FT / Brussels Blog

This is the Thursday edition of our Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Mr Orban announcing Hungary's migration referendum in Budapest on Wednesday

Now it’s Hungary’s turn. Viktor Orban, the polarising Hungarian premier, announced yesterday that his country would be holding a referendum on whether it should be forced to take in refugees as part of EU policies to relieve Greece and other overwhelmed frontier countries suffering the biggest influxes of migrants from the war-torn Middle East. By our count, that would make five countries holding referenda on EU policies in the course of about a year: Greece’s “oxi” on a the terms of a third eurozone bailout; Denmark’s “no” on opting-in to EU policing and judicial policies; an upcoming April Dutch referendum on the EU integration deal with Ukraine; Britain’s June plebiscite on EU membership; and now Mr Orban’s migration poll.

Throw in two more referenda – an Italian one in October on a non-EU domestic reform issue, and the always referendum-happy (but non-EU member) Switzerland – and you have a continent that seems to have gone delirious for direct democracy. As Tom Nuttall, the Economist’s Brussels-based Charlemagne columnist, pointed out in January, it’s not as if referenda are a new phenomenon. But when political leaders begin applying it to EU policies – which are always the product of multilateral horse-trading in Brussels – it could grind the already slow-moving European legislative machine-work to a halt.

In some ways, the rash of referenda is a bit of birds coming home to roost. Founders of the European project were overtly elitist about how they went about integration. “I thought it wrong to consult the peoples of Europe about the structure of a community of which they had no practical experience,” Jean Monnet, the intellectual godfather of the EU, once famously said. In more recent times, referenda results were either worked around – after France and the Netherlands rejected the EU’s “constitutional treaty” in 2005 it was largely rebranded the “Lisbon treaty” with tweaks that made plebiscites unnecessary – or re-run. Ireland voted twice on both the Nice and Lisbon treaties after rejecting them the first time around.

On Wednesday, Vienna hosted nine countries – and 18 ministers – to discuss the migration crisis in the western Balkans. Despite the size of the diplomatic shindig, a few names were left off the list.

To the surprise and annoyance of Athens and Berlin, neither Germany (the main destination) nor Greece (the main entrance) were asked to come along. The European Commission, which has attempted to marshal the EU’s response, was not asked either.

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

There are 20 European ministers in Vienna today for one of the most extraordinary meetings of the migration crisis – and there have been some pretty extraordinary meetings.

Austria has convened nine countries along the so-called western Balkans migration route. That sounds reasonable enough. Foreign and interior ministers will be present from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Missing from the guestlist, though, is the main migrant entry-point (Greece) and the main destination-point (Germany). That is either a rather big oversight – or an act of mutiny.

It caps a week where the dominoes have begun to fall in south-eastern Europe. Austria’s renegade policy – imposing asylum caps while waving through Germany-bound migrants – has triggered other national responses down the line. Vienna is even considering deploying troops to the Macedonia border. It is shaping facts on the ground that are fast eclipsing the prospects for a “European solution”, if ever it were possible.

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

Other than David Cameron’s deal renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU, the only major decision taken at last week’s Brussels summit was to hold yet another emergency summit on Europe’s burgeoning refugee crisis. With a regularly-scheduled summit already on the calendar for March 17, why would leaders need to reassemble again in the first week of March? According to several EU diplomats, the new gathering will be held at the request of Chancellor Angela Merkel because of a major political event happening in the interim: March 13 regional elections in three large German states.

Increasingly, those elections – in wealthy Baden-Württemberg; neighbouring Rhineland-Pfalz; and eastern Saxony-Anhalt – are being seen as referenda on Ms Merkel’s migration policy. And with UN figures showing refugee arrivals in Greece back up above 3,000 per day, there’s a good reason for the chancellor to be in a bit of a panic. Recent polls show the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party making significant gains in all three länder, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt, where a survey published yesterday by the mass-market Bild newspaper had AfD at a stunning 17 per cent, ahead of the centre-left Social Democrats. In Baden-Württemberg, whose capital of Stuttgart is home to automaker Daimler, Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats – who have dominated the state’s politics for decades – fell behind the Greens in the same poll. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says “it looks bleak” for the CDU in the region. In Rhineland-Pfalz, AfD has risen from nothing in the 2011 elections to 8.5 per cent.

The atmospherics have not been helped by events on the ground, which appear to be further radicalising the electorate. Last week, videos emerged of an anti-immigrant mob besieging a bus filled with migrants in the small town of Clausnitz, near the Czech border. That was compounded by another video showing police dragging a frightened boy off the bus as the mob raged outside. Just days later in Bautzen, another small town near the Czech border, onlookers cheered as a building meant to house asylum seekers burned to the ground. Much like the new year’s attacks in Cologne, the incidents have set off another round of German soul searching over just how welcome the country is to immigrants.

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

“Let me tell you where I’ve got to, which is, um, I am, um….I’ve made up my mind.”

With these words, Boris Johnson bounded into the Brexit camp on Sunday, jolting Britain’s EU referendum campaign into life. A summit-weary David Cameron had barely caught up on his sleep on Saturday morning when the Mayor of London emailed to let his old pal know he would take the opposite side. There was no reply. Less than 10 minutes before going public, Mr Johnson sent the British prime minister a ‘courtesy’ text. The two men enjoy one of the most cut-throat, competitive personal rivalries in British politics (they have literally wrestled on the floor of Downing Street). That rivalry is now set to engross Britain’s June 23 referendum on EU membership. Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, tweeted “the country’s future had been reduced to uni chums arguing”. “Blond Bombshell” cried The Sun’s frontpage; “Boris Goes In for the Kill” said the Daily Mail; and “Out for Himself” declared the Independent.

Old Brussels hands know what it is to be trolled by Boris Johnson.

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

Britain's David Cameron leaves the EU summit building at 5:30am on Friday morning

If you’re reading this morning’s note to find out if David Cameron sealed his “new settlement” deal to change the UK’s relationship with Brussels at last night’s EU summit, you’ll have to wait at least a few hours more. The first night’s debate over the British prime minster’s renegotiation plan was more contentious than many expected and left leaders deliberating into the early morning hours, with the session breaking up just before 2:30am.

After the summit ended, Mr Cameron went off for a private conversation with Donald Tusk, the European Council president who has been brokering the deal, to decide how to proceed at today’s session, which is due to start at 11am – though officials warned that could slip since the summit’s dinner debate on migration went on for more than five hours, longer than organisers had planned. Mr Tusk was to have separate bilaterals with France’s François Hollande, Belgium’s Charles Michel and Czech premier Bohuslav Sobotka before leaders reconvene, and sherpas and lawyers were working away through the morning to draw up another draft text for summit’s second day. “We have made some progress, but a lot remains to be done,” a tired-looking Mr Tusk said before heading off to his meeting with Mr Cameron.

The FT Brussels bureau’s Brexit watcher Alex Barker has pulled together all the blow-by-blow colour from last night’s session, including Mr Cameron and Mr Tusk frightening of the assembled leaders by warning talks may last into the weekend. Alex’s story relates how Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister who is no stranger to marathon summits, was among the more annoyed premiers in the room, wondering aloud why they were debating the nuances of the phrase “ever closer union” when the EU was at risk of “disintegrating” over its mounting refugee crisis.

It’s rare for any government minister to ever admit that a task is beyond them. So it was notable in the European Parliament today when Jeroen Dijsselbloem acknowledged that he’s often at a loss explaining the EU’s budget rules.

Dijsselbloem – who is currently politically triple-hatted as the Dutch finance minister, president of the eurogroup of 17 eurozone finance ministers, and chair of the EU’s council of 28 finance ministers – was explaining to MEPs why he is behind a drive to streamline the eurozone’s budget rules when he admitted he didn’t always know how to explain them himself.

“Why is simplifying our rules important? Because people don’t understand any more what we are doing,” he said. “At least I have a lot of problems explaining to people how our budgetary rules, our fiscal rules work.”

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

Crews prepare the EU summit building for Thursday night's high-stakes gathering

Ever since Donald Tusk, the European Council president, began chairing EU summits just over a year ago, they have frequently been far shorter and more tightly-scripted affairs than those run by his predecessor, Herman Van Rompuy. Sometimes gatherings scheduled to run two days are cut short by an entire day, something that never happened under Mr Van Rompuy. So it is a measure of the two-day summit that begins today – where leaders are hoping to finally lock down an agreement on Britain’s renegotiated relationship with the EU – that on the eve of its commencement, those running it are still not entirely certain how the schedule will unfold. “We still don’t actually have a set-in-stone running order,” lamented one EU diplomat involved in the summit’s planning.

Mr Tusk’s ultimate goal is to get all 28 national leaders to agree the “new settlement” demanded by David Cameron, the British prime minister, by Friday morning over what one senior EU official only half-jokingly termed an EU “English breakfast”. That could enable Mr Cameron to announce the date for his referendum on Britain’s EU membership back in Downing Street that very afternoon (most now expect it to be held in late June). But how Mr Tusk is actually going to get to a Friday morning agreement will be partially improvisational.

The one thing organisers do know is that the “British question” will be the first thing on the agenda, shortly after the presidents and prime ministers arrive at 5pm. After a “tour de table”, officials said Mr Tusk expects to take stock of where negotiations stand and then task lawyers and sherpas to start drafting any revisions to the current text he has prepared. The senior EU official said there will be a “war room” filled with lawyers who will attempt to get any political deal into legally-binding language.

We’ve got our hands on the final pre-summit draft of the UK’s “new settlement” deal, sent to member states by Donald Tusk, the summit’s host, in the early hours of this morning.

There are not many changes from Tusk’s first version, published two weeks ago. A lot of the political issues have been left to the summit of EU leaders this evening. We’ve annotated a version of the main text, which you can view here. We’ve also run through the decision setting up an emergency brake for non-euro countries, which is here. I’m afraid Tusk provided no track marks in these drafts, making it difficult to see where the changes were made, but we hopefully spotted all the main issues and revisions. There are two particularly interesting tweaks:

1. City of London safeguards go to the summit:

This was not the plan. The officials negotiating this text wanted to sort the section on economic governance — basically outlining principles for coexistence between euro and non-euro countries — so that leaders weren’t subjected to a deep dive on financial regulation. But they failed to agree a key part that marked out turf on financial stability issues between national, eurozone and EU authorities. Pity the leaders — this is complex stuff. More details in the annotations.

2. The European parliament trigger for the benefits “emergency brake”? (SEE UPDATE)

This change is arcane but politically quite important for Britain and the European parliament. The text is revised to suggest the European parliament may have a say on the decision to trigger the “emergency brake” allowing the UK to restrict benefits to EU migrant workers. (In the earlier draft, MEPs had power over the legislation that would create the brake, but the ability to trigger the brake was left to EU member states.) This is super important for the bigwigs of the parliament — and very tricky for London.

UPDATE: A diplomat called to set us straight on the EP role in the emergency brake. A reference to a Council implementing act — basically bypassing the parliament — was removed. The language is a red rag to the parliament so it is a qualified win for them. But a reference to Council authorisation for the emergency brake remains, which we missed on first reading. That suggests the trigger is still in the hands of member states. One caveat: this area of law is incredibly complex and MEPs are a creative bunch when it comes to their powers and prerogatives. They could, of course, insist that the emergency brake trigger involves their sign-off as a condition for passing the law.

National Front's Nanterre offices during Wednesday morning's police raid

Workers in the National Front’s Nanterre headquarters had a poor start to the day on Wednesday. Their office was raided by a bunch of gendarmes.

But this wasn’t any run-of-the-mill raid. The French police acted as part of a European parliament investigation into Marine Le Pen’s far-right party for alleged expense fiddling by its MEPs.

The party – which is now consistently running first or second in polling for next year’s French presidential race and remains the largest French party in the European parliament itself – were accused by EU authorities last year of fraudulently claiming €7.5m to cover the pay of 20 MEP assistants who worked only on national matters – which is against EU rules.

As expected, FN are not happy it. They hit back, in typically bombastic style, labelling the investigation “a political operation directly led by François Hollande and Manuel Valls with the goal of obstructing, monitoring and intimidating the patriotic opposition”.

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

Ukraine's Arseniy Yatseniuk speaks during last night's "no confidence" debate in parliament

Amidst the ongoing refugee crisis, and the more recent fever over Britain’s efforts to renegotiate its relationship with the EU and avoid Brexit, the crisis that once dominated the European agenda and threatened to plunge the continent into another Cold War disappeared from the headlines. But mounting accusations of rampant corruption in Kiev have thrust Ukraine back into the spotlight, culminating with yesterday’s call by President Petro Poroshenko for the resignation of his erstwhile ally, prime minister Arseniy Yatseniuk.

Last night, the Ukrainian parliament failed to comply, coming up 32 votes short of the 226 needed to pass a no-confidence motion that would have left the country in a state of suspended animation, stuck between choosing a new technocratic government or early elections. Despite that failure, the fallout from the split between Mr Poroshenko and Mr Yatseniuk – who head the legislature’s two largest parties, which are both part of the governing coalition – is likely to make an already unstable situation even shakier.

The current crisis was sparked by the resignation earlier this month of Aivaras Abromavicius, the government’s reform-minded economy minister who stepped down after accusing the government of condoning corruption and cronyism akin to the disgraced regime of Viktor Yanukovich, the onetime president topped in the 2014 Maidan revolution. The International Monetary Fund, which is still leading a $40bn Western bailout of Kiev after the Russian-instigated civil war plunged the Ukrainian economy into an abyss, piled on with chief Christine Lagarde warning the programme could not continue without a “substantial new effort” to invigorate reforms.

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

David Cameron, left, is greeted this morning by EU Parliament president Martin Schulz

It has become something of a newfangled tradition for European prime ministers facing a spot of trouble on the EU stage to make a ritual appearance before the European Parliament to explain themselves – though some seemed to be holding their noses even as they did so.

The precedent was set by Viktor Orban, the Hungarian premier, who in 2012 travelled to the parliament’s second home in Strasbourg to counter criticisms his government was becoming increasingly authoritarian following a new media law and judicial reforms that critics charged improperly consolidated power in his own hands. Just last year, Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, made the Strasbourg pilgrimage at the height of fears his bailout brinkmanship would lead to Grexit. And Poland’s new leader, Beata Szydlo, agreed to appear last month following criticism her new media and judicial laws were following an Orbanesque trajectory.

Which is why many in the European Parliament expected David Cameron would turn up to make his “new settlement” case to them ahead of this week’s high-profile summit, where he hopes to emerge with a “reform” deal he can sell to the British public ahead of an expected June referendum on EU membership. Mr Cameron’s reasons for courting the parliament are not just symbolic, as they were for Mr Orban, Mr Tsipras and Ms Szydlo. He needs MEPs to approve many of the migrant benefit restrictions he has won in negotiations with EU leaders, since they will have to be finalised through the EU’s normal legislative process.

But when Mr Cameron arrives in Brussels today, it won’t be to appear before the entire parliament meeting in plenary session. Indeed, it won’t even be a meeting with the parliament’s conference of presidents – which was the original plan, until someone in Downing Street realised the conference includes leaders of all the parliament’s’ political groups, including those headed by archenemy (and UK Independence party leader) Nigel Farage and French ultranationalist (and National Front leader) Marine Le Pen.

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

  © AFP photo

It was one of the most intriguing invitations of the year: would Greek premier Alexis Tsipras agree to meet The Visegrad Wall?

The Visegrad group — Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic — are leading the fightback against Germany’s open-door migration policy. Mr Tsipras’ attendance was intended to show he was “in the loop” on their push to seal the Macedonia border (and trap migrants in Greece in just the way Mr Tsipras is desperate to avoid).

First Mr Tsipras declined, then he said yes, then he backed out. At the very least, it’s a great loss to political spectacle.

Even without Greece there, the V4 meeting will tee-up another stormy week of migration politics in Europe.

Greece has become wearily accustomed to micromanagers in Brussels and Berlin telling it what to do. Last summer’s Greek bailout sought reforms in some remarkably specific areas, including the weight of loaves and the shelf-life of milk. (Bakeries and dairies were cast as symptomatic of the economy’s protectionism and uncompetitiveness).

Now the Greeks are hearing the same tune from the European Council in relation to the migration crisis. Identifying Greece as the weak link in the Schengen passport-free travel area, Athens has received a list of 50 measures that it should undertake to improve its handling of the tide of refugees.

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

Bar the shouting (and there will surely be some) the Brexit deal is almost done. We’re nearing the moment where the sherpas fade into the background, leaving their leaders to reach the summit when they gather in Brussels on Thursday. An agreement is pretty certain, clearing the way for a June EU referendum. But there are some Brussels beartraps still to avoid — and they’re not all obvious. One issue in particular could be a killer.

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

One side-effect of “crisis Europe” has been a surplus of bombastic political rhetoric. In a crowded field Mark Rutte, the Dutch premier, stood out when likening the EU to the fall of the Roman Empire. Hungary’s Viktor Orban touched a nerve with his “no road back from a multicultural Europe” speech, which in turn built on his warning over the bloc “staggering towards moonstruck ruin”. And of course Fico is Fico.

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

Greece is not in Dublin. While this fact is pretty basic geography, it is also a crucial part of understanding why the EU’s response to the refugee crisis has been so chaotic.

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

  © Getty Images

There are three existential issues stalking the EU: the eurozone financial crisis, the migration crisis and a (potential) Brexit crisis after the UK’s EU referendum. Each one poses potentially acute but largely distinct challenges. But is there a risk of a “perfect storm” bringing these crises together?

Greece is facing the brunt of two traumas. While the threat of Grexit from the eurozone has receded, hard fiscal decisions remain, especially over pensions. The political consensus in Greece is extremely fragile. And the potential for a nasty backlash will increase if worst-case scenarios on Schengen and migration play out. In the event that northern Europe panics and closes Macedonia’s border (hardly an improbable scenario), the social and political burden on Greece will be immense.

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

  © Getty

Once more to the breach, dear friends. Angela Merkel will be back in Turkey today for her second visit in five months. To put this in perspective, the German chancellor had been twice in five years before the migration crisis hit. And it is only five days since she last met Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish premier. This is urgent business.

Turkey is the lynchpin of Ms Merkel’s migration strategy and it is floundering. Even with rough seas, arrivals to Greek islands are still running at roughly 2,000 a day. With spring (and German state elections) approaching, there are just weeks left to avert a migration surge that forces Ms Merkel’s hand. That would leave November’s EU deal with Turkey – including bold promises of visa liberalisation and €3bn in funding – all but stillborn.

It took a while, but the penny has dropped in Ankara.

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

Mr Renzi, left, during his visit last week with Germany's Angela Merkel in Berlin

Sometimes it seems not a day goes by without Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, picking a fight with Brussels. For a while, it was his angry denunciation of its slow response to the refugee crisis. Then he accused the EU of a “double standard” on Russian gas pipelines. More recently, he held up a €3bn EU aid package to Turkey. And he’s been blaming new EU rules for his country’s mounting banking crisis. But the most critical fight he’s been waging was on full display yesterday: his attempt to get more wiggle room for Italy’s 2016 budget.

Pierre Moscovici, the European Commission’s economic chief, was the man in the firing line this time, since yesterday was his semi-regular appearance to unveil the EU’s latest economic forecasts. In the run-up to Mr Moscovici’s announcement, Pier Carlo Padoan, the Italian finance minister, laid down his marker: he wanted a decision quickly that would allow Rome more flexibility to spend a bit more than EU rules normally allow. But Mr Moscovici was having none of it. Mr Padoan would have to wait until May for a decision, along with every other eurozone minister.

In what appeared a fit of mild Gallic pique, Mr Moscovici also noted that “Italy is the only country in the EU” that had already been given special dispensation under new budget flexibility guidelines – it is able to miss its structural deficit target by 0.4 per cent in order to implement Brussels-approved economic reforms – and it was now coming back repeatedly for more.