Elveon
03-11-2009, 10:19 AM
In yet another act of conciliation on the part of Western religions towards Islam, the Vatican has voiced its approval of Islamic finance. The article is from Bloomberg, the French version is at Bivouac-Id:
March 4 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican said banks should look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients at a time of global economic crisis.
“The ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service,” the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano said in an article in its latest issue late yesterday.
Author Loretta Napoleoni and Abaxbank Spa fixed income strategist, Claudia Segre, say in the article that “Western banks could use tools such as the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, as collateral”. Sukuk may be used to fund the “‘car industry or the next Olympic Games in London,” they say.
Pope Benedict XVI in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing financial markets saying that “money vanishes, it is nothing” and concluded that “the only solid reality is the word of God.” The Vatican has been paying attention to the global financial meltdown and ran articles in its official newspaper that criticize the free-market model for having “grown too much and badly in the past two decades.”
The Osservatore’s editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that “the great religions have always had a common attention to the human dimension of the economy,” Corriere della Sera reported today.
The above is only one of many articles that have recently appeared at French websites on the acceptance by Western governments and bankers of an Islamic financing system. More than accepting it, they seem to be welcoming it, though they are certainly being pressured into this by unnamed forces bowing to the dictates of Islam.
Last December, this article was posted at AKI:
Paris, 23 Dec.(AKI) - The French Senate is looking at ways to eliminate legal hurdles, particularly levies, for Islamic financial services and products in France and the potential for listing companies on the Paris Stock Exchange. The Senate said its initiative was consistent with recommendations from a report on Islamic finance prepared by the Financial Affairs Commission last May.
The report stressed the great importance of Islamic finance in France and indicated the legal amendments required at a financial level to adapt French laws to the Islamic financial system.
Senate sources said that this area of the financial market was worth from 500 to 600 billion dollars and could grow by an average 11 percent a year.
Last month French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde announced France's intention to make Paris "the capital of Islamic finance" and announced several Islamic banks would open branches in the French capital in 2009.
Lagarde said at least three banks had requested permission to operate in France - the Qatar Islamic Bank, the Kuwait Finance House and the Al Baraka Islamic Bank of Bahrain.
According to an opinion poll conducted last May, around 500,000 French Muslims are interested in Islamic banks.
There is a very short English-language article on Lagarde (photo) at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde
This hearkens back to a video
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k2wXiXPa8v9npYRb1q
from November 26, 2008 that was posted at many French websites showing Madame Lagarde announcing with (according to some bloggers) visible embarrassment the decision to allow Islamic financing in France. Whether or not this move is constitutional is apparently not even an issue, since European countries change their laws to accommodate Islam. If the "sacred" law separating Church and State can be violated, any law can. The video, with its very soft audio (at least on my computer), shows the minister in a strange garb, and struggling to present a happy countenance. There is no way of knowing if this is merely the quality of the video, or an indication of her emotional state. An article from Le Parisien dated November 27, 2008 provides the following information, in addition to the facts presented above:
A revolution in the banking world. After London, where the first Islamic bank opened its doors in September 2004, France could authorize banks respecting sharia law to open in 2009 (...)
Hervé de Charette, president of the Franco-Arab Chamber of Commerce emphasizes that "importing Islamic banking into France would help the integration process". The main obstacle: "Islamic banking arouses fear because it is associated, wrongly, with religious fundamentalism, even with the financing of terrorism," deplores Elyès Jouini, professor of economics at the University of Paris. (...)
The world economic crisis has changed the ball game. From New York to Hong Kong, all the financial centers on the planet are grabbing the billions of dollars amassed by the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.
To tap into this manna (...) is the stated goal of Christine Lagarde. "We are determined to make of Paris a great center for Islamic finance," declared the Finance Minister as she inaugurated the second French forum on Islamic banking.
For another longer English-language article, visit Islam On Line. This article goes back to July 2008, showing that even before the crisis, France had initiated a policy favoring Islamic banking.
March 4 (Bloomberg) -- The Vatican said banks should look at the rules of Islamic finance to restore confidence amongst their clients at a time of global economic crisis.
“The ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service,” the Vatican’s official newspaper Osservatore Romano said in an article in its latest issue late yesterday.
Author Loretta Napoleoni and Abaxbank Spa fixed income strategist, Claudia Segre, say in the article that “Western banks could use tools such as the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, as collateral”. Sukuk may be used to fund the “‘car industry or the next Olympic Games in London,” they say.
Pope Benedict XVI in an Oct. 7 speech reflected on crashing financial markets saying that “money vanishes, it is nothing” and concluded that “the only solid reality is the word of God.” The Vatican has been paying attention to the global financial meltdown and ran articles in its official newspaper that criticize the free-market model for having “grown too much and badly in the past two decades.”
The Osservatore’s editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, said that “the great religions have always had a common attention to the human dimension of the economy,” Corriere della Sera reported today.
The above is only one of many articles that have recently appeared at French websites on the acceptance by Western governments and bankers of an Islamic financing system. More than accepting it, they seem to be welcoming it, though they are certainly being pressured into this by unnamed forces bowing to the dictates of Islam.
Last December, this article was posted at AKI:
Paris, 23 Dec.(AKI) - The French Senate is looking at ways to eliminate legal hurdles, particularly levies, for Islamic financial services and products in France and the potential for listing companies on the Paris Stock Exchange. The Senate said its initiative was consistent with recommendations from a report on Islamic finance prepared by the Financial Affairs Commission last May.
The report stressed the great importance of Islamic finance in France and indicated the legal amendments required at a financial level to adapt French laws to the Islamic financial system.
Senate sources said that this area of the financial market was worth from 500 to 600 billion dollars and could grow by an average 11 percent a year.
Last month French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde announced France's intention to make Paris "the capital of Islamic finance" and announced several Islamic banks would open branches in the French capital in 2009.
Lagarde said at least three banks had requested permission to operate in France - the Qatar Islamic Bank, the Kuwait Finance House and the Al Baraka Islamic Bank of Bahrain.
According to an opinion poll conducted last May, around 500,000 French Muslims are interested in Islamic banks.
There is a very short English-language article on Lagarde (photo) at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Lagarde
This hearkens back to a video
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k2wXiXPa8v9npYRb1q
from November 26, 2008 that was posted at many French websites showing Madame Lagarde announcing with (according to some bloggers) visible embarrassment the decision to allow Islamic financing in France. Whether or not this move is constitutional is apparently not even an issue, since European countries change their laws to accommodate Islam. If the "sacred" law separating Church and State can be violated, any law can. The video, with its very soft audio (at least on my computer), shows the minister in a strange garb, and struggling to present a happy countenance. There is no way of knowing if this is merely the quality of the video, or an indication of her emotional state. An article from Le Parisien dated November 27, 2008 provides the following information, in addition to the facts presented above:
A revolution in the banking world. After London, where the first Islamic bank opened its doors in September 2004, France could authorize banks respecting sharia law to open in 2009 (...)
Hervé de Charette, president of the Franco-Arab Chamber of Commerce emphasizes that "importing Islamic banking into France would help the integration process". The main obstacle: "Islamic banking arouses fear because it is associated, wrongly, with religious fundamentalism, even with the financing of terrorism," deplores Elyès Jouini, professor of economics at the University of Paris. (...)
The world economic crisis has changed the ball game. From New York to Hong Kong, all the financial centers on the planet are grabbing the billions of dollars amassed by the oil-rich monarchies of the Gulf.
To tap into this manna (...) is the stated goal of Christine Lagarde. "We are determined to make of Paris a great center for Islamic finance," declared the Finance Minister as she inaugurated the second French forum on Islamic banking.
For another longer English-language article, visit Islam On Line. This article goes back to July 2008, showing that even before the crisis, France had initiated a policy favoring Islamic banking.