niersbach tried to explain the cash operation ahead of the 2006 World Cup, but his story sounds like organised crime.

ITALY

La Repubblica – Police raid on ANAS. Yesterday, agents from the Italian Ministry of Finance raided into the National Autonomous Roads Company, to carry out 10 arrests, including the former undersecretary Meduri. ANAS is suspected of bribes and rigged procurement contracts.

Il Sole 24 Ore – ECB-effects rates and Stock Exchange. Mario Draghi opens the door to the expansion of its QE in December: upward trend in the Stock Exchange and depreciation of the euro against the dollar.

LITHUANIA

Baltic Times – ECHR – KGB killings of Lithuanian partisans not a genocide. The ruling may become an important legal precedent in the evaluation of Soviet atrocitiesThe ECHR ruled that former KGB officer, Vytautas Vasiliauskas, had been sentenced in Lithuania in June 2011 “on legal provisions that had not been in force in 1953.”

NETHERLANDS

Fortune –Uber takes a double Dutch approach to avoiding taxes.Taxi service Uber pays almost no tax in the US, where it was founded, thanks in part to two Dutch companies. The magazine says two Dutch firms – Uber International CV and Uber BV – are central to the company’s tax avoidance strategy, despite the fact the Dutch courts have ruled its Uberpop service illegal.

POLAND

Gazeta Wyborcza – Democracy is at stake! The essence of Sunday’s elections is not just a change, like in stable democracies when the opposition and the ruling party switch places with everybody respecting the rules of the game. The stake of these elections is democracy as such in Poland.

SPAIN

El Pais – Sanchez offers an economy against the age of austerity. The PSOE promises more means to support the Spanish welfare state.

Expansion – Housing offers profitability of 8%. Annual housing performance has reached its maximum since 2007.

The Times – Pressure on Cameron to bring in sugar tax. Health of our children at stake, NHS chief warns.

The Guardian – Cameron faces pressure to back sugar tax. Much delayed report recommending levy of up to 20% finally published.