France’s Emmanuel Macron will hold talks Wednesday with Germany’s Angela Merkel for the second time in a week to chart a united front on issues ranging from Brexit to Syria ahead of this week’s EU summit.

Macron goes into the two-day meeting in Brussels starting Thursday still smarting from the rejection of his pick for European commissioner, Sylvie Goulard.

The resounding “No” by European MEPs to Goulard, who has been caught up in an investigation into fake jobs for parliamentary assistants, was seen as a blow to Macron’s drive to boost France’s influence in Brussels.

On Wednesday, the French and German governments will hold a joint ministerial meeting in the southwestern French city of Toulouse to discuss how to move forward with some of the European projects that Macron has championed.

The ministerial council is the first since the two countries signed a treaty in January committing to wide-ranging cooperation on areas such as foreign policy, defence and energy.

In a video podcast, Merkel said she and Macron wanted to arrive in Brussels with “common positions in so far as possible.”

After a dinner with Merkel in Paris on Sunday, Macron warned that Europe could “not afford the luxury of petty quarrels” at what he called a “worrisome” time for the international order.

They will be joined later Wednesday in Toulouse for talks by incoming European Commission chief, Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen.

– Battle tank –

Von der Leyen’s visit — also her second to France in under a week — is part of a diplomatic blitz by Macron, who also hosted EU Council president Donald Tusk for talks in Paris on Monday.

The ardently pro-EU Macron is expected to use Wednesday’s ministerial council in Toulouse — home of European planemaker Airbus which he and Merkel will visit — to press Germany on closer defence and industrial ties.

Merkel said the two governments would discuss Franco-German plans to develop a European battle tank and fighter jet.

French presidential sources said Paris and Berlin would also attempt to develop common rules on arms exports, a bone of contention between the two powers, with France failing to follow Germany’s lead last year in halting arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

A French presidential advisor defended Franco-German cooperation, saying that while it was “often put to the test”, in the end it “always moves forward on the essential topics”.

Macron and Merkel are also expected to discuss the make-up of the incoming European Commission after the thumbs-down for Goulard, as well as the Hungarian and Romanian candidates.

But a French presidential aide said Tuesday that Macron would not announce a new candidate until he was assured of the support of the main groups in the European Parliament, who voted down Goulard.

– Brexit ‘momentum’ –

Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria and the tentative progress made in talks between the EU and Britain on a revised Brexit deal are also expected to loom large over Wednesday’s talks in Toulouse and the EU summit in Brussels.

EU leaders have condemned Turkey’s operation against the Kurdish fighters who toppled the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate earlier this year, warning that the Sunni extremists could take advantage of the offensive to regroup.

Britain, France and Germany have halted arms sales to Ankara, but EU foreign ministers on Wednesday stopped short of imposing an EU-wide weapons embargo on fellow NATO member Turkey.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament on Tuesday that the decision by the US to withdraw its troops from northern Syria, seen as a green flag for the Turkish invasion, had underscored the need for “European sovereignty” and “European strategic autonomy.”

On Brexit, by contrast, there was an air of cautious optimism in Paris on Tuesday, with a French presidential aide hailing the “positive momentum” in talks on the terms of Britain’s exit from the EU.

The remarks represented a marked departure in tone from Paris, which has said repeatedly in recent weeks that it considers a no-deal Brexit on October 31 the most likely scenario.

Source: AFP

Britain and the European Union on Monday enter a pivotal week that determines if they are still on course to reach amicable divorce terms — and when Brexit might finally occur.

Queen Elizabeth II is due to step into the fray by performing her ceremonial duty of informing parliament about the government’s agenda for the coming year.

But the odds of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s tenure lasting that long will depend largely on the outcome of hurried discussions held behind closed doors in Brussels around the same time.

EU leaders will then meet on Thursday and Friday for a summit held under the pressures of the October 31 Brexit deadline just two weeks away.

Diplomats see little hope that the sides can achieve in a few days what they had failed to in the more than three years since Britons first voted to leave the bloc after nearly 50 years.

“A lot of work remains to be done,” EU negotiator Michel Barnier told ambassador Sunday.

Technical talks are continuing — variously described as “intense” or “constructive” — but few familiar with the process can point to progress on the decisive issue of British Northern Ireland’s place in the EU customs zone.

Johnson warned his ministers Sunday to brace for a cliff-hanger finish.

The British leader said “a pathway to a deal could be seen but that there is still a significant amount of work to get there and we must remain prepared to leave on October 31.”

– ‘Clock is ticking’

Johnson rose to power in July on a promise not to extend Brexit for a third time this year — even if only a few more weeks are needed to get a deal done.

Breaking that pledge could come back to haunt him in an early general election that most predict for the coming months.

Johnson is under parliamentary orders to seek an extension until January 31 of next year if no deal emerges by Saturday.

He has insisted that he will both follow the law and get Britain out by October 31 — a contradiction that might end up being settled in court.

Outgoing EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker said British politics were getting more difficult to decipher than the riddle of an “Egyptian sphinx”.

“If the British ask for more time, which they probably will not, it would in my view be a historical nonsense to refuse them,” Juncker told Austria’s Kurier newspaper.

Something will have to give when the British parliament holds its first emergency Saturday meeting since the 1982 Falklands War.

Johnson could theoretically then try to put up a fight and refuse to sign off on a Brexit extension request.

His refusal would immediately be contested in court.

The EU leaders could complicate matters further still by deciding to offer Britain extension terms that parliament cannot accept.

But Brussels might want to push Brexit back further into next year so that it stops interfering with all the other European issues piling up.

A long delay would be untenable for many eurosceptics ahead of an early election that some expect as early as December.

But a short one of a few months might only come on the condition that it is the last.

The last and seemingly least likely outcome would see parliament vote on an actual agreement reached in Brussels against all odds this week.

Brussels insists that the ball is now in Johnson’s court.

“If the British government wants a solution, it must move quickly now,” a European diplomat told AFP.

“The clocking is ticking,”

Source: AFP

The UK Government has reneged on a promise to EU citizens, as a minister threatens EU citizens with deportation if they do not apply for settled status after Brexit.

The UK Security Minister, Brandon Lewis, announced that EU citizens who do not apply for settled status by the end of 2020 may be removed from the UK.

“If EU citizens have not registered by then without an adequate justification, the immigration rules will apply,” Lewis said.

Critics said the minister’s comments suggested that the government was planning to renege on a promise to EU citizens.

If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, EU citizens need to apply to the settlement scheme if they wish to continue living in the UK after 30 June 2021.

About one million of the estimated three million EU citizens in the UK have yet to apply for settled status, Home Office figures showed.

The3million, a group representing EU citizens living in Britain, said many EU citizens in the UK were unaware of the requirement or were simply refusing to register for settled status, as a protest against Brexit.

There is concern that there could be tens of thousands of EU nationals in the UK who will fail to apply in time, and that older and more vulnerable EU residents may not be aware of the need to secure their rights.

Moreover, the Home Office has been accused of misleading the public over how successful its EU Settlement Scheme has been.

The Government stated that only two applications to stay in the UK after Brexit have been refused and insists that the system is working well. However, new analysis suggests more than 7,600 applicants have not been granted permanent permission to live and work in the country – settled status – or temporary leave to remain – pre-settled status.

Britons now understand that the economic and political freedoms they had hoped for during the 2016 Brexit vote have morphed into a future of uncertainty under Mr. Johnson’s push for a no-deal.

Source: Presstv

Brexit talks between Britain and the European Union appeared to be on the verge of collapse on Tuesday, with Brussels accusing London of intransigence and threatening the bloc’s future.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said a deal was “overwhelmingly unlikely” without compromise by the UK, according to a Downing Street source.

She warned that any deal was “essentially impossible” if London failed to give ground on the thorny Irish border question and keep British-run Northern Ireland in the EU customs union, the source added.

Britain is due to leave the EU on October 31, more than three years after the country narrowly voted in a referendum to end its almost five-decade membership of the bloc.

Johnson, who once said he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than seek a Brexit extension — submitted new plans last week in place of an agreement his predecessor Theresa May struck with Brussels in late 2018.

The UK parliament, which is deeply divided over Brexit, rejected that plan three times.

According to the BBC, Downing Street believes talks between the two sides are now “close to breaking down”.

In Berlin, Merkel’s office confirmed the chancellor spoke by telephone to Johnson but said it would not comment “on such confidential discussions”.

Johnson’s official spokesman told reporters the pair had a “frank exchange” and that discussions were at a “critical point”.

But he rejected an accusation from EU Council president Donald Tusk’ that Johnson was playing “some stupid blame game”.

Tusk tweeted: “At stake is the future of Europe and the UK as well as the security and interest of our people.

“You don’t want a deal, you don?t want an extension, you don’t want to revoke, quo vadis?” Tusk asked, using the Latin expression for “where are you headed?”.

Much of the focus in both London and Brussels is shifting to what happens next, as a crunch EU summit approaches next week — and who would be to blame for a potentially chaotic no-deal Brexit.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank meanwhile warned that “even a relatively benign no-deal Brexit” would see Britain’s debt burden surge to 50-year highs.

On the markets, the pound lost around 0.5 percent of its value against the dollar within moments of Downing Street’s comments.

– ‘No more delay’ –

Johnson’s proposals outline a new way to avoid a hard border between EU member the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit.

It would take Northern Ireland out of the EU’s customs union but keep it largely aligned with the bloc’s “single market” standards and regulations.

EU officials said this would not remove the need for customs checks — a deal-breaker because it jeopardises the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

The agreement effectively created an invisible border between north and south, satisfying republicans who want a united Ireland and unionists who want to keep the status quo.

Keeping the border open and free-flowing has become a key sticking point in the Brexit talks.

Downing Street officials say Brussels is making a big mistake because failure in the coming days to reach a deal would result in Britain’s position only hardening down the line.

One source in Johnson’s office told The Spectator magazine the government will try to “do all sorts of things” to prevent another Brexit delay should negotiations really collapse.

Johnson has said Britain will leave the EU on October 31 “deal or no deal — but no delay”, despite legislation that requires him to request another postponement if no agreement is struck.

Scotland’s top civil court was expected to rule Tuesday whether it could force someone else — possibly a judge — to sign the extension request if Johnson does not.

But should a delay still be granted at the EU summit, Johnson will campaign for a “no-deal” in a snap general election, the Downing Street source told The Spectator, which supports the ruling Conservative party.

“If this deal dies in the next few days, then it won’t be revived,” the source added in what was said to be a series of lengthy text messages.

Downing Street did not comment on the story.

The same source also warned that EU countries which were against further delays to Brexit would “go to the front of the queue for future cooperation”.

Those who support further delays would “go to the bottom of the queue”, including on security issues, the sourced added.

Source: AFP

The European Union is bragging about giving money to United Nations Secretary General Guterres supposed office to prevent genocide, under Adama Dieng who Inner City Press asked him about Southern Cameroons urged the territorial integrity of Biya’s terror state.

The European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) has granted more than $ 550,000 to the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect.    This contribution supports the implementation of a project that aims to advance the prevention of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity (atrocity crimes) globally.

 With this grant, the European Commission supports multilateralism and stands firmly with the United Nations to prevent conflict and sustain peace.   Mrs. Hilde Hardeman, Head of the Service for Foreign Policy Instruments of the European Commission and Under-Secretary-General Adama Dieng, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, signed an agreement in New York on this financial contribution.

The goal of this 18-month project is to develop and disseminate guidelines for practitioners on the prevention of atrocity crimes. This will entail the organization of an expert-level workshop and two high-level events, in Brussels and in New York to contribute to a broader atrocity prevention program.

During the signing of the agreement, Adama Dieng expressed the gratitude of his office to the European Union for “its strong support for the United Nations and multilateralism, which strengthens partnership and cooperation in early warning. He added that “this financial contribution from the EU to the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect will help prevent atrocity crimes and support the UN Secretary-General’s vision on prevention.”

This literally blood money. It would have been cheaper to just get France (and the UK) to stop supporting Biya’s killings, and to get Guterres to stop that and stop censoring the Press.

Culled from Inner City Press

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party will begin the daunting task of forming a coherent Brexit plan at its annual conference on Sunday, with polls suggesting it could face an election drubbing.ADVERTISING

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s moment of truth comes with the crisis-torn country hurtling toward an October 31 exit from the European Union without a plan for future trade.

Yet the same divisions over Europe that saw Boris Johnson’s right-wing Conservatives lose their working majority — and make a general election appear inevitable — are also tearing apart Labour on the left.

The 119-year-old party’s support base consists of cosmopolitan city-dwelling europhiles and traditional working-class communities that rejected Brussels in the 2016 referendum.

Polls show these views have become even more entrenched today — a polarisation that further complicates Corbyn’s bid to find a unifying stance.

The strongly anti-European Brexit Party and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats are eroding Labour’s support on both flanks, and it now sits 15 percent behind the Conservatives, according to a poll published late Saturday.

Labour officials will hunker down in a swanky hotel on England’s south coast Sunday night to whittle down their Brexit options to a single position that will be either rejected or approved Monday.

Corbyn has given every indication that he wants Labour to stay neutral on the defining issue of UK politics.

“No, I am not sitting on the fence,” he insisted in a testy ITV interview Friday.

He has promised to negotiate a new divorce deal that maintains closer EU relations and then hold another referendum in which remaining in the bloc is the other option.

But he would not say which of the two he would campaign for — or whether he actually wants to stay or go.

“The British people will make that final decision,” Corbyn told ITV.

Ugly polls

Efforts to keep the peace by appeasing both wings of his party are not sitting well with voters ahead of an early election that most expect to happen within months.

A September YouGov survey showed that just half of self-identifying Labour supporters trust Corbyn’s ability to “make the right decisions on Brexit”.

And an Ipsos MORI analysis found Corbyn’s net satisfaction rating at -60. No opposition leader has fared worse in more than 40 years.

“This strategy of being all things to all people on Brexit — it paid off partly in 2017 (elections), but it’s not clear that it’s going to pay off again,” said London School of Economics analyst Sara Hobolt.

“I think it wouldn’t be right for Labour to have no opinion on such a big decision,” Labour’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry agreed.

“Labour should campaign for remain,” she told The Guardian.

Party discipline

The push for Labour to reject Brexit is being resisted by a eurosceptic core of socialist Corbyn supporters who include his closest aides.

The rise of the veteran leftist followed a 2015 change in Labour leadership election rules that gave equal weight to the votes of both rank-and-file members and MPs.

Corbyn’s left-wing views resonated with new members and young people disillusioned by the New Labour approach of Tony Blair’s more centrist government.

A group called Momentum that helped Corbyn become leader that year unsuccessfully tried Saturday to abolish the post of the party’s pro-European deputy leader Tom Watson.

“I knew there was discussions going on about the role of deputy leader, I did not know that that particular motion was going to be put forward,” Corbyn admitted on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“There was a move that didn’t happen, that didn’t work and I intervened,” he added.

But Momentum boss Jon Lansman said it was time to instill party discipline and for everyone to adopt Corbyn’s neutrality on Europe.

“We need to make sure the deputy leader role is properly accountable to the membership,” he said.

‘Radical transformation’

Corbyn has sought to move past Brexit and campaign on a more traditionally Labour agenda of workers’ rights and clean climate policies.

Some of the proposals that could come up for a vote at the conference include a plan to give 10 percent of UK companies’ shares to workers over the next 10 years.

The Financial Times called this “one of the biggest state expropriations of assets seen in a western democracy”.

Momentum also wants Labour to commit to a net zero carbon emissions target by 2030 and to “abolish private schools” in a “radical and transformational” election platform.

The various motions will be put for a vote before Corbyn concludes the conference with a keynote address Wednesday.

(AFP)

The Brexit drama switches venues from Brussels to the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday for hearings on Boris Johnson’s explosive decision to suspend parliament for over a month.

The British prime minister’s first talks Monday with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker and top EU negotiator Michel Barnier ended with an admonishment from Brussels.

Juncker’s office said Johnson was reminded that “it is the UK’s responsibility to come forward with legally operational solutions” to the existing divorce deal that the British parliament refuses to accept.

“Such proposals have not yet been made.”

Johnson countered that there was a “good chance” of striking a new agreement if there was “movement” from Brussels.

“If we can get that done, we’re at the races,” he said.

But Johnson’s political hand in the run-up to Britain’s October 31 departure could be weakened by 11 judges who will hear the parliamentary suspension challenge on Tuesday.

Court proceedings could last until Thursday and the timing of any ruling is uncertain.

Lying to the queen?

The Supreme Court’s entry into the three-and-a-half year saga stems from Johnson’s “do or die” promise to take Britain out of the EU without any further delay.

Johnson suspended parliament until October 14 in what his critics cry was a blatant bid to keep his pro-European opponents from trying to get Brexit delayed.

The government counters that parliament is dissolved yearly at the end of every session and that Johnson was simply clearing the way for a new agenda following Theresa May’s resignation in July.

The court must now rule on Johnson’s motivation and whether it has the right to make political adjudications at all.

The High Court in England has sided with Johnson while its Scottish counterpart called the suspension “unlawful”.

London’s Queen Mary University law professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott said the Supreme Court the highest legal authority in all of Britain has not faced a case of this kind since the 1600s.

She said the verdict could have monumental consequences not only for Brexit but also how the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy functions down the line.

“If parliament is prorogued (suspended) with no remedy available then the balance of power is tipped far too heavily to the executive,” she told AFP.

Former prime minister David Cameron the Conservative leader who resigned after losing the Brexit referendum in 2016 — said he also thought Johnson was “trying to restrict the debate”.

“It looked to me, from the outside, like rather sharp practice of trying to restrict the debate,” he said.

A defeat for Johnson would leave him open to charges that he has effectively lied to Queen Elizabeth II, who gave the formal order to suspend parliament.

Britain’s beloved monarch is the formal head of state and has little choice but to trust the prime minister when he asks her to end parliamentary sessions.

Johnson is already skirting the edges of the law by insisting that he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than ask his European counterparts to postpone Brexit for a third time.

Parliament has passed a law forcing him to ask the other European leaders for a delay if no compromise emerges from an October 17-18 EU summit in Brussels.

Johnson’s hand is helped by widespread fears of what a chaotic “no-deal” end to Britain’s 46-year involvement in the European project would have on businesses and the public.

The government has been forced to publish documents warning that this outcome could spark civil unrest and shortages of food and medicines.

Small groups of more moderate MPs on both sides of the political divide have reportedly expressed a willingness to back a compromise agreement.

The European Union would also prefer to avoid getting blamed for helping push one of its main members out without any safety arrangements.

But its leaders refuse to sign off on any deal that muddies the bloc’s trading borders something they accuse Britain of trying to do.

(AFP)

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was dealt a fresh blow on Thursday when his brother Jo quit the government, saying he could no longer reconcile “family loyalty and national interest”.

Jo Johnson had campaigned strongly against Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2016, a position that put him at odds with his older and more famous brother Boris.

But he took a job in his brother’s government as universities and science minister, a position he had held previously.

“It’s been an honour to represent Orpington (a London suburb) for nine years & to serve as a minister under three prime ministers,” Jo Johnson tweeted.

“In recent weeks I’ve been torn between family loyalty and the national interest — it’s an unresolvable tension & time for others to take on my roles as MP & minister.”

Like many families in Britain, the Johnsons were deeply divided over Brexit — a third sibling, Rachel, and their father Stanley also wanted to stay in the EU.

Stanley worked for the European Commission in the 1970s and then served as a Conservative MEP, while Rachel ran unsuccessfully for the European Parliament in elections this year for the anti-Brexit Change UK party.

The resignation of Jo Johnson, who like his brother Boris is a former journalist, comes after 22 MPs left the governing Conservative party this week.

One MP defected to the pro-European Liberal Democrats and 21 were expelled for voting against the prime minister’s Brexit strategy.

His resignation also comes the day after MPs voted to legislate to stop Boris Johnson taking Britain out of the European Union without a divorce deal on October 31.

Deputy leader Tom Watson tweeted: “Once again, the people who trust Boris Johnson least are the ones who know him best.”

Pollster Joe Twyman tweeted: “It’s going to be a hell of a Christmas lunch in the Johnson household”.

BBC journalist David Cornock quipped: “A rare case of a politician resigning to spend less time with his family”.

(AFP)

Once again at the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, all eyes are on TV sets to see how the political turmoil in London will play out. Inside the building the bloc’s 28 commissioners have been meeting to agree on final plans designed to offset the effects of a no-deal Brexit. 

But experts say there is no way that businesses heavily dependent on the UK market can prepare for a no-deal scenario. If it happens, and it’s now looking almost certain, then many thousands of jobs will be lost, according to economists. The remaining 27 EU nations will be badly hit but the UK will come off worst, we are told.

However, there is another important statistic for those who claim the United States is the answer to Britain’s looming trade woes. Currently just 15% of UK exports go to the US and according to analysts it would take years for London and Washington to agree on a new trade deal. 

It is no secret that EU leaders cannot stand Boris Johnson. They believe his agenda is for the UK to crash out without a deal. At present the EU is standing firm in its position that the Brexit withdrawal agreement, reached with Theresa May, cannot be renegotiated unless credible concrete proposals are presented by Johnson. The EU’s 508 million citizens are waiting to see what happens next.

Source: Presstv