Новости за 05.07.2016

The EU commission proposes to start financing militaries to help "partner countries in their development" as part of a larger policiy to stop migration to Europe.

The LuxLeaks affair helped EU interests, but its heroes have been branded thieves and it has exposed the fact that Europe needs a real pro-whistleblower laws, a Dutch MEP says.

The college of commissioners had a "first discussion" on whether to start a deficit procedure against Madrid and Lisbon. It said it will take a decision "very soon".

The European Central Bank on Tuesday presented the new €50 banknote. As with revamped €5, €10 and €20 notes introduced in recent years, the new note will feature a holographic portrait of Europa and an “emerald number” that changes colour depending on the viewing angle in order to make counterfeit more difficult. The new banknote will be available by 4 April 2017.

The second round of the Austrian presidential election, between Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen and far-right Norbert Hofer, will be re-held on 2 October, chancellor Christian Kern announced on Tuesday. The vote was annulled on 1 July by the Consitutional court for procedural errrors after an appeal by Hofer. Hofer had lost to Van der Bellen by 31,000 votes on 22 May.

The European Commission believes the EU-Canada trade agreement (Ceta) is a pure EU competence but will still ask national parliaments to seal the deal as a so-called mixed agreement. Trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said she hoped for a quick ratification and called upon national governments to defend the proposal before their parliaments. She also announced that the Council approved of Ceta being provisionally applied pending the ratification process.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker Tuesday rebuffed calls by some politicians for him to step down over Brexit. "I refuse to let the commission be blamed for the outcome of the referendum", he told MEPs in Strasbourg. Council chief Donald Tusk urged national leaders to stop "often unfair" attacks on EU institutions. He added, however, that the EU cannot solve any serious problems "against the will of the member states".

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker told MEPs Tuesday he is open to discussion on whether EU member states' national parliaments should have a say in ratifying a Canada free trade pact. "I am not so set in my ways as to refuse that", he said. He noted that all EU delegations had in the Council assured him that the EU had never before reached "such a good agreement".

One year ago Greek voters rejected austerity in a referendum, but got it anyway. For one Greek scholar, that bailout has created a window of opportunity for recovery.

The Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday said some 383 people had died in their attempt to cross the Mediterranean to seek a better life in the EU. "The 383 deaths in June - slightly fewer than 13 per day - were the highest monthly total for June in three years," it said. Altogether some 2,920 people have died so far this year.

Dutch PM Rutte told MEPs Tuesday that "to rush blindly into more political integration and a more federal Europe would be a denial of the sentiment felt by many people in Europe" that EU states should retain control of European affairs. French far right leader Le Pen said the EU would "die" if it went down that path. Belgian federalist MEP Verhofstadt said it would die if it did not.

Members of the Greens and Liberals are over-represented during hearings that try to find out what the EU and member states could have done more to prevent the Volkswagen scandal.

MEPs traded barbed words in a debate on Brexit in Strasbourg Tuesday. Belgian liberal Verhofstadt said Brexit leaders in UK who had resigned after the vote were "rats leaving a sinking ship". British Tory Kamall said Brexit critics "jabbered" like "parrots". Green MEP Harms said she "despised" far-right eurosceptics. German deputy Weber called Brexiters "irresponsible". British eurosceptic MEP Nutall decried EU "bullying" and called for a "grown up" Brexit debate.

Hungary will hold a referendum on whether to receive migrants from other countries on 2 October, president Janos Ader announced Tuesday. The question put to voters is: "Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?". The referendum was first announced by prime minister Viktor Orban in February after he opposed relocation of asylum seekers.

MEPs in the civil liberties committee backed a new counter-terrorism bill and will now start negotiations with the Council, representing member states, and EU commission. The bill makes it a crime to "travel abroad for terrorist purposes". Training, inciting or financing terrorist activities are also crimes. Critics say the proposal failed to define terrorism and support for its victims. They also note travel should not have been made a crime.

Top EU officials and the Dutch PM in an EP debate Tuesday held up the EU-Turkey migrant deal as a model of successful EU action in the face of Brexit. Rutte said this time last year 90 people/month were dying trying to get from Turkey to Greece, compared to fewer than 10/month now. Council chief Tusk said 7,000 people/day were making irregular crossings compared to 50/day after the Turkey accord.

Top EU officials and leaders of big political groups in the EU parliament have said the UK cannot get access to the single market unless it accepts EU migrants in a debate in Strasbourg Tuesday. "We will not sell off our four freedoms and create a single market a la carte," Council chief Tusk told MEPs. EU commission chief Juncker also ruled out renegotiating the EU treaties.

Following criticism of his leadership, Juncker could yield to member states on how to ratify a free trade agreement with Canada.

Brexit is part of EU "ups and downs", Moldova's foreign minister writes. "The benefits of being part of the EU family remain very clear to us".

Serbian leader Vucic said at Paris summit that Brexit "earthquake" would have far-reaching effects. But EU, France and Germany said enlargement "in no way" affected.

More Danes back EU membership following the Brexit vote, according to Voxmeter polls published by Danish news agency Ritzau. Before the Brexit vote on 23 June, 59.8% had backed EU membership, but the figure now stands at 69%, amid a political mess in the UK. Forty percent of Danes had also wanted a referendum on EU membership, but that figure fell to 32 percent.

Austrian finance minister Hans Joerg Schelling said he expected Britain to remain an EU member despite the June 23 referendum in which Britons voted to quit the bloc. Schelling also told German newspaper Handelsblatt that the EU should respond to the referendum result by focusing on key issues such as the single market, climate change and security while leaving politically more sensitive matters to member states.

The British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, has set a goal of lowering the country's corporate tax rate to 15 percent in an effort to keep businesses investing in the UK as it prepares to leave the EU, he said in an interview with the Financial Times. Britain currently has a 20 percent tax rate. The new rate would see Britain close in on Ireland's 12.5 percent levy.

EU commissioner Guenther Oettinger will on Tuesday in Strasbourg sign a partnership deal with ECSO, representing the cybersecurity industry, and pledge to invest €450 million in the sector from the EU's research programme, Horizon 2020. The commission said in a press release it wants to ease access to finance for smaller businesses in the field. The new public-private partnership is expected to garner €1.8 billion of investment by 2020.

Greece has the second highest spending ratio in Nato on defence, after the US, according to figures published Monday by the military alliance. The debt-stricken country is one of just five countries whose annual spending on defence exceeds 2 percent of GDP. The US spends 3.61 percent of its GDP on the military, followed by Greece with 2.38, the UK with 2.21, Estonia with 2.16 and Poland with 2 percent.