Agrégateur de flux

RÉCIT - La fin de l’exonération fiscale du gazole non routier, qui cristallise une partie des critiques des exploitants, provoque un certain malaise.

Die konservative Europäische Volkspartei (EVP) – Europas größte politische Gruppierung – bereitet sich darauf vor, Ursula von der Leyen bei ihrer Bewerbung um ein zweites Mandat als Präsidentin der Europäischen Kommission zu unterstützen.

Straßenblockaden im ganzen Land und die wachsende Verärgerung der Landwirte werden zur ersten großen politischen Bewährungsprobe für die Kandidaten der Europawahl in Frankreich. Diese versuchen nun, die Landwirte zu umwerben.

During the Christmas break, the UK got rid of all its Retained EU Law (REUL). But not really.

The entry into force of the Retained EU Law Act at New Year’s Eve meant that all that “Retained EU Law” got relabelled as “assimilated law”.

As I discussed in my previous post, the Act also resulted in a proscribed list of acts being repealed. This moved things on, but far less than had been the original intent of the Act’s creators.

Now we have a further development, in the first Parliamentary Report on REUL, as mandated by the Act. This fun piece of surveying not only sets out progress, but also – for the first time – planned outcomes.

Before we get to any of this, it’s worth noting the updating of the REUL Dashboard, now in its third year of operation and still throwing up surprises.

Chief among these is the addition of over 1700 further pieces of REUL, taking the total up to 6757. For reference, the original dataset in June 2022 had 2417 items, or 36% of the current total.

The biggest additions in this latest update come at DESNZ, DEFRA, Treasury and DfT. Given this is the sixth occasion that totals have changed, it would be reasonable to assume it won’t be the last time.

However, the new figures show substantially more repeals than I’d anticipated last month (1369 actuals against 906), as well as more amendments (759 actuals against 647) and replacements (39 against 16). Only expirations was lower (62 against 75), which again makes little sense, given the Act shouldn’t have affected this: data errors are the probable cause here.

This means 67% of REUL is unchanged, with another 20% being repealed. As you can see in the two charts below, the Act’s passage is noticeable in the overall pattern of change, especially given the massive movement on overall volume.

We therefore have the somewhat ironic situation that while there has never been more change to REUL/assimilated law, we also have never had more identification of items of REUL/assimilated law, nor more listing of unchanged items (well over 4000).

This is precisely why there had been so much opposition to the Act during its creation: no one could be confident about what this mysterious category actually included, so to automatically sunset ‘everything’ would have undoubtedly produced massive unintended (and likely also not-immediately-noticed) consequences.

This point is a necessary function of the Report too.

Government has now stepped well back politically from trying to get rid of all REUL. One might argue this is just a reflection of technical realities, since it was always very likely that some part of REUL would remain obviously useful, but it is still only now that a more formal (if quietly spoken) statement has spelt that out.

The table below comes from the Report, setting out the end-point vision, wherein about 3000 items will be kept unchanged, another 1000 will be reformed, and over 2000 items revoked or removed.

The table is important for several reasons.

Firstly, it suggests that – barring a small handful of cases – there has been a more systematic evaluation across the piece of what to do. That has not obviously been the case previously when the nominal political objective was to get rid of everything. The test of whether this stands up will come in six months’ time, when the next report arrives: if we again find changes in volume or outcome, then we might be less confident that the datasheet on the Dashboard site holds up.

Secondly, it simultaneously points to continuing confusion. A glance at the categories used here will show that they don’t match those used in the Dashboard, which itself gained the classic “errrm” category of “TBC” this week. While one can argue ‘reforming’ isn’t so different from ‘amending’, ‘replacing’ seems to sit vaguely between ‘reforming’ and ‘removing’, and quite why tax legislation needs its own line is beyond me.

Trivial as this might sound, it does show there still isn’t a consistent language across Whitehall, which will make it that much harder to pursue any systematic agenda. Again, the next Report will tell us more.

All this said, we can now project out to the end of 2026, using the same charts we used earlier.

Again, we note that we end up with more pieces of unchanged (if assimilated) REUL at the end that we originally thought existed, plus the speed of chipping away at the pile will have been pretty consistent across the entire period, whatever the political messaging.

Of course, this all feeds into the question of progressive divergence from the EU, an issue that will become more relevant over time and especially as and when any new British government wants to rebuild ties with the Union.

But maybe we can leave that dilemma for another day.

Full data is, as ever, available here.

The post Retained EU Law is dead! Long live assimilated law! appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Polnische Landwirte haben im gesamten Land gegen den europäischen Green Deal und im Allgemeinen gegen politische Maßnahmen der EU protestiert. Der stellvertretende Landwirtschaftsminister Stefan Krajewski sagte, die Proteste würden sich an Brüssel und nicht an Warschau richten. 

US President Joe Biden sent a letter to leaders of key Capitol Hill committees on Wednesday (24 January) informing them of his intention to begin the formal notification process for the sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft to Turkey once Ankara completes Sweden’s NATO accession process.

Laut dem ukrainischen Ministerpräsidenten Denys Shmyhal versicherte ihm sein slowakischer Amtskollege Robert Fico, dass Bratislava den EU-Beitritt der Ukraine weiterhin unterstützen. Ebenso werde das Land die EU-Finanzhilfe in Höhe von 50 Milliarden Euro nicht blockieren.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out about centre-right Kokoomus' Alexander Stubb and the Greens' Pekka Haavisto face off in Finland's presidential election on Sunday, Polish farmers rally against the EU Green Deal, and so much more.

The United Nations said on Wednesday (24 January) that Israeli tanks struck a huge UN compound in Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians, causing "mass casualties", but Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling.

Germany is heading towards the highest number of people employed in renewables-linked jobs since 2010, a trend bolstered by demand for heat pumps and installations of solar panels.

Les agriculteurs français, qui exigent des aides "immédiates" de plusieurs centaines de millions d'euros, ont poursuivi leur mobilisation jeudi. Le Premier ministre, Gabriel Attal, a réuni les ministres de l'Agriculture, de la Transition écologique et de l'Économie et de premières mesures seront annoncées vendredi.

The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – Europe’s largest political party – is gearing up to support Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second mandate as European Commission President.

The new European Commission – to be formed after the upcoming EU elections – should finally start focusing on competitiveness and the single market, representatives of the Czech and Swedish administrations and local business agreed at a debate organised by the Europe Unlocked initiative in Prague on Wednesday.

The European Commission officially unveiled plans to strengthen the EU’s economic security on Wednesday (24 January), marking the latest attempt by Brussels to counter Chinese influence over strategically sensitive areas of the bloc’s economy.

EUobserver speaks with Raji Sourani, the director and founder of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and a leading human rights lawyer in Gaza — who has twice survived targeted bombings.

Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday (24 January) of deliberately shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers to a prisoner exchange in what it called a barbaric act of terrorism that had killed a total of 74 people.

Crypto bank Nexo has filed a record $3 billion lawsuit against Bulgaria over the actions of prosecutors and other state institutions against its executives, the company said on Wednesday.

Attacks committed by now-dismantled Basque terrorist group ETA and the actions of Catalan separatist groups cannot be compared, Spanish Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said on Wednesday after the Partido Popular, the main opposition force in parliament, insinuated as much.

The Finnish presidency will be fought between two former foreign ministers, the centre-right Kokoomus’ Alexander Stubb and the Greens’ Pekka Haavisto, with both on 26% and 23%, respectively and far ahead of the other candidates, the latest Europe Elects poll for Euractiv ahead of Sunday’s vote shows.

Five Star Movement’s call to stop aid to Ukraine and press for negotiations seems to have seduced Lega, marking a split from the rest of the governing parties concerning Kyiv in what appears to be a bid to attract voters ahead of upcoming elections.