WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING
FINANCIAL TIMES
TRICHET OPPOSES DEAL IN EU BUDGET
Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has refused to endorse the full package of Eurozone sanctions decided by European Union finance ministers this week. The revelation came amid mounting criticism in Germany of a compromise deal that Angela Merkel, the chancellor, agreed with Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, that watered down measures to enforce strict debt and deficit control.
FED EYES FLEXIBLE STIMULUS
Officials at the US Federal Reserve are considering a fresh monetary stimulus that would combine guidance on the provisional scale of a new programme and a time frame for buying assets with the flexibility to adjust its size at regular meetings. Although no decision has been made to launch a new round of quantitative easing, Fed officials are weighing an approach that allows more discretionary meeting-by-meeting decisions than the unconditional “shock and awe” stimulus it launched during the depths of the crisis in 2008 and 2009.
THE TIMES
BATTLE OF BA OVER BY CHRISTMAS
British Airways has offered its cabin crew a new peace deal that potentially removes the threat of strikes this Christmas and end a bitter dispute. Unite has agreed to put the offer to BA’s 11,000 cabin crew after the union secured concessions from the airline on the reinstatement of staff travel perks. If crew vote to accept the offer in a ballot, it will end an industrial dispute that has dragged on for 18 months. BA’s cabin crew have conducted a series of strikes this year
The Daily Telegraph
Guy Hands was accused of suing Citigroup over music group EMI only to protect his fortune and the reputation of Terra Firma, his private equity firm. In the third day of the trial in New York, the UK financier was presented with the transcript of a speech he gave to EMI employees in September 2007 in which he told them “60 per cent to 70 per cent of my wealth is dependent on how EMI does”.