The Netherlands: Shell to slash 2,000 Netherlands jobs - by Janene Pieters

Shell is cutting some 2 thousand jobs in the Netherlands. The oil company aims to get rid of 15 to 20 percent of the abut 10 thousand employees working in Amsterdam and Rijswijk as part of a cost cutting plan to cope with the low oil prices, AD reports.

The company launched a voluntary departure scheme. Office staff with a salary of 75 thousand euros per year or higher can resign voluntarily for compensation. Employees can register for voluntary departure until July 1st.

According to union FNV, Shell is hoping to avoid an official reorganization with the voluntary departure scheme. “Shell first wants to see whether enough employees volunteer”, director Egbert Schellenberg said to the newspaper.

Employees working at the Pernis refinery and the petrochemical complex in Moerdijk do not qualify for the voluntary departure scheme as those two branches already face staff shortages.

Read more: Shell to slash 2,000 Netherlands jobs - NL Times

Brexit: Britons Will Be Poorer if They Leave E.U., Government Asserts - by Stephen Castle

Great Britain or Poor Britain?

The British government outlined the central argument on Monday it hopes will persuade voters to stay in the European Union, publishing a detailed economic analysis finding that Britons will be poorer if they quit.

The release of the publication by the Treasury, complete with complex algebraic calculations, is an important moment before a referendum, to take place June 23, on whether Britain should end more than four decades of integration and quit the 28-nation bloc.

Those who oppose a British withdrawal from the European Union, known as “Brexit,” say that it would inevitably lead to economic uncertainty and deter investment, and that it could complicate ties with the bloc, the country’s biggest trade partner.

On Monday, the government put a number on that claim, asserting that, under one midrange situation, annual economic output would be 4,300 pounds, around $6,100, lower per household if Britain left than if it stayed in the bloc.

.In any event, the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said at a speech in Bristol, England, that the country “would be permanently poorer if it left the European Union” because “we’d trade less, do less business and receive less investment.”

Mr. Osborne, who with Prime Minister David Cameron is campaigning for Britons to vote to remain, added: “The price would be paid by British families. Wages would be lower, and prices would be higher.”

Those advocating an exit, including dissenters in the governing Conservative Party, quickly dismissed the analysis. Andrea Leadsom, a government minister who used to work in the Treasury, called it “extraordinarily biased.”

The release of the document highlights the quickening tempo of the referendum campaign, which officially began last week.

And it precedes a visit to Britain this week by President Obama, who is expected, if asked, to endorse continued British membership in the bloc but to note that it is a decision for British voters.

Note EU-Digest: the other disaster that looms for Britain in case they leave the EU, is that Scotland has indicated they want to remain in the EU and will secede from the United Kingdam if they leave the EU.

Read more: Britons Will Be Poorer if They Leave E.U., Government Asserts - The New York Times

TTIP: U.S. Trade Policy: Populist Anger or Out-of-Touch Elites? - by Jeff Faux,

Nobody wants it except the
Corporate and Government elites

The presidential primary campaigns of both political parties have exposed widespread voter anger over U.S. global trade policies. In response, hardly a day has recently gone by without the New York Times, the Washington Post and other defenders of the status quo lecturing their readers on why unregulated foreign trade is good for them.

The ultimate conclusion is always the same – that voters should leave complicated issues like this to those intellectually better qualified to deal with them. So much for democracy.

Trade experts, according to Binyamin Appelbaum of the Times have been “surprised” at the popular discontent over this issue. Their surprise only shows how disconnected the elite and the policy class that supports it is from the way most people actually experience the national economy.

The United States has always been a trading nation. But until the 1994 North American Trade Agreement, trade policy was primarily an instrument to support domestic economic welfare and development.

Starting with NAFTA, pushed through not by a Republican president, but by the Bill Clinton in 1994, it became a series of deals in which profit opportunities for American investors were opened up elsewhere in the world in exchange for opening up U.S. labor markets to fierce foreign competition.

As Jorge Castañeda, who later became Mexico’s foreign minister, put it, NAFTA was “an agreement for the rich and powerful in the United States, Mexico and Canada, an agreement effectively excluding ordinary people in all three societies.”

For 20 years, leaders of both parties have assured Americans that each new NAFTA-style deal would bring more jobs and higher wages for workers, and trade surpluses for their country. It was, they were told, an iron law of economics.

What actually followed were outsourced jobs, wage declines, shrunken opportunities and rising trade deficits. The result has been a dramatic weakening of the bargaining power of American workers.

So it should come as no surprise when the large parts of the U.S. workforce now conclude that these trade deals may have had something to do with the redistribution of income from their pockets to the bank accounts of the top 1% who own and manage large multinational corporations.

Read more: U.S. Trade Policy: Populist Anger or Out-of-Touch Elites? - The Globalist

The Netherlands Economy: Vice crime pumps over €2.5 billion into Netherlands economy - by Janene Pieters

Criminal activities involving drugs, illegal prostitution, illegal gambling and similar crimes contribute about 2.7 billion euros to the Netherlands’ economy a year. That means that criminal activities account for about 0.4 percent of the Dutch economy, according to an estimate by Statistics Netherlands at the request of broadcaster RTL.

The estimated value of the criminal economy was 2.6 billion in 2010, which means that the growth does not seem to be very strong. Though Statistic Netherlands emphasizes that it should be noted that it is very difficult to make a reliable estimate.

According to Statistics Netherlands’ estimates, the added value of drugs and illegal prostitution increased somewhat, while money earned by illegal downloads providers decreased. Previous calculations showed that drug production and -trade accounts for 55 percent of the criminal economy, followed by prostitution with 21 percent. Illegal downloads and illegal gambling accounts for about 9 percent.

Read more: Vice crime pumps over €2.5 billion into Netherlands economy - NL Times

The Netherlands: Almere, Europe's most "avant-garde" multi-cultural city celebrating it's 40th birthday

From the moment of its establishment in 1976, Almere has been one of the fastest growing cities in Europe.

Initially developed as a suburban area east of Amsterdam, it has become one of Europe's most impressive new modern multi-cultural cities.

 During the past 36 years, it has also become the home of some 200,000 residents and 18.000 businesses.

Almere is the largest city in the Province of Flevoland and now also the seventh largest city in the Netherlands.

A Facebook page  (unfortunately in Dutch only) is commemorating this event. the whole year, until the exact date (November 30)  when  Almere's first settlers arrived, many years ago.

The Facebook page also  illustrates many of the important facts and events that took place during the 40 years since Almere became one of the fastest growing and most modern multi-cultural European cities.

Over the years, as the city developed  it also quickly got the reputation of being one of Europe's, architecturally, most "avant-garde cities".

Obviously this made Almere also a very attractive city for architecture students to visit.

If Dutch is not your maternal language, there are also numerous other websites containing information about Almere - its corporate sector, its sustainability, the facilities and opportunities that residents, businesses and institutions alike have by being established in Almere.

The following sites might be a good place to start looking:  Chamber of Commerce,  World Trade Center Almere, VVV Almere, The City of Almere, Almere Sun Island, Wikipedia Almere, Floriade 2022 - Growing Green Cities, Almere-Digest,

Mayor, Mr. Franc Weerwind

A friendly welcoming city, from its Mayor, Mr. Franc Weerwind, to all the city's residents.

It all seems to be happening in Almere.!

Almere-Digest 

EU Car Industry Goes Electric and prices are dropping: Netherlands looks to ban all non-electric cars by 2025 - by S. Hinckley

VW E-GOLF Electric

By 2025, the Netherlands may only allow electric vehicles on the road.

A majority of elected officials in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Parliament, supported a motion proposed by the Labor Party (PvdA) to ban all diesel and petroleum cars from the Dutch market starting in 2025. If enacted, this proposal would allow existing fossil fuel-powered cars to stay on the road until they died, but when it comes to new sales, only electric cars would be permitted.

"We are ambitious, perhaps other parties are less so," PvdA leader Diederik Samsom told the local NL Times.

Renault Zoe  - Electric

While it is still unclear whether or not the motion will pass, some electric enthusiasts see the proposal as progress all the same. This law would not only affect Dutch drivers, but would also require more electric vehicle output from car manufacturers, and potentially destigmatize electric vehicles as a niche purchase.

"One big thing that's preventing more people from buying [electric cars] is awareness – people just don't know about them," Joel Levin, executive director of Plug In America, tells The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview Thursday. "It is a pretty big shift for how you think about your car."

Fiat -500 Electric

But this proposal doesn't mean that the Netherlands is a model of energy efficiency – yet. Rather, it's one of the most carbon-intensive countries in the European Union, according to a 2015 study by Deloitte. Natural gas and petroleum make up the majority of the Netherland's energy resources at 41 and 42 percent respectively, with solid fuels coming in third at 10 percent and finally renewable energies making up five percent of the overall energy mix.

In 2012, the transportation sector consumed the most energy of all sources, constituting 29 percent of all consumption in the Netherlands.

In the United States, by comparison, transportation represents 27 percent of the country's consumption, according to a 2015 report from the Energy Information Administration.

BMW -i3 Electric

This isn't the first time that the Netherlands has announced an ambitious energy-saving goal in transportation technology.

The Dutch energy company Eneco, partnering with VIVENS rail companies, announced a plan in 2015 to make a fleet of trains powered entirely by wind energy within the next three years. And for almost a year now, the Netherlands has boasted the world's first solar road, a bike path made of solar panels that generates enough electricity to power a small home for a year.

The Netherlands has also announced plans to pave roads with recycled plastic, which they market as durable and low maintenance, with a smaller environmental impact than asphalt production.

Mercedes B-Class Electric

And while these proposals may be more experimental, advocates say electric vehicles have real potential.
"For people who are aware [of electric cars], there are a few myths," Mr. Levin says. Primarily, many people have the misconception that electric vehicles are expensive, slow, unsafe, and inconvenient.

"They are not fancy cars for rich people – there are many affordable ones. And if you compare apples to apples, the total coast of ownership is very competitive," he explains.

Along with these myths, there are also a lot of positives that gas or diesel-powered cars don't experience. "Apart from any environmental benefits, they are a pleasure to drive, there is tremendous power," he says. "And maintenance is low – there is no engine, so if you change the brakes and batteries, nothing really could go wrong."

Charging is easy, he adds; it can be done at home overnight. "People worry about running out of power, but the [drivers] that run out of power are the same ones that run out of gas."

Almere-digest

EU: Corruption costs EU ‘up to €990 billion a year’ – by Ryan Collin

EU Corruption costs: close to  € 1 trillion a year

The EU has a corruption problem that could cost it up to €990 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by the European Parliament and released on Monday.

Corruption in the EU comes in many forms and has multiple economic, social and political effects, according to the Cost of Non-Europe in the Area of Corruption Study by RAND Europe. Based on three scenarios using different methodologies that included both direct and indirect effects, the study found the EU suffers losses in its gross domestic product that range between €179 billion and €990 billion each year.

The figures are much higher than a 2014 estimate by the European Commission of €120 billion. However, the Commission’s study focused only on direct effects of corruption.

“Corruption is a big black hole at the heart of the European economy,” said Carl Dolan, director of Transparency International. “If companies see the public procurement process is rigged then they are not going to take part in that bid and therefore the public loses out because these aren’t competitive tenders.”

The study found that corruption related to public procurement was estimated to cost nearly €5 billion per year. Procurement corruption includes deliberately removing companies from the bidding process so there is only one viable candidate and limiting the amount of time a company has to respond to a tender for a new contract.

To reduce it, RAND Europe suggested that the EU implement a Union-wide e-procurement system, which would bring down the cost of corruption by an estimated €920 million. Another measure to cut corruption would be establishing a European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the study said. Such an office would investigate corruption cases and could reduce corruption costs by €0.2 billion per year.

Read more: Corruption costs EU ‘up to €990 billion a year’ – POLITICO