As part of a series of conferences on "The crisis and the EU candidate countries" organised by the French Institute in Skopje with the support of the Robert Schuman Foundation, a second debate "Consequences of the debt crisis on Europe and the euro," will take place on 18th April in Skopje. Alain Fabre, an expert working for the Foundation, economist and business financial advisor, will be speaking at this debate.

On 20th February Bulgarian Prime Minister (GERB) resigned from office. As a result new legislative elections – that are to take place two months ahead of time since the election was initially due to be held at the beginning of the summer – have been convened for 12th May next. In spite of the protest movement, the outgoing Prime Minister's party is ahead in terms of voting intentions in all of the opinion polls. In the most recent poll by the National Centre for Public Opinion Studies at the end of March, the GERB was credited with 24.4% of the vote and was ahead of the Socialist Party, which is due to win 17.5%; the Movement for Rights and Freedom 6.5%; Ataka 5%, Bulgaria for Citizens 3.5% and Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria 2%.

On 9th April 2013, in its third estimate for the period, the Bank of France confirmed the French growth forecast of 0.1% of the GDP in the first quarter of 2013. The latter is the same as that published a month earlier by the financial institution, but slightly higher than that established by INSEE - 0% in the first quarter.

Europeans are addressing the issue of tax evasion and increasingly they want to tackle banking secrecy, in spite of resistance, notably on the part of Austria. This subject dominated Finance Ministers' discussions on 13th April 2013 and will be on the agenda at the summit of Heads of State and Government on 22nd May next. The President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, said that the "present political impetus" had to be taken advantage of to eradicate this problem, which means a loss of 1000 billion euros yearly for Europe.

On 10th April 2013 the European Commission presented a proposal concerning the EU's rules on the fight to counter unfair trade practices. The changes put forward would improve anti-dumping and anti-subsidy instruments as well as their implementation in order to protect EU manufacturers against unfair practice on the part of businesses in third countries. At the same time import companies would benefit from greater predictability concerning the change in customs rates, which will facilitate the planning of their trade activities. According to the Commission the system will become "more transparent and convivial" on the whole.

Montenegro provisionally finalised the second negotiation chapter with the EU on 15th April - but the road to full EU membership is still long. The chapter settled between Brussels and Podgorica concerns education and culture (chapter 26). In December last the EU and Montenegro provisionally finalised the chapter on science and research. There are 35 chapters which cover all areas of community law.

The European Court gave its support to copyright collecting companies on 12th April 2013 in the face of the European Commission which had accused them of anti-competitive activities. In July, following several complaints the Commission banned 24 European copyright collecting companies from restricting competition, notably by way of affiliation and exclusivity clauses. Most of the businesses involved then turned to the European Court. They maintained they were not working together but were fighting against unauthorised use of musical works. The European Court upheld their claim and cancelled the Commission's decision. It explained notably that Brussels had not provided documents proving the existence of collusion between the companies on the territorial range of the mandates which they shared.

According to the results of a survey by the pollster "Forsa" undertaken for the German magazines "Eltern" and "Eltern Family" published on 9th April 2013, nearly 90% of those interviewed want the State to do more for impoverished families. They also want to see the development of "full-time" school (Ganztagsschulen), (87% of those interviewed), and say they want a final infants' school year that would be free of charge and obligatory to be introduced (83% of those interviewed). Finally most parents believe that the number of places in nurseries is insufficient. As part of the new bill, whereby every child under three should have a nursery place and which is due to be implemented in August, 48% of parents would be prepared to take legal action if they did not get a place.

On 12th April 2013 the Spanish government approved the creation of an independent Fiscal Authority, that will be responsible for ensuring that the public administrations respect their commitments to reduce deficits (Central State; Social Security;autonomous regions). The creation of this organisation comes in response to a recommendation by the European Commission as part of the introduction of common criteria for the assessment of the budgetary policies of the countries in the region. The Spanish Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro also said that the government would not increase taxes in 2013 and would leave the end of year bonus given to civil servants as it stood, whilst Brussels is demanding further measures to reduce Spain's public deficit.

On 11th April 2013 French President Francois Hollande hosted Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico. During a joint press conference both men recalled their common priorities: growth, mobilisation of European funds and the stabilisation of public accounts. François Hollande stressed the importance of bilateral relations with Slovakia by declaring that French businesses should remain in Slovakia. The French President will travel to Bratislava next autumn, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the country's independence.

On 10th April Italian President Giorgio Napolitano concluded the work of the 10 experts he had appointed at the end of March. This is his personal "contribution" to ending the political stalemate just days before the end of his mandate. The ten experts were able to define "common positions" demonstrating a climate of dialogue in which the parties should find inspiration, stressed Mr Napolitano. "Decisions must be taken by the political parties and it will be my successor who will draw the conclusions of this," he continued, saying he wanted a government with the help of the parties. Amongst the priorities that the next Italian government will have to address are the labour market, justice, taxation and the electoral law.

On 10th April 2013 Luxembourg accepted to lift banking secrecy partially by joining in the automatic exchange of banking data as of 2015; This notably concerns savings revenues. "We can quite safely introduce the automatic exchange of information as of January 1st 2015," declared Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker to the parliament. These measures that emanate from a European law on savings' taxation will however only apply to private parties who are Union citizens. People living in Luxembourg "will continue to be subject to direct taxation of 10% on their savings' revenues and will benefit from banking secrecy as it exists today," added the government.

On 11th April 2013 Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta appointed Robert Cazanciuc as Justice Minister, who until now was the general secretary of the Romanian Foreign Office. His predecessor Mona Piviceru quit the post of Justice Minister in March to become a judge at the Constitutional Court. Prime Minister Ponta took over the post of Justice Minister in the interim. The latter notably put candidates forward to the High Council for the Magistrature for the key posts of general prosecutor for the fight to counter corruption, which was the focus of sharp criticism.

On 10th and 11th April 2013 during a meeting of G8 diplomacy heads discussions focused on Syria and North Korea. They came to an "historic agreement in terms of working together to put an end to sexual violence during conflict," declared William Hague during a press conference. "We have adopted an historic declaration establishing that rape and sexual violence in war zones are serious infringements of the Geneva Convention just like war crimes," he said. "This makes us responsible for actively looking for, and prosecuting or delivering any person who is accused of these crimes to the appropriate authorities in view of judgement, whatever their nationality, where ever they are in the world," he added.

On 10th April 2013 the World Trade Organisation reduced its growth forecast in the goods and services trade in 2013 down to 3.3% against a previous 4.5%. In 2012 world trade only grew by 2%, ie the lowest figure since the start of statistics collation in 1981, noted the Geneva based organisation. The dangers associated with the euro zone crisis and the bid by some countries to introduce protection mean that the 2013 forecast might not be achieved warned Pascal Lamy, the WTO's Director General. "The protectionist threat is probably stronger now than it has been since the start of the crisis because of the failure of other policies to boost growth," he said.

On 10th April 2013 during a conference in New York, IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde said that the euro zone firstly had to continue to "clean-up" its financial sector, by "shutting" some banks down if necessary. According to Ms Lagarde several banks on the periphery of the euro zone "are barely recovering" and are still suffering from a lack of capital together with too many bad debts. Just days before the publication of further economic forecasts by the IMF the organisation's head maintained that she was not expecting world growth to be "much higher" this year than in 2012 and preferred to focus on the necessary reform of the financial sector."From the United States in 2008 to Cyprus today—we have seen what happens when a banking sector chooses the quick buck over the lasting benefit, backing a business model that ultimately destabilizes the economy," Ms Lagarde stressed.

According to a study by the ECB published on 9th April 2013 Germany, the continent's leading economic power and leading contributor to the bail-out plans, has the lowest median assets per household (the split between the 50% wealthiest and the 50% poorest) figure in the euro zone (51,400 euros in 2010). With median assets per household of 397,800 euros, the Luxembourgers take the lead, followed by the Cypriots (266,900), and the Maltese (215, 900 euros). This ranking is explained by the rate of real estate purchase, which varies greatly from country to country.

Until 18th August 2013 the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence is devoting an exhibition to the genesis of the Italian Renaissance. The exhibition, entitled "The Renaissance Spring", brings together masterpieces sculpted by the masters of the Quattrocento (Donatello, Ghiberti, Michelozzo, Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippo Lippi).