FoI reveals Home Office details on applications of EU citizens to stay in UK post-Brexit
Nine in 10 appeals brought by EU citizens who have challenged Home Office decisions about their right to stay in the UK post-Brexit have been successful, new data has revealed.
The Public Law Project (PLP), which obtained the figures, said the findings raised “a number of red flags” for EU citizens “seeking to make the UK their home”.
Continue reading...Bank president indicates she will move bank beyond traditional remit of controlling inflation
Christine Lagarde has said the European Central Bank should do more to help tackle the climate emergency, as she came under pressure from MEPs to step up action against global heating.
In a strong hint that as president she would move the ECB beyond its traditional remit of controlling inflation, Lagarde said the bank would incorporate the climate threat into both its economic forecasts and in its capacity as watchdog of the financial system.
Continue reading...An initiative against tax havens has been voted down by states who cannot afford to lose the revenue such status brings
For the time being, the European commission has lost its battle with the EU’s tax havens for greater visibility on how much tax multinational companies pay and where they pay it.
A proposed rule would have forced multinationals to reveal the revenues and profits they make, and how little corporate tax they pay, in each of the 28 member states.
Continue reading...Plan is part of ‘green new deal’ but campaigners say it is not enough to tackle climate crisis
The first EU-wide “climate law” would enshrine a legally binding target of reaching net-zero carbon by 2050, and Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions would be halved by 2030, under a set of proposals being discussed by the incoming European commission.
Cars would be subject to new air pollution standards, following the disastrous cheating that allowed diesel pollutants to be masked, and all vehicles may be brought within the EU’s carbon emissions trading scheme, which would affect drivers across the bloc. Three quarters of road transport would have to be moved to rail and inland waterways, and pricing would have to be adjusted to reflect the carbon output of different modes of transport, which is likely to prove controversial.
Continue reading...Charles Michel, who replaces Donald Tusk, says bloc has to work hard to keep unity
The EU is ready for the next phase of Brexit but risks greater internal divisions over trade talks with the UK, one of its incoming leaders has said.
In one of his first interviews since being nominated president of the European council, Charles Michel said Brexit may have played an important role in bringing the EU together.
Continue reading...Proposal would have forced firms to reveal profits made and taxes paid in each EU country
Twelve EU countries, including Ireland, have blocked a proposed new rule that would have forced multinational companies to reveal how much profit they make and how little tax they pay in each of the 28 member states.
The proposed directive was designed to shine a light on how some of the world’s biggest companies – such as Apple, Facebook and Google – avoid paying an estimated $500bn a year in taxes by shifting their profits from higher-tax countries such as the UK, France and Germany to zero-tax or low-tax jurisdictions including Ireland, Luxembourg and Malta.
Continue reading...The European parliament has declared a 'climate and environmental emergency' in a symbolic moment when it promised to urge member states to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and push the climate crisis to the top of the EU’s agenda.
The parliament voted 429-225 with 19 abstentions to use the term 'emergency'. Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European commission, declared this week that the EU would lead the fight against 'the existential threat' of the climate crisis
Continue reading...Bloc warned against making symbolic gestures not backed up by concrete action
The European parliament has declared a global “climate and environmental emergency” as it urged all EU countries to commit to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The vote came as scientists warned that the world may have already crossed a series of climate tipping points, resulting in “a state of planetary emergency”.
Continue reading...From steel to railways, Beijing is spending billions in EU countries. But are there strings attached?
The Yiwu-to-London train pulls into the DB Eurohub terminus in Barking, east London, 18 days after leaving the Chinese city, a trading centre south of Shanghai. Over the course of its 7,500-mile (12,000km) journey to Europe, the train has wound its way through Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France, following part of the old east-west Silk Road.
This freight-rail link is just one of many new routes that, along with roads and ports, form China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Whether the branding is an elaborate PR exercise or a new version of the Silk Road, what is real is that as China globalises, its investment is being gratefully sought across Europe. From ports to power stations, football clubs to financial companies, from the Norwegian city of Kirkenes to the Greek port of Piraeus and the Portuguese national grid, Chinese investment has become indispensable to the European economy. However, the country’s rise as a global economic power poses a strategic dilemma for European governments. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, warned in March that the “period of European naivety” about China had to end.
Continue reading...Labour leader would negotiate new deal with EU, which would be put to a public vote alongside remain
Jeremy Corbyn would take a “neutral stance” in a future Brexit referendum, he has announced, after facing mounting pressure in recent days to pick a side.
Appearing in a special BBC Question Time programme, in which Boris Johnson was attacked over racism and Jo Swinson found herself on the back foot over Brexit, Corbyn confirmed for the first time he would not campaign either for leave or remain.
Continue reading...President of the European Central Bank says US/China tariff war should be seen as an opportunity
Christine Lagarde has called for European governments to boost innovation and growth with higher rates of public investment, in her first major speech as president of the European Central Bank.
Speaking to an audience of bankers in Frankfurt, Lagarde said that rising trade barriers triggered by the US/China tariff war should be grasped by European governments as an opportunity to build a stronger internal market.
Continue reading...Prospect of crashing out of EU leaves UK more exposed to global financial risks, thinktank says
The UK’s GDP growth rate will slip to 1% next year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided, according to the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation.
The OECD said the economy would slow down from growth of 1.2% this year if parliament passes Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal before the 31 January deadline, before returning to 1.2% in 2021.
Continue reading...Contributions from European countries drop as progress on 0.7% target goes into reverse
Less than 10% of EU aid money reaches the countries where it is most needed, according to a study that found levels of assistance had dropped for the second year running.
The EU and its member states remain the biggest development donor group in the world – investing €71.9bn ($61bn) in 2018, more than half of global aid – but its contribution was 5.8% lower than in 2017, the European NGO network, Concord, found in its AidWatch report.
Continue reading...Expert warns of ‘huge inequality’ in capital, while Lithuanian males live shortest lives
Men from west London, one of the wealthiest areas of the UK, have the longest life expectancy of males in Europe with a newborn baby expected to live to the age of 82, according to statistics published to mark International Men’s Day.
The data from the EU department Eurostat suggests that only men from the city centre of the Spanish capital, Madrid, tend to live as long as the fortunate subset of Londoners.
Continue reading...The country’s traditional powerhouses on the centre-left and the centre-right face a moment of reckoning
Postwar German politics has a reputation for being moderate, consensual and a touch on the dull side. But there have been moments of high drama. In November 1959, for example, the Social Democratic party (SPD) abandoned its historic ambition to replace capitalism with socialism, dropped the Marxist account of class struggle and began to pitch itself as a broad-based Volkspartei (people’s party). History vindicated the decision. For the next 50 years or so, the SPD vied for power with the country’s other great political force, the CDU (and its CSU Bavarian ally), as both parties regularly achieved a vote share of over 40%.
Famed for their practice of big-tent politics, what the CDU and SPD would give for such numbers now. The agonies of Brexit and the rise of rightwing populism have claimed the political limelight around Europe. But those looking for clues to the continent’s future would do well to watch Germany closely over the coming weeks.
Continue reading...Three PMs attend marketing sales event on how wealthy can snap up citizenship from $100,000
Three prime ministers took to a stage in the ballroom of a five-star London hotel this week offering the world’s wealthiest people “golden passports” and citizenship of their countries in return for hundreds of thousands of pounds of investment or flat “contributions”.
Allen Chastanet, the prime minister of the Caribbean island of St Lucia, told about 300 members of the super-rich elite and their advisers gathered at the Rosewood hotel for “global citizenship conference” that his country’s economic mission was “going after high net-worth individuals and giving them a comfortable place to live”.
Continue reading...Over 20 years, the debate about freedom of movement has become skewed by a hostile narrative. By Rachel Shabi
Few chance encounters have had a greater political impact than Gordon Brown’s fateful meeting with Gillian Duffy on an April morning in Rochdale in 2010. When the then prime minister was caught on a hot mic calling the Labour-voting pensioner a “bigoted woman” – after she cornered him with complaints about immigrants “flocking” into Britain – it did not just sink his floundering campaign. It set the tone for the way immigration would become the most toxic issue in British politics for the decade to come.
When New Labour came to power in 1997, just 3% of the public cited immigration as a key issue. By the time of the EU referendum in 2016, that figure was 48%. During those intervening years, the issue came to dominate and distort British politics – exactly according to the script established by Bigotgate. Brown’s gaffe both consolidated and gave credence to a political coding that would shape everything that came after: the “hostile environment”, the Windrush scandal, the EU referendum and the revival of Britain’s far right – deploying a narrative in which sneering, out-of-touch, big-city politicians who favour foreigners and open borders are hopelessly oblivious to the struggles and the so-called “legitimate concerns” of ordinary working people (who, in this scenario, are always white).
Continue reading...Uncertainty over UK citizens’ future status is prompting some European employers to steer clear
Past 40, and nearly five years after he arrived in Madrid, John Halliday is moving back to the UK and in with his parents. He had “nowhere else to go”, he says: Brexit had cost him his job and made other Spanish employers reluctant to hire Britons.
Related: Britons in Europe face citizens' rights 'lottery' in event of no deal
Continue reading...More people given temporary status as backlog of unresolved cases reaches half a million
The proportion of EU citizens being granted a temporary, more precarious “pre-settled status” in the UK has continued to rise, the latest Home Office statistics show, and the backlog of unresolved cases has grown to more than half a million, causing unease among campaign groups that support EU nationals living in Britain.
All of the estimated 3.4 million EU citizens resident in the UK must apply for settled status if they want to continue living here legally after Brexit. The latest EU settlement scheme statistics show that 590,300 people applied for settled status in October, bringing the total number of applications to 2,450,000.
Continue reading...Britain will lose influence in international affairs after it leaves the EU, the outgoing president of the European council has said. Speaking at the College of Europe, Donald Tusk said Brexit would be the 'real end' of the British empire
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