Open Europe : Daily Press Summary

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Downing Street studying various legal means of securing EU reform in 2017;New Fresh Start and Open Europe report: Strategies for fundamental EU reformThe FT reports that, if re-elected, David Cameron is hoping to finalise his EU negotiations in the ‘sweet spot’ of summer 2017, between the French and German elections. The paper reports that Downing Street accepts that at least some of the negotiation may have to be secured in a ‘UK-only’ agreement or protocol, possibly signed at a summit in June 2017, to be added to the EU treaties at a later date. The model reportedly being studied in the Foreign Office is the Edinburgh agreement of 1992, which offered Denmark a series of ‘opt-outs’ from the Maastricht treaty that had been rejected in a referendum a few months earlier. An EU official is quoted as saying, “When there is will and grip from the top – and here I mean Germany – [treaty change] can be done pretty swiftly and driven through with force.”The paper cites a report by the Fresh Start Group of Conservative MPs and Open Europe, published today, which sets out various options for securing reform via treaty change but also other means. The report finds that while a limited number of reforms can only be achieved via treaty change, others, including rewriting the EU rules on migrants’ access to welfare, increasing national parliaments’ say over decision making, and boosting EU trade, could be achieved through other means.FT FT 2 Fresh Start and Open Europe: strategies for reform

Volkskrant: Timmermans has blocked 62 of 64 EU energy proposals for 2015
De Volkskrant reports that European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans, who is responsible for Better Regulation, has blocked 62 of 64 proposals for 2015 of EU Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete. The newspaper nicknames Timmermans ‘Dr No’, noting that he was successful in removing 80 proposals from the total of 415 for next year alone. However, the paper notes that two-thirds of the proposals scrapped were redundant because the problem had already been addressed, while 25 more proposals were removed because the Commission thinks no agreement is likely between member states.
Volkskrant

Miliband to say Labour will introduce new law to stop firms undercutting local pay with migrants
The BBC reports that Labour leader Ed Miliband will today give a speech on immigration in which he is expected to put forward plans for a new law which would help stop firms exploiting legal loopholes to employ foreign workers on lower wages than their British counterparts. Meanwhile, the Sun reports that an opinion survey by OnePoll, which will be released tonight in an ITV programme on Europe, shows that six in ten adults want David Cameron to cap migration from the EU.

Separately, on Friday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned David Cameron not to discriminate against EU citizens in his bid to restrict access to in-work benefits. However, he added, “We did not shoot down these ideas right away because I believe that we have to talk about them.”
Open Europe research Saturday’s Guardian Telegraph Telegraph 2 Sun

European Commission under scrutiny over EU aid to ‘ghost civil servants’ in Ghana
The Sunday Times reported that millions of pounds in EU and UK aid have been paid to “ghost workers” in Ghana. Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of fictitious state employees were kept on Ghana’s public payroll, which is partly financed by the EU and Britain. Ingeborg Grässle, a German MEP, criticised the European Commission for failing to inform the European Parliament of the affair. Open Europe’s Pawel Swidlicki was quoted as saying the case demonstrated that “pursuing development policies via direct budget contributions is a risky strategy – even in a comparatively well-governed state like Ghana.”
Sunday Times

Polls show narrowing of gap between New Democracy and SYRIZA as Greek election looms
A new opinion poll by Kapa Research published in To Vima yesterday put SYRIZA on 25.5% and the governing New Democracy on 22.7%, a narrower gap compared to last month. The poll also found that 58% of Greeks want the parliament to elect a new President in order to avoid snap elections being held. Two separate polls also showed similar results. The two parties traded barbs over the weekend, with Greek Prime Minister and New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras saying that the recent market concern around Greece is justified and is down to SYRIZA’s policies. SYRIZA responded by saying Samaras is “begging” for the markets to punish Greece.

Die Welt’s Brussels correspondent Florian Eder argues that “Greece is delivering what Italy and France are failing to do – the repair of their budgets. If do not lose their nerve in the final straight, they could save Europe.”
WSJ Kathimerini Sunday Times Sunday Times 2 Kathimerini 2 Kathimerini 3 Bloomberg Welt: Eder

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström writes in Le Figaro, “French exports currently give employment to some 2.6 million French. More specifically, 390,000 jobs depend on French exports to the US. In the future, it will be even more – since TTIP would lead to a 10% increase in France’s total exports.”
No link

Reduction in fighting raises hopes for peace agreement in Ukraine
The IMF has announced that it will send officials back to Ukraine in early 2015, although it has not confirmed whether this means that the next tranche of bailout funds, desperately needed by Ukraine, will not be paid out until then. Meanwhile, Ukraine confirmed on Friday that no Ukrainian soldiers had been killed or wounded overnight – the first time in seven months since the conflict began. Separately, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has warned Russia that it risks bringing down a passenger plane by accident by ordering its military aircraft to secretly fly into UK airspace.
WSJ WSJ 2 Mail

Bild reports that EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc has written to German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt warning that his plans to give German motorists a rebate on the planned new road levy amounts to “indirect discrimination” against other EU nationals and is therefore unlikely to be compatible with EU law.
Bild

According to a poll by the Europeans United for Democracy (EUD) group, 49% of Lithuanians disagree with their government’s decision to adopt the euro – compared to only 26% who agree with it. Lithuania is set to join the single currency on 1 January 2015.
EUobserver EUD press release

Reuters reports that ECB President Mario Draghi will at this week’s European Council summit put pressure on EU leaders to agree to wide-ranging economic reforms and warn that, if they don’t, any monetary policy push he unveils could be blunted. Separately, almost 90% of economists in a Bloomberg survey said they believe the ECB will buy sovereign bonds next year.
FT Reuters Bloomberg

Speaking of the European Commission’s flagship €315bn investment programme, Commission Vice-President Jyrki Katainen told the FT, “This plan will not change everything. But it will make a permanent positive change if we manage to implement everything efficiently.”
FT

EurActiv reports that the EU has given Poland more than €100m to build at least three airports in places where there are not enough passengers to keep those airports in business.
EurActiv

Research by the think tank Reform has found that the UK Government has scrapped £1.2bn worth of regulation since 2010, while adding an extra £4.3bn. However, the analysis concludes that, if EU regulations had been counted from 2010, the total burden on business would be much higher. The study also argues that the Government’s claim to have reduced the cost to business by £1.5bn ignores the cost of EU regulation and regulations linked to financial systemic risk.
Telegraph

The FT reports that the UN’s Lima climate change summit has managed to approve guidelines for how countries will set out their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the lead-up to the Paris agreement.
FT

Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told Le Monde, “Nowadays, it is more difficult to agree on how to use our tools in a coherent way and how to find new ones to get out of the crisis. The risk of witnessing the birth of a ‘lost generation’ is real.”
Le Monde: Padoan

A group of investors, mostly hedge funds, which lost money on the restructuring plan of Portuguese lender Banco Esp�*rito Santo have launched a legal challenge against the European Commission’s decision to approve the plan – suggesting that it goes against state aid rules and that the assumption that private capital could not have been raised to help the bank is incorrect.
FT

On Friday, Fitch downgraded France’s sovereign credit rating by one notch to AA – citing concerns over the country’s ability to stick to the deficit reduction targets agreed with the European Commission.
France 24 Le Figaro
Moscovici provokes ire of Greek opposition parties by warning default would be “suicidal”
Speaking during his visit to Athens yesterday, European Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said that, “The eurozone is about obligations, mutual obligations…The idea of contemplating not reimbursing debt is, in my view, suicidal.” He added that he is aware Greece “cannot go with the troika as it is”, promising, “a more balanced approach”. However, his intervention provoked the ire of opposition SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras who said Moscovici was trying to “scare MPs in order to get over the hurdle of the presidential election”, but warned such tactics would not work. Separately, Greek Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis said that Greece is aiming to conclude the extended EU/IMF/ECB Troika review by 26 January 2015, though there are still 15 outstanding points of discussion.
FT Kathimerini Kathimerini 2 Kathimerini 3 Euractiv

Commission work programme promises action on EU migrants’ access to welfare
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will promise to tackle abuse of welfare payments and ensure “better coordination” of social security systems across EU states, according to a leaked draft copy of its work programme. Open Europe’s Stephen Booth is quoted in the Times as saying that David Cameron would be pleased at the plans to address rules around migrants’ access to welfare but disappointed at the absence of details on how to give national parliaments more control over EU decision making. The document also lists 80 proposals that the Commission intends to abolish which Stephen said “signals a positive change in attitude in Brussels.”
Times

The Russian Central Bank last night hiked interest rates to 17% following a 10% decline in the Rouble, after it forecast that, if the oil price remains at $60 per barrel, the Russian economy would contract by between 4.5% and 4.7% in 2015, and that capital outflows would reach $134bn this year.
FT FT 2 City AM WSJ Bloomberg BBC Telegraph

Writing on Conservative Home, Fresh Start project Co-Chairman, Chris Heaton-Harris MP argues that, while the most desirable way to achieve fundamental EU reform is to change the EU Treaties, “there are a number of effective ways to achieve our goals without full treaty revision.” The Fresh Start project yesterday published a joint report with Open Europe which outlines a number of ways to achieve significant reforms, both through Treaty change and other means.
Conservative Home: Heaton-Harris MP Fresh Start and Open Europe: strategies for reform

Economic data released this morning showed that in December, the German private sector has been at its weakest for 18 months, though it continued to expand. The French private sector continued to contract, with the manufacturing sector in particular falling short of expectations and hitting a four month low.
Bloomberg Markit France PMI Markit Eurozone PMI

European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager yesterday argued that “all of a sudden in most European countries we have a debate about corporate taxation fertile ground for new proposals to change how corporate taxation works in the EU. This is truly new and I think it’s good news.”
WSJ

UKIP has secured £1.5m of EU funds by creating a new pan-European party, the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), according to BBC Newsnight. The European Parliament could announce its approval of UKIP's application later this week and that the money will be available from April next year.
BBC City AM

Jyllands-Posten reports that, according to a new poll, Danes are split on whether to retain their EU justice and home affairs opt-outs, with 36.2% of Danes wanting to retain them, 30.9% who want to abolish them, and 32.9% who don’t know. The Danish government has announced it intends to hold a referendum on the issue in early 2016.
Fyens Europeans United for Democracy NyAgenda Poll Results Jyllands-Posten

In his speech on immigration yesterday, Labour leader Ed Miliband said his party would introduce a new law to stop the exploitation of migrants which leads to wages and conditions being undercut. He also pledged to limit in-work benefits paid to EU migrants to tackle undercutting by employers who rely on low skilled migrant labour, as proposed by Open Europe.
Times Times: Leader Miliband speech Open Europe briefing

Leader of the Commons William Hague will today publish proposals aimed at delivering ‘English votes for English laws’, Government sources have said. Three options will be proposed, including a full-scale ban on Scottish MPs voting on any stage of English-only legislation, but Labour has indicated that it would only support a committee of English MPs able to consider early stages of legislation but not to have the final say.
Mail

Spain’s anti-establishment party Podemos said yesterday that it would ask its voters for approval before entering any alliance with other parties after next year’s general election, El Pa�*s reports. Separately, the Spanish government yesterday introduced a new €426 monthly benefit for long-term unemployed people, which can be paid out for a maximum of six months.
El Pa�*s El Mundo FT

Belgium was brought to a standstill by the general strike that took place yesterday in protest against the government’s plans to make €11bn budget cuts over the next five years and to increase retirement age from 65 to 67 years.
RTBF

The Czech Finance Ministry and Central Bank said in a joint statement yesterday that the country needs to “increase the stability of its public finances…and the flexibility of its labour market” before setting itself a deadline for euro entry.
AFP

EU leaders criticised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after a series of arrests of journalists with links to the opposition, describing the move as incompatible with “European values.” In response, Erdogan argued that “the EU should mind its own business and keep its own opinions to itself.”
BBC Welt EUobserver FT

About 15,000 people in the German city of Dresden have taken part in a march against the “Islamisation of the West”, the BBC reports.
BBC EUobserver

German Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt hit back at European Transport Commissioner Violetta Bulc after she claimed Berlin’s proposed road levy would discriminate against other EU nationals, arguing that the Commission’s response contained a number of “mistakes” and did not take into account “the latest developments of our legislative plans.”
FT FAZ Zeit

EU foreign ministers yesterday agreed to implement a German-British plan to revive Bosnia and Herzegovina's bid to join the bloc, which rests on a new government being formed which is committed to political and economic reforms.
EurActiv

A new CBOS opinion poll published yesterday shows that support for adopting the euro in Poland has fallen to an all-time low with 41% of Poles decidedly opposed, 27% somewhat opposed, 15% somewhat in favour and 9% decidedly opposed.
Open Europe blog CBOS poll







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