Economy of Germany

German automaker Daimler AG said on Jan. 4 it will recall 744,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the United States from the 2001 through 2011 model years because the sunroof glass panel could detach and pose a hazard.

German prosecutors say they have charged four current and former personnel managers at Volkswagen executives of providing excessive salaries and bonuses to several members of the employee council.

The action benefited five council members, which cost the car giant about $ 5.1 million in overpayments, prosecutors said.

The think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative reported on Thursday that four in five coal plants in the European Union were unprofitable and utilities faced losses of nearly 6.6 billion euros this year.
German utility RWE faces the biggest losses this year, of 975 million euros, which is 6 percent of its market capitalization, according to the report.

German automotive giant Volkswagen is not actively looking for new locations as an alternative for the production plant in Turkey, a company spokeswoman said on Oct. 22.

The Volkswagen car group has postponed its final decision to build a car plant in Turkey amid international criticism of the country's military operation in northern Syria and concerns about potential reputational fallout, Handelsblatt reported on late on Monday.

German tour operator Tui AG is signing new, long-term contracts with Greek hoteliers who were not previously in its portfolio, in a bid to expand further in Greece after the collapse of rival British company Thomas Cook.

As the latest estimates regarding just how hard Greek hotels have been hit by the collapse of UK travel giant Thomas Cook are pointing to unpaid invoices of some 230 million euros, and the government is assessing its options in terms of response measures, the now-dominant European tour operator, Tui AG, is sending one of its big bosses to Greece.

OTE telecom announced on Wednesday the conclusion on Tuesday of the bookbuilding process for the issuance of a 500 million-euro seven-year bond in international debt capital markets.
The issuance was strongly oversubscribed allowing tight pricing. The coupon was set at 0.875 percent, the lowest ever achieved, OTE stated.

German designer and architect Luigi Colani, who worked for industrial companies, car companies, furniture and technology companies, died in Karlsruhe at the age of 91, according to worldwide  agencies, BTA reported.

Economic growth in the euro area and across the European Union slowed sharply in the second quarter after a better performance earlier this year, a final, unaudited Eurostat estimate showed.