Category Archives: European Union

Greece says it’s ‘reached limit’ as arrivals of refugees show no sign of slowing

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EU must share responsibility for influx, says Greece, as it forms controversial plans to build ‘prison’ camps for migrants

Sometimes en masse, sometimes alone they keep on arriving: in rickety boats carrying men, women and children looking for a freedom they hope Europe will offer.

Despite winter’s limited daylight and whiplash-heavy storms and rains, the number of asylum seekers landing on Greek shores shows no sign of abating. Not since Europe’s historic agreement with Turkey to curb migrant flows at the height of Syria’s civil war in March 2016 have arrivals been so high.

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EU looks at extending Brexit transition period beyond 2020

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Move is being considered by EU officials in face of Johnson not seeking extension beyond 11 months

EU leaders would take the initiative and request an extension to the transition period, keeping the UK under Brussels regulations beyond 2020, under a plan mooted for getting around Boris Johnson’s stated refusal to seek a delay.

The move is being considered by EU officials as a way out of the problem posed by the short time available to negotiate a new relationship and the prime minister’s insistence that he will not seek an extension beyond 11 months.

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UK must be loyal on standards in return for market access – Macron

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French president demands regulatory harmonisation as price of good Brexit deal

Emmanuel Macron has warned Boris Johnson that the UK must remain “loyal” to EU standards post-Brexit for British companies to maintain access to the European market.

In comments echoed by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, the French president demanded continued regulatory harmonisation as the price for protecting the flow of trade, a demand that will be a cause of concern for the Conservative government.

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European Green Deal to press ahead despite Polish targets opt-out

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Poland opts out of 2050 net-zero emissions after hours of wrangling over timetables and money

European Union leaders have vowed to press on with a major economic plan to confront the climate emergency, despite Poland’s opt-out from a net-zero emissions target by 2050.

The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, told journalists he had secured an exemption for Poland on the 2050 target, which is meant to become the legally binding centrepiece of the “European Green Deal” , a plan to transform Europe’s economy announced two days ago.

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What will Boris Johnson’s majority mean for Brexit? | Anand Menon

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We will leave the EU in a few weeks. But it’s far from clear what kind of relationship with the bloc an emboldened PM will seek

Well it is truly remarkable. Not so much the result of the election, which is surprising enough. But, rather, the fact that following the “Brexit election”, one in which traditional party loyalties seem to have been stretched to breaking point by the leave-remain divide, we emerge not knowing what kind of Brexit the prime minister intends to deliver.

In the short term, there is now no doubt that he will be able to “get Brexit done” in the sense of taking the UK out of the EU by the end of January. And no, that does not mean that Brexit will, in fact, be done (on which more in a minute) in a practical sense. But it may – may – be possible for the government to give the impression that it is in a politically persuasive way.

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‘Politically we don’t count’: EU citizens fear for future in UK

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Most EU nationals living in the UK cannot vote – leaving many feeling like pawns in a political game

In a threadbare youth centre in Bradford, Vie Clerc, who got off a Eurostar from Paris 19 years ago with £50 in her pocket and never left, laments the irony. “It’s the first one I’ll actually be able to vote in,” she said. “Shame I’ve never felt less British.”

In a bright mezzanine office in Bristol, Denny Pencheva, who landed in 2013 from Bulgaria via Copenhagen and now teaches at the university, bemoans politicians “who use us to score their political points, but don’t actually have to consider us – because politically, we don’t count”.

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EU leaders ‘should put pressure on Malta’s PM to quit immediately’

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Media coalition wants guarantee of impartial investigation into murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia

Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, is facing renewed pressure to quit immediately as EU leaders are urged to take a stand on the “desperate” situation in the country at a summit this week.

Muscat, who is under fire over his role in the investigation into the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, plans to attend a regular summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

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European Green Deal will change economy to solve climate crisis, says EU

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Everything from travel to air quality has been looked at in order to create ‘a growth that gives back’

Nearly every major aspect of the European economy is to be re-evaluated in light of the imperatives of the climate and ecological emergency, according to sweeping new plans set out by the European commission on Wednesday.

The comprehensive nature of the European Green Deal – which encompasses the air we breathe to how food is grown, from how we travel to the buildings we inhabit – was set out in a flurry of documents as Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, made her appeal to member states and parliamentarians in Brussels to back the proposals, which would represent the biggest overhaul of policy since the foundation of the modern EU.

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EU’s soaring climate rhetoric not always matched by action

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Bloc considers itself international leader on environment, but progress has been stunted

The European Union considers itself as a leader on the environment and not without cause: policymaking in Brussels moved ahead of the international consensus in the 2000s.

But the soaring rhetoric has not always been matched by the necessary structural changes in the way European economies work and citizens live their lives.

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The Guardian view on general election 2019: A fleeting chance to stop Boris Johnson in his tracks | Editorial

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The mood may be one of despair, but this election is critical to the country’s future. The best hope lies with Labour, despite its flaws

Britain has not faced a more critical election in decades than the one it faces on Thursday. The country’s future direction, its place in the world and even its territorial integrity are all at stake, primarily because this is a decisive election for Brexit. The choice is stark. The next prime minister is going to be either Boris Johnson, who is focused on “getting Brexit done” whatever the consequences, or Jeremy Corbyn, who with a Labour-led government will try to remodel society with a programme of nationalisation and public spending.

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With two days to go, Boris Johnson is in his comfort zone

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Target seats such as Grimsby have not been blue for decades. To win here will require more than giant cod and snappy slogans

Boris Johnson does not look like a prime minister who believes he is just about to lose the office he has coveted since boyhood.

Brandishing a giant cod and joking with fishmongers, he is in his campaign comfort zone. It is the mode of the Vote Leave tour bus: eye-catching photo ops, a snappy slogan and informal stump speeches that play fast and loose with the facts about Brexit.

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Brexit deal includes two-way customs checks, insists Ireland

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Foreign minister challenges Johnson’s claim about goods moving from Northern Ireland to Britain

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, has challenged Boris Johnson’s claim that under his Brexit deal there would be no checks or controls on goods moving between Northern Ireland and Britain.

Coveney insisted that under the terms of the withdrawal agreement the prime minister negotiated with the European Union there would be inspections on goods moving in both directions.

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EU trade deals must not contradict climate goals, says MEP

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Pascal Canfin says he cannot back deal with South American bloc owing to ‘political context’

The EU’s trade deal with four South American countries will not be ratified in its current form because it contradicts Europe’s plans to confront the climate emergency, a leading MEP has said.

Pascal Canfin, a Frenchman who chairs the European parliament’s environment committee, said he could not vote in favour of the EU trade deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay (the bloc known as Mercosur).

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‘Sometimes the world goes feral’ – 11 odes to Europe

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As Britain braces itself for the Brexit endgame, leading poets – from Carol Ann Duffy to Andrew McMillan – take the pulse of our fragmenting world

From the collection Kin, Cinnamon Press, 2018

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Josep Borrell: can EU’s new diplomat- in-chief strengthen bloc’s global standing?

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The veteran Spanish socialist has a reputation for plain speaking, and a brief to build a more assertive EU

It has been called Europe’s “valley of tears”. But it isn’t in National Geographic; rather it is the monthly pilgrimage of the European Union’s 28 foreign ministers to Brussels or Luxembourg to discuss the woes of the world.

And the man who coined the phrase, Josep Borrell, a socialist veteran of Spanish politics, was not paying a compliment. He described the EU foreign affairs council as “more a valley of tears than a centre of decision-making” because “it’s where all the open sores of humanity come. They tell us their sufferings, we express our condolences and concern … but no capacity for action comes out of it and we just move on to the next one.”

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Brexit is one of most spectacular mistakes in EU history, says Tusk

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Exclusive: Donald Tusk says it would still be better for both sides if UK stayed in EU

Brexit has been “one of the most spectacular mistakes” in the history of the EU and followed a campaign marked by “an unprecedented readiness to lie”, Donald Tusk has said.

In his first interview since standing down as European council president last week, Tusk said Brexit was “the most painful and saddest experience” of his five years in office, a tumultuous period marked by the Greek eurozone crisis, bitter rows over migration and the election of Donald Trump.

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Suspect in Daphne Caruana Galizia murder says he got tipoffs from official

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Yorgen Fenech tells court Malta PM’s former chief of staff gave him updates on investigation

A wealthy businessman who is the prime suspect in the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia has told a court in Malta that he received regular tipoffs about the investigation from the former government chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Yorgen Fenech, who was charged last week for allegedly masterminding the 2017 killing, appeared in court to seek the removal of the police chief leading the case, saying he was too close to Schembri.

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Russia arrests conman who built fake border with Finland

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Guards detain man who took thousands from migrants before leading them on bogus journey into what they thought was EU

Russian authorities have detained a man who built a fake frontier post in the woods near the country’s border with Finland and promised migrant workers he could smuggle them into the European Union.

The man erected mock border posts and charged four men from south Asia more than $10,000 to take them to EU member Finland, the Russian border guard service said on Wednesday.

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EU mission tells Malta PM to quit immediately over Caruana Galizia case

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Joseph Muscat has made serious errors over investigation into journalist’s murder, says Dutch MEP

The head of an EU mission to Malta has called on the country’s embattled prime minister to quit immediately amid anger over his handling of the investigation into the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The Dutch liberal MEP Sophie in ‘t Veld, who is leading the European parliament’s emergency fact-finding mission to Malta, said she was “not reassured” after meeting Joseph Muscat and his justice minister, Owen Bonnici.

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