BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday clashes between NATO soldiers and Serbs on the border with Kosovo showed Serbia was not yet ready to be a candidate for European Union membership.

“The path of Serbia into the EU can only lead through the normalization of its relations with Kosovo,” Merkel told the German parliament.

“I regret that Serbia has so far not lived up to these expectations sufficiently and therefore the conditions for being awarded the status of a candidate are not yet in place.”

Thirty German and Austria soldiers were injured on Monday, some by small-arms fire and Molotov cocktails, when hundreds of Serbs resisted an attempt by NATO peacekeepers to remove roadblocks erected by Serbs in the largely lawless north of Kosovo.

Serbs in the north reject the 2008 declaration of independence by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority and have been manning barricades since the government tried to send border police to the mainly Serb region in July.

Merkel said it was “unacceptable” for Serbia to contribute to the tense atmosphere surrounding the attack on the international Kosovo Force (KFOR) soldiers.

The reaction in Serbia to Merkel’s comments was one of disappointment, but the government said it would persevere with its efforts to join the European Union.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Awareness of corruption has risen in some Arab countries in the wake of their uprisings earlier this year, a global league table released by Transparency International showed on Thursday.

North Korea was included in the Berlin-based watchdog TI’s annual corruption perceptions index (CPI) for the first time and was judged the most corrupt country, along with Somalia, putting them at the bottom of the table.

Tunisia fell to 73rd place from 59th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 3.8 from 4.3 in the 183-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption.

Tunisia became the birthplace of the “Arab Spring” uprisings in January when a wave of protests forced former President Zine al-Abidine to flee to Saudi Arabia.

The revolution set the template for uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen which have re-shaped the political landscape of the Middle East.

“We have seen a new movement in Arab nations,” TI Managing Director Cobus de Swardt told Reuters.

“You now have not only a push for basic human rights but also for public accountability. The lack of public accountability has been recognized as a major problem.”

BERLIN, Nov 30 (Reuters) – Lufthansa Cargo, the freight arm of Germany’s largest airline, stands to lose about 40 million euros ($53 million) a year if a night-flight ban in Frankfurt is made permanent, its finance chief said.

“Those are the additional costs for stopovers in Cologne, cancelled flights and business that we lost because of the ban,” Peter Gerber told Reuters on the sidelines of an event late on Tuesday.

A court in Hesse banned flights at Germany’s largest airport between 2300 local and 0500 from the end of October following an appeal by residents over the noise.

The ban mostly affects cargo flights, and Lufthansa Cargo has in response announced plans to station a freight plane in Cologne, and shift goods there via road for onward transportation.

“The switch to Cologne has worked,” Lufthansa Cargo chief executive Karl Ulrich Garnadt said at the event, but added that even taking on additional freight in Cologne could not make up for the costs of the detour.

More than half of German air freight flies out of Frankfurt, Garnadt said, with about 80 percent of Lufthansa Cargo’s worldwide tonnage being handled there.

Garnadt said the impact of the night flight ban was especially noticeable on the North Atlantic route to Chicago.

FRANKFURT, Nov 25 (Reuters) – Manroland, the world’s third-biggest printing machine maker, filed for insolvency on Friday, a move that could give top rivals Heidelberger Druck and Koenig & Bauer more market share.

Bears see Heidelberg’s own troubles being too deep and its business too far from Manroland’s for it to benefit. Bulls, however, see Heidelberg achieving better prices and increasing market share.

Before news of the insolvency filing about half the analysts covering the stock had ‘sell’ ratings, two are buys and the others are ‘holds’, according to Thomson Reuters Starmine.

SELL

DZ Bank analyst Karsten Oblinger said while an insolvency of Manroland will help the company’s rivals, Koenig & Bauer was in a better position to benefit than Heidelberg.

“Koenig & Bauer would benefit most from it as Heidelberg is not active in web-fed printing machines, where Manroland has a significant market share,” he said, keeping his “sell” rating on the stock, with a fair value of 1.20 euros ($1.60).

Achim Henke, an analyst at WestLB, said he believed that an insolvency of Manroland would have very little positive impact on others in the sector because there was still too much overcapacity in the market.

FRANKFURT, Nov 14 (Reuters) – German construction group Hochtief revealed it may have to write down the value of its road contracts in Greece due to mass toll dodging.

The news accompanied a gloomy outlook for 2012 and a warning that the group might post a loss this year if it fails to sell its airport business on schedule.

“The economic crisis in Greece and persistent mass toll dodging led to major shortfalls in income development for the toll road projects Maliakos-Kleidi and Elefsina-Patras-Tsakona,” Hochtief said.

Greece has seen a swelling tide of people joining the “I don’t pay” movement this year, a sullen form of civil disobedience that emerged in the debt crisis, in which they refuse to pay transport tickets and tolls.

People have told toll collectors they won’t pay, have got out of their cars to either lift the bar blocking their passage manually or to destroy it.

Hochtief said the consortium that operates the toll roads in Greece was in talks with the southern European country’s government to find a long-term solution.

Hochtief’s third-quarter pretax profit more than doubled to 333 million euros but fell short of the 340 million euro average estimate from analysts in a Reuters poll.

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – German state-controlled development bank KfW will buy a 7.5 percent stake in Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) from Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), maintaining a Franco-German balance of influence over the aerospace company.

The agreement on EADS comes after months of negotiations with the German government, during which Daimler urged Berlin to find a solution so it could focus on its core car and truck businesses and reduce the drag on earnings from EADS.

“Due to the strategic importance of EADS, the government has decided to safeguard the German-Franco balance through its investment by KfW,” Daimler finance chief Bodo Uebber said in a statement on Thursday.

Daimler, one of the founders of EADS, said it will sign a letter of intent on the deal with KfW by year end, setting a purchase date for 2012. The deal will leave Daimler with 7.5 percent of EADS, plus voting rights for a further 7.5 percent held by a consortium of financial investors.

Daimler did not say how much KfW would pay for the stake, which has a market value of about 1.28 billion euros ($1.7 billion).

The deal had been flagged by a source who told Reuters on Wednesday Germany was set to retain its influence over EADS after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s junior coalition partner dropped its objections.

“Independent of this decision, the federal government is sticking with its policy of limiting and reducing the state influence on private companies,” Germany’s economy ministry said in a statement.

FRANKFURT, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Deutsche Post DHL raised its 2011 outlook after robust Asian demand helped it beat expectations for the third quarter, marking a bright spot in an industry battered by soaring costs and a weakening global economy.

“We are not ignoring the possibility that the economic environment could get rougher, especially in developed countries,” Chief Executive Frank Appel said in a statement.

“But our early-warning systems have not given us any indication that our business faces a worrisome slowdown.”

Europe’s biggest mail and express delivery company said it now sees earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) exceeding 2.4 billion euros ($3.1 billion) this year, in line with a 2.41 billion euro average analyst estimate in a Reuters poll.

It had previously said it expected to reach the upper end of its outlook range of 2.2-2.4 billion euros.

Deutsche Post shares are indicated to open 3.4 percent higher with the German blue chip index seen up 1.8 percent.

“Even if the uncertain economic climate persists in 2012, particularly in western economies, we believe that consolidated EBIT will continue to rise based on our good earnings momentum,” Deutsche Post said, sounding a much more positive note than its rivals.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German premium carmaker BMW’s (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) third-quarter earnings surpassed expectations and outperformed rival Mercedes-Benz (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), bolstered by robust growth in China and demand for its 5-Series sedan.

“The Chinese market is still strong in our segment,” Chief Financial Officer Friedrich Eichiner told journalists on a conference call on Thursday.

BMW’s third-quarter pretax profit jumped 21 percent to 1.64 billion euros ($2.26 billion), above the 1.48 billion euros average analyst estimate in a Reuters poll.

It said it still expects 2011 pretax profit to rise significantly from a year earlier, with vehicle sales rising to more than 1.6 million from just below 1.5 million.

Shares of BMW jumped 4.6 percent to 60.64 euros by 1015 GMT, outperforming the STOXX Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index, which was up 2.6 percent.

More than half of analysts covering BMW recommend buying the stock, which has lost 10 percent of its value over the past six months, with a mean price target of 69.37 euros, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine.

BMW sold 9 percent more automobiles in the third quarter than a year ago, driven by a 21 percent jump in China, the world’s biggest car market.

FRANKFURT, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Daimler (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reinforced the gloomy outlook for Europe’s vehicle industry on Thursday, revealing weak sales of premium cars and downbeat demand outlooks that overshadowed some robust truck sales data.

The warnings fit with the signals coming from other car and truck makers, which have benefited since the industry’s 2008-2009 crisis from robust demand in emerging markets including Brazil and China, but now warn the outlook for Europe, beset by sovereign debt woes, is increasingly gloomy.

Daimler said its weaker-than-expected quarterly operating profit suffered as premium car sales were hit by the economic downturn., while better news in the truck sector for Daimler and its peers, showed predicted slowing demand had not yet arrived.

Martin Winterkorn, Chief Executive of Europe’s largest car maker Volkswagen, also warned Europe’s debt crisis would weigh on demand for cars in many Western European markets, although the company expects continued growth in Eastern Europe, India, China and North and South America.

Overall demand for cars would be flat in 2011, he said.

VW predicted a big rise in revenues and operating profit this year but warned volatile interest rates and currency fluctuations as well as commodity prices would dent margins.

It posted a quarterly operating profit of 9 billion euros thanks to double digit sales growth rates and a boost from derivatives used in the merger with Porsche.

FRANKFURT, Oct 27 (Reuters) – Deutsche Lufthansa slashed its plans to expand capacity next year, signalling dim prospects for a recovery of the air travel industry.

“The outlook for the world economy has become much gloomier over the course of the year,” Europe’s biggest airline by market value said on Thursday as it published weaker than expected third-quarter results.

Lufthansa already cut its 2011 outlook last month, saying it no longer expected to improve on last year’s operating profit as economic uncertainties stacked up and its passenger airlines unit had a weaker than expected August.

“The booking prospects for the months ahead have deteriorated substantially,” the carrier said.

Lufthansa said it will offer only 3 percent more seats on planes in 2012, compared with original plans for 9 percent. It had already cut planned capacity growth for the winter season twice to address sliding demand.

Analysts have been calling for airlines to cut capacity to ease fierce price competition in the European market and improve paper-thin margins.

Lufthansa said it may also make strategic changes at some of the carriers it owns — which include loss-making Austrian Airlines and Britain’s bmi — but did not provide details.