Новости за 19.07.2016

MEPs critised the harsh crackdown in Turkey after last week's failed coup, and warned that Ankara must not go down the road towardes an authoritarien regime, in an extraordinary meeting of the EP's foreign affairs committee.

Enlargement commissioner Hahn told Ukraine's new PM, Groysman, in Brussels Tuesday he expected Ukrainian nationals to be granted visa-free access to most EU countries from October. He noted that a recent €100mn EU grant, part of €7bn of grants and loans since 2014, could be used to "top up" civil servants' salaries to prevent corruption. EU Commission chief Juncker said EU sanctions on Russia should stay in place for now.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in Paris Tuesday said US hedge funds can get a “passport” to operate across the EU because there is no risk of “market disruption”. The ESMA verdict bodes well for the City of London, which is likely to undergo the same vetting process after the UK leaves, Leonard Ng, a partner at law firm Sidley Austin in London, told the Reuters news agency.

London police chief Craig Mackey said Tuesday that the Brexit vote had “unleashed something in people where they felt able to do things that, let’s be really clear, are illegal”, in terms of verbal and physical hate crimes against people seen as foreigners. He said Scotland Yard normally dealt with 25 to 50 hate-linked offences per day prior to the referendum, compared to 57 to 78 afterward.

The Brexit vote would likely see the British economy slip into recession next year, with a potential GDP contraction of up to 0.3%, the European Commission said Tuesday. It said eurozone overall would grow by up to 1.5%, instead of 1.9% as predicted prior to the British referendum. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday said UK growth next year would be 1.3%, 0.9% less than its pre-Brexit forecast.

The European Commission will on Wednesday reject an appeal by 11 national parliaments to reconsider need curbs on posted workers, the Polish press agency, PAP, has said citing unnamed EU sources. The national MPs’ so-called yellow card was designed to stop the EU from forcing firms in eastern Europe to pay workers sent to richer countries in the west the same wages as were normal in the destination states.

The EU Court of Justice said in a binding “communication” Tuesday the European Commission is entitled to ask banks to seek haircuts from private creditors prior to getting state aid. “Burden-sharing measures can be understood as being designed to prevent recourse to state aid merely as a tool to overcome … financial difficulties”, it said. The commission is in dispute with Italy on how to rescue its debt-stricken lenders.

New York attorney general says his investigation showed "a culture of deeply rooted corporate arrogance" in the Volkswagen Group.

New York attorney general says his investigation showed "a culture of deeply rooted corporate arrogance" in the Volkswagen Group.

The Irish High Court said the US could prsent its case in the probe brought by activist Max Schrems.

Many Czechs fear a wave of Islamic migration, but in reality very few Muslims have sought asylum there, and very few locals have even met a Muslim.

The EU antitrust regulator punished European truck making companies for fixing prices and colluding on emission technologies.

The EU Commission has launched a third case against China's restrictions on exports of raw materials including cobalt, copper, lead, chromium, magnesia, talcum, tantalum, tin, antimony and indium. The EU's executive took legal action in 2012 and 2014 over similar issues. "The past two WTO rulings on Chinese export restrictions have been crystal clear, these measures are against international trade rules," EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said.

Enda Kenny suggests the Northern Irish could demand a referendum on reunification with the Republic, following their vote to remain in the EU.

The decision to open two more “chapters” in Serbia accession talks shows that EU enlargement policy is alive and well despite Brexit, the EU has said.

EU commission vice-president Kristalina Georgieva talks to EUobserver about her decision not to renew an anti-smuggling agreement with Philip Morris International.

The European Commission is expected to announce on Tuesday a €3 million fine to several lorry makers for price-fixing and other cartel-like practices, according to different media. Daimler and MAN from Germany, Sweden's Scania, Netherlands' DAF, Italy's Iveco and Sweden's Volvo, which own French company Renault, could be fined. The commission opened an antitrust probe in the sector in 2014.

The EU will not liberalise Turkey's visa regime this year, commissioner Guenther Oettinger has said. "I predict that we won't have regulation on visa-free travel before the end of the year," he said in an interview to German newspapers. On Monday, the EU warned Turkey that relations would be affected if the rule of law was not respected in the wake of last week's failed coup.

British MPs approved the renewal of the Trident nuclear programme by 472 votes to 117 on Monday. Four nuclear submarines will be replaced for an estimated £31 billion (€37 billion) in the next 35 years. Some Labour MPs voted no, as well as Scottish National Party MPs, because the ships are based in Scotland. PM Theresa May cited threats from Russia and North Korea to justify the programme.

Among the 84 people killed by a lorry that ran into a crowd in Nice on 14 July were 30 Muslims, the head of the city's mosque said on Monday. The attack was claimed by Islamic State, a militant group based in Syria and Iraq. Victims came from 27 countries, French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in Brussels also on Monday.

A 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker injured 18 people, including three critically, in an axe and knife attack on a regional train in Bavaria, Germany on Monday evening. The teenager was killed by police. The authorities have not yet established whether the attack was linked to Islamic terrorism.