EU-DIGEST

French president says EU must have effective defence policy, larger budget and integrated capital markets.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/15/emmanuel-macron-sets-out-10-year-vision-for-eu-with-call-for-more-integration?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Add_to_Firefox

 Liberals are better at pointing out others’ faults than at doing self-reflection. They spend more time explaining away the popularity of populism than explaining the fall of liberalism, says Jan Zielonka, adding that the EU has become a caricature of a neo-liberal project and needs a new vision.

For now, we are treading water. We are faking reforms, re-heating old ideas we did not accomplish at a time when there was a better economic situation. Real changes will therefore probably have to be forced by external shocks and therefore will be chaotic and painful.

Nevertheless, nothing happens, politicians dig into the wells. And they return to their discredited policy in previous years. Example? Refugees. For many years we have dealt with warlords and we know how it ended. Today, we are returning to the same model. We have become hostages of Erdogan’s policy with his refugee camps. First of all, I would not like to be hostage to his policy, and secondly – it is a denial of all the values on which liberal Europe was built.

It takes two to tango. Not only is Erdogan responsible for what is happening in Brussels-Ankara relations. When he came to power, he was very pro-European. Nevertheless, none of his efforts to get closer to Europe were successful. He was always told “tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” In this way, we have deprived ourselves of credibility and instruments of influence on Turkey.

Most EU countries were reluctant towards this enlargement. Just as the Turks were stuck in the EU’s waiting room for years.

Turkey must either be accepted or it needs to be said openly that “we do not accept, but we want to expand our relations in specific areas”. Instead, Turkey has been a candidate for years while we have set its terms.

 It was unbelievable. We left our cosmopolitan, pro-European friends in Turkey on the ice. It was similar with Ukraine. I’m not saying that all these problems were solvable, but I know that if we had followed what we declared, it would have not been as bad as it is. We did everything to destroy these good relations.

Read more: Academic: A vision for Europe is desperately needed – EURACTIV.com

• Employment
• Research & Development
• Climate change & energy
• Education
• Poverty and social exclusion

What are the key targets to be reached by 2020?

• Employment:
  > 75% of the population aged 20 to 64 years to be employed;

• Research & Development:
  > 3% of GDP to be invested in the R&D sector;

• Climate change & energy: 
  > Greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced by 20% compared to 1990
  > Share of renewable energy sources in final energy consumption to be increased to 20%
  > Energy efficiency to be improved by 20%

• Education: 
  > Share of early school leavers to be reduced under 10%
  > At least 40% of 30 to 34 years old to have completed tertiary or equivalent education

• Poverty and social exclusion:> At least 20 million people fewer at risk of poverty or social exclusion.

Earlier this week, the French President Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for the next stage of European Union (EU) integration, offering up a model that is indeed utopian and is a natural progression of the experiment that has been under way since the days France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium came together to create the nascent European Economic Community in more than five decades ago.

But the reality now is that the EU is struggling to achieve the lofty goals envisioned by those who created the body. Now, the EU is strained by Britain’s decision to leave, and by the pressures brought to bear by eastern and central European nations who struggle with the full democratic and social requirements of membership of the bloc. The euro too is in need of reform, and some of the 19 nations who use the common currency include both the strongest economically and the most heavily indebted.

But Macron has a vision. It includes a European Central Bank able to issue its own bonds, a finance minister responsible for the bloc’s budget, and a joint defence strategy. Yes, Macron’s visions is a bold one — and one that one day the EU will adapt — just not right now. Germany and its newly re-elected Chancellor Angela Merkel will like the sentiment of greater political and social integration, resetting the natural balance of the EU back under a Paris-Berlin axis. But it will be a hard sell to Merkel who must force a coalition at home to appease the forces and voters of the right. Neutrality too is enshrined in the constitution of Ireland, so a common defence strategy or European army would run counter to its principles.

And for the next year, Brussels and its eurocrats will be consumed by the mechanisms and effects of Brexit.So unfortunately Macron's vision will be put on hold, but hopefully not forgotten.

Read more: Macron’s vision for Europe is progressive | GulfNews.com

President Juncker gives State of the  Union address to the EU Parliament

Preesident Jean-Claude Juncker declared : "the “wind is back in Europe’s sails” in an an often very personal State of the Union speech, in which he gave his vision for the future of the European Union after the UK makes its “tragic” departure in 2019.

President Jean-Claude Juncker in his speech (often interrupted by applause) argued for a more unified and politically-accountable European Union after Brexit, which would combine the presidencies of the Commission and the Council into one (universally elected?), complete the euro currency zone, and generally push the bloc to take “a democratic leap forward” in unison and at a single speed.

The European commission president said he would always be sorrowed by the UK’s decision to leave the EU. “This will be a very sad and tragic moment in our history, we will always regret this”, he said before responding to heckling from Nigel Farage, President Trump's "soul mate", by retorting: “I think you will regret this soon, I might say.”

Mr. al-Assad, whose area of control was at one point reduced to just Damascus and the Mediterranean coast heartland of his Alawite sect, now speaks of recapturing all of Syria.
Regardless of some problems Mr. Putin is in firm control of Russia and his approval rating remains steady near 85 per cent.

 Read more: The world is Vladimir Putin's stage, but cracks appear on the Russian President's homefront - The Globe and Mail

The European Union has six difficult years behind it. But the coming years won't be any easier. The crisis doesn't mean the end of the idea of a peaceful European partnership, but it has certainly dispelled more than one European illusion.

The years of the financial and debt crises were both instructive and very bitter. Instructive, because they revealed the flaws in the political construction that, after the end of the Cold War, led the EU down the exuberant path of believing it was destined to be the new world power. Bitter, because they brought with them the realization that the member states lack the strength to fix these flaws.

Neither of the two big plans - meant to strengthen the EU to the outside and bind it closer together on the inside - had the desired effect. Just the opposite. The euro has brought not more political integration, but instead growing disintegration. Trust and solidarity have given way to distrust and old stereotypes. And the common foreign and security policy is still just a shadow of what the visionaries had hoped for.

Instead of being surrounded by friends and partners, the EU once again finds itself - as Britain's The Economist wrote - in a ring of fire. Europe and Russia are again arming themselves against each other. There's war in Ukraine. Unrest rules the Caucasus.

The wars in Syria and Iraq are threatening to drive the entire Middle East into the ground. The Arab Spring has devolved into an Autumn of Violence. Islamic State is expanding and becoming a potent threat to Europe.

Europe has become a patient in need of intensive care. The euro is limping along from one emergency operation to the next. When things get dicey on the foreign policy front, it's the big member states that again have to intervene. And they mostly act according to German, French or British interests.

The EU is still digesting the political and financial consequences of its eastern and southern expansion. And the current refugee crisis has shown that every EU state is looking out for No.1. The illusion born in the 1990s - that a common currency would automatically bring with it a political union - has shattered.

The crisis did not just expose the EU's construction flaws, it also revealed how they might be fixed. But this is where Europe's dilemma begins. No member state is prepared to relinquish national sovereignty over economic, social, and security issues to a European central government in order to save the grand idea of the EU.

The bloc has come a very long way since the first step toward its creation was taken in 1951. But the people are still not prepared to replace the current union of sovereign nations with a European federation.

Note EU-Digest: Great review by DW. Yes indeed, as long as we realize that this takes a combined effort of all EU nations to solve and that we don't listen to Nationalists like Geert Wilders and others who would like to turn back the clock to reestablish borders, national currencies and grocery style economics. One major priority for the EU should be to seriously review its Middle East and Eastern European foreign policies, which is presently linked to that of the US and has been a constant and historical source of.grief for the EU in every sense of the word. All we have to do is to look at the present avalanche of Middle Eastern and North African migrants now streaming into Turkey and the EU, and review the cause of it.

Read more: Europe - A patient in need of intensive care | Europe | DW.COM | 28.08.2015

Mrs. Merkel - a true European visionary with political skills

An Observer editorial notes: "Seventy years after the founders of modern Europe set out to bring stability, unity and prosperity to a war-ravaged continent, Europe and its principal political manifestation, the European Union, face a renewed, potentially defining struggle against the re-energised forces of internal division and fragmentation and external hostility and encroachment.

The scale of this challenge has yet to be fully appreciated. Its outcome is wholly uncertain. In consequence, 2015 may prove a fateful year for all the peoples of Europe.

The challenge comprises many elements, chief of which is whether the politics of austerity will be replaced by a more flexible, people-friendly economic regimen. Austerity, mainly in the form of public spending cuts and attempted deficit reduction, has wrought huge human and social damage. One key measure of pain is unemployment. In Spain, joblessness stands at around 23%. In Greece, the figure is 25%. In some areas of France and Italy, youth unemployment topped 40% at its highest point. Across the EU in 2013, 26 million people were unemployed, or one in eight of all workers. Many millions more are underemployed.

Austerity has caused tremendous political as well as social strain. The tough line dictated by chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who will arrive in London this week, is increasingly resented and there are clear signs of push-back. France’s new prime minister, Manuel Valls, introduced a €30bn reform package designed to boost business and jobs. His boss, President François Hollande, an old-school socialist, openly reviles Merkel’s “neoliberal” policy and its main underpinning, the European stability pact governing national budgets.

“To reform is to affirm our priorities, while refusing austerity,” Valls declared. Another newcomer, Italian premier Matteo Renzi, described as “Merkel’s most dangerous rival”, also links structural reform to a loosening of EU rules, notably Merkel’s holy grail, the 2012 fiscal pact. In November, both countries won budget reprieves from the European commission.

Still the only European leader who can credibly claim international statesman stature, Merkel, who is coming to London on Wednesday for talks with David Cameron on a range of issues, including the European economy, faces increasing criticism at home, not least from her centre-left vice-chancellor and coalition partner, Sigmar Gabriel. He argues the rise of right- and leftwing populism across Europe can only be checked by rapid economic improvements.


Nor can Merkel count on useful support from the new European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, or, more surprisingly, from Britain’s government, fellow champion of austerity and no friend to Hollande. In more skilful hands, David Cameron’s calls for EU reform might have meshed well with German priorities for sound money and stability, but Cameron has recklessly squandered European alliances and opportunities. In any case, he may soon be out of office.

While recent indicators suggest the worst of the recession is over, the full extent of the political fallout at grassroots level across Europe is only now becoming apparent. Elections this year in Greece, Spain, the UK, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Portugal and Estonia will provide further proof of the fragmentation of postwar consensus politics as erstwhile minority parties come to the fore.

In Britain, Ukip, the Greens and the Scottish Nationalists are aiming to usurp the traditional centre-left and centre-right parties. Likewise in Greece and Spain, it seems the centre cannot hold against a surge in support for the populist, anti-austerity leftwing insurgents of Syriza and Podemos respectively. In Sweden, the two mainstream parties, desperate to keep the far-right Sweden Democrats out of government, conspired to form a Merkel-style grand coalition, thereby effectively denying voters real choice. Finland faces a similar dilemma over its hard-right, anti-immigrant party.

Last year’s European parliament elections revealed unprecedented, pan-European dissatisfaction with politics as usual, but Brussels took scant notice, installing Juncker, a quintessential establishment figure, and creating a centrist coalition in parliament. Out of touch hardly describes such complacent behaviour. The significance of the rise of Europe’s new parties can no longer be denied, nor can they be dismissed as mere, temporary protest movements.

Yet Europe’s new politics, organic in nature and fast evolving, cannot be easily quantified or defined. Some, such as the Pegida demonstrators in Germany, are motivated by racist and anti-Muslim views. Merkel was entirely right last week to condemn them. But a new poll showed one in eight Germans sympathises with Pegida. Such views have a more pernicious, formal presence on Germany’s political stage in the shape of the anti-euro, anti-foreigner Alternative für Deutschland, which is eclipsing the old Free Democrats in the way Ukip may eclipse Britain’s Liberal Democrats.

In each country, new parties produce new imponderables. In Greece, for example, the growth of leftwing radicalism is in part a response to the advancing neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn. In the case of some of Europe’s secessionists, meanwhile, self-determination and economic justice have sometimes been confused with an unattractive, exclusionary nationalism. There is one constant: everywhere, it seems, immigration is an issue of concern.

The overall effect of these powerful and often conflicting currents is plain: in prospect is an unstable landscape of weak and fragile national governments, escalating friction over EU policies, intensifying north-south eurozone strains and a growing inability to present a united European front to the world.

A united front is required more than ever, as Europe faces the triple challenge of mass movements of people, Russian aggression and Islamist extremism. Almost alone among Europe’s leaders, Merkel continues bravely to make the case for accepting refugees from conflict in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere. But as the plight of asylum-seekers trapped on the Ezadeen, which arrived in Italy yesterday, again demonstrated, this is an enormous international problem.

Most European states, including Britain, have not begun to face up to their responsibilities in dealing with mass migration and tackling the roots of the religious extremism that often causes displacement.
After Vladimir Putin dismembered a European country by annexing Crimea,

 Europe enters 2015 lacking certainty, for the first time since the cold war, that its borders are secure. It was left to Merkel, again, to point out in November that Putin’s attempt to re-establish Soviet-era spheres of influence affects not only Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, but countries much closer to Europe’s heart, such as Serbia and Bosnia, and EU members Hungary and Slovakia.

Russia’s expansionist and anti-democratic outlook recalls the worst aspects of the legacy Europe fought to overcome after 1945. The struggle for a Europe whole, prosperous and free has now returned with a vengeance."

EU-Digest

President Vladimir Putin presented his economic vision for Russia at an economic forum in St. Petersburg by pledging to boost domestic industry, help capitalize banks and reduce the nation's reliance on energy exports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a defiant tone against western countries on Friday at an investment forum in St. Petersburg where he outlined his plans to boost the nation's slumping economic growth.
In a keynote speech to business leaders from around the world, Putin said economic sanctions against his country were "an instrument of political pressure" that would ultimately hurt the economies of those imposing them.

"Maybe our American friends - they are sophisticated guys - want to get a competitive advantage in their trade and economic relations over Europe," he said, thanking European businesses for taking a more "pragmatic" approach over the sanctions.

Read more: Putin presents vision for a stronger Russia | Business | DW.DE | 23.05.2014