International Brexit News & Discussion v7: British Parliament Rejects Theresa May's Brexit Deal (Again)

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

France is a close #2 i think in coming years France will have a cultural level of power and influence to be tie with germany

Macron probably think so.

Not Content With France, Macron Has a Plan to Take On All Europe
By Helene Fouquet | February 21, 2018

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Emmanuel Macron’s vision for Europe is unbound by borders, traditions and cultures. But his push to remake the political order is on a collision course with reality.

The 40-year-old president, who won in France with a movement he built from scratch within a year, is planting the seeds of a post-party political system in the European Union. With the EU holding parliamentary elections next year, Macron sees an opportunity to usher in a new era of pan-European governance and disrupt the traditional political parties by tapping into his maverick roots.

Macron, often compared to the 19th century conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, is making his move as Europe’s strongest nations consider paths of further integration and as a broad economic upswing lends them political momentum. But within the EU’s corridors of power, Macron’s strategy is viewed with skepticism, with no clear plan to navigate the continent’s sometimes hostile patchwork of political systems.

The head of his “European Task Force” -- the tiny group in charge of the strategy within Macron’s Republic on the Move party -- said in an interview that “the political restructuring has already started.”

“Political groups are divided over what they want for, and from, Europe,” Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, 31, said while traveling on the train between Paris and Brussels, where he lives and does lobbying work. “Our ambition is to set foot in several countries and create a European-level ambition for a reforming agenda.”

New Political Front
Macron has launched a 15-month campaign to build support before elections to the European Parliament in May 2019. This is a key pillar to bolster his plan to make Europe work for voters and to stem the anti-EU populists who brought about Brexit and want the bloc to fail. While he isn’t seeking to recreate his party in other countries, Macron is searching for allies and supporters to spark a grassroots movement.

Macron will seek to discuss his idea of pan-European politics with other EU leaders at a summit on Friday in Brussels that will include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose domestic party belongs to Europe’s Christian Democrats, and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who caucuses with the Socialists. But neither the the Christian Democrats nor the Socialists -- the two largest blocs in the EU parliament -- are willing to change a system that underpins their power.

In fact, earlier this month the EU Parliament distanced itself from the Macron-backed idea of having the empty legislative seats created by Brexit set aside for pan-European lawmakers, a move that would have given his plan a significant boost.

Structural hurdles notwithstanding, Macron is the first French president to take an interest in the 28-nation Parliament and to seek to tap the potential of the EU machine for his own political purpose. And while his infantry is working the base he’s pushing leaders to join his drive for reform.

Macron is focusing his efforts on Poland, Greece, Ireland, Slovakia and the Baltics, according to Anglade, adding that Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and Spain have been historic French allies, while it has been more difficult making inroads with Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary. Contacts are made either by Macron himself, Anglade or the party chief, Christophe Castaner.

Pinch of Salt
In January, Macron convinced Spain, Greece, Portugal, Malta and Cyprus to sign on to his ideas on a closer European monetary union. These proposals track closely with a September speech he made at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he argued for closer European cooperation on defense, migration and climate change policies, with the aim of laying the foundations for more financial integration within the euro area.

Macron’s party is also planning a march across Europe with members of his political party, expected to last for more than a month. While traversing 25 member states -- the Netherlands and Hungary may not participate -- they’ll aim to raise awareness for his group and plant the seed of impending change.

But EU watchers and politicians take the Macron plan with a big pinch of salt and have expressed doubts as to whether he can accomplish his maverick trick in Europe like he did in France: To blow up the traditional party system and jump start an era of pan-European politics.

“He may want the end of the conservatives and other big political parties, but those parties have very, very strong alliances and they have no interest whatsoever to follow a Macron, however seducing his ideas may be,” said Florian Willermain, a political scientist at the Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels. “On top of the Europe hurdles, he will have a country-by-country battle. I am eager to see what he’ll do.”

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

EU Leaders Go to Battle Over Plugging Post-Brexit Budget Gap
By Jonathan Stearns and Ewa Krukowska | February 22, 2018,

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Hashing out the European Union’s multiannual budget is a political slugfest at the best of times. Throw in Brexit and the contest looks even more bruising.

The U.K.’s scheduled withdrawal from the EU next year will leave a 10 billion-euro ($12.3 billion) annual hole in the bloc’s spending program, the main topic when leaders meet on Friday to map out Europe’s 2021-2027 budget. A Bloomberg survey of government positions reveals splits over how to cover the gap, with at least three net contributors -- Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria -- saying they won’t pay more.

While amounting to only 1 percent of EU economic output, the European budget of 140 billion euros a year provides key funds for farmers, poorer regions and researchers in everything from energy to space technologies. It’s also a barometer of the political mood in European capitals, signaling the risk of fissures as the EU seeks to maintain unity in the Brexit talks, confront new security challenges and curb democratic backsliding in countries such as Poland.

“I expect it to be quite a fight,” said Guntram Wolff, director of the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “The EU budget hole is quite substantial. You actually have a double challenge: you have to cut some spending and increase money for new priority areas.”

This time around, the once-a-decade tussle over the multiannual European budget will be a drama within several dramas that were barely imaginable when the current seven-year spending program was fixed in 2013. They concern EU efforts to put a lid on centrifugal political forces that propelled Brexit, take on a bigger global role as U.S. President Donald Trump pursues his “America First” agenda and counter a drift by some eastern European governments toward authoritarianism.

Britain’s absence from the next multiannual European spending program is conspicuous because the country is the No. 2 net contributor. Germany, which is the largest, and Italy, the fourth biggest, both say they are open to increasing their payments into the financial framework, the survey shows. Portugal and Estonia, both net recipients of funds, are prepared to raise their contributions, while France and Belgium are still undecided.

With national transfers filling about 80 percent of the EU’s coffers, increases are politically sensitive in member countries. European leaders revealed this when approving the 2014-2020 EU spending program, which marked the first time the bloc’s multiannual budget shrank.

In that context, calls are growing for the EU to cut farm subsidies and regional-development -- or “cohesion” -- aid, which together account for around 70 percent of the bloc’s budget, and to increase outlays on security amid heightened concerns about Islamic terrorism, Middle Eastern and African refugees and Russian aggression.

“The common agricultural policy and the cohesion policy should be ambitiously reformed,” the Dutch government said in a position paper this month. “These reforms should also yield the majority of the financial savings needed to compensate for Brexit and to finance new priorities.”

The European Commission, which will use the summit as guidance for a proposal in May on the 2021-2027 EU budget, has suggested a combination of spending and new revenue, with budget chief Guenther Oettinger, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying the Brexit-induced hole should be filled “using 50 percent savings, 50 percent fresh money.”

The fight over figures will be accompanied by an equally sensitive policy issue: Whether to tie European regional-development aid after 2020 to respect by EU governments for democratic values, for the bloc’s demands that member countries accept a share of refugees and for economic-governance rules.

Alarm about a Polish assault on domestic judicial independence by the ruling Law & Justice party has pushed the democratic-principles question onto the EU political agenda. The commission has already recommended that EU governments trigger a procedure that includes the possibility of stripping Warsaw of its voting rights in the bloc.

Political Obstacles
With big hurdles standing in the way of that unprecedented political penalty, the idea of linking EU budget largesse to sound national justice systems has gained ground since surfacing in Germany and picking up French support. This initiative risks hitting Poland where it hurts most -- financially -- because the former communist country is the biggest recipient of EU funding.

Still, political obstacles abound for such a move. Besides outright opposition in countries such as Romania, Malta, Estonia, Hungary and Lithuania, some governments in western and eastern Europe have doubts about how any conditionality would be worded and harbor worries about a popular backlash in any targeted countries, according to the Bloomberg survey.

Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Centre in Brussels, said it’s “quite unlikely” that EU governments will create any “overt” link between regional aid and respect for the rule of law.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/eu-leaders-go-to-battle-over-how-to-plug-post-brexit-budget-gap

 

[snakedafunky]

EU Leaders Go to Battle Over Plugging Post-Brexit Budget Gap
By Jonathan Stearns and Ewa Krukowska | February 22, 2018,

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-23/eu-leaders-go-to-battle-over-how-to-plug-post-brexit-budget-gap

There are already signs that Germany is willing to pay more into the EU budget. Apparently one of the reasons Merkel was unable to get a coalition going with the preferred FDP (liberal pro business Party).
Because they weren't in favor of paying more into the EU. Now with CDU and SPD (center right and center left), they are both Germany's pro-EU parties.

Personally, I think Germany will be going to great length to always keep the integrity of the single market. Those eastern Europeans meddling in their Democracy and justice system is the greatest worry for Germany at the moment. Even more so than the Italy debt crisis because that is an issue that probably can be fixed with money.
A lot of people make it out that Germany cares about the refugee replacement. But that's not really that big of a deal. What Germany is worried about is that eastern European potentialy jeopardizing the single market. The refugee figure is peanuts you will see if those countries are willing to drop their efforts to undermine democracy and the justice system German won't press them on refugees.

Germany also has no interest to be the cultural leader of the EU.
Something France always wanted to do. It was sort of France vs. the UK. Germany is more interested in other countries adjustment to German-style fiscal responsibility.
If there is a chance to get that, Germany will be happy to have more a French cultural influence.

Just my prediction but in post-Brexit EU. The next 10-20 years will see financial reforms that are already implemented in Germany on an EU level.
That's mostly what Germany cares about. A stable single market. That's why any sort of Brexit deal that would weaken the single market in any way is a none starter for Germany.
They won't do it even if that means more financial responsibilities for Germany. The single market is much more important than any of that. For Germany at least.

 

[deise69]

Looks like the EU agree with you @snakedafunky

EU rebuffs UK vision for post-Brexit trade

While Mrs May’s flagship speech last week spoke of “facing up to some hard facts” of life after Brexit, few if any of her overtures and pleas for creative thinking have been heeded by the EU. Mr Tusk said he understood and respected the prime minister’s political objective to demonstrate at any price that Brexit could be a success and was the right choice, “but sorry, it is not our objective”. The EU was ready to engage in ambitious trade talks with the UK, Mr Tusk added, but there were firm limitations to what could be achieved in a free-trade deal. “We will do our best, as we did with other partners such as Canada recently, but anyway it will only be a trade agreement,” he said at the press conference in Luxembourg.
His comments — like the guidelines themselves — cut directly across proposals from Mrs May last week for a number of hybrid arrangements, such as respecting the role of the European Court of Justice in some areas, in order to boost market access. “No member state is free to pick only those sectors of the internal market they like, or to accept the role of the ECJ only when it suits their interest,” Mr Tusk said. Turning around one of Mrs May’s statements from last week, he said: “The EU cannot agree to grant the UK the rights of Norway with the obligations of Canada.”

https://www.ft.com/content/4d43e628-21f5-11e8-9a70-08f715791301

 

[snakedafunky]

Looks like the EU agree with you @snakedafunky

EU rebuffs UK vision for post-Brexit trade



https://www.ft.com/content/4d43e628-21f5-11e8-9a70-08f715791301

Yeah, and I am all in favor of good relations with the UK past Brexit.
But this whole argument that Germany will give the UK a beneficial deal because we export a lot of cars is BS. Sure the companies don't like to take a hit on sales in the UK.
But the single market is much more than just exporting stuff. Germany and many other countries rely on imported goods for their manufacturing industry within the single market and export the finished products all around the world.
Especially in the machinery business Germany, Austria, France, Netherland etc. rely on a single market so much that the idea they would jeopardize that to sell a few more Mercedes is laughable. Because that single market trade system has been set up for decades.
It just doesn't make any sense. And that is just trade it doesn't go into the importance of free movement of people.

 

[deise69]

Yeah, and I am all in favor of good relations with the UK past Brexit.
But this whole argument that Germany will give the UK a beneficial deal because we export a lot of cars is BS. Sure the companies don't like to take a hit on sales in the UK.
But the single market is much more than just exporting stuff. Germany and many other countries rely on imported goods for their manufacturing industry within the single market and export the finished products all around the world.
Especially in the machinery business Germany, Austria, France, Netherland etc. rely on a single market so much that the idea they would jeopardize that to sell a few more Mercedes is laughable. Because that single market trade system has been set up for decades.
It just doesn't make any sense. And that is just trade it doesn't go into the importance of free movement of people.

The same goes with Ireland, except we have the added hassle of a border on the island. We expect the UK to hold up to the agreement signed in Dec. or we will veto any deal.
If is not in the SM or CU (which it said its leaving ) that rules out option 1.
If it cannot produce a frictionless border ( it has tried and failed to implement it's proposed "e-border system" since 2003) that rules out option 2.
Then the default is option 3, full regulatory alignment.

 

[deise69]

EU freezes Brexit talks until Britain produces Irish border solution.

Speaking in Dublin alongside the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar, European Council president Donald Tusk said talks would be a case of “Ireland first” and that “the risk of destabilising the fragile peace process must be avoided at all costs”.

“We know today that the UK government rejects a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea, the EU single market, and the customs union,” the Council president said.


EU rejects Theresa May's Brexit trade plan
“While we must respect this position, we also expect the UK to propose a specific and realistic solution to avoid a hard border.

“As long as the UK doesn’t present such a solution, it is very difficult to imagine substantive progress in Brexit negotiations.

“If in London someone assume that the negotiations will deal with other issues first before than the Irish issue, my response would be: Ireland first.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...orthern-ireland-uk-solution-dup-a8246216.html

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

There are already signs that Germany is willing to pay more into the EU budget.

Other countries will chip in too, with conditions of course.

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Supereem]

EU freezes Brexit talks until Britain produces Irish border solution.



http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...orthern-ireland-uk-solution-dup-a8246216.html

The Troubles Episode III: The IRA strikes back.

I’ve been saying that this will be the most crucial issue because if salmost impossible to solve and not solving it could trigger a new troubles. Imagine if London falls victim to both Irish and Islamic terrorism?

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[Arkain2K]

 

[snakedafunky]

Why is she holding another Brexit speech? Does she have that much internal pressure?
She just says the same things just fraises them slightly different. But she could have made the same points the day after the referendum there is nothing new.
Might be better at this point to keep any political speeches to a minimum and have people in the background negotiate workable policies.

 

[Wrath of Foamy]

Isn’t it possible that the spy death and the talk of “Cold War” is an attempt to intimidate the British public to vote Remain when a second referendum is held?

Or maybe it is used as an excuse to override the referendum entirely?

 

[Arkain2K]

Isn’t it possible that the spy death and the talk of “Cold War” is an attempt to intimidate the British public to vote Remain when a second referendum is held?

Or maybe it is used as an excuse to override the referendum entirely?

You've lost me at "second referendum".