European Union

European Council President Donald Tusk will together with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and US President Barack Obama hold an EU-US Leaders meeting in Warsaw in July. The meeting will take place in the margins of the NATO summit and will provide an opportunity to underline transatlantic unity and discuss common political, economic and international security challenges. More details will follow later.

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Federica MOGHERINI, EU HR for foreign Affairs and Security Policy, attends the International Conference, on 3 June 2016, in Paris.

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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.

A select group of foreign media were ushered to the Matignon palace on Wednesday evening for a reassurance session with Manuel Valls, the French prime minister battling union opposition after ramming a jobs bill through parliament without a vote.

The goal? Try and fix the fast deteriorating image of France abroad after a week of messy protests. Do not draw the cliched conclusion that France is a chaotic and unreformable country, he pleaded, even if the country’s largest union – headed by thegrumpy-looking, mustachioed Philippe Martinez – threatens to disrupt transport and fuel supplies during the Euro 2016 football championship. “Tell your readers: ‘Come by plane. Come by car. Come by train’,” Mr Valls urged.

It was also an attempt by the 53-year old to quash mounting suspicion in Brussels and Berlin — perhaps rising as fast as the Seine levels after a week of unusually heavy rains — that the much-awaited jobs reform may not be one after all. “The CGT knows my determination,” Mr Valls insisted. “I won’t change a thing.” What Mr Valls really meant was that he would refuse to touch article 2 of the reform, a key provision stipulating that companies’ deals with their unions and employees on overtime would supersede sectoral collective bargaining.

There were personal political motives too: to reclaim his place as reformer and taboo breaker of the French left, which the iconoclastic, younger and more popular Emmanuel Macron now seems to occupy. Since being appointed by François Hollande in 2014, Mr Valls has had to be loyal and defend whatever the deeply unpopular president initiated — including the controversial and failed attempt to change the constitution to strip Frenchterrorists of their citizenship. As a result, Mr Valls’ popular backing has sunk to levels almost as low as the president’s abysmal approval ratings.

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General : The European Parliament has honoured 50 people and organisations from 26 EU countries with this year's Citizen's Prize for their contribution to European cooperation and the promotion of common values. The jury, headed by Parliament Vice-President Sylvie Guillaume, selected the 2016 laureates after a consultation of the 79 proposals that made it through to the national juries.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : The European Parliament has honoured 50 people and organisations from 26 EU countries with this year's Citizen's Prize for their contribution to European cooperation and the promotion of common values. The jury, headed by Parliament Vice-President Sylvie Guillaume, selected the 2016 laureates after a consultation of the 79 proposals that made it through to the national juries.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

In countless zombie movies there is the classic moment where a member of the dwindling band of survivors is cornered and desperately opens fire on the oncoming tide of walking dead. Despite firing off round after round, to the despair of our hero, the enemies keep approaching until the fateful click of his empty gun that tells him the game is up.

It’s a predicament not unlike that of German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble as he fights a rearguard action to ward off Brussels plans for a common eurozone scheme to guarantee bank deposits.

The idea, known as EDIS, is loathed in Berlin on the grounds that it could force Germany to help cover the costs of bank failures elsewhere in Europe. At the same time, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is lauded in Southern Europe as a guarantee that capitals will be helped to cope with financial crises.

So far, Mr Schäuble has thrown all kinds of obstacles at the proposal, which was unveiled by the European Commission late last year. He has insisted on a tough programme to close loopholes in existing regulations which he says must be fulfilled before EDIS is even considered. He has also questioned the very legal foundations of the plan – saying parts of it have budgetary implications for nations that go beyond what is allowed under the EU treaties.

Despite all this, discussions on the text have rumbled on for months in the EU’s Council of Ministers.

Now, however, Germany is seeking to hit Brussels where it really hurts: with its own rules of procedure.

In a joint paper with Finland, obtained by the FT, Germany seeks to hoist the European Commission up by its institutional petard, accusing it of failing to respect “requirements under primary law and the Better Regulation principles” by not carrying out a full “impact assessment” before presenting the EDIS plan in November.

It’s the Brussels equivalent of trying to take down Al Capone for tax evasion. But hey, it worked.

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Plenary session and committee meetings, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from requirement (Ukraine)
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement (Kosovo)
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Ulrike Lunacek

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP