Demonstrators accuse Emmanuel Macron of perpetrating ‘denial of democracy’ by choosing conservative politician
Thousands of angry leftwing protesters took to French streets on Saturday two days after Emmanuel Macron appointed a conservative prime minister.
Demonstrators accused the president of a “denial of democracy” after his decision to name the former EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, 73, as leader of the government.
Continue reading...German chancellor says country ‘will support Ukraine for as long as it takes’ as he meets Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s defence minister outlined the country’s priorities today.
Speaking at Ramstein airbase, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy raised concerns about western partners’ policies and the pace of deliveries.
Long-range capability. I’m glad that the US, the UK, and France are represented here. Thanks to our joint courage, we have implemented very important operations, in particular in Crimea.
These operations allowed us to return security to the Black Sea and our food exports. Now we hear that your long-range policy has not changed, but we see changes in the Atacms, Storm Shadows and Scalps –a shortage of missiles and cooperation.
Continue reading...Rightwing prime minister promises ‘new era’, saying priorities will be education, security and controlling immigration
Michel Barnier, France’s new rightwing prime minister, has vowed to address the nation’s feelings of anger, abandonment and injustice, promising a “new era” and a break with the past.
Barnier, the EU’s former Brexit negotiator, took office hours after Emmanuel Macron appointed him to form “a unifying government in the service of the country” – an attempt to put an end to two months of political paralysis after a snap election.
Continue reading...A councillor at 22, now country’s oldest premier in modern history, the former Brexit negotiator must win over a divided parliament
He calmly but firmly negotiated the UK’s departure from the EU after years of British squabbling over Brexit, and he prefers consensus to political punch-ups. But Michel Barnier faces his toughest challenge yet as France’s new prime minister amid the country’s biggest political crisis in decades.
The discreet rightwinger, 73, known for his sensible anoraks, love of spreadsheets and his ever-present briefing dossiers wedged under his arm, is facing a baptism of fire in a deeply divided French political landscape.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak’s attitude ‘much more responsible’ than that of Boris Johnson, says former EU negotiator
The EU’s former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has praised the agreement on Northern Ireland between the union and the British government as a positive step that turns a page in relations between the two sides.
In an interview with the Guardian, the veteran French politician said the Windsor framework agreement signed by Rishi Sunak and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, last month, “operationalised” the Northern Ireland protocol he had negotiated with the British government in 2019. “There was a spirit of goodwill for the first time in three years, to find solutions that are concrete, operational and realistic.”
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Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, was not exactly on message in his Sky News interview with Kay Burley this morning. As well as implying that he thought the bullying inquiry into Dominic Raab was a mistake (see 10.37am), he made at least three other comments that suggest Rishi Sunak does not have the enthusiastic support of all his backbenchers.
Rees-Mogg said that Sunak was performing “perfectly competently” as PM. Asked how he was doing, Rees-Mogg replied: “I think he’s doing perfectly competently.” When Burley put it to him that that was not much of an endorsement, Rees-Mogg went on: “I made no bones about the fact I thought Boris Johnson was a better prime minister and I wanted him to remain.”
Rees-Mogg criticised the government for stalling the Northern Ireland protocol bill. The bill, which is popular with hardline Brexiters but widely seen as contrary to international law, because it would allow the UK to unilaterally ignore some of the provisions in the protocol treaty, passed through the Commons when Boris Johnson was PM. But it is stuck in the Lords, where it has not been debated since October and where a date has not been set for its report stage. Sunak has shelved it because he wants to negotiate a compromise on the protocol with the EU, and passing the bill would make agreement much harder. But Rees-Mogg said the government should pass it. He said:
The government has just got to get on with it. There’s a bill that has been through the House of Commons that is waiting its report stage in the House of Lords and I don’t understand why the government hasn’t brought it forward.
He renewed his criticism of the strikes (minimum service levels) bill. When MPs debated it last night, Rees-Mogg said he agreed with Labour criticisms of the Henry VIII powers in the bill.
The government doesn’t know what changes it will have to make once this bill is passed. Under clause 3, the secretary of state would be able to make regulations that “amend, repeal or revoke provision made by or under primary legislation passed before this act or later in the same session of parliament as this act”. This is a supercharged Henry VIII clause. Why should MPs or peers pay any attention to any related legislation that may be brought before them later in this session when they know that, unless they object, a secretary of state may simply amend, repeal or revoke it?
Continue reading...Mild-mannered former centrist has become a surprise favourite to win Les Républicains’ nomination
In a restaurant in prosperous western Paris, fans of the EU’s former negotiator on Brexit, Michel Barnier, crowded in to hear their hero speak, cheering the mild-mannered 70-year-old who has gone from rank outsider to potential favourite in the contest to choose a presidential candidate for the right’s Les Républicains.
Barnier is one of the big surprises of the unpredictable pre-election season in France. He was known for almost 50 years in right-wing French politics as a centrist, liberal-minded neo-Gaullist, devoted to the European cause. But he has amazed observers by significantly hardening his stance as the rightwing party prepared to decide on its candidate early next month.
Continue reading...Emmanuel Macron and the far-right hopeful Marine Le Pen look set to be joined by numerous other candidates in the French presidential election. We look at the latest polling, and introduce some of the most likely candidates
France will vote to elect a new president in April, and the jostling for position among potential candidates is well under way. The current president, Emmanuel Macron, has yet to declare his candidacy but is expected to run again. His second-round opponent from 2017, the far-right populist Marine Le Pen, has already launched her campaign. Alongside them on the ballot will be Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, Yannick Jadot, representing the Green movement, and a candidate from the centre-right, to be chosen by Les Républicains, on 4 December. The far-right TV pundit Éric Zemmour, who has no political party, could declare an outsider bid.
Continue reading...With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate
Six months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.
On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed.
Continue reading...Tough controls on immigration, a restricted role for European courts, a new politics of patriotism: why is the EU’s former Brexit chief negotiator, now running for the French presidency, sounding more and more like a Eurosceptic? As his Brexit diaries are published in English, he reveals all
My Secret Brexit Diary, Michel Barnier’s blow-by-blow account of the Brexit negotiations, is at times quite a dry and technical read. But every now and then it offers glorious moments of comic relief. There is, for example, the day that Lord Digby Jones and a jovial bunch of leave-voting businessmen pitch up optimistically at Barnier’s Brussels office, plonking a patriotic gift-basket on his desk. Running his eye over it, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator spies some cheddar, wine, tea and jam, a book of Shakespeare’s plays and an essay on Winston Churchill’s life and political philosophy. With a smile, Barnier points out that some of the foodstuffs are processed from European products and protected by EU designations of origin. As for Shakespeare and Churchill, one, he suggests, was a very “continental playwright” and the other a “very European British statesman” who backed a united Europe.
This false start is the prelude to some unsuccessful lobbying by the British delegation on behalf of the City’s financial services industry. When Barnier bats away demands for full post-Brexit access to European markets, he writes that the mood suddenly turns sour: “Digby Jones dares to say to me: ‘Mr Barnier, your position is contrary to the interests of the economy. You are going to make life even more difficult for the worker in the Ruhr, the single woman in Madrid or the unemployed man in Athens.’” The rhetoric and tone, concludes Barnier in his diary entry for 10 January 2018, was “morally outrageous”; the desired bespoke agreement on financial services never materialises.
Continue reading...Analysis: Les Républicains face complex battle to find 2022 presidential candidate to rival Macron and Marine Le Pen
This week’s declaration by Michel Barnier, the former EU chief negotiator on Brexit, that he aims to run for French president has added to the uncertainty of a crowded field of candidates competing to represent the traditional right in next spring’s election.
The rightwing Les Républicains, the party of the former president Nicolas Sarkozy, is facing an increasingly complex battle to identify a 2022 presidential candidate to rival the centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right Marine Le Pen, who, polls currently show, could once again face one another in the final.
Continue reading...Revealed: EU chief negotiator’s diaries, The Great Illusion, give blow-by-blow account of moves behind UK’s departure
Britain’s post-Brexit future was determined by “the quarrels, low blows, multiple betrayals and thwarted ambitions of a certain number of Tory MPs”, the EU’s chief negotiator has said in his long-awaited diaries.
The UK’s early problem, writes Michel Barnier in The Great Illusion, his 500-page account, was that they began by “talking to themselves. And they underestimate the legal complexity of this divorce, and many of its consequences.”
Continue reading...European commission president said to be in constant contact with Boris Johnson as fishing remains key issue
Ursula von der Leyen took personal control of Brexit negotiations in an attempt to strike a deal before Christmas as talks went to the wire over tens of millions of pounds worth of fish.
The European commission president is understood to be in constant contact through a series of unscheduled phone calls with Boris Johnson and the EU capitals as she battles to find a compromise.
Continue reading...EU chief responds in final hours to Boris Johnson’s request for Brussels to seal deal
Michel Barnier has sought to break the deadlock in what he described as the final “few hours” of the post-Brexit trade talks with a new proposal on EU fishing access in British waters, after Boris Johnson called on Brussels to move to seal a deal.
After meetings with aides to the EU’s heads of state and government and fisheries ministers, Barnier was locked in late-night discussions with the UK negotiators led by David Frost, at what Barnier described as a “moment of truth”.
Continue reading...Michel Barnier has said the main obstacle to a deal in the final ‘few hours’ of the post-Brexit trade negotiation is whether Brussels will be able to hit British goods with tariffs if the government closes UK waters to EU fishing fleets.
The European parliament has requested a deal by midnight on Sunday. Barnier added that sooner or later the UK and EU would have to have a strong alliance even if an agreement is not reached by the deadline
Continue reading...Latest updates: health secretary holds press conference after tougher restrictions announced for London and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire
Prof. Whitty reiterates a “minimalist, responsible” Christmas meeting families sticking to the rules, calling it a “limited relaxation”.
Hancock tells @Kate_M_Proctor he's repeatedly answered the question on whether the Christmas relaxation could be tightened up if cases rise
Narrator: He has not answered the question on whether the Christmas relaxation could be tightened up if cases rise
Barnier says PM’s acceptance of need for ‘evolution clause’ as standards diverge has unlocked talks
A post-Brexit trade and security deal could be sealed as early as this week after Boris Johnson made a key concession at the weekend but the pathway to agreement remains “very narrow”, Michel Barnier has told ambassadors and MEPs in Brussels.
The EU’s chief negotiator said the prime minister’s acceptance of the need to ensure that there is fair competition for British and European businesses as regulatory standards diverge over time had unlocked the talks despite difficult issues remaining.
Continue reading...Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, says a 'good, balanced agreement' on a trade deal is still possible, as negotiators continue talks ahead of the 31 December deadline.
Barnier stressed the EU had never before tried to reach such a complex agreement with a country in such a short space of time.
Britain and the EU enter the final stretch of the negotiations with renewed hope of a deal being struck within days, after Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen agreed to “go the extra mile” and ordered the resumption of talks in Brussels
Latest updates: EU’s chief Brexit negotiator says gaps on level playing field, governance and fisheries are still not bridged
RTE’s Europe editor, Tony Connelly, has posted a thread on Twitter with the full comments from Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, this morning.
Full remarks of Irish foreign min @simoncoveney to @rtenews this morning:
“Having heard from Michel Barnier this morning, really the news is very downbeat. I would say he is very gloomy, and obviously very cautious about the ability to make progress today.
2/ "There was news last night on some media sources that there was a breakthrough on fishing. That is absolutely not the case from what we’re hearing this morning,” he said.
Mr Coveney said that fisheries, the level playing field and governance remain “very problematic.”
3/ “There really was no progress made yesterday, that’s our understanding and so we’ve got to try to make a breakthrough at some point today, before the two principals, the Commission president and the prime minister speak later on this evening.
4/ “Unfortunately, I’d like to be giving more positive news, but at the moment these negotiations seem stalled, and the barriers to progress are still very much in place.
5/ “We haven’t, through the negotiating teams, found a way to find compromises that can progress these negotiations towards a successful conclusion.
6/ “There is still time. Lunchtime seems a long way away now, given the intensity of these discussions, but that’s where we are, and anyone who is briefing that there are breakthroughs in either of these two big areas...I don’t think is accurate.”
Continue reading...Phone talk between PM and European commission president Ursula von der Leyen ended without a breakthrough
Brexit negotiations will resume in Brussels on Sunday after Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, agreed that a trade and security deal was still possible in the immediate days.
In a joint statement, the two leaders said they would talk again on Monday evening, with the two sides searching for a breakthrough with just three weeks until the UK leaves the single market and customs union.
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