European Union

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EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet on 20 November 2017 in Brussels to start preparations for the December European Council. Also on the agenda are the interinstitutional agreement on better law-making, the Commission's work programme for 2018, and the 2018 European Semester roadmap. In addition, the Council is adopting conclusions on cybersecurity.

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EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet in Brussels on 20 November 2017 to discuss the state of play of the Brexit negotiations and in the margins of the meeting vote on the new locations for the EU agencies currently based in the UK.

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On 22 November, the Subcommittee will discuss, with the involvement of 3 experts, risks and trends and their security implications for the EU as well as EU efforts to mitigate the security relevant effects of climate change. It will also examine to what extent increased economic/military activities, impact on desertification, land degradation, water and food scarcity can be linked to climate change and what major effects they have on EU security.
Further information
Draft programme
hearing documents
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

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Stefan LÖFVEN, Prime Minister of Sweden, together with Jean-Claude JUNCKER, President of the European Commission, hosts a Social Summit in Gothenburg on 17 November 2017, focusing on promoting fair jobs and growth.  The Social Summit for Fair Jobs and Growth gathers heads of state or government, the social partners and other key players to work together on a more social Europe and to promote fair jobs and growth. 

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Der Schatz an Metaphern, den der Fußball für die Politik bereithält, ist immer wieder erstaunlich. Gar nicht so einfach, ihnen zu widerstehen; sie drängen sich ja oft geradezu auf. Und oft genug gehen sie semantisch nach hinten los. Aber jetzt, da sogar Jürgen Habermas der Versuchung erlegen ist, sei es gestattet, eine seiner Vorlagen aufzunehmen.

In seinem starken Plädoyer im Spiegel, die Europa-Rede Emmanuel Macrons in der Sorbonne ernst zu nehmen und seine Ideen aufzugreifen, kam Habermas zu dem Schluss, der „Ball Europas“, den Macron im März noch „in der französischen Spielhälfte“ gesehen hatte, liege nun in der „deutschen Hälfte“.

Das Bild ist recht stimmig: tatsächlich muss der französische Präsident, laut Habermas, um mit Deutschland an einem besseren, „politisch handlungsfähigen“ Europa zu arbeiten, erst einmal gegen „die deutsche Regierung mit ihrem robusten Wirtschaftsnationalismus“ spielen.

Führt man den Gedanken und die Metapher weiter, kommt man nicht umhin, sich ein intensives französisches „Gegenpressing“ zu wünschen, um zu sehen, wie die deutsche politische Klasse mit intensivem Nachsetzen umgeht.

Copyright: Oleg Starynskyi

Für Leser, die mit den Feinheiten der Fußballtaktik weniger vertraut sind, sei kurz erklärt, was mit „Gegenpressing“ genau gemeint ist. Die damit verbundene Spielweise beruht auf der Beobachtung, dass dominante, an Ballbesitz orientierte Teams genau dann am meisten verwundbar sind, wenn sie den Ball erobert haben. In diesem Moment gilt es, sich eben nicht in die Defensive zurückzuziehen, sondern sofort koordiniert im Schwarm die ballführenden Spieler unter Druck zu setzen. Idealerweise schlägt Gegenpressing unerwartete Breschen in die gegnerische Verteidigung.

Die Art und Weise, mit der die deutsche Politik gegenwärtig die konstruktiven Vorschläge aus den Reden Emmanuel Macrons entweder ignoriert oder, im Falle der FDP, kurzerhand abbürstet, sollte man vielleicht in der Tat mit einem Gegenpressing kontern.

Von Frankreich aus erscheint die deutsche Regierung – die vorherige wie die kommende – wie eine dieser Mannschaften, die das Spiel über Jahre hinweg dominiert haben. Im Glanz ihrer vergangenen Erfolge verdrängt sie, dass sie schon in eine Phase des Niedergangs eingetreten ist. Trotzig auf ihren Gewissheiten und ihrer gegebenen Überlegenheit beharrend, verschließt sie sich neuer Spielweisen, immer unter dem Vorwand, die „Fans“ würden das nicht akzeptieren.

Wie die Welt- und die Fußballgeschichte nahelegen, ist dieser „wohlgefällige Selbstbetrug“, den Habermas diagnostiziert, ein verhängnisvoller Wahrnehmungsfehler, sowohl was die Überschätzung eigener Stärke betrifft als auch die Beibehaltung einer herablassenden, selbstgerechten Haltung gegenüber den Ideen eines jungen „Trainers“, der einen neuen Ansatz verfolgt.

Wird es Macron gelingen, die deutsche Abwehr unter Druck zu setzen? Die Hoffnung sei erlaubt. Was ihm in die Hände spielen wird, ist die Vermutung, dass die deutsche Politik das Ausmaß seiner Entschlossenheit noch gar nicht begriffen hat. Offenbar geht man davon aus, er sei mangels besserer Alternativen hauptsächlich deshalb gewählt worden, um Marine Le Pen zu vermeiden, die von einer Reihe deutscher Qualitätsmedien trotz besseren Wissens während des gesamten Wahlkampfs quasi-obsessiv als zukünftige Präsidentin auf den Titelseiten plakatiert wurde.

Im Gegensatz zu Jürgen Habermas scheint man in der deutschen politischen Klasse den ehrlichen Willen Macrons, dem europäischen Integrationsprozess neuen Schwung zu verleihen völlig zu unterschätzen, genauso wie man die geopolitische Rolle (und auch das wirtschaftliche Potential) Frankreichs systematisch herunterspielt. Vielleicht kann man sich in der deutschen Politik auch gar nicht mehr vorstellen, dass ein europäische Regierungschef sich tatsächlich traut, ein besseres Europa ganz oben auf seine Agenda zu setzen und offensiv gegenüber dem ewig skeptischen Diskurs-Trott zu verteidigen.

Wenn der gegenwärtige Koalitions-Mercato abgeschlossen und die neue Mannschaft aufgestellt sein wird, dann wird sich zeigen, wie sie reagiert, wenn ihr ein wirklich guter Spieler gegenübersteht. Emmanuel Macron ist ein Spielgestalter, der den feinen Pass in die Tiefe spielen kann. Einer, der den Mut hat, der allseits dominierenden Taktik des Europa-Bashings nicht mit einer ängstlichen Defensiv-Strategie zu begegnen, sondern offensiv dagegenzuhalten. Macron ist noch nicht abgenutzt von den langen europäischen Abenden in Brüssel und anderswo, frisch genug, um in die Verlängerung zu gehen. Es stimmt, er tendiert dazu, sich selbst an seiner Spielintelligenz und Vision zu berauschen, und nicht jede seiner Vorlagen ist allein deshalb genial, weil sie seiner Inspiration entspringen. Die eine oder andere kann schon mal im Aus landen. Aber man darf damit rechnen, dass er bei den Einwürfen wieder nachsetzt. Und wie man seit einem Jahr beobachten kann, lässt er sich von imposanten Kulissen und miesepetrigen Berichterstattern nicht einschüchtern.

Noch ist es zu früh, um vorherzusagen, ob sein Gegenpressing erfolgreich sein wird. Aber zumindest gibt es jetzt endlich wieder ein spannendes Match „auf Augenhöhe“. Schau’n mer mal!

The post Zeit fürs Gegenpressing! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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EU Ministers of Finance meet in Brussels on 17 November 2017 to prepare negotiations with the European Parliament on the EU's general budget for 2018. The negotiations are held at a conciliation committee meeting the same day.

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The fifth African Union - European Union (AU-EU) summit takes place on 29-30 November 2017 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. The AU-EU summit is a key moment and opportunity to strengthen political and economic ties between the two continents.

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An amendment by Labour to protect our EU rights and protections after Brexit has been defeated in the House of Commons.

The Labour front bench sought to amend the EU (Withdrawal) Bill to ensure that after Brexit, EU derived employment rights, environmental protection, health and safety standards and consumer standards can only be amended by primary legislation.

But the amendment was slimly defeated in the Commons on Wednesday night this week.

Ken Clarke was the only Tory to vote for the amendment.

(Ken Clarke is arguably the only true Tory left in the Conservative Party: the party that had previously applied for the UK to join the European Community; the party that joined the UK to the European Community; the party that practically invented the Single Market of Europe; the party that pushed hard for the expansion of the European Union. Where is that Conservative Party now?)

During the Commons debate, Mr Clarke warned that there are some Government ministers who are “not excessively fond of workers’ rights” and retaining them after Brexit.

The former Chancellor and pro-European asked why, if the Government did not intend to water down workers’ rights after Brexit, ministers were not prepared to enshrine this in the Bill by backing the amendment?

The defeat of this amendment means that after Brexit, government ministers will be free to keep, amend or scrap EU protections and standards at their will without the usual scrutiny of Parliament – i.e. ‘secondary legislation.’

Despite voting with the Government, the former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve – a strong Remain supporter – warned that laws protecting such rights will be brought to the “lowest possible status” in Parliament after Brexit.

Shadow Brexit minister, Matthew Pennycook, said that Labour had put forward the amendment to the bill to prevent secondary legislation being used by future governments to “chip away at rights, entitlements, protections and standards that the public enjoy and wish to retain” after Brexit.

He added that Labour wanted to ensure that retained EU law – on employment, equality, health and safety, consumer and environment – “is accorded a level of enhanced protection that it would otherwise not enjoy”.

But of course, this is the key to what Brexit is all about. Instead of getting our country back, we’re going to lose it. The ruling classes want Brexit because they don’t want the likes of us, ordinary people, having rights that get in the way of the rich making more money, and lots of it.

Those who also thought that Brexit meant our Parliament will get more sovereignty should think again. Our Parliament is losing sovereignty; they are giving it away, eroding our democracy and our current rights and protections, with the false pretence that this is what ‘the people’ want and voted for.

MPs in the Commons also voted down an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill put forward by Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, by 313 votes to 295.

Her amendment sought to ensure that animals continue to be treated as sentient beings after Brexit in domestic law.

Under EU law, animals are currently recognised as being capable of feeling pain and emotion. But MPs voted to drop the inclusion of animal sentience into the Withdrawal Bill.

The Government argued during the debate that animal sentience is already covered by the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

But Farming UK reported the RSPCA as saying that this wasn’t the case. RSPCA Head of Public Affairs David Bowles said it was a “truly backward step” for animal welfare.

“It’s shocking that MPs have given the thumbs down to incorporating animal sentience into post-Brexit UK law,” Mr Bowles explained.

Mr Bowles added that the decision by Parliament “flies in the face” of the Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s pledge for high animal welfare standards post-Brexit.

“In the EU, we know that the recognition of animals as sentient beings has been effective in improving animal welfare across the region” he said. “If the UK is to achieve the Environment Secretary’s objective of achieving the highest possible animal welfare post-Brexit, it must do the same.”

During the debate on Labour’s amendment to ensure that EU rights and protections are protected after Brexit – known as ‘new clause 58’ – Shadow Brexit minister, Mr Pennycook, explained that a substantial part of UK employment rights is derived from EU law, and an even larger body is guaranteed by EU law.

“As such,” said Mr Pennycook, “key workers’ rights enjoy a form of enhanced protection.”

He added that, “Those include:

• protections against discrimination owing to sex, pregnancy, race, disability, religion and belief, age, and sexual orientation;

• equal pay between men and women for work of equal value;

• health and safety protection for pregnant women, and their rights to maternity leave;

• a degree of equal treatment, in broad terms, for the growing number of fixed-term, part-time and agency workers;

• rights to protected terms and conditions, and rights not to be dismissed on the transfer of an undertaking;

• and almost all the law on working time, including paid annual leave and limits on daily and weekly working time.”

Mr Pennycook warned that whilst the Government had promised to ensure that workers’ rights are fully protected and maintained after the UK’s departure from the EU, “in the absence of stronger legal safeguards, there are good reasons to be sceptical about that commitment.”

He reminded the Commons that, “Prominent members of the Cabinet are on record as having called for workers’ rights to be removed.”

For example, Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, had written that we need “to root out the nonsense of the social chapter—the working time directive and the atypical work directive and other job-destroying regulations.”

During the referendum, the then Minister for Employment, Priti Patel, called for the UK to “halve the burdens of EU social and employment legislation”.

The newest member of the Brexit ministerial team—Lord Callanan—has openly called for the scrapping of the working time directive, the temporary agency work directive, the pregnant workers directive and “all the other barriers to actually employing people.”

The LibDem Brexit spokesman, Tom Brake, interjected to make the point that the inventor, James Dyson, had also said last week that he welcomes the fact that leaving the EU means “he will be able to hire and fire people more easily.”

Mr Pennycook concluded the arguments for his proposed amendment by saying:

“We should not take risks with rights, standards and protections that have been underpinned by EU law.

“Hard-won employment entitlements, along with entitlements relating to the environment, health and safety, equalities and consumer rights, should not be vulnerable to steady erosion by means of secondary legislation outside of the powers contained in this Bill.

“In future, Ministers should be able to change the workers’ rights and other rights that came from the EU only through primary legislation, with a full debate in Parliament. On that basis, I urge hon. Members on both sides of the House to support new clause 58.”

But Conservative MPs spoke strongly against the amendment; indeed, all the proposed amendments to the Bill were lost last night, as one after the other the government managed to have them voted down.

Tory MP, Priti Patel, who lost her job last week as Secretary of State for International Development said, “Over the past 45 years, the European Communities Act 1972 has been the mechanism by which the sovereignty of this Parliament has been eroded, with more areas of law being taken over by the EU. The Bill puts all those EU laws, regulations and other measures under our control.”

Conservative MP, James Cleverly asked Ms Patel if she agreed that, “the implication that somehow Britain would be a horrible, ungovernable place were it not for the benign guiding hand of the European Parliament and European legislators is a massive insult not just to Members, but to every single person in the country?” She replied that was “an important point.”

Tory back bencher and leading Brexiter, John Redwood tried to offer reassurance:

“I have heard strong assurances from all parties that there is absolutely no wish to water down employment protections or environmental protections, and I see absolutely no evidence that anyone would try to do that,” he said.

“I am quite sure that, were they to try, they would soon discover that there was an overwhelming majority in the Commons, on the Government and Opposition Benches, of very many people who would say, “You cannot do that,” and we would have every intention of voting it down.” 

But Labour back bencher, a strong Remain supporter, Chuka Umunna, said it was important to have more than assurances to protect some of the vital rights that are currently protected in EU law. “In particular, we should protect their [current] enhanced status,” he said.

Mr Umunna made the point that during the debate, the Solicitor General and other Government Members were asking the House to give Ministers “the benefit of the doubt regarding these rights, particularly the employment law rights.”

He said, “We are being asked to give Ministers our confidence that they will protect these rights.”

But he warned:

“Since I joined the House, I have seen the Government – first the coalition and then the current Conservative Government – ride roughshod, unfortunately, over some of the vital employment rights that people enjoy.” 

However, at precisely 6:44pm the Commons voted 299 votes to 311 against the proposed amendment to protect the current status of EU protections and rights.

As Ken Clarke said during the debate, if the Government did not intend to water down workers rights after Brexit, why wasn’t the government prepared to back the amendment protecting those rights after Britain leaves the EU?

Isn’t it true that Parliament has just burnt our right to rights?

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The post No guarantee of EU rights after Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The upsides of getting older are relatively few and far between, but one of the best is that you get to annoy younger people by dragging up things from the past that they have no memory of.

And so it’s been this week: I’ve been musing on the late 1980s and the oddities of monetary policy, while several of my colleagues have sat there, giving me the smile you give old people when they start off again.

Since you’ve got this far, I’ll assume you’re either: a) at least as old as I am, or: b) one of those particularly bright young people, genuinely wishing to learn from the past. Your pick.

So back in the 1980s and early 1990s, much of British European policy was about money, and specifically Sterling’s relationship with the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). In essence, the government sought to find an accommodation with that system that tried to satisfy several policy objectives at once.

Most importantly, it was trying to stabilise Sterling’s position in forex markets: the eighties had been rather a rollercoaster, with big impacts on public finances (and thus public policy). Secondly, the hardening of ERM – fewer and fewer changes in central target rates between member currencies – was making the block an ever more important reference point for the British economy, not least in the broader context of the 1992 single market programme. And finally, there was a big bunch of party politics going on, as Thatcher moved into her later years in office.

The failure of multilateral instruments in the early and mid 1980s seemed to close down that route, so the Treasury – which then ran the Bank of England and exchange rate policy – cast around for other options: if you’d like a good summary of all this, then Philip Stephens’ Politics and the Pound should be your first port of call.

For a year, from early 1987, the option that was followed was shadowing of the Deutschmark, but in secret. The then Chancellor, Nigel Lawson (father of Nigella, younger readers), instructed the Bank to keep the exchange rate just under 3.00DM, but never formulated it as formal policy, nor discussed it with anyone else.

Of course, the rapid mounting up of foreign reserves and the large amount of public speculation eventually brought this to a close, when Thatcher shut the door on it, just in time to cut the legs from under Lawson’s 1988 budget. This seemed to harden his resolve to move towards ERM membership and so to his sacking by Thatcher.

However, Thatcher’s determination not to join was ultimately undermined by her Cabinet’s insistence, including of the men brought in to replace her old guard. Eventually, Sterling did join in 1990, in the dying days of Thatcher’s premiership, but at a rate that was to prove unsustainable. In September 1992, that pressure led to Sterling’s ejection - Black Wednesday - which both trashed the Conservative’s reputation as economic managers for a generation, while also lying the conditions for a period of strong economic growth.

So what, grandad?

The reason this all comes back to mind is that some parallels with the Brexit process seem to be in order.

Most obviously, the episode points to the importance of credibility in commitments. The UK is about to move into a period where it is managing a divergent relationship with the EU, potentially with much of that resting on unilateral commitments to respect EU regulation. The Withdrawal Bill will be the mainstay of this, but there will necessarily be a need for more general political commitment to playing by externally-set rules.

The ERM saga highlights the difficulties of doing such a thing when others either don’t know you’re doing that or don’t believe you’re doing it. Money markets were able to make sizeable profits off playing government policy: Black Wednesday famously saw fortunes made, as speculators refused to believe that the BoE would reservedly back Sterling, and that other central banks would do the same. That the Bundesbank seemed indifferent to the fate of Sterling merely underlined matters – all the more so a year later, then it fought hard to keep the French Franc in.

Clearly, credibility is in equally short supply now: European partners remain unclear about the UK’s intent post-withdrawal, even as the UK faces much pressure to carve out exceptions and changes to the acquis in the medium-term. Even if the UK commits now to retaining that acquis, that seems to be a less-than secure guarantee of equal standards and procedures, which in turn raises questions of market access.

But the period also raises issues of British particularity. It was evident that economic cycles weren’t synchronised – and that no one was prepared to try to synchronise them – and that shocks tended to be asymmetric: Bernard Connelly’s Rotten Heart of Europe is a great bit of economic analysis (sprinkled with a pile of rage). The fundamentals weren’t really in place to help the policy work, whatever the politics.

The question is whether that has now changed. We’re 30 years on from shadowing and market integration has proceeded afoot, but it’s worth reflecting on whether economics might lead politics once more. The strengthening of the Eurozone and the weakening of the British economy will create a number of incentives to act that might not align with the political imperatives.

And finally, this blast from the past poses the big question of who’s in control. The ERM ‘stab in the back’ was a big part in the myth-making around Thatcher – she was right to fight off membership, and we shouldn’t trust those who seek European policy solutions – but in the end, the main message seemed to be that markets set exchange rates, not politicians, whatever their politics.

Of course, we worry less about exchange rates than we used to. But the point still holds: the economic effects of Brexit will be sizeable, to the point that either the British government nor the EU can mitigate or avoid them fully, even if they wanted to.

This doesn’t mean that policy-makers shouldn’t try, but rather that they should be frank about the limits to their power and about the range of potential outcomes. One hallmark of the late 1980s-early 1990s was that all these policy issues were debated and decided within a very small circle of politicians. Their failings contributed to the weakening of trust that now makes our current situation all the more challenging.

If I were being dull I’d close by wheeling out the old Santayana quote about the past, but while hunting for the reference I noted another quote from his Life in Reason: “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.” Something else to think about, as you get older.

The post A trip down memory lane: Shadowing, ERM and lessons for Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

The Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2016 and the European Union’s policy on the matter – 2017/2122(INI)
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Nearly three years have passed since the adoption of a revised protocol that will grant the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) legislative powers and considerably strengthen the institution within the overall African governance system. While very few countries have ratified the protocol so far, the acceleration of its ratification procedures is a priority for the recently elected PAP president. The EP and the PAP enjoy a long-standing partnership and both of them have an important role to play in monitoring the Joint Africa EU Strategy (JAES) and its roadmap for 2014-2017. The fifth EU-Africa Summit, which will be held in Côte d’Ivoire in November 2017, will assess the implementation of the road map and identify new priorities for the future. Thematic priorities for the upcoming summit include youth, peace and security and migration, which are now at the heart of the relationship between the two continents.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Signing and ratifying Association Agreements with Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine has proven to be an impressive affirmation of Brussels’ soft power. The EU’s overtures have persuaded elites and mobilised societies despite the fact that the Agreements come neither with a membership promise nor with the kind of financial assistance that has been given to the EU’s new member states. EU assistance has been effective in restoring macro-financial stability in all three countries. While costs of compliance with the DCFTA were calculated, level of investment associated with the necessary modernisation to make these economies competitive were neglected. The discrepancy between costs and benefits should prompt the EU to be more flexible. Brussels’ achievements remain fragile. Informal interests continue to play important roles in these countries and have the potential to thwart reforms. In the absence of strong, de-politicised institutions, the EU should work to support political consolidation—the alternative is further polarisation and political fragility—while at the same time insisting on adherence to democratic standards and strengthened institutional checks and balances.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

There is now mounting evidence that the Russians are using techniques to destabilise the European Union, and possibly attempted to influence a win for ‘Leave’ in last year’s referendum.

Today’s front page of The Guardian gives a non-cryptic clue: ‘Russia backed Brexit in fake Twitter posts’.

And today’s front page of The Times claimed, ‘Russia used web posts “to disrupt” Brexit vote.’

The newspaper dramatically claimed, ‘Russian Twitter accounts posted almost 45,000 messages about Brexit in 48 hours during last year’s referendum in an apparently coordinated attempt to sow discord.’

The Guardian claimed, ‘Concern about Russian influence in British politics has intensified as it emerged that more than 400 fake Twitter accounts believed to be run from St Petersburg published posts about Brexit.’

The paper reported that:

“Researchers at the University of Edinburgh identified 419 accounts operating from the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) attempting to influence UK politics out of 2,752 accounts suspended by Twitter in the US.”

The Times reported on separate research by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California in Berkeley, claiming that more than 150,000 accounts based in Russia switched their attention to Brexit in the days leading up to the referendum vote.

Apparently, the messages were automatically created by ‘bots’ or cyborg accounts, and the analysis suggests they were viewed hundreds of millions of times.

The Times said that most of the Tweets they had investigated, ‘encouraged people to vote for Brexit, an outcome which Russia would have regarded as destabilising for the European Union.’

However, a number of the Russian Tweets were pro-Remain, according to The Times report, suggesting that the goal may have been simply to sow discord.

Commented Damian Collins, the Tory MP who chairs the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee:

“This is the most significant evidence yet of interference by Russian-backed social media accounts around the Brexit referendum.”

Mr Collins added:

“The content published and promoted by these accounts is clearly designed to increase tensions throughout the country and undermine our democratic process. I fear that this may well be just the tip of the iceberg.”

This week Prime Minister, Theresa May, accused Moscow of using fake news to “sow discord” and of meddling directly in elections.

The Times reported that one Russian Tweeter, Svetlana Lukyanchenko, living in the small town of Gelendzhik, used her Twitter name of Sveta1972 to post a series of pro-Brexit Tweets in the four days leading up to the EU referendum.

She Tweeted, for example, that the EU was an “unelected assembly of corporatist agents” imposing debt and austerity “on all member states”. But after the referendum she suddenly stopped Tweeting about Brexit altogether.

According to researchers Sveta1972 was one of thousands of suspect Russian accounts tweeting copiously about Brexit in the run-up to last year’s vote.

According to The Guardian, a number of Russian tweets have been identified by Twitter Inc.

One of them, by someone in Russia with the name, @SouthLoneStar, reportedly Tweeted: “I hope UK after #BrexitVote will start to clean their land from muslim invasion!” and “UK voted to leave future European Caliphate! #BrexitVote.”

The Russian government has strongly denied that it interfered with the EU referendum. President Putin said after last year’s vote, “We closely followed the voting but never interfered or sought to influence it.”

But there is little doubt that many in the Moscow hierarchy welcomed the Brexit outcome.

Commented The Guardian:

“An EU without Britain would be less united on sanctions against Russia, many Russian officials hoped, because it would lose one of its stronger foreign policy voices and would be too consumed with its own internal problems to prioritise Russia policy.”

Last year, the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, said Britain’s vote to leave the EU was “a giant victory for Putin’s foreign policy objectives”.

Writing for InFacts today, Dennis McShane, a former Minister for Europe and Labour MP commented:

‘The Russian president told Bloomberg in September 2016 that Brexit would lead to a smaller EU. Putin has always resented having to deal with the EU and insisted that only bilateral relations mattered for Russia.’

Mr McShane added:

‘At the Lord Mayor’s Banquet this week Theresa May attacked Putin for interfering in elections in the West. She did not mention Brexit as she has to pander to the Brexit hardliners in the cabinet and Conservative Party. But there are also many Tories who care deeply about standing up to Russia.

‘If more evidence surfaces that the narrow Brexit result was influenced by an unfriendly foreign power, it will be harder to argue that a stolen poll should be the final word on Britain’s relationship with its friendly neighbours.’

So, here’s the bottom line. Russia, a proud nation, is still wounded by the loss of its empire, the Soviet Union.

Most of the former countries and territories that had been shackled behind the Iron Curtain for decades decided to join the European Union after they had won their freedom almost 30 years ago.

Those former Communist countries are now proud of their independence as returned-members of our European family, as members of the EU, and they are doing well.

Those former Communities living in the sphere of the Soviet Union are now our continent’s fastest growing economies since they joined the European Union.

Poland, for example, sailed through the world-wide economic crisis unscathed. Since 2007 its economy has grown by a third, and it now has Europe’s fastest growing number of millionaires.

And Romania was recently described by The Economist magazine as ‘the tiger economy of Europe’.

Both Poland and Romania are economically stable countries, with low inflation, relatively low public debt (public debt of Romania is only at 39% of the GDP), low interest rates and a relatively stable exchange rate.

GDP growth in Romania is around 4% and in Poland around 3.5% – rates that our British government could only dream about. British businesses are significantly benefiting from the export markets in both Poland and Romania.

Former USSR member, Estonia, has become the world’s most advanced country in the use of internet technologies. Just a generation ago, it was still under Soviet domination as a very poor backwater on the Baltic Sea. Now it is a developed country and a member of both the EU and NATO.

But many of these countries fear that Russia wants its old territory back.

Last June, Russia sent 2,500 troops to its border near Latvia and Estonia, making the people of those countries fear that their giant neighbour is planning conflict and annexation.

Newsweek reported at the time, ‘Concern has been mounting for years among some European officials over whether Russia could strike the Baltics following its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.’

Anxiety about a possible war in the Baltics remains high, with most citizens of Lithuania and Latvia citing armed conflict as their prime concern.

Russia has formally denied it would ever attack a member of NATO, which the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are. But the promises of Moscow diplomats have done little to assuage worries in the former Soviet Union states that are now established members of the EU.

Last month Der Spiegel magazine reported on a leaked NATO report that it would be unable to repel a Russian attack on its Eastern European members.

Poland as well as Scandinavian and Baltic member states feel threatened by Russia and have urged the alliance to bolster its eastern flank against possible aggression.

Are we going to see an attempt by Russia to try and recreate something similar to the USSR?

Several prominent Brexiters have already expressed that their goal is to see the end of the European Union.

Conservative MP Steve Baker, one of the government’s Brexit negotiators, said in 2010 that he wanted to see the European Union “wholly torn down.”

Michael Gove, MP, now the Environment Secretary, said similar comments during the referendum. He said, “Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting – the democratic liberation of a whole continent.”

He described Britain’s departure from the EU as “a contagion” that could spread across Europe.

Nigel Farage said on Talk Radio in Spain that he didn’t stop at Britain leaving the EU; he wanted to see “Europe out of the European Union” – in other words, the complete disintegration of the European Single Market.

These are the friends of Russia’s implicit aims.

The choice may come down to this:

• Do we support a European Union, that brings together our family of European countries in peace and prosperity; a cohesion we should not disrupt or harm with Brexit?

• Or do we support a new kind of Soviet Union, in which once again we lose those countries which only a short time ago re-joined us, and want to stay with us in our Union of Europe?

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https://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/9_26_2013-95122---cohesion-policy-projects-16-9-preview_169.72_thumb_169_1507718775_1507718775_129_97shar_c1.jpg

EU Ministers of Foreign and European Affairs meet in Brussels on 15 November 2017 to be updated on ongoing work to amend the Common Provisions Regulation. They are also discussing the future of Cohesion Policy post 2020.

Download this video here.

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that fake news in some of Britain’s leading newspapers helped to cause Brexit.

Every day newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Express print articles that promote hatred of migrants and the EU generally.

‘Too many EU migrants’ was cited as one of the main reasons people voted for Leave in last year’s referendum.

Yesterday Prime Minister, Theresa May, gave a speech at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London, accusing Russia of using fake news to ‘sow discord in the West’. That may be true, but Mrs May should also look closer to home for the impact of fake news.

Last week, Mrs May attended a party to honour Paul Dacre’s 25th year as editor of the Daily Mail, the newspaper that has probably done more than any other to spread hatred of migrants and of the EU through misleading news.

Also yesterday, the European Commission announced that it is tackling fake news as part of a wider effort to protect democracy across Europe. 

This is in response to a resolution passed by the European Parliament last June, calling on the Commission to analyse the current situation and legal framework regarding fake news, and to verify the possibility of legislation to limit the spreading of fake news content

First Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans said:

“The freedom to receive and impart information and the pluralism of the media are enshrined in the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.

He added: 

“We live in an era where the flow of information and misinformation has become almost overwhelming. That is why we need to give our citizens the tools to identify fake news, improve trust online, and manage the information they receive.”

The EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Mariya Gabriel said: 

“Fake news is a direct threat to the very foundations of our democratic society.”

Ms Gabriel announced the Commission’s plans to set up a ‘High-Level Expert Group’ representing academics, online platforms, news media and civil society organisations to look into the problem of fake news. There will also be wide level consultations with the public about the impact of fake news to conclude in February next year.

She said: 

“At the heart of my action lies the defence of citizens’ right to quality information which is a cornerstone of our democracies. I want to have an open and broad discussion about fake news to address this complex phenomenon in order to overcome the challenges ahead of us.”

Most internet traffic is spread through Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. The Commissioner explained that fake news is easily disseminated with little effort via these US-owned platforms.

She added that people can purchase 20,000 comments for €5,000 and another €2,600 will buy up to 300,000 social media followers. “This type of manipulation is possible because there is an offer to provide these services,” she said.

Regulators are facing a difficult debate on balancing fake news and fundamental rights such as the freedom of expression.

Commented Andrus Ansip, the Commission’s Vice-President for the Digital Single Market 

“We need to find a balanced approach between the freedom of expression, media pluralism and a citizens’ right to access diverse and reliable information. All the relevant players like online platforms or news media should play a part in the solution.”

The Commission said that citizens, social media platforms, news organisations, researchers and public authorities are all invited to share their views in the public consultation until mid-February. The Commission added that it will, “gather opinions on what actions could be taken at EU level to give citizens effective tools to identify reliable and verified information and adapt to the challenges of the digital age. 

• My campaign, Reasons2Remain, is profoundly concerned about fake news being propagated by some of our leading newspapers to promote Brexit, in addition to the problem of social media being used to spread misinformation.

Jon Danzig giving his speech at an international media conference about newspaper lies.

► Watch my 14-minute video, ‘How fake news caused Brexit’. I shall be submitting this film and other evidence to the European Commission’s Public Consultation on Fake News.

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The post How fake news caused Brexit appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

On 22 November, the Subcommittee will discuss, with the involvement of 3 experts, risks and trends and their security implications for the EU as well as EU efforts to mitigate the security relevant effects of climate change. It will also examine to what extent increased economic/military activities, impact on desertification, land degradation, water and food scarcity can be linked to climate change and what major effects they have on EU security.
Location : Paul-Henri Spaak 5B001
Further information
Draft programme
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The next AFET meeting is scheduled to take place as follows:

Monday, 20 November 2017, 15:00-18:30, room JAN 2Q2;
Tuesday, 21 November 2017, 09:00-12:30 and 15:00-18:30, room JAN 2Q2.

Further information
Information for visitors
Draft agendas
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

Lounes
Citizenship of the Union
A non-EU national may benefit from a right of residence in the Member State in which his EU citizen family member resided before acquiring the nationality of that Member State in addition to her nationality of origin