European Union

With just a few days to go before the referendum Brexit is increasingly likely, the latest polls show. This scenario is provoking many worried comments in the press.

Latvia's Minister of Health Guntis Belēvičs has stepped down after it emerged that he received preferential treatment in a hospital. He had a number of moles removed by the chief physician at the University Clinic in Riga without having to wait or pay for treatment like normal Latvians do. The Latvian press is outraged.

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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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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