Category Archives: European Union

UK urges EU countries to ensure Britons living abroad can stay after Brexit

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Government launches multimillion pound campaign to reach 1m British citizens in EU

The UK government is launching a multimillion pound communications campaign to reach the estimated 1 million British citizens living in the EU to ensure they know what steps to take if they wish to remain in their host countries after Brexit.

And it is urging all EU member states to accelerate the process to enable British nationals to secure their rights amid concern among campaigners that some countries have not yet even opened schemes for UK citizens.

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EU leaders go into extra time as tempers fray at coronavirus summit

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Proposals on the size and terms of a recovery fund have led to splits between member states

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron said they are willing to walk away from a summit of EU leaders, as they arrived at the third day of a long and acrimonious debate on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund.

With the EU split between northern and southern member states as well as eastern and western, France’s president and the German chancellor both indicated their patience was waning despite the need to respond to the economic recession facing the bloc.

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EU leaders in bitter clash over Covid-19 recovery package

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Orbán accuses Netherlands’ Rutte of ‘communist’ tactics on tense third day of talks

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, accused his Dutch counterpart of using the same methods as his country’s former communist leaders on Sunday, as EU leaders publicly clashed during tense and acrimonious negotiations over the terms of a proposed €1.8tn budget and recovery package for the bloc.

A third difficult day of a summit of the EU’s 27 heads of state and government – the first in person for five months – saw movement towards agreement as talks stretched deep into the night, but laid bare the deep splits between north and south, and east and west.

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EU talks to rescue €750bn recovery package stall amid heated debate

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Claim of miserliness as second day sees negotiations split over size of fund and seven-year budget

European Union leaders were locked in intense negotiations on Saturday evening in an attempt to save a summit on the terms of a €750bn (£682bn) pandemic recovery fund from an acrimonious end as the debate over the bloc’s financial future became “heated”.

A second day of talks in Brussels saw Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, publicly accuse the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden of being “misers” while the Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, claimed the Dutch were trying to rewrite the EU’s rules.

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Elbow bumps and bows: masked EU leaders start physically distanced summit – video

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The leaders of EU27 countries wore face masks as they greeted each other with elbow bumps, nods, bows and some variations at a summit to thrash out a deal on a multibillion coronavirus recovery fund for the bloc's economies.

There were birthday gifts for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who turned 66, and the Portuguese prime minister, António Costa, who turned 59

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No backslapping, no bonhomie? EU summit opens with Covid-19 safeguards

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Leaders gathering for Brussels talks are asked to wear masks on arrival and avoid shaking hands

The air will be freshly piped, the rooms deep-cleaned, and handshakes will be banned. As EU leaders gather for their first physical meeting in Brussels to thrash out a coronavirus recovery plan, no effort has been spared to avoid a local outbreak of the disease.

The two-day meeting, thought to be the largest gathering of world leaders since the start of the pandemic, will be the first featuring all 27 heads of state and government since February, when an attempt to agree the EU’s €1tn seven-year budget collapsed in acrimony. On Friday and Saturday, they will return to the same task and will also seek to hammer out a €750bn (£689bn) recovery plan in response to the biggest economic shock forecast in EU history.

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Pandemic shows climate has never been treated as crisis, say scientists

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Letter also signed by Greta Thunberg urges EU leaders to act immediately on global heating

Greta Thunberg and some of the world’s leading climate scientists have written to EU leaders demanding they act immediately to avoid the worst impacts of the unfolding climate and ecological emergency.

The letter, which is being sent before a European council meeting starting on Friday, says the Covid-19 pandemic has shown that most leaders are able to act swiftly and decisively, but the same urgency had been missing in politicians’ response to the climate crisis.

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Angela Merkel set for central role in talks on EU recovery plan

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Germany has foot in both camps as leaders try to agree on rescue package and seven-year budget

When Angela Merkel attended her first EU summit as Germany’s chancellor, in 2005, she joined Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and leaders from central and eastern Europe that had joined the bloc only 17 months earlier. Nearly 15 years later, Merkel is the EU’s longest-serving leader and seen as the key to unlocking a deal to help Europe face the worst economic slump forecast in its history.

A year ago Merkel was seen as tired and drifting, having announced her intention to stand down as chancellor in 2021 after disastrous election results. Now credited for her calm leadership during the coronavirus pandemic, with personal approval ratings close to 80%, she is once again seen as the indispensable broker as EU leaders seek a recovery plan.

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Revealed: Italy’s call for urgent help was ignored as coronavirus swept through Europe

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Exclusive: A litany of failings meant that when Italy faced disaster, its distress call to the EU met with a shocking silence

It was a moment of chilling clarity. On 26 February, with the numbers of Italians known to be infected by coronavirus tripling every 48 hours, the country’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, appealed to fellow EU member states for help.

His hospitals were overwhelmed. Italian doctors and nurses had run out of the masks, gloves and aprons they needed to keep themselves safe, and medics were being forced to play God with the lives of the critically-ill due to an acute lack of ventilators.

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How Vietnam hopes to open to trade – by opening up its prisons to scrutiny

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As a lucrative deal with the EU looms the country is rushing to repair its reputation on human rights, which has been plagued by reports of forced labour

An inmate grasps a hefty wooden mallet and smashes it through concrete at his feet, working in the shade of a stately white building that his fellow prisoners are constructing in southern Vietnam.

Police officers in bold green uniforms usher everyone away from the men working in faded, olive and white-striped prison garb.

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Police ability to detain EU suspects ‘slower’ without Brexit deal

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Senior officer says powers less effective if UK forces are denied access to criminal databases

The ability of UK police forces to detain criminal suspects from the EU will become slower and less effective if the government fails to seal a Brexit security deal, a senior officer has told MPs.

Richard Martin, a deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police and the lead for Brexit and international criminality, said forces would lose the “instant, at your fingertips” access to EU-wide databases on criminals and criminal activity that could be the difference between catching a criminal and losing them.

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UK to open 10-12 Brexit border customs sites in EU trading shake-up

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New border checks in Kent and elsewhere reverse 47 years of removal of trade barriers

The UK government is to build “10 to 12” new Brexit border customs and controls sites across the country in a move that Michael Gove has said cements the mission to “take back control” from the EU.

In the biggest shake-up to trading with the EU for 50 years, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced the £470m programme for facilities to process freight going to and from the EU, along with a 206-page document detailing new border controls.

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Brexit: UK’s new fast-track immigration system to exclude care workers

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Minimum salary thresholds to also remain in place, presenting additional barrier

Care home staff have been excluded from a post-Brexit fast-track visa system for health workers, in a move that critics say could prove “an unmitigated disaster” and may increase the risk of spreading coronavirus.

Confirming there would be no special treatment for carers coming from the EU or the rest of the world, the government said it hoped Britons would fill a shortfall of around 120,000 workers, equating to 10% of all posts. Currently 17% of care jobs are filled by foreign citizens.

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Bereaved urge EU chief to supervise Italian coronavirus inquiry

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Relatives say there appear to be ‘signs of crimes against humanity’ in Lombardy region

Relatives of coronavirus victims in Italy have urged the European commission president to supervise an investigation into the deaths, as 100 new cases were submitted to prosecutors on Monday.

In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the legal commission of Noi Denunceremo (We Will Denounce), the group driving the investigation, said there appeared to be “signs of unspeakable crimes against humanity” in Lombardy, the region worst hit by the virus in Italy.

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The world needs grown-up leadership. Time for Germany to step up | Shada Islam

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With Germany at the EU helm, there’s a unique chance for Europe to fill the vacuum left by the retreating US

With Trump’s US missing in action from the global stage, the European Union should be stepping into the vacuum. Germany, which has just taken over the bloc’s rotating presidency, could use the next six months to provide the leadership to boost Europe’s global impact. But is it ready to shake off its traditional reticence?

Immediate economic challenges will dominate EU leaders’ first in-person encounter since the lockdown, on 17 and 18 July. And Berlin is right to prioritise agreement on the EU’s new seven-year budget and a pandemic recovery plan, a task complicated by internal rifts and new forecasts warning of an even deeper recession than expected across the 27-nation bloc. As Angela Merkel said in a recent Guardian interview: “For Europe to survive, its economy needs to survive.”

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Revealed: Dominic Cummings firm paid Vote Leave’s AI firm £260,000

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Boris Johnson’s chief adviser declines to explain reason for payments to Faculty

A private company owned and controlled by Dominic Cummings paid more than a quarter of a million pounds to the artificial intelligence firm that worked on the Vote Leave campaign.

The prime minister’s chief adviser is declining to explain the reason for the payments to Faculty, which were made in instalments over two years. Faculty also declined to say what they were for.

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EU leaders are split over coronavirus recovery

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This week’s emergency summit will expose national divisions over budgets and the €750bn pandemic fund

Lockdown has proved challenging for most workplaces, and the European Council is no different. All-night sessions, corridor huddles and fine dining in the glass Europa building in Brussels have been replaced with hours staring at a gallery of fellow heads of state reading out prepared lines in front of a backdrop of EU and national flags – and the odd bit of pop art, as in the case of Luxembourg’s prime minister Xavier Bettel.

But this week, leaders will be forced to switch off their laptops and make their way across recently reopened borders to Brussels for their first face-to-face meeting in five months – and it is set to be a bruising encounter.

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Vast Brexit customs clearance centre to be built in Kent

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Exclusive: council given only hours’ notice of emergency purchase of 1.2m sq ft ‘Mojo’ site

The government has secretly purchased 11 hectares (27 acres) of land 20 miles from Dover to site a vast new Brexit customs clearance centre for the 10,000 lorries that come through the Kent port from Calais every day.

It will be the first customs post erected in the UK to deal with goods coming from the EU for 27 years.

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Government launches new ‘Get Ready for Brexit’ campaign

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Businesses will discover details of customs regime after Brexit on Monday

The government is set to launch a multi-million pound “Get Ready for Brexit” campaign on Monday, aimed at informing businesses of the complex customs regime they will face.

Details of the campaign, which will be partly aimed at Britons living in the EU, will be confirmed by Michael Gove in TV interviews scheduled for Sunday. The controversial Brexit border plans – which were criticised this week by the international trade secretary, Liz Truss – will be published on Monday along with fresh detail on post-Brexit immigration.

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Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt

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Number of nurses coming from EU fell again and coronavirus prevented further arrivals

Boris Johnson’s pledge to recruit 50,000 more NHS nurses is in doubt after the number coming from the EU fell again and coronavirus prevented thousands of arrivals from the rest of the world.

The prime minister made the promise a cornerstone of his general election campaign last year and has since reiterated many times his determination to deliver the increase.

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