European Union

The Court of Justice of the European Union launches its first application for smartphones and tablets

DRAFT OPINION on an EU strategy for liquefied natural gas and gas storage
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Takis Hadjigeorgiou

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Izsák and Dabis v Commission
Citizenship of the Union
The General Court confirms that the proposed European citizens’ initiative intended to promote the development of geographical areas populated by national minorities cannot be registered

Izsák and Dabis v Commission
Citizenship of the Union
The General Court confirms that the proposed European citizens’ initiative intended to promote the development of geographical areas populated by national minorities cannot be registered

Izsák and Dabis v Commission
Citizenship of the Union
The General Court confirms that the proposed European citizens’ initiative intended to promote the development of geographical areas populated by national minorities cannot be registered

Germany v Commission
State aid
The General Court confirms that the German law on renewable energy of 2012 (the EEG 2012) involved State aid

Germany v Commission
State aid
The General Court confirms that the German law on renewable energy of 2012 (the EEG 2012) involved State aid

Germany v Commission
State aid
The General Court confirms that the German law on renewable energy of 2012 (the EEG 2012) involved State aid

Here we go again. The protesters are back in Syntagma square. The EU’s summer has officially begun.

Yesterday’s anger was easy to explain. Shortly after midnight, the Greek parliament voted through contentious pension cuts and income tax increases, covering the bulk of a €5.4bn package of austerity measures demanded by creditors. That sets the scene for a meeting of the Eurogroup today to decide how much more the Greeks still need to do.

The Greek parliamentarians already appear to have been shaving close to their own jugulars. Kerin Hope, the FT’s correspondent in Athens, notes that riot police had to block the entrance to the assembly after members of Poesy, their own union, tried to force their way past security guards.

But despite the successful vote, Greece is far from in the clear. Before closing a review of Greece’s bailout and providing Athens much-needed aid, the IMF and the German government are insisting Athens go a step further an legislate an additional €3bn in “contingency measures” in case the agreed cuts prove insufficient to meet budget surplus targets.

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Monday was supposed to be the day when eurozone finance ministers flew to Brussels for an emergency eurogroup meeting (just their first of 2016!) to agree a way forward on Greece’s star-crossed €86n third bailout. But despite weeks of intensive talks, negotiators are no closer to a deal then they were when they were sent back to Athens two months ago.

Last night, Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, sent a letter to all 19 finance ministers ahead of the Monday meeting with her demands: drop all the talk about new austerity measures and quickly agree a plan for debt relief so that a deal can be met before a possible Greek default in July. We got a hold of the letter, and have posted a news story on its contents here. But as is our practice at the Brussels Blog, we thought we’d offer up an annotated version of the full text, sent to national capitals last night:

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The three EU chieftains– Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, and Martin Schulz – swapped the corridors of power in Brussels for the halls of Rome’s Capitoline Museums on Thursday night, but the magnificent setting only seemed to deepen their gloom about the state of European integration.

The trio was in the Italian capital ahead of Friday’s ceremony to deliver the prestigious Charlemagne award to Pope Francis at the Vatican. But first they had to debate the future of Europe at a time when it appears to be in serious jeopardy amid the rise of populism, weak economic growth, and, the migration crisis.

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Welcome to Friday’s edition of our daily Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Just 24 hours after Frans Timmermans, the European Commission vice-president who has overseen the EU’s response to the refugee crisis, confidently announced in Brussels that he was recommending Turks be granted visa-free travel to Europe, the Turkish politician who had won that very concession held a similar press conference 2,500km away to announce he was resigning.

The proximate cause of Ahmet Davutoglu’s departure as Turkey’s prime minister was his increasingly strained relationship with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the powerful president who found his hand-picked prime minister to be far less pliable than originally hoped. But EU officials are worried that Mr Davutoglu’s outreach to Europe was a contributing factor. Ankara has been buzzing about a new political blog that began attacking Mr Davutoglu earlier this week, accusing him of “collaborating with the West” and betraying Mr Erdogan by striking deals with the EU. Many believe Mr Erdogan himself gave the green light for the blog’s accusations. Turkish officials said the president was seething after Mr Davutoglu was pictured chummily touring refugee camps with Germany’s Angela Merkel and other EU leaders two weeks ago in the border city of Gaziantep.

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Welcome to Thursday’s edition of our daily Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britain's Labour party

Local and regional elections in Europe normally provide minor diversions for the political classes in between the titanic national clashes that pit a country’s most prominent leaders against each other. But over the last six months, it has been a series of regional votes that have sent shockwaves through some of the EU’s most well-established parties and reshaped national debates. In December, the far-right National Front finished first in six of France’s 13 major regions in the first round of voting, and was only denied victory in the second round when the ruling Socialists pulled out of multiple contests. Three months later, the equally anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland scored in double digits in three German länder elections, including a stunning 24 per cent in depressed Saxony-Anhalt, rattling the ruling Christian Democrats of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Today, it is Britain’s turn to hold local contests, and while the populist UK Independence party is hoping to score gains outside its English base, the real potential for electoral mayhem lies within opposition Labour, which is in the midst of a brutal internecine war over the leadership of left-leading party boss Jeremy Corbyn. In the most high-profile vote today, a Labour candidate is expected to emerge victorious: one-time Corbyn ally Sadiq Khan is heavily favoured to succeed Tory Boris Johnson as London’s next mayor. But Labour risks losing seats almost everywhere else in the UK, including in Scotland, where the once-dominant party is at risk of slipping into third behind the commanding Scottish National party and the revived Conservatives.

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