European Union

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When the European Commission first opened up proceedings to examine whether Poland had violated European norms, it said they would wait until constitutional scholars at the Council of Europe examined the situation first. Well, it’s been a month since the Council slammed the new government in Warsaw – and Frans Timmermans, the Commission vice-president in charge of rule-of-law issues hasn’t done anything yet. The European Parliament yesterday did its best to make sure he doesn’t forget.

MEPs yesterday voted 513 to 142 in favour of a motion censuring Poland’s right-wing, conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government and ordering it to reverse changes to the country’s top court that have left it paralysed. As procedural slaps on the wrist go, it was relatively strong. And while it is legally little more than a strongly-written letter, it also called on the Commission to push ahead with its unprecedented probe into Warsaw’s “threat to constitutional democracy” – which technically could result in sanctions.

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This is Wednesday’s edition of our daily Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, in between meetings at his office last week

When Wikileaks published a transcript last week of a private teleconference between top International Monetary Fund officials discussing Greece’s bailout, the thing that got Athens the most worked up was a prediction made on the call by the IMF’s European chief Poul Thomsen: he forecast there would be no decision on the programme’s way forward until Greece ran out of money in July. Yesterday, bailout negotiators left Athens after yet another fruitless week of talks. And while they vowed to resume negotiations during the IMF’s spring meetings in Washington, which start on Friday, the differences between the main players remain so wide that Mr Thomsen’s prediction may not be too far off the mark.

For those who only follow the Greek crisis episodically, the fact that the eurozone is facing yet another make-or-break bailout deadline may seem baffling. Wasn’t the Grexit car wreck avoided last July after a series of all-night summits ended with a €86bn rescue deal? Yes and no. The July deal gave Greece €13bn of the €86bn almost immediately, after Athens agreed to quickly pass an overhaul of its value-added tax system and make cuts to pension benefits. But much of the heavy lifting was put off until the new bailout’s first quarterly review – including, critically, a decision by the IMF on whether to participate in the bailout at all.

Casual followers may read the words “first quarterly review” and assume that such a review would be completed at the end of the first quarter. Which, in the case of the new Greek programme, would have meant October. But it has become an unfortunate custom that “quarterly” reviews of Greek bailouts can actually stretch over several quarters – the fifth quarterly review of the second Greek bailout went on for nearly a year. The current “quarterly” review has now gone on for about six months after the first quarter ended.

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The latest response to the situation of refugees in the European Union is the "European Agenda on Migration", which aims to strengthen the common migration and asylum policy. This leaflet provides extracts from relevant supporting analyses prepared by European Parliament’s policy departments for different EP's committees.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Digital Revolution has opened up new opportunities to boost the economy and empower customers as never before. Access to information and content is potentially on offer at any time, anywhere and on any device. This leaflet provides extracts from relevant supporting analyses prepared by European Parliament’s policy departments for different EP's committees.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The latest response to the situation of refugees in the European Union is the "European Agenda on Migration", which aims to strengthen the common migration and asylum policy. This leaflet provides extracts from relevant supporting analyses prepared by European Parliament’s policy departments for different EP's committees.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Border and Coast Guard and repealing Regulation (EC) no 2007/2004, Regulation (EC) no 863/2007 and Council Decision 2005/267/EC
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Javier Nart

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

DRAFT OPINION on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation No 562/2006 (EC) as regards the reinforcement of checks against relevant databases at external borders
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Marielle de Sarnez

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Entry into office of new Judges at the General Court of the European Union and the European Union Civil Service Tribunal

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

This is Tuesday’s edition of our daily Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Italian banks appear to be in trouble. Again. With €360bn in non-performing loans – by far the largest pile in the eurozone, and behind only Greece and Cyprus as a percentage of all outstanding loans – the market has been selling off Italy’s financial sector since the start of the year to where it’s now down about a third of its value since January. But their troubles have become acute again because of the struggles of one mid-sized bank, Banca Popolare di Vicenza, to raise the €1.8bn in capital the European Central Bank has demanded.

The share sale by Vicenza is being underwritten by UniCredit, Italy’s only systemically important bank, but last week UniCredit sought government assistance out of fear Vicenza’s shares wouldn’t be bought by nervous investors – and UniCredit itself would be left holding the bag. That, in turn, raised questions about UniCredit’s own balance sheet, where it already lags behind many of its peers in terms of financial health.

The Italian government isn’t in a place to help, however. First of all, it doesn’t have any money to throw at the problem; its national debt is already nearly 140 per cent of economic output, the highest in the eurozone outside of Greece, and there’s not a billion or two around to spare. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, if Rome did intervene, it would have to follow the EU’s new post-crisis banking rules, which require the government to force losses on private investors before any public money can be used to rescue a bank.

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