A European official says British Prime Minister David Cameron and European Council President Donald Tusk will meet Sunday night to discuss the technicalities of the process needed if the U.K. decides to exit the bloc in the next couple of years.
Following an EU summit on Turkey and the refugee crisis on Sunday afternoon, Cameron and Tusk will meet for pre-arranged talks to work out details of a so-called Brexit.
A bid to set in law a proposed British referendum on EU membership failed on Tuesday, with both parties in the coalition government blaming the other.
Put forward by Bob Neill, a backbencher in the Conservative party of Prime Minister David Cameron, the bill would have guaranteed that the next government would have to hold a referendum in 2017.
The bill passed its first hurdle earlier this month, but the parties' failure to agree means it will not go forward to a vote in the House of Commons.
Under pressure from the rising popularity of the anti-EU UK Independence Party ahead of a May 2015 election, Cameron has vowed to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the bloc and then hold a referendum.
The Liberal Democrats said that their coalition partners secretly opposed the bill as it would have taken the force out of an election promise that voting Conservative is the only way to guarantee an EU referendum.
Deputy leader Malcolm Bruce said that the Conservative Party had deliberately sabotaged the bill by "adding ridiculous conditions".
THE demonstrations that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall came out of nowhere, says Günther Dauwen, and had consequences nobody could foresee. Observing the proceedings in Scotland last week, he wondered if something similar might be brewing. From a quiet fourth-floor office in Brussels Mr Dauwen runs the European Free Alliance (EFA), a rum assortment of 40 regional political groups, including the Scottish National Party (SNP), that seek greater autonomy, or, in some cases, independence, from existing countries. From the plains of Silesia to the beaches of Corsica, reckons Mr Dauwen, there is a growing clamour for power among Europe’s long-neglected regions. Scotland is a “beacon” for such places; that its independence referendum was achieved at all encouraged others to think “Yes, we can!”, even though the outcome was negative. In the run-up to the vote the EFA’s website nearly crashed under the weight of traffic.
Watching the streets of Edinburgh filling up with Saltire-waving Catalans, Flemings and South Tyroleans (not to mention Québécois, Kurds and Taiwanese) last week, a visitor might have been forgiven for assuming that something was stirring in Europe. Some commentators fretted about the prospect of “balkanisation” across the continent. Yet although parts of Europe may one day drift towards dissolution, and Catalonia is trying to hold a vote on its future, the Scottish effect was overdone. Pro-independence campaigners in Flanders or the Veneto will have taken heart from the Scottish campaign, but given the different constitutional arrangements of Belgium and Italy they will struggle to draw useful lessons from it. And it will take a lot more to rouse the good burghers of Bavaria or Frisia from their slumbers.
Outside Britain, the biggest impact of a Scottish vote for secession would have been felt within the European Union. Ever since it adopted “Independence in Europe!” as a slogan in 1988, EU membership has been central to the SNP’s proposition. For small nations, the prospect of staying in a giant trading block with its own foreign policy and currency makes the idea of statehood less daunting. In contrast to what is perceived as an oppressive multinational state, it may offer space for identities to flourish. Asked in 2007 if his country wanted to establish a “Greater Albania”, an Albanian official referred to the EU symbol: “Yes we do. It has a blue flag and gold stars on it.”
THE European Union, it is often said, long served to disguise both French weakness and German strength. It magnified France’s unabashed pursuit of its national interests and allowed Germany to pretend it did not have any. But the euro crisis has shifted power decisively to Angela Merkel’s Germany, dispelling the illusion. The recent allocation of top jobs may have killed it.
This is not apparent at first glance. No German has secured a big post (barring Martin Schulz, who stays as president of the European Parliament). This week Jean-Claude Juncker, the incoming president of the European Commission, doled out various jobs to the individuals nominated by their national governments. Günther Oettinger, the German, was put in charge of the “digital economy and society”: hardly a dazzling portfolio for a man from the club’s largest and richest member (although, of course, Mr Juncker insists that commissioners leave their passports at the door). Mr Oettinger’s work will also be overseen by a vice-president: Andrus Ansip, from tiny Estonia.
But German influence may be detected in subtler form. The best example is the economic and financial affairs commissioner. Since the euro crisis erupted it has fallen to this person to act as a fiscal watchdog, telling off euro-zone countries who fail to abide by their budget commitments. The job has been performed with gusto by two austere Finns who have held the post since 2010, acting, says one official, “as surrogate Germans”.
By now it should be clear that the monetary experiment currently being carried out in Japan (known as “Abenomics”) is fundamentally different from the kind of quantitative easing which was implemented in the United States and the United Kingdom during the global financial crisis. In the US and the UK QE was implemented in order to stabilize the financial system, while in Japan, and now the Euro Area (EA) the objective is to end deflationary pressures and reflate economies which are arguably caught in some form of liquidity trap.
In particular it is hard not to draw the conclusion that something structural and more long-term is taking place in Japan, and that that something is only tangentially related to the recent global financial crisis. One plausible explanation is that Japan’s long-lasting malaise is not simply a debt deflationary hangover from the bursting of a property bubble in 1992 but rather with the rapid population ageing the country has experienced. If this is the case then the ongoing economic stagnation in Europe may have a lot more to do with the Japan experience than it does with the recent economic dynamics seen in the UK and the US. The reason for this is simple: Europe’s population is the second oldest on the planet after Japan’s. Certainly at first sight the similarity is striking, especially when it comes to working age population dynamics.
CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel are projected to rise by 2.5 per cent in 2014 - 65 per cent above 1990 levels, the reference year for the Kyoto Protocol
China, the USA, the EU and India are the largest emitters – together accounting for 58 per cent of emissions.
China's CO2 emissions grew by 4.2 per cent in 2013, the USA's grew by 2.9 per cent, and India's emissions grew by 5.1 per cent.
The EU has decreased its emissions by 1.8 per cent, though it continues to export a third of its emissions to China and other producers through imported goods and services.
China's CO2 emissions per person overtook emissions in the EU for the first time in 2013. China's emissions are now larger than the US and EU combined. 16 per cent of China's emissions are for goods and services which are exported elsewhere.
Emissions in the UK decreased by 2.6 per cent in 2013 caused by a decline in the use of coal and gas. However the UK exports a third of its emissions by consuming goods and services which are produced elsewhere.
CO2 emissions are caused primarily by burning fossil fuels, as well as by cement production and deforestation. Deforestation accounts for 8 per cent of CO2 emissions.
Historical and future CO2 emissions must remain below a total 3,200 billion tonnes to be in with a 66 per cent chance of keeping climate change below 2°C. But two thirds (2,000 billion tonnes) of this quota have already been used.
If global emissions continue at their current rate, the remaining 1,200 billion tonnes will be used up in around 30 years – one generation.
Global emissions must reduce by more than 5 per cent each year over several decades to keep climate change below 2°C.
This emission quota implies that over half of proven fossil reserves might have to remain unused in the ground, unless new technologies to store carbon in the ground are developed and deployed in large quantities.
Reluctantly, Germany in Europe has become a bit like America in the world, the indispensable power. It is too big, too successful, to be left on the sidelines. The danger of Russia must be confronted. The euro zone must not be left to fester, and the EU must be reformed so it does not break up. The relationship with America must be prevented from fraying over allegations of spying, and rekindled with a big trade deal.
Having acknowledged its guilt for past aggression, Germany is in danger of committing the opposite sin, inaction. Peace is not just the absence of war, but the defence of hard-won freedom. Many of those who call for “normalisation” argue that Germany must assert its interests. Actually, the burden is even greater: it now has to pursue the interests of all of Europe.
AS IN a complex film script, at least two storylines have been in play for the euro zone this year. One is brightly lit, featuring the revival of both consumer and business confidence, the return of investors to the troubled economies in peripheral Europe and the continuing recovery from the double-dip recession. The other is sombre, focusing on the weakness of that upturn, the onset of disturbingly low inflation and the continuing fragility of over-indebted economies and their banks. The past few days have brought a reminder that this second story is not yet fully told.
A crisis at Banco Espírito Santo (BES), one of Portugal’s biggest banks, prompted a plunge in Portugal’s stockmarket and lesser tumbles elsewhere. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, said that the episode illustrated how swiftly market nerves could return and how fragile the construction of the euro remained.
BRITAIN and Europe are like a couple in a difficult marriage. One day they have a blazing row; the next they want to kiss and make up. Britain’s David Cameron tried every means possible to block the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as the next president of the European Commission. But reasoned argument, appeals to self-interest, emotional blackmail and threats of “consequences” all failed: the European Union summit on June 26th and 27th endorsed Luxembourg’s former prime minister by 26 votes to two (only Hungary sided with Britain). Now Mr Cameron says Mr Juncker is a man he can do business with. Germany promised to help keep the family together. Sweden would “go the extra mile” to satisfy Britain’s desire to renegotiate its relationship with the EU. All vowed that British concerns would “be addressed” and that “ever closer union” need not apply.
A compromise deal to give European Union states the option of banning genetically modified crops won approval from EU environment ministers on Thursday, bringing the EU closer to ending years of deadlock over GM cultivation.
Widely grown in the Americas and Asia, GM crops in Europe have divided opinion, with strong opposition in many countries, including France and Germany, while Britain favors them.
Thursday's compromise deal drew criticism from both opponents and supporters of growing GM food in Europe.
This week's D-Day commemorations recall a time when Britain was still widely viewed as a great power. Despite subsequent relative decline, Britain's sizeable political, military, and economic influence has been preserved, internationally, some 70 years after World War II ended.
Former Conservative Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd asserted in 1993 that Britain has been able to "punch above its weight." That statement is still true today -- but may now be under threat, with consequences that could undermine both the United Kingdom's political influence and economic prosperity.
Two risks jeopardize the domestic underpinnings of Britain's international success: its shaky commitment to the European Union, and Scotland's uncertain commitment to the United Kingdom.
Driven in part by the growth of Euroskepticism in Britain, the governing Conservative Party has promised that if it wins an outright majority in the May 2015 general election it will hold an "in or out" referendum on staying a part of the EU. As the recent European Parliament elections underlined, such a plebiscite could well see the United Kingdom vote to leave. Remarkably, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) -- a party built around a policy of British withdrawal from the EU -- last month became the first party other than the Conservatives or Labour to win a national election in over 100 years, only underlining the growth of anti-Brussels sentiment in Britain.
The second, more immediate, potential earthquake is the prospect that Britain itself will break up later this year if Scotland votes for independence in September. While polls indicate that more Scottish voters want to stay in the union than leave it, surveys generally show in recent months growing support for independence.
Should Scotland secede or U.K. Euroskeptics win the day in any eventual EU membership referendum, it would represent a body blow to Britain's international influence. Moreover, the unraveling might not even end there: The continued union between England, Northern Ireland, and Wales would potentially be in jeopardy too.
And the issues could feed into each other. Scots, in general, are more favorable toward continued membership in the EU than the English -- who account for a majority of Britain's population. Thus, with polls indicating the United Kingdom as a whole may be more or less equally divided on whether to leave the EU, if Scotland does vote for independence, and thus does not participate in a subsequent EU referendum in Britain, this could tip the electoral balance in a tight vote.
The European Parliament on Thursday approved visa-free travel across most of Europe for citizens of Moldova, marking a victory for the former Soviet republic's pro-European government.
The vote in Strasbourg clears the way for Moldovans with biometric passports — containing a chip with a photo and fingerprint data — to travel without visas across 26 European nations, the so-called Schengen area. It will take effect after approval by EU governments, which is expected.
Moldovan Prime Minister Iurie Leanca said the vpte gave his country "confidence in its ability to advance rapidly on the European path."
WHEN the European Union expanded to take in eight former Communist countries, leaders faced a conundrum: they did not want to keep extending the club eastward, neither did they want to tell Ukraine and others that they would be shut out forever. So they devised a middle way: the EU would offer to extend large parts of its single market to countries in eastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Mediterranean rim, without making any promises of membership.
This European Neighbourhood Policy was meant to create “a ring of friends”. Ten years on, Europe's borderlands look more like a ring of fire. Libya has been in violent chaos since the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi. In Egypt one military ruler was replaced by another after a brief interlude with an elected president. Syria is suffering an appalling civil war. Georgia has lost territory after a war with Russia. Belarus languishes under the dictatorial Alexander Lukashenko. Two small countries, Tunisia and Moldova, are the closest thing to success.
For a time it looked as if Ukraine would join the list of failures. Last November, ahead of a summit in Vilnius of the EU and ex-Soviet countries, President Viktor Yanukovych caved in to Russia and refused to sign an association agreement with the EU that included a “deep and comprehensive” free-trade deal. This was a pyrrhic victory for Russia. Pro-European protesters took to the streets of Kiev and, after weeks of confrontation that culminated with the shooting of protesters, Mr Yanukovych ran away.
Opinions around Europe are divided about the meaning of events in Kiev. A recent paper by Stefan Lehne, a former Austrian diplomat, argues that the neighbourhood policy has failed. Modelled on the enlargement process, it “does not work for countries that do not want close association with the EU, and the absence of the carrot of future membership frustrates those who do”, writes Mr Lehne in his paper for Carnegie Europe, a think-tank. The slow process of enacting European standards, on everything from the environment to food safety, was designed for a stable world, not tumultuous revolutionary change. Others, though, are convinced that the victory of Ukraine’s Maidan protesters is proof that Europe's soft power can still trump Russian bullying.
The European Union and Moldova have set a fairly tight calendar for wrapping up their Association Agreement: signing it by August and ratifying it in the Moldovan parliament until November, when this parliament’s term expires. Moldova’s pro-Europe coalition government holds a narrow majority of 54 seats in the parliament of 101 seats. Following Russia’s victories against the EU in Armenia and Ukraine, the European Union’s stake on Moldova (as well as Georgia) has risen dramatically.
The accelerated time-table for signing and ratification implicitly challenges Russia and its sympathizers in Moldova to act faster. They are prepared to stop or delay the signing and ratification process, and can already be seen working toward that end both within and outside the parliament.
Pro-Russia forces will try to reduce the government’s parliamentary majority to a number that would not suffice for ratifying the agreements with the EU; or would cause the pro-Europe government to fall in a no-confidence vote even before it comes to ratification. In the electoral arena, Russia will undoubtedly support efforts to increase the number of its sympathizers in the new parliament soon to be elected. Operations seem already to be under way on both of those lines via Moldovan-born, Russia-based wealthy businessmen.
The EU and Russia agreed Tuesday to discuss their sharp differences over Ukraine and eastern Europe as President Vladimir Putin again warned against foreign meddling in former Soviet states.
Putin went into a summit with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso billed as a "clear the air session" only for both sides to come out stressing the positives.
Apparently aiming to calm the waters in Ukraine, Putin also promised not to review crucial aid worth $15 billion (11 billion euros) even if the opposition, hostile to closer ties with Russia, takes power there.
"In direct answer to your question as to whether we will review our agreements on loans and energy if the opposition comes to power -- no we will not," Putin told a press conference after the talks.
"This is not important to us," Putin said, noting that Moscow had had "a very constructive dialogue" with Ukraine when it was led by now-jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.
At the same time, "we want to be sure that this money comes back," the president added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized the European Union on Tuesday for sending high-level delegations to Ukraine during its anti-government protests, saying that could be interpreted as political interference.
Speaking at the conclusion of an EU-Russia summit in Brussels, he said: "I can imagine the reaction of our European partners if, in the midst of a crisis in Greece or any other country, our foreign minister would come to an anti-European rally and would urge people to do something."
"The more intermediaries there are, the more problems there are," said Putin. "Considering the specifics of relations between Russia and Ukraine, it is simply unacceptable."
The EU has sent a procession of senior officials, including Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, to meet with government and opposition leaders in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic. Ashton had been scheduled to visit Kiev again later this week, but she decided to fly to Ukraine on Tuesday.
Putin said the EU has been too soft on Ukraine's opposition, claiming some of its members have used racist and xenophobic arguments to win popular support.
Turkey's embattled Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Brussels late Monday, hoping to put his country's EU accession talks back on track amid upheaval at home over highly contested judicial reforms.
Erdogan's trip to Brussels -- his first in five years -- has been overshadowed by a graft scandal and his government's subsequent mass purge of police and the judiciary, which critics see as a bid to stifle the investigation.
Some 2,000-3,000 supporters of the Turkish prime minister gathered in front of a Brussels hotel as he arrived there, waving Turkish flags in a festive display.
The crowd dispersed calmly before midnight, police said, after Erdogan had addressed them.
Before boarding his flight to the Belgian capital Erdogan sought to downplay the risk of a crisis with the European Union.
European officials have voiced deep concern about the state of democracy in Turkey and the independence of its institutions after the government, facing its worst crisis since coming to power over a decade ago, moved to tighten its control on the judiciary in the wake of a vast corruption probe.
Erdogan insisted 2014 would be a "turning point" in Turkey's relations with the EU, after the resumption of membership talks late last year following a three-year freeze.
Foreign Secretary William Hague on Friday warned Scots that independence would leave them stuck outside the EU and losing influence on the world stage.
Hague said Scotland could be forced to join the euro currency and the European Union's Schengen open borders agreement.
He was speaking in Glasgow to launch the government's analysis paper on EU and international issues if Scotland votes to go it alone in the September 18 referendum.
"Scotland leaving the United Kingdom would diminish us all," Hague told an audience at The Lighthouse, Scotland's Centre for Design and Architecture.
"The advantages of Scotland remaining in the United Kingdom are indisputable in foreign policy as they are in every other area of our national life.
"A Scotland outside the UK would find itself less connected in an increasingly networked world, less able to advance its interests in an ever more competitive global economy and less able to influence decisions in a shifting international order."
The analysis paper said that as a new state, an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership of international organisations.
It said that would be straightforward in some cases but "would not" with the EU.
It cannot be assumed that an independent Scotland would have the same EU opt-outs and rebates as Britain does, it said.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council president Herman Van Rompuy have both indicated that Scotland would have to reapply for EU membership, Hague warned.
A world wide web for robots to learn from each other and share information is being shown off for the first time.
Scientists behind RoboEarth will put it through its paces at Eindhoven University in a mocked-up hospital room.
Four robots will use the system to complete a series of tasks, including serving drinks to patients.
It is the culmination of a four-year project, funded by the European Union.
The eventual aim is that both robots and humans will be able to upload information to the cloud-based database, which would act as a kind of common brain for machines.
The European Council’s December session on security policy offers only one remarkable result: In June 2014, the EU will endorse a new European Maritime Security Strategy (EMSS). After years of economic crisis, geopolitical decline and military constraints, an EMSS could give the EU a new push to adapt to the evolving security environment. Such a push is more than necessary. Ten years after the European Security Strategy (ESS), Europe drifted from large ambitions into a strategic no man’s land: as seen in the Middle East and East Asia soft power has become more and more irrelevant, while great power competitions and geopolitics are back on the stage. In consequence, nobody is talking about a more secure Europe nor about the EU building a better world.
However, in the maritime domain Europe could come back on track. Therefore, the EMSS must address three key points. First, it has to define Europe’s strategic-maritime aims and set out the means to implement them. Second, due to its capabilities, there has to be a clear work-sharing with NATO, because the Alliance is much stronger in maritime security than the EU. Third, the EMSS must outline how the EU wants to adapt to a geopolitical/strategic environment that will not only develop to Europe’s disadvantage, but also to the advantage of other powers.
In the EMSS’ development, there is no need for a long debate about security challenges, risks and threats, because the problems are well known: Terrorism, piracy, proliferation, organized crime, energy security, choke points, critical infrastructure, disaster relief and so forth. Not war-fighting or deterrence, but rather military operations other than war (MOOTW) are likely to dominate the operational agenda. What changed, in contrast to ESS 2003, are not the security challenges, risks and threats, but rather the players and theaters.
