European Union

With Europe experiencing the largest influx of migrants since World War II, one of the major challenges is how to integrate them into the labour markets. Not only would a job help migrants to provide for themselves, but also to integrate more easily. Parliament's employment committee discussed the opportunities and challenges with experts on Thursday 18 February. Read on to find out what they and MEPs had to say.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

With Europe experiencing the largest influx of migrants since World War II, one of the major challenges is how to integrate them into the labour markets. Not only would a job help migrants to provide for themselves, but also to integrate more easily. Parliament's employment committee discussed the opportunities and challenges with experts on Thursday 18 February. Read on to find out what they and MEPs had to say.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

It’s rare for any government minister to ever admit that a task is beyond them. So it was notable in the European Parliament today when Jeroen Dijsselbloem acknowledged that he’s often at a loss explaining the EU’s budget rules.

Dijsselbloem – who is currently politically triple-hatted as the Dutch finance minister, president of the eurogroup of 17 eurozone finance ministers, and chair of the EU’s council of 28 finance ministers – was explaining to MEPs why he is behind a drive to streamline the eurozone’s budget rules when he admitted he didn’t always know how to explain them himself.

“Why is simplifying our rules important? Because people don’t understand any more what we are doing,” he said. “At least I have a lot of problems explaining to people how our budgetary rules, our fiscal rules work.”

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We, the leaders of the European Union, strongly condemn yesterday's terrorist attack in Ankara.

We extend our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and express our solidarity with the people of Turkey.

Acts of terrorism, by whomever and wherever they take place, are always unacceptable. The European Union and its Member States will step up all efforts to counter this scourge, in cooperation with partners.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem will strive to strengthen the EU Banking Union, despite recent calls to loosen regulation in response to bank share volatility in in global markets, he told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Thursday. "There should be no doubt of the European Union's determination to apply these rules", he said in his capacity as Eurogroup President and chair of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN).
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem will strive to strengthen the EU Banking Union, despite recent calls to loosen regulation in response to bank share volatility in in global markets, he told the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Thursday. "There should be no doubt of the European Union's determination to apply these rules", he said in his capacity as Eurogroup President and chair of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN).
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

http://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/6310cf44-d6ec-11e5-a8fd-bc764e08d9b2_46.66_thumb_169_1455874806_1455874810_129_97shar_c1.jpg

Discussions at the European Council on 18 and 19 February are dominated by the negotiations on the UK deal and the ongoing migration and refugee crisis.

Download this video here.

http://tvnewsroom.consilium.europa.eu/uploads/council-images/thumbs/uploads/council-images/remote/http_7e18a1c646f5450b9d6d-a75424f262e53e74f9539145894f4378.r8.cf3.rackcdn.com/0ca99bc2-734b-11e5-b984-bc764e084e2e_371.35_thumb_169_1455708454_1455708298_129_97shar_c1.jpg

Discussions at the European Council on 18 and 19 February are dominated by the negotiations on the UK deal and the ongoing migration and refugee crisis.

Download this video here.

Length of video : 168'
You may manually download this video in WMV (1.5Gb) format

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Zika virus has hit the headlines all over the world as people fear it could be linked to microcephaly in babies, which causes them be born with abnormally small heads. On Wednesday Parliament’s public health committee discussed the issue with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO). After the hearing we talked to Dr Roberto Bertollini, WHO’s chief scientist and EU representative, who assured that Zika was a "mild disease" that we were ready to deal with.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

The Zika virus has hit the headlines all over the world as people fear it could be linked to microcephaly in babies, which causes them be born with abnormally small heads. On Wednesday Parliament’s public health committee discussed the issue with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO). After the hearing we talked to Dr Roberto Bertollini, WHO’s chief scientist and EU representative, who assured that Zika was a "mild disease" that we were ready to deal with.
Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Length of video : 129'
You may manually download this video in WMV (1.2Gb) format

Disclaimer : The interpretation of debates serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of proceedings. Only the original speech or the revised written translation is authentic.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of our new Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Crews prepare the EU summit building for Thursday night's high-stakes gathering

Ever since Donald Tusk, the European Council president, began chairing EU summits just over a year ago, they have frequently been far shorter and more tightly-scripted affairs than those run by his predecessor, Herman Van Rompuy. Sometimes gatherings scheduled to run two days are cut short by an entire day, something that never happened under Mr Van Rompuy. So it is a measure of the two-day summit that begins today – where leaders are hoping to finally lock down an agreement on Britain’s renegotiated relationship with the EU – that on the eve of its commencement, those running it are still not entirely certain how the schedule will unfold. “We still don’t actually have a set-in-stone running order,” lamented one EU diplomat involved in the summit’s planning.

Mr Tusk’s ultimate goal is to get all 28 national leaders to agree the “new settlement” demanded by David Cameron, the British prime minister, by Friday morning over what one senior EU official only half-jokingly termed an EU “English breakfast”. That could enable Mr Cameron to announce the date for his referendum on Britain’s EU membership back in Downing Street that very afternoon (most now expect it to be held in late June). But how Mr Tusk is actually going to get to a Friday morning agreement will be partially improvisational.

The one thing organisers do know is that the “British question” will be the first thing on the agenda, shortly after the presidents and prime ministers arrive at 5pm. After a “tour de table”, officials said Mr Tusk expects to take stock of where negotiations stand and then task lawyers and sherpas to start drafting any revisions to the current text he has prepared. The senior EU official said there will be a “war room” filled with lawyers who will attempt to get any political deal into legally-binding language.

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Council v Bank Mellat
External relations
The Court of Justice confirms the annulment of the fund-freezing measures in place against Bank Mellat since 2010

We’ve got our hands on the final pre-summit draft of the UK’s “new settlement” deal, sent to member states by Donald Tusk, the summit’s host, in the early hours of this morning.

There are not many changes from Tusk’s first version, published two weeks ago. A lot of the political issues have been left to the summit of EU leaders this evening. We’ve annotated a version of the main text, which you can view here. We’ve also run through the decision setting up an emergency brake for non-euro countries, which is here. I’m afraid Tusk provided no track marks in these drafts, making it difficult to see where the changes were made, but we hopefully spotted all the main issues and revisions. There are two particularly interesting tweaks:

1. City of London safeguards go to the summit:

This was not the plan. The officials negotiating this text wanted to sort the section on economic governance — basically outlining principles for coexistence between euro and non-euro countries — so that leaders weren’t subjected to a deep dive on financial regulation. But they failed to agree a key part that marked out turf on financial stability issues between national, eurozone and EU authorities. Pity the leaders — this is complex stuff. More details in the annotations.

2. The European parliament trigger for the benefits “emergency brake”? (SEE UPDATE)

This change is arcane but politically quite important for Britain and the European parliament. The text is revised to suggest the European parliament may have a say on the decision to trigger the “emergency brake” allowing the UK to restrict benefits to EU migrant workers. (In the earlier draft, MEPs had power over the legislation that would create the brake, but the ability to trigger the brake was left to EU member states.) This is super important for the bigwigs of the parliament — and very tricky for London.

UPDATE: A diplomat called to set us straight on the EP role in the emergency brake. A reference to a Council implementing act — basically bypassing the parliament — was removed. The language is a red rag to the parliament so it is a qualified win for them. But a reference to Council authorisation for the emergency brake remains, which we missed on first reading. That suggests the trigger is still in the hands of member states. One caveat: this area of law is incredibly complex and MEPs are a creative bunch when it comes to their powers and prerogatives. They could, of course, insist that the emergency brake trigger involves their sign-off as a condition for passing the law.

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II. MIGRATION

4. In response to the migration crisis facing the EU, the objective must be to rapidly stem the flows, protect our external borders, reduce illegal migration and safeguard the integrity of the Schengen area. As part of this comprehensive approach, the European Council assessed, on the basis of detailed reports from the Presidency and the Commission, the state of implementation of the orientations agreed in December.

5. The European Council welcomes NATO's decision to assist in the conduct of reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings in the Aegean sea and calls on all members of NATO to support this measure actively. The EU, in particular FRONTEX, should closely cooperate with NATO.

6. The full and speedy implementation of the EU-Turkey Action Plan remains a priority, in order to stem migration flows and to tackle traffickers and smugglers networks. Steps have been taken by Turkey to implement the Action Plan, notably as regards access by Syrian refugees to Turkey's labour market and data sharing with the EU. However, the flows of migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey remain much too high. We need to see a substantial and sustainable reduction of the number of illegal entries from Turkey into the EU. This calls for further, decisive efforts also on the Turkish side to ensure effective implementation of the Action Plan. The European Council welcomes the agreement reached on the Facility for Refugees in Turkey and calls on the Commission and the Member States to implement swiftly the priority projects. It also welcomes the progress on preparing a credible voluntary humanitarian admission programme with Turkey.

7. In addition,

a) regarding relations with relevant third countries, the comprehensive and tailor-made packages of incentives that are currently being developed for specific countries to ensure effective returns and readmission require the full support of the EU and the Member States. The European Council also calls on the Commission, the High Representative and the Member States to monitor and address any factors that may prompt migration flows;

b) implementation and operational follow-up to the Valletta Summit, in particular the agreed list of 16 priority actions, should continue and be stepped up;

c) humanitarian assistance should continue to be provided to Syrian refugees and to the countries neighbouring Syria. This is an urgent global responsibility. In this context, the European Council welcomes the outcome of the Conference on supporting Syria and the Region in London on 4 February and calls on the Commission, Member States and all other contributing countries to rapidly implement their commitments;

d) the continued and sustained irregular migrant flows along the Western Balkans route remain a grave concern that requires further concerted action and an end to the wave‑through approach and to uncoordinated measures along the route, taking into account humanitarian consequences for Member States affected. It is also important to remain vigilant about potential developments regarding other routes so as to be able to take rapid and concerted action;

e) the Council adopted a Recommendation on 12 February 2016. It is important to restore, in a concerted manner, the normal functioning of the Schengen area, with full support for Member States which face difficult circumstances. We need to get back to a situation where all Members of the Schengen area apply fully the Schengen Borders Code and refuse entry at external borders to third-country nationals who do not satisfy the entry conditions or who have not made an asylum application despite having had the opportunity to do so, while taking into account the specificities of maritime borders, including by implementing the EU-Turkey agenda;

f) with the help of the EU, the setting up and functioning of hotspots is gradually improving as regards identification, registration, fingerprinting and security checks on persons and travel documents; however, much remains to be done, in particular to make hotspots fully functional, to ensure the full 100% identification and registration of all entries (including systematic security checks against European databases, in particular the Schengen Information System, as required under EU law), to fully implement the relocation process, to stem secondary flows of irregular migrants and asylum-seekers and to provide the significant reception facilities needed to accommodate migrants under humane conditions while their situation is being clarified. Asylum seekers do not have the right to choose the Member State in which they seek asylum;

g) the humanitarian situation of migrants along the Western Balkans route calls for urgent action using all available EU and national means to alleviate it. To this end, the European Council considers it necessary to now put in place the capacity for the EU to provide humanitarian assistance internally, in cooperation with organisations such as the UNHCR, to support countries facing large numbers of refugees and migrants, building on the experience of the EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department. The European Council welcomes the Commission's intention to make concrete proposals as soon as possible;

h) all the elements agreed last December should be implemented rapidly, including the decisions on relocation and measures to ensure returns and readmissions. As far as the 'European Border and Coast Guard' proposal is concerned, work should be accelerated with a view to reaching a political agreement under the Netherlands Presidency and to make the new system operational as soon as possible;

i) the European Council invites the European Investment Bank to rapidly develop ideas, in cooperation with the Commission, on how it can contribute to the EU response.

8. The comprehensive strategy agreed in December will only bring results if all its elements are pursued jointly and if the institutions and the Member States act together and in full coordination. At the same time, progress must be made towards reforming the EU's existing framework so as to ensure a humane and efficient asylum policy. To this end, following today's in-depth discussion, preparations will be stepped up so as to allow for a comprehensive debate at the next European Council, where, on the basis of a more definitive assessment, further orientations have to be fixed and choices made.

 

At their meeting in February, EU leaders agreed on a new settlement for the UK within the EU. They also discussed migration and the situation in Syria and Libya.