European Union

Nato plans to deploy 4,000 soldiers in the Baltic states and Poland next year. The military alliance also inaugurated a new missile defence site at a military base in the locality of Deveselu, Romania, in mid-May, and another such site is to be set up in northern Poland. Is this the right response to Russian aggression?

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A search to recover the body of a 2-year-old boy that was snatched by an alligator near a lagoon the  Grand Floridian Resort & Spa hotel in Orlando, Florida.

The child was walking along the hotel’s sandy waterfront area in front of the so-called Seven Seas Lagoon, when the alligator attacked, according to the local County Sheriff. There have never been similar incidents in that area.

There were warning sings against swimming, but apparently not of danger along the beach, on which, there are recreational facilities.

The father apparently wrestled the alligator and sustained minor injuries, but could not get hold of the toddler. The mother too was trying to get hold of the child, but couldn’t.

The family of four was in a vacation from Nebraska, arriving on Sunday.

The Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife is participating in the search.

Police officers search for a child who was reportedly being pulled into the water by an alligator near Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Orlando, Florida, USA, 14 June 2016. According to authorities, a two-year-old toddler, whose name was not available, was dragged into the Seven Seas Lagoon near Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa on 14 June night. EPA/JOHN TAGGART

The post Alligator snatches toddler in Disney Resort, Florida appeared first on New Europe.

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EU Ministers of Employment, Social Affairs, Consumer Protection, Health and Equal Opportunities (EPSCO) meet on 16 and 17 June 2016 in Luxembourg to discuss accessibility for products and services, posting of workers, exposure to carcinogens and mutagens at work, and equal treatment. LGBTI equality is also on the table. On Health, Ministers are adopting conclusions on food products improvement, the combat against antimicrobial resistance, and a strengthening of the balance in the EU pharmaceutical system.

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Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Nearly six months after knuckling down to work on the next stage of overhauling EU bank rules, finance ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Friday to acknowledge that they aren’t where they want to be.

Rather than being able to hail progress in the next steps of the euro area’s ambitious “Banking Union” reform programme, instead they have to tackle fundamental splits over how to take the project forward. If they can.

The divisions are laid bare in a package of documents prepared by the Netherlands, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and which is trying to chart a course for future negotiations before handling the reins over to Slovakia at the end of the month.

To pick through the splits, the FT Brussels blog has posted an annotated copy of the main Dutch document here (just click on the parts highlighted yellow:)

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At the centre of the ruckus is the Commission’s proposal for the euro area to create a centralised system to guarantee bank depositors, known as the EDIS.

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There are 8 days left of the campaign. Little wonder contingency planning is in overdrive. Three different perspectives are laid out today in the press: from the Leave side on the divorce; from the Remain side on the consequences; and the worried Remain side on last-ditch offers to save the campaign.

First for the Brexiters. Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons, outlines a detailed vision of Brexit to the Financial Times. It is a complex but significant insight on how a divorce may proceed, and it doesn’t match expectations in Brussels. The Leave side would legislate in the UK to leave by 2019, but would not necessarily invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty, aiming instead for an “informal” process that sets future trade termsat the same time. In other words, they do not want a trade deal taking longer than the EU break-up. So two years to do it all.

That takes goodwill on the EU side – and it will probably be in short supply. Mr Grayling says the UK will curb the powers of the ECJ straight after the referendum vote – andcurtail free movement rights before 2019 to avoid an influx into the UK. There is not much the EU can do about that; the EU is a sovereign club based on law and good faith. But it may be hard asking for favours. More positive for Brussels: Mr Grayling said budget payments would continue. “I don’t want to break the law as part of the process”. A cheeky European Commission may ask: can we have £350m a week please?

The fiscal contingency George Osborne, chancellor, has set out his post-Brexit budgetto The Times. Unsurprisingly there is no attempt at sugar coating. Income tax up, fuel duty up, inheritance tax up, beer tax up, dramatic cuts across the public sector, all aiming to fill a £30bn fiscal gap he argues was identified by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. The Leave side dismissed this as “hysterical” fear mongering (and think the chancellor will beout of a job anyway). The question is whether it is a sufficiently brazen a claim to move the subject back to the economy, rather than immigration. Remain’s fate may rest on it.

The panic contingency The poll momentum is against Remain and the panic is showing. Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, raised the idea of pushing for urgent reforms to EU free movement – setting off speculation in Westminster about desperate last-ditch measures to rescue the campaign.

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United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to discuss a number of issues. Several EU Commission Vice Presidents and Commissioners were also present during the June 14 meeting in Brussels, according to Margaritis Schinas, the EU Commission chief spokesperson.

Ban Ki-moon visited European institutions on June 14, holding talks with EU Council President Donald Tusk, European Parliament President Martin Schulz prior to his meeting with Juncker at the European Commission headquarters.

Among the issues that were put on the table were migration and Cyprus. “Τhe UN and EU partnership is an inspiring example of what we can achieve when we work together,” Ban Ki-moon told a joint press conference at the Berlaymont.

As regards the migration crisis, the UN Secretary General appreciated the efforts made on behalf of the EU and underlined the need to support the local communities and address the root causes of the displacement.

Ban Ki-moon also said he looks forward to a peaceful settlement for Cyprus, and appeared to be encouraged from both leaders of the Cypriot community about the steps being taken.

“During many years they have identified the pending issues. All the pending issues are on the table and it is a matter of choice on what measures they would like to take,” said Ban Ki-moon.

“I am strongly encouraging them to make a progress, of course if they can take a good decision until the end of this year it would be most, most welcome,” he added. “I will do my best to encourage them, to support them in the difficult process of making decisions.”

“This is the moment to bring this sometimes painful process to an end. I am personally engaged and involved in that process,” said Juncker on the Cyprus issue. “We are working closely together on the ground with the special en voyeur of the UN. I had the pleasure to receive again the two chief negotiators here in Brussels, I was visiting Cyprus a year ago and my feeling is that the two leaders are doing their best to bring this process to an end.

“I would strongly suggest them to ring this process to an end before the mandate of the Secretary General,” he added. “That would be a marvellous farewell gift.”

Juncker also referred to Ban Ki-moon’s life after the UN, jokingly suggesting that he would make a very good chief spokesperson of the EU Commission.

The post Ban Ki-moon and Juncker encourage Cyprus to conclude negotiations by year’s end appeared first on New Europe.

‘We are inextricably part of Europe.
[No one] will ever be able to take us ‘out of Europe’,
for Europe is where we are and where we have always been.’

These words were pronounced by one of the UK’s most prominent PMs, Margaret Thatcher, on 16 April 1975. This was 2 years after the UK joined the EC: Britain consulted its population by referendum, as a fully sovereign country, seeking voters’ approval for what was a good deal.

In the 1970s when the UK joined the European Community, it was struggling economically Today, after 43 years of belonging to Europe, Britain has a dynamic economy and enjoys nearly full employment,and consults its population again, about the same issue, and again, as a fully sovereign country. The mere fact that this country is able to hold this referendum is a blatant demonstration of British sovereignty. National sovereignty is not incompatible with belonging to Europe. Any political grouping claiming in its acronym that the UK would not be an ‘independent’ country is talking nonsense. The UK expresses its sovereignty in many ways: through its international connections, through its defence, as well as within Europe, where it is in a position to encourage or to block joint decisions.

What does the UK mean for Europe? Some argue that there is incompatibility between the UK and the EU. I would argue that there is complementarity between the UK and the EU. And that each one needs the other.

Debates have focused too narrowly on benefits, from the UK’s point of view, of remaining or leaving. But there is far more at stake in the referendum. What is at stake is the Europe of tomorrow. What is at stake, is peace, democracy, and our common values. 46 million British voters will take a decision that will affect not only their country, but more than 500 million Europeans.

The British decision will occur at the worst possible time, in a context of rapid global geopolitical and technological change, affected by increased economic and financial uncertainty, rising social inequalities, an erosion of middle classes in developed economies, when we are confronted with the need to improve international cooperations in crucial areas such as currency stability, trade relations between blocs, fiscal rules, climate change, transition towards non-fossil energy sources, finance, migrations, the relative decline of Western economies, the shift of economic power towards the Asia-Pacific area. This is a unique combination of substantial challenges.

If you add to this mix the rise of anti-European nationalists, subsidised by Russia’s President Putin, and an arc of instability on Europe’s Eastern and Southern borders, stretching from Murmansk to Morocco… We are dancing on a vulcano. We are wasting time with issues of the past. The world out there is changing rapidly and is not waiting for us.

Britain has brought a lot to the European Union not just by being a net contributor to the modest EU budget. Britain has been a force for extending the Single Market, and for striking free trade agreements between the EU and other regions of the world. Britain encouraged the push for enlargement to the East and contributed to the democratic transition of these countries after the demise of soviet communism. The EU has been a springboard for the UK to promote important values which are as much British as European: parliamentary democracy; the rule of law; open markets. (Some of my fellow country citizens would even argue that the EU has become ‘too British’…’, that ‘too much English is spoken in Brussels!’) As Barack Obama put it: ‘The European Union does not moderate British influence – it magnifies it.’ In other words the UK has more impact and sovereignty as one of the three most important member states than it would on its own.

An EU without Britain would be likely to drift in a more protectionist direction. It would be a much smaller player in global affairs. It would lose one of the two countries that count in terms of defence policy. It would lose a positive force for liberalism. There is a serious risk that the European motto United in Diversity becomes Disunited in Adversity. Is this what we want at Britain’s doorstep? A fragmented mosaic of little nation-states which could so easily be bullied by Russia? Instead of having the EU as a soft power using its economic clout to put sanctions on Russia for aggressing Ukraine?

In the economic domain we have what Mario Monti calls a two-belief Europe: a group of European countries geared towards the market; and another group geared towards the consolidation of the euro area. Those believing in the market; and those believing in currency integration. Market, money. This is not incompatible: the volume of everyday transactions in euro at the City is higher than in any other international financial centre. I would daresay that the UK has the euro not as a single, but as a common currency, that de facto the euro is the second currency of the UK. This shows the extent to which we are interdependent. The challenge is to bring closer together those who believe in the market and those who believe in the currency project.

The European project, despite its shortcomings, remains the most advanced example of an economic community of countries. And it is regarded as a model in many parts of the world involved themselves in a process of regional integration. It is also envied all around the Globe by people striving for peace and democracy. Admittedly it is a ‘work in progress’ with many imperfections, but this is the best shelter that Europeans have, at a time when there is a multiplication of external and internal threats.

Who would have grounds to rejoice if, the Day After the referendum, the UK opted for a Brexit?

• A viscerally anti-European media mogul.
• A few sorcerer’s apprentices gambling on their country’s future to gain a personal political advantage.
• Unscrupulous populists.
• And Putin, who subsidises extremist parties across Europe to exacerbate its divisions.

If, however, the UK opted to remain a member of the European Union, this choice would send an unequivocal message to all the populists and new extreme-right parties across Europe - from France to Poland, from Germany to Sweden, from Hungary to the Netherlands, from Austria to Belgium – that despite disappointment about the way the Union works, and despite the UK’s relentlessly Europhobic press, even in the most Eurosceptic member state of the Union, there is no majority to abandon the acquis of the last six decades, which has become a matter of course for two generations.

One last word:

European integration is far from perfect, but it has been the indispensable cement between a huge diversity of nations and cultures which have been able to live in peace for six decades. If the gap between Europe and its citizens continues to be exacerbated by populists whose ultimate aim is the disintegration of Europe, our democracies will be threatened in their core. We take it for granted since 1945 that the ‘Never again’ of post-War times will always apply to Europe, that there will never be a war again in Europe. If the EU was disappearing tomorrow, what certainty would we have that a war between Europeans, between France and Germany, would still be unthinkable? Who would have imagined in the former Yugoslavian Federation of 1987-88, that its populations would endure ten years of civil wars, massacres and dreadful atrocities, on European soil, for absolutely nothing?

Let us not play with fire. We are in the same boat: let us not saw the boat into two!

Jean-Marc Trouille is Jean Monnet Chair
in European Economic Integration
at Bradford University School of Management, UK.

This is the text of a speech given at a public debate
held on 7 June in Ilkley.

The post Some thoughts on sovereignty, and on ‘The Day After’ appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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In a statement published today by the office of Gérard Deprez, a Belgian MEP and President of the Friends of a Free Iran group in the European Parliament, more than 270 MEPs call into question the democratic reforms in Iran.

“We are extremely worried about the rising number of executions in Iran. Since the ‘moderate’ President Rouhani took office in August 2013, several thousand people have been hanged in Iran. Moreover, in a public speech on Iranian television, President Rouhani described executions as a “good law” and “the law of God!” the statement says.

The MEPs urge the EU and member states “to condition any further relations with Iran” until progress on human rights improvements is reached there. Deprez, commenting on the letter from Brussels, added that “it will be a great damage to the European credibility, if EU does not insist publicly and seriously on improvement of human rights.”

“This statement as well as the support of MEPs of the Iranian opposition leader, Maryam Rajavi, shows that the elected representatives of the European people have rightly put human rights and democratic values before economic interests and ‘business as usual,” Firouz Mahvi, a representative of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran said.

Amnesty International in its report on Iran harshly condemned the situation with Human Rights in the country saying that: “torture and other ill-treatment of detainees remained common and was committed with impunity, whereas women and members of ethnic and religious minorities faced pervasive discrimination in law and in practice.”

 

 

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Two UK groups have been honoured today in the 2016 European Citizen’s Prize. Every year a panel of judges chooses laureates from across the member states who have made outstanding contributions to the promotion of cooperation and a better mutual understanding between the citizens of the Member States.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

 On Sunday morning we learned with deep sadness of the horrifying tragedy in Orlando, Florida that has claimed some 50 lives and has left indelible scars on so many more.  This was an attack on all Americans who share the values of equality and freedom; this was an attack on the very way of life which we treasure on both sides of the Atlantic. 

We express our deepest condolences to the families, friends and community of the victims as well as to the population of Orlando and all those further afield affected by this terrible event.

The United States and Europe have during the last months repeatedly been attacked. But each time we have stood up again and reached out to each other in solidarity, as true allies. In these challenging times we would like to assure you, Mr President, of the European Union's continued support, assistance and cooperation in combatting those who seek to challenge the common values we hold dear.