– Belgium: For many working people, today, 3 January is the first working day of the new year. For office employees, it is traditionally a holiday. They come together for the “employee’s ball” and they drink a glass of alcohol free wines to know new colleagues, enjoy the old colleagues and to dance.
– The business organization UNIZO wants the government’s Federal Mediation and Control Office to take strict check on shops giving fake discounts during the sales period which officially starts today. Seventy percent of the fashion boutiques appears to be under stricter controls. According to Unizo, “There are in fact too many great discounts announced that are misleading to the consumers. Either have the old prices which those discounts actually never existed or customers are lured to enter the shops showing on the window displays a huge discount of the product, then they will say they have only a very small supply available in the shop and customer needs to make an order. This request is a measure to protect the interest of both the consumers and the traders who must respect fair trade”.
Note: UNIZO (Unie van Zelfstandige Ondernemers) is a Belgian organization of Self-Employed and Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SME); it is mainly situated in the Flemish region of the Kingdom of Belgium. UNIZO with over 80,000 members, is the largest association of its kind. Until 2000 UNIZO was known as the Nationaal Christelijk Middenstandsverbond (NCMV). UNIZO is represented in the national Labor Council and in the Economic and Social Council of Flanders.
– Royal Poll: Kate Middleton, the British Duchess of Cambridge and the Dutch Princess Máxima are the most popular royals of Europe, according to a poll by the German magazine Frau im Spiegel (Woman in the Mirror). And our Queen Matilda of Belgium? Dangling at the bottom of the list.
The magazine asked more than a thousand German women who their favorite female European royal is. Kate Middleton received 22 percent of the vote. The researchers say they put her on the top list for becoming a “Mummy” (mother) of the little Prince George in 2013. More than 20 percent of respondents chose the Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.
Princess Victoria of Sweden, who was in the first place for five years, is less popular now and drops to number three in the rankings. Our Belgian Queen Mathilde together with Crown Princess Mary of Denmark are the least popular royals of Europe. They are at the bottom of the list with only 2 percent of the vote.
Yet Mathilde is still doing better than the past years. In 2013, she was quite ahead with Princess Charlene of Monaco. This year, Charlene shared the last place with Crown Duchess Stephanie of Luxembourg. They each received 1 percent of the vote.
– Meanwhile, Latvia has begun the new year by joining the euro zone, becoming the 18th member of the group of European Union states which uses the euro as its currency. The former Soviet republic on the Baltic Sea recently emerged from the financial crisis to become the EU’s fastest-growing economy.
EU commissioner Olli Rehn said, ” Joining the euro zone marked the completion of Latvia’s journey back to the political and economic heart of our continent, and that is something for all of us to celebrate”.
The government and most business owners also welcomed the single currency, saying it would improve Latvia’s credit rating and attract foreign investors. “It’s a big opportunity for Latvia’s economic development,” Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said after symbolically withdrawing a 10-euro note as fireworks led celebrations in the capital Riga after midnight.
Replacing the old currency lat, Latvia has its own newly minted Latvian euro coins
The governor of the Latvian Central Bank, Ilmars Rimsevics, said: “Euro brings stability and certainty, definitely attracting investment, so new jobs, new taxes and so on. So being in the second largest currency union, I think it will definitely mean more popularity.”
Note: Republic of Latvia is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia, to the south by Lithuania, to the east by Russia, and to the southeast by Belarus and by a maritime border to the west with Sweden. With 2,008,700 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2(24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Latvia is a unitary parliamentary republic, divided into 118 administrative divisions of which 109 are municipalities and 9 are cities. There are five planning regions: Courtland, Latgale, Riga, Vidzeme and Zemgale.
That’s all for now…I wish you all a happy, fruitful and sound 2014. Enjoy your weekend my dear listeners and see you again on Monday. Take care. I love you always!
