European Union

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Something is stirring in Luxembourg. In the space of a few months, the European Court of Justice could turn the EU’s refugee policy on its head, fundamentally reshape the way Muslims are treated in Europe and set the parameters for any post-Brexit trade deal. Through this handful of cases, the court will demonstrate its extraordinary and growing influence.

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Together, the EU and the USA have the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world, roughly 31% of the world trade and over 49% of the world GDP. In keeping with the evolving political and legal personality of the EU, there is active cooperation across a host of sectors: cooperation in justice and home affairs, energy and energy security, environment, science & technology, education & training. On 14 June 2013, the Council of the European Union adopted negotiating directives  for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US.

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EU job search aid worth €1,818,750 for 800 former retail workers in the Netherlands was approved by the Budgets Committee in a vote on Thursday. The workers were made redundant by six retail trade companies which recently went bankrupt in the Drenthe and Overijssel regions. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) aid still needs to be approved by Parliament as a whole, on 14 February and by the Council of Ministers, on 17 February.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

EU job search aid worth €1,818,750 for 800 former retail workers in the Netherlands was approved by the Budgets Committee in a vote on Thursday. The workers were made redundant by six retail trade companies which recently went bankrupt in the Drenthe and Overijssel regions. The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) aid still needs to be approved by Parliament as a whole, on 14 February and by the Council of Ministers, on 17 February.
Committee on Budgets

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

An EU scheme offering member states technical help – such as expertise, studies, and working visits - with structural reforms needed to boost growth and jobs was informally agreed upon by MEPs and Council negotiators on Wednesday. The €142.8 million Structural Reform Support Programme would run until 2020. The deal still needs to be endorsed by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Regional Development

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

An EU scheme offering member states technical help – such as expertise, studies, and working visits - with structural reforms needed to boost growth and jobs was informally agreed upon by MEPs and Council negotiators on Wednesday. The €142.8 million Structural Reform Support Programme would run until 2020. The deal still needs to be endorsed by Parliament as a whole.
Committee on Regional Development

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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EU Naval Operation Sophia against human smugglers in the Mediterranean, previously EUNAVFOR Med. The operation is aimed at disrupting the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Mediterranean and to prevent the further loss of life at sea. It is part of a wider EU comprehensive approach to migration, tackling both the symptoms and root causes such as conflict, poverty, climate change and persecution.

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The President of the European Council, Donald Tusk received the letter of credentials of the following Ambassador:

H.E. Mr Faruk KAYMAKCI, Head of the Mission of the Republic of Turkey to the European Union

On 8 February 2017, the presidency reached provisional agreement with representatives of the European Parliament on a programme to help member states implement structural reforms.

The programme will be established for the period running from its entry into force until 31 December 2020 with a financial envelope of €142.8 million.

“This is a programme that will support governments in improving their economic and governance structures. It is another step forward to better equip member states in implementing important reforms which ultimately will be beneficial to European citizens.”

Ian Borg, Maltese parliamentary secretary for the EU presidency 2017 and EU funds

The agreement will be submitted to the Permanent Representatives Committee in the coming days for approval. The Parliament and the Council will then be called on to adopt the proposed regulation at first reading.

Civil Liberties Committee MEPs will question Council and Commission representatives on Thursday about the decision once again to prolong internal border checks in place in five countries in the Schengen passport-free area for another three months, until mid-May.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Civil Liberties Committee MEPs will question Council and Commission representatives on Thursday about the decision once again to prolong internal border checks in place in five countries in the Schengen passport-free area for another three months, until mid-May.
Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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In October 2012, the European Commission published a Feasibility Study  for a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) between the European Union and Kosovo. Soon after, the two parties started negotiating the agreement. The designation of Kosovo is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244(1999) and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

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On 9 February 2017 Council and European Parliament representatives reached a provisional agreement on a decision establishing a European Year of Cultural Heritage (2018). 

Cultural heritage encompasses resources from the past in a variety of forms and aspects. These include monuments, sites, traditions, transmitted knowledge and expressions of human creativity, as well as collections conserved and managed by museums, libraries and archives.

The aim of this initiative is to raise awareness of European history and values and to strengthen a sense of European identity. At the same time, it draws attention to the opportunities offered by our cultural heritage, but also to the challenges it faces, such as the impact of the digital shift, environmental and physical pressure on heritage sites, and the illicit trafficking of cultural objects.

The main objectives of this European Year are: 

• to promote cultural diversity, intercultural dialogue and social cohesion;
• to highlight the economic contribution of cultural heritage to the cultural and creative sectors, including small and medium-sized enterprises, and to local and regional development
• to emphasise the role of cultural heritage in EU external relations, including conflict prevention, post-conflict reconciliation and rebuilding destroyed cultural heritage

The European Year will have a dedicated financial envelope of EUR 8 million.

Representatives of the European Parliament will be able to participate as observers in the meetings of national coordinators convened by the Commission for the running of the European Year. 

As Europeans we have a particularly rich cultural heritage born of our long shared history. I welcome the opportunity to celebrate that heritage and to take pride in all that makes up our common European identity.

Dr. Owen Bonnici, the Maltese Minister for Justice, Culture and Local Government Next steps 

Coreper will be invited to endorse the agreement at a forthcoming meeting. The Chairman of Coreper will then send a letter to the Chairperson of the European Parliament's CULT committee. 

That letter will indicate that, if the Parliament adopts at its plenary session the compromise text as approved by the Coreper, the Council will adopt the text in first reading without amendments. 

This should enable the new legislation to enter into force soon enough to allow the Commission and member states sufficient time for the necessary preparations. 

Background 

The idea of a European Year of Cultural Heritage was raised for the first time in 2014 when the Council referred to it in its conclusions on the participatory governance of cultural heritage. The idea received strong support from the European Parliament, the Commission presenting its proposal for a European Year of Cultural Heritage in August 2016. 

The Council adopted a general approach on the proposal on 22 November 2016.

The European Parliament's Culture and Education Committee (CULT Committee) report on the decision was voted at its meeting on 8 November 2016. A first trilogue took place on 9 December.

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Senior officials meet to discuss the progress made in the implemenation of the Valletta Joint Action Plan.  The European Union is strengthening the mainstreaming of migration within its Official Development Assistance for Africa. The meeting takes place on 8-9 February in Valletta, Malta.

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General : Robots were the guests of honour at today's press seminar on creating rules and laws to regulate their use. MEPs will vote on a report on this during next week's plenary. Report author Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group, also took the time to answers questions about it by followers of our Facebook page yesterday.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

General : Robots were the guests of honour at today's press seminar on creating rules and laws to regulate their use. MEPs will vote on a report on this during next week's plenary. Report author Mady Delvaux, a Luxembourg member of the S&D group, also took the time to answers questions about it by followers of our Facebook page yesterday.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

On 6 February, the Subcommittee exchanged views with Ivanna Klympush-Tsindsadze, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, on the deterioration of the security situation in the East of Ukraine, in particular around Avdiivka.
Further information
for further information: Article on EU-Russia relations: a key strategic challenge
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Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

will take place on Thursday 9 March 2017, 9:00-12:30 in Brussels.

Organisations or interest groups who wish to apply for access to the European Parliament will find the relevant information below.

Further information
watch the meeting live
Access rights for interest group representatives
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The government’s new White Paper on Brexit is optimistically described as meant to achieve a new partnership with the European Union. But before that can happen, the terms of divorce must be negotiated, and that is never easy.

The first goal of the government’s Brexit White Paper is to introduce certainty and clarity, subject to the qualification ‘wherever we can’. Insofar as a policy is negotiable, the outcome can hardly be certain at the start of negotiations. Limited clarity and certainty allows both hard Brexiteers and the salvage squad of the remain campaign to project their own hopes onto the government’s plans for Brexit.

To achieve an agreement, the UK government must be prepared to accept compromises. When a new policy is proposed, a member state in good standing can expect to get about two-thirds of what it wants. EU negotiators have made clear that since the UK has chosen to leave the EU it will be given less than any member state gets.

The likelihood of achieving the government’s goals varies from goal to goal. Each can be classified on a simple scale ranging from 0 (impossible); 1 or 2 (achievable with difficulty or only partially); 3, (amenable to bargaining and compromise); and 4 (readily achievable).  They rank as follows:

4 Cooperating in the fight against terrorism. When a terrorist threat erupts, security services are always willing to work together to prevent or apprehend terrorists.

4 Securing rights for UK nationals now resident in Europe and EU nationals now resident in the UK. This is a win-win policy for both the UK and the EU since it will confirm the status quo.

4 Protect and enhance existing workers’ rights. Repatriating EU laws to Britain will leave existing standards in place. Enhancing rights will be disputed in the British Parliament; foreign voices will hardly matter.

4 End the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union over the UK. This can be achieved by unilateral British action, but at a price. It jeopardizes agreement on trade and finance because the EU wants its Court to adjudicate any disputes arising from an agreement.

3 Controlling the number of European nationals coming to the UK. A law or a ministerial statement can set a numerical limit on EU migration but the Home Office has a long record of failing to meet numerical limits. Brexit will free the Mayor of Calais to put refugees there on a train to Britain without any obligation to accept their return from a non-EU state.

2 Protecting historic ties and the common travel area with the Republic of Ireland. Given the negative impact on security of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, the EU may make concessions to the Republic that the UK could not achieve on its own. The scope for maintaining free trade between England and Ireland is much more limited once the UK becomes a non-member state. Britons flying from London to Dublin or vice versa may have to join long passport queues with foreigners before be crossing the sea border between Ireland and Britain.

2 Securing new trade agreements with non-EU countries. Leaving the EU will give the UK the freedom to negotiate agreements with other countries.  President Trump shows that major countries can have national leaders that are less keen on trading with the UK than the UK is on trading with them and negotiating details of a trade agreement cannot be done in a flying trip or a phone call.

2 Seeking collaboration with European partners in science and technology. Collaboration could be maintained by agreement with the EU – subject to the British government making a cash contribution to the EU research fund and leaving in EU hands the power to decide which British proposals are funded and which are not. People are required to do research and many research workers in Britain are from EU countries. Because of Brexit, some are preparing to return to the continent and immigration controls will make it more difficult to hire replacements.

1 Securing the freest trade possible between the UK and Europe. Not a lot is possible without the British government making a U-turn, because the EU’s requirements for participating in a single European market are unacceptable to the British government’s current position. The UK government’s hopes of “cherry-picking” existing rights of the City of London are also unacceptable to EU leaders.

1 or 0 Strengthening the Union. The Scottish government’s stated goal is to remain an economic and political partner with the EU. Calling and winning another independence referendum is its hoped for means of achieving Scotxit, that is, leaving the Union. If Scottish voters rejected independence, this would preserve the UK as a four-nation Union; whether it would strengthen it is a moot point.

1 or 0 Delivering a smooth, orderly exit with agreement within two years plus a limited transitional period for implementing what Brexit requires. The White Paper recognises the need for an additional period of time to implement a new partnership and avoid a cliff-edge leap from membership to non-membership. To achieve any agreement within a tight deadline will require substantial compromises. Since the impact of Brexit is much greater on the UK than on the 27 states that will remain in the EU after Britain leaves, this increases the risk that the British government will reject the only transition deal on offer as a bad deal and head for the cliff-edge with no deal.

The outcome of negotiations cannot be assigned a numerical mark; it will be graded politically. The Prime Minister can hail whatever is achieved as a great success, whether it is a full loaf, a panini, a few slices of bread or just a biscuit. By contrast, many Conservative MPs will view the results as a curate’s egg, good in some parts and bad in others. They will want the red meat alternative of exiting without any deal.

The White Paper leaves this possibility on the menu. In a European political context, EU negotiators see no settlement as preferable to making concessions that would call into question the authority of the EU in relation to its 450 million citizens and 27 member states.

The post How achievable are the UK’s 12 goals for Brexit? appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Pity the European Union’s top officials as they contemplate next month’s sixtieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.

Planned as a glorious popular celebration, it’s shaping up to be a political embarrassment. The EU is caught between two conflicting pressures: it wants to showcase the Union’s achievements at the 25 March informal summit in Rome, but is also committed to producing a white paper that promises genuine progress on the future of the euro.

Now that the anniversary is looming large, the upper echelons of the European Commission are grappling frenziedly with the text. Billed as the roadmap for securing economic, financial, fiscal and political union by 2025, it in fact risks revealing the true extent of European disunity.

There’s no doubt that Europe needs a morale booster. The EU’s sinking popularity and the further destabilisation threatened by Brexit and President Trump’s dystopian agenda should be countered by a clear-eyed assessment of the EU’s worth – past, present and future.

A few politicians have said so, though softly. France’s President, François Hollande, has suggested that the informal European Council in Rome “should open a new page for the future of Europe”. Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has spoken rather vaguely of the need for a future “two-speed Europe” to be discussed at the Rome meeting.

“There’s no doubt that Europe needs a morale booster”

The icing on the EU’s sixtieth birthday cake was to have been a show of unity on Europe’s economic and monetary union (EMU) and the future of the euro.

But discussions on how to strengthen the eurozone in the wake of the sovereign debt crises that have shaken Greece, and also Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, have been a saga.

In mid-2015 the so-called ‘Five Presidents’ Report’ (involving the European Central Bank and Eurogroup heads, as well as those of the three main EU institutions) set out a fairly tentative blueprint for completing EMU. The report pushed to one side the thorny questions of mutualised debt and fiscal transfers from richer to poorer eurozone members.

Last September, EU leaders meeting in Bratislava declared the EU’s determination to make progress on eurozone governance and a range of other issues, including refugees.

But Bratislava was widely judged to be a damp squib, and in concrete terms did little more than kick the can down the road, especially on the eurozone’s future. This increased the pressure for a white paper with enough muscle to reassure Europeans that political momentum in the EU isn’t slowing to a halt.

The waters of the EMU debate have been muddied further by the Commission’s desire to beef-up its EMU paper by tacking on a ‘European Pillar of Social Rights’.

This pillar sees the eurozone’s future depending significantly on developments in national employment and welfare policies, but there is a risk that the profound divisions over improving eurozone governance will be obscured by social policy issues and the Commission’s brainchild of a ‘Competitiveness Board’ in each member state to assess reforms for speeding economic convergence.

“Discussions on how to strengthen the eurozone in the wake of the sovereign debt crises that have shaken Greece, and also Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy, have been a saga”

The Commission has so far been hugging the white paper’s text to its chest. Some EU ambassadors believe that they may not catch sight of it until early March, by when there will be little time to do more than fine-tune a fait accompli. It is generally acknowledged that the timing is made tricky for the Brussels executive by elections this year in France and Germany. If the white paper inflames controversy, it could do more harm than good.

The big question is what the proposals will say about the steps that would lead to EMU’s scheduled completion in 2025.

These are dangerously toxic decisions as they span common eurobonds to ease the problems of deficit countries, an EU-level reinsurance scheme to underpin national bank deposit guarantees, and a macroeconomic stabilisation mechanism to deal with severe economic shocks. Over them all hangs the mooted creation of a single eurozone treasury in the hands of an EU ‘finance minister’.

These matters divide Europe’s rich north and poor south – and in some eyes, the frugal from the spendthrift. With Berlin at the EU helm there will be no swift resolution, and that cold reality is already casting a pall over the Rome Treaty’s sixtieth birthday party.

Related content:

• Friends of Europe: European Young Leaders (EYL40) Lisbon seminar
• Europe’s World: Why is Europe so silent on Syria? by Franziska Brantner
• Debating Europe: 25 years since Maastricht, where does the EU go from here?

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