Open Europe : Cut through the chatter

[Politics.be]

Lord Wolfson: Post-Brexit prosperity “would depend on what Britain chooses to do in the wake of departure”Open Europe yesterday hosted an event marking the launch of its new report, ‘What if…? The consequences, challenges and opportunities facing Britain outside the EU.’ Speaking at the event, Lord Wolfson of Aspley Guise – CEO of Next and member of Open Europe’s Advisory Board – said that the UK’s economic success outside of the EU would mostly “depend on what Britain chooses to do in the wake of departure.” He argued that “the opportunity of leaving [the EU] shouldn’t be underestimated”, especially since the UK would have more freedom to “embrace free trade with the rest of the world” and get rid of unnecessary regulation.However, Lord Wolfson noted that “some of the rhetoric [in the UK’s debate over Brexit] is about building protectionist barriers”, particularly when it comes to migration. He warned that “the worst economic predictions would come true” if the UK took a protectionist approach after leaving the EU. He concluded that “Britain doesn’t have to choose between two extremes”, since “a huge but very quiet majority” of British voters wants to stay in a deeply reformed EU.Open Europe Director Mats Persson said, “There’s life after Brexit, but it makes sense to test the limits of EU reform before pulling the trigger.” In his introductory remarks, Open Europe Chairman Lord Leach of Fairford noted that “two scenarios in the report show gains and two scenarios show losses” for the UK outside the EU, meaning that the decisive factor “is not Brexit itself, but what the UK does and how it responds to it.”Source: Open Europe Intelligence

Greece continues search for cash as it struggles to fund itself day to day
Greece continues to search for cash to help fund the government in the short term. Kathimerini reports that the Greek government will ask the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to return €1.2bn which it repaid to the fund as part of the bailout extension agreement. Greece claims the money should not have been sent to the EFSF since it constituted part of the original cash injection into the Greek bank bailout fund (HFSF), rather than the funds injected by the EFSF as part of the Greek bailout. The EFSF has said it will examine the issue, although officials admitted the issue is not legally clear cut. The Financial Times reports that the Greek government has asked the country’s state healthcare service to transfer the €50m reserve they hold for paying medical workers.

Handelsblatt reports that, from today until Saturday, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias and Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis are holding negotiations in Beijing over investments and possible loans from China. Reuters reports that, according to unnamed officials, Greece can fund itself until 20 April. However, Kathimerini reports that the Greek state could be in the red as early as next Monday. Eurogroup Chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in an interview with RTL Nieuws television, “That they’re all but broke, we knew already.”

Meanwhile, the ECB yesterday made its limit on the amount of short-term Greek government debt (T-bills) that Greek banks can hold legally binding. The limit means Greek banks can rollover their holdings but not increase them to help fund the government in the short term.

Source: Kathimerini Kathimerini 2 The Financial Times The Wall Street Journal Reuters The Times Handelsblatt
Alex Salmond says SNP would block a minority Conservative government
Former Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond has told the New Statesman that the SNP would act to bring down a minority Conservative government by voting against a Queen’s Speech, adding, “If Labour joins us in that pledge, then that’s Cameron locked out. And then under the Parliaments Act that the Westminster Parliament has passed but nobody seems to have read, you would then have a two-week period to form another government.” If a new Government were not formed, a snap general election would have to be called.

Source: The New Statesman
Marine Le Pen reiterates pledge for referendum on French EU exit
Front National leader Marine Le Pen said during an interview on Greek TV channel Mega, “My idea is to tell the French people that, if they elect me , six months later there will be a referendum” on France’s EU membership. “The EU is death, the death of our economy, our social welfare system and our identity”, she added.

Source: EUObserver EurActiv
German courts refuse to extradite prisoners to Bulgaria due to inhumane conditions
EurActiv reports that German courts have declined to hand over inmates to Bulgaria, refusing to transfer three convicted Bulgarians to serve out their sentences in the country’s second-largest city Varna – citing the inhumane prison conditions there. Rosen Zhelyazkov, Bulgaria’s head of Execution of Sentences, said, “We have several such cases where courts have refused to extradite Bulgarian nationals to serve out their sentences in prisons in Bulgaria.”

Source: EurActiv
House of Commons committee attacks BBC for biased EU coverage
The Daily Mail reports that MPs on the House of Commons’ European Scrutiny Committee have said that they “remain deeply concerned about the manner” in which the BBC covers the subject of the EU. The Committee said the Corporation does not give enough airtime to those who believe Britain should leave the EU or that there should be a referendum on membership.

Source: The Daily Mail The Daily Telegraph
Two former treasurers of Spain’s ruling party will stand trial over slush fund scandal
A court probe has found that Spain’s ruling Partido Popular ran an illegal slush fund between 1990 and 2008. As a result, Spanish investigating judge Pablo Ruz has ordered that the party’s two former treasurers Álvaro Lapuerta and Luis Bárcenas stand trial.

Source: El Pa�*s
Zapatero: Berlusconi came under “very strong pressure” to accept IMF bailout in 2011
Former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodr�*guez Zapatero told Italian daily La Stampa that, at the G20 summit in Cannes in November 2011, the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti “came under very strong pressure to accept an IMF bailout. They didn’t give in…and people started talking about Monti in the corridors. I found that strange.”

Source: La Stampa
Private sector activity picks up in the Eurozone
The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) released yesterday showed that private sector activity in the Eurozone rose at it fastest pace since spring 2011 in March. The expansion was led by Germany. France’s activity continued to expand, but at a slower rate than in February.

Source: The Financial Times
Greece to present full reform list by Monday in bid to unlock bailout cash
Greece will present a full package of proposed reforms to its Eurozone partners “by Monday at the latest,” a Greek government spokesman told Mega TV. The move is aimed at speeding up the disbursement of the remaining EU/IMF bailout money. Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared to strike a more conciliatory tone during their joint press conference in Berlin yesterday – although the German Chancellor stressed that she is “only one of 19 Eurozone leaders” and cannot single-handedly decide on how to deal with Greece’s liquidity problems. “Reforms have to be discussed with the institutions, not with Germany”, she added. Separately, officials from the Greek government and the EU/IMF/ECB Troika have resumed their technical discussions in Athens.

Open Europe’s Nina Schick appeared on Sky News Ian King Live show discussing the Tsipras-Merkel meeting, and is also quoted by City AM as saying, “Despite the conciliatory tone struck by Merkel, the German position on Greece has not changed.” Open Europe’s Vincenzo Scarpetta appeared on CNN International and Share Radio yesterday discussing the latest developments in Greece and the Tsipras-Merkel meeting. The Times reproduced Open Europe’s breakdown of who owns Greek debt.

Source: The Times City AM Deutschlandfunk Bild Handelsblatt Kathimerini Kathimerini 2 Reuters La Repubblica

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Bundesbank proposes new European fiscal authority to replace European Commission
Germany’s Bundesbank proposed in its monthly report yesterday to create “a new European fiscal authority which, in the style of independent national fiscal councils, is bound by a clear mandate to only assess budget developments with a view to complying with fiscal rules.” This new fiscal authority would replace the role of the European Commission as it would run less risk to “agree to inappropriate compromises at the expense of budget discipline.”

Source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
New poll: 27% of UMP voters would vote Front National in second round of French local elections
According to an Odoxa poll for Le Parisien, 27% of voters of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party would vote for Front National candidates in the second round of the French local elections on Sunday – in those constituencies where the UMP has not made it to the final run-off. 27% of respondents said they would vote for Socialist or other left-wing candidates, while 46% would abstain. Sarkozy has said he will not give UMP voters any official instruction. Open Europe’s Pieter Cleppe told Deutsche Welle, “The UMP should respond to the enduring success of the Front National by demanding powers back from the EU, in order to maintain support for the core aspects of EU cooperation in France.”

Source: RTL
UKIP: Cutting low skilled migration “a large and unarguable net economic positive”
UKIP’s economic spokesman Patrick O’Flynn MEP has set out the party’s plan for a five-year ban on unskilled migrants and a points system for selecting skilled migrants saying, “With a points system, migration could be turned into a large and unarguable net economic positive.” Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph reports that Suzanne Evans, UKIP’s deputy chairman in charge of policy has said she would campaign to keep the UK in a reformed EU. Separately, UKIP MEP Janice Atkinson has been expelled from the party over allegations of claims for inflated expenses.

Source: The Daily Express The Daily Telegraph The Independent
Putin offers Argentina warplanes in exchange for beef in bid to beat EU sanctions
The Sun reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to be working on a deal to lease 12 long-range bombers to Argentina in exchange for beef and wheat to get around EU sanctions over Ukraine.

Source: The Sun
A free trading Britain could prosper outside the EU

Open Europe’s ‘What if….?’ report on the consequences, challenges and opportunities facing the UK in the event of Brexit is widely cited in the European and international media. Les Echos writes that “liberal think tank Open Europe’s” worst-case projection will happen only if Britain adopts “a series of protectionist measures after exiting the EU.” Le Monde notes that in Open Europe’s best possible Brexit scenario, “in addition to a free trade agreement with Europe, would thoroughly deregulate its economy and almost-totally open for trade with the rest of the world.” Norway’s 24 paper writes that, “With liberalisation and free trade Britain can gain 1.6% of GDP” after leaving.

In City AM, Ryan Bourne, the head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs, writes that Open Europe’s report illustrates that under realistic assumptions about policies Britain would adopt outside the EU, the economic impact of leaving – either way – is likely to be very small…Second is the recognition that the best way for Britain to insulate itself from any potential negative effects of withdrawal is to adopt a liberal, open approach to trade, migration and regulation more broadly. The research is also featured by La Tribune, BFM TV, Il Sole 24 Ore, Die Presse, Het Financieele Dagblad, Manager Magazin, The Irish Independent, Forbes, Bloomberg and Wiener Zeitung amongst others.

The launch event for the report will take place in Westminster this evening, with opening remarks by Lord Wolfson of Apsley Guise, the CEO of Next Plc and Open Europe Advisory Council Member

Bron: politics.be