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News on the European Union from the Financial Times
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Basel Bashing

mar, 11/10/2016 - 16:36

“We’ve had this discussion…before where a number of ministers say, look whatever happens in Basel it cannot lead to higher capital requirements, and I said then and now that I don’t think that is the right starting point,” Mr Dijsselbloem told reporters. “I think the approach should be different.”

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Catégories: European Union

Greek goodwill hunting

mar, 11/10/2016 - 07:56

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Euro area finance ministers’ discussions about Greece have been known to be many things: long, tortuous, bitter and occasionally career-ending.

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Catégories: European Union

Moscow maneuvering

lun, 10/10/2016 - 13:09

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By Arthur Beesley

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Catégories: European Union

Beware the Walloons: lessons for Brexit and beyond

ven, 07/10/2016 - 07:59

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A small region of Belgium may determine the fate of an EU free trade deal with Canada – and potentially the terms of any post-Brexit deal with the UK.

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Catégories: European Union

Merkel’s Brexit warning

jeu, 06/10/2016 - 08:00

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There was a meeting last week that should make Brexiters sit up and take note. Captains of European business – the “European Roundtable of Industrialists” – held their annual evening pow-wow with Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and Jean-Claude Juncker. This year the venue was the chancellery in Berlin. After enjoying white wine on the balcony and a Berlin sunset, the assorted executives (all male) moved to the dining room and a discussion of Europe’s economic future.

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: From Warsaw With Love

mer, 05/10/2016 - 09:10
Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: Dreams of Deportation

mar, 04/10/2016 - 07:07

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Away from the spotlight, the EU this weekend reached an altogether different deal with Afghanistan, aimed at increasing the number of deportations from Europe to the war-torn country.

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Catégories: European Union

Brexit: Out of the single market?

lun, 03/10/2016 - 08:50

*Apologies to those who usually receive this Brussels Briefing by email. We’ve had some technical problems this morning

Sunday was probably a defining moment for Brexit. Far from procrastinating or playing for time, Theresa May appeared to make a big strategy call. From the hubbub of the Conservative party conference has emerged clarity on when she will start Article 50 exit talks (by March 2017) and what her goals will be.

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Catégories: European Union

Bye, bye Basel: shielding Europe’s banks

ven, 30/09/2016 - 07:19

The increasing woes of Deutsche Bank demonstrate that Europe’s banking crisis is still not settled. But the troubles at Germany’s biggest lender have not deterred Brussels from pushing back forcefully against stringent new banking rules.

How things change. Back in October 2010 Michel Barnier, the then EU financial services commissioner pledged to be “vigilant” in making sure that nations around the world – especially the US – implemented international bank rules.

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Catégories: European Union

Article 50: trigger warning

jeu, 29/09/2016 - 08:45

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Article 50 has sent the lawyers into a frenzy. The British government has been forced to publish its argument on why triggering the formal EU divorce clause does not require an act of parliament (and a potentially troublesome vote among MPs*) in an impending court case.

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Catégories: European Union

Renzi’s bridge to victory

mer, 28/09/2016 - 07:59

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It may have already been abundantly clear that Matteo Renzi is in full campaign mode ahead of his do-or-die December 4 referendum, after his attacks on the EU at the end of this month’s Bratislava summit.

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Catégories: European Union

Hollande in the Jungle

mar, 27/09/2016 - 16:15

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Normally, only 20 sign up for presidential visits.For the embattled socialist leader, who is seeking to restore his shattered popularity before (probably) seeking reelection next year, the northern French port was a photo opportunity he had managed to avoid – choosing to expose his interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve instead. The “Jungle” – a shantytown in the fringe of Calais where 9,000 migrants from Africa and the Middle East live in squalor in the daytime and risk their lives to reach the UK at night – has become the symbol of the failure of France and the EU to deal with the largest migration to affect the continent since the second world war.

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels on Corbyn

lun, 26/09/2016 - 07:24

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Back in February, Jeremy Corbyn regaled the House of Commons with a tale from his first trip to Brussels, in the wake of David Cameron’s ill-fated renegotiation with the EU.

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Catégories: European Union

Europe’s migration crisis: confidence or complacency?

ven, 23/09/2016 - 07:33

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While l’imbroglio Franco-Belge makes for fun headlines, the image of two normally friendly neighbours scrapping highlights the dysfunction of the EU’s collective migration policy. The Dublin system, which is supposed to dictate responsibility for refugees, is broken. Schengen has a surprising number of border checks for a passport-free travel zone. The flagship relocation scheme – designed to share out refugees more equally – has flopped.

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Catégories: European Union

EU: change or die

jeu, 22/09/2016 - 13:48

It is one of the bleakest assessments yet of the euro’s survival prospects, and it comes from some of its most committed supporters. An international group or senior policymakers including former WTO chief Pascal Lamy and former ECB board member Jörg Asmussen yesterday published a plan to “repair and prepare” the single currency. Their message? Change, or die:

“Europe will again be hit by a new economic crisis. We do not know whether this will be in six weeks, six months or six years. But in its current set-up, the euro is unlikely to survive.”

Their plan, which can be read here, includes a “first aid kit” of short-term measures to deal with urgent issues such as the lack of pooled firepower to deal with a banking crisis, as well as more long term projects, including the creation of a European Monetary Fund.

In short, exactly the kind of forward thinking agenda that the EU’s leaders have been at pains to avoid talking about in recent months.

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Catégories: European Union

“Big business” and Brussels

jeu, 22/09/2016 - 07:30

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It is the last thing the European Commission needs. Just as the furore over Jose Manuel Barroso’s new job at Goldman Sachs starts to subside, another scandal emerges involving the business practices of a former commissioner.

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: Saving CETA (and ta ra, TTIP)

mer, 21/09/2016 - 08:16

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Brussels is making a last gasp push to save CETA, the EU’s controversial free trade deal with Canada, as officials admit that a similar deal with the US is – for now – dead.

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: Merkel’s mea culpa

mar, 20/09/2016 - 07:23

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Angela Merkel said that she would “rewind time”, if she could, and deal with Germany’s influx of refugees differently, marking the first time that the German chancellor had confessed to mishandling the crisis.

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: Choppier Waters

lun, 19/09/2016 - 09:17

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After a gentle ride down the Danube, the choppier political waters of home.

Having pondered the future of Europe with fellow leaders at Friday’s summit in Bratislava, Angela Merkel is this morning digesting the latest warning given to her by the German electorate, after Berlin went to the polls.

The election marks another breakthrough for the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic Alternative für Deutschland party, which will enter the capital’s state parliament for the first time, having finished in fifth place with 14.2 per cent of the vote. As for Merkel’s CDU, it held on to second place but saw its vote share fall to 17.6 per cent - its poorest result ever in Berlin.

The outcome should not be overstated; the AfD stands no chance of actually enjoying power in a coalition. It is, though, the latest in a pattern of striking AfD successes – just two weeks ago the party spectacularly leapfrogged Ms Merkel’s CDU to claim second place in her home region of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Markus Söder, a senior member of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s christian democrats, described the vote as “the second massive wake-up call in a fortnight.”

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Catégories: European Union

Brussels Briefing: Is Europe in chaos?

ven, 16/09/2016 - 07:19

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Chaos. That’s the word to watch at today’s summit of European leaders in Bratislava. It is just one rhetorical flourish in the draft post-summit media statement, a promise that Europe will avoid the migration “chaos” of last year. But the dispute over it offers a glimpse into the dynamics of that summit room, and Angela Merkel’s considerable but waning clout in this EU club.

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Catégories: European Union

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