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The largest group in the European parliament has urged the UK government to do the responsible thing and extend the Brexit transition period, as coronavirus plays havoc with the timetable for an EU-UK deal.

The centre-right European Peoples party (EPP), which unites the parties of 11 EU leaders, including Angela Merkel and Leo Varadkar, issued a statement on Monday calling on the government to extend the Brexit transition beyond the end of the year.

Christophe Hansen, a MEP from Luxembourg who sits on the European parliaments international trade committee, said: Under these extraordinary circumstances, I cannot see how the UK government would choose to expose itself to the double whammy of the coronavirus and the exit from the EU single market, which will inevitably add to the disruption, deal or no deal.

I can only hope that common sense and substance will prevail over ideology. An extension of the transition period is the only responsible thing to do.

David McAllister, the German MEP who leads the European parliaments work on the future relationship with the UK, said the pandemic complicated an already very ambitious schedule. The ball is now clearly in the British court, he added.

Income subsidies

Direct cash grants for self-employed people, worth 80% of average profits, up to 2,500 a month. There are similar wage subsidies for employees.

Loan guarantees for business

Government to back 330bn of loans to support businesses through a Bank of England scheme for big firms. There are loans of up to 5m with no interest for six months for smaller companies.

Business rates

Taxes levied on commercial premises will be abolished this year for all retailers, leisure outlets and hospitality sector firms.

Cash grants

Britains smallest 700,000 businesses eligible for cash grants of 10,000. Small retailers, leisure and hospitality firms can get bigger grants of 25,000.

Benefits

Government to increase value of universal credit and tax credits by 1,000 a year, as well as widening eligibility for these benefits.

Sick pay

Statutory sick pay to be made available from day one, rather than day four, of absence from work, although ministers have been criticised for not increasing the level of sick pay above 94.25 a week. Small firms can claim for state refunds on sick pay bills.

Other

Local authorities to get a 500m hardship fund to provide people with council tax payment relief.

Mortgage and rental holidays available for up to three months.

Under the withdrawal agreement, the Brexit transition period ends on 31 December 2020, terminating British membership of the EU single market and customs union. But it can be extended for one or two years if both sides agree by 1 July.

The EU has made little secret it would back any extension request, but the British government continues to rule that out.

Responding to the EPP statement, a UK government spokesperson said: The transition period ends on 31 December 2020, as enshrined in UK law, which the prime minister has made clear he has no intention of changing.

The plea for extra time comes as British and EU politicians prepared to hold their first meeting to discuss putting in place the Irish Sea border. The Cabinet Office minister, Michael Gove, was due to hold a conference call with the European commissions vice-president, Maro efovi, on Monday to discuss how to implement the agreement on the Irish border. The pair were also due to discuss citizens rights, amid concern from campaigners that the coronavirus crisis would make it harder for European Union nationals in the UK to secure their status.

Those talks will not touch on the future relationship, amid rising doubts about the prospects for agreeing an unprecedented deal spanning trade, security and fishing rights by the end of the year.

British and EU negotiators had concluded only three and a half days of formal talks before the coronavirus struck Europe heavily. A second round due to be held in London earlier this month was scrapped, while next weeks talks seem unlikely to go ahead, despite previous hopes of running them by video conference.

British officials say they continue to explore video-conferencing. But its not a simple fix. Only about 10 to 20 people can take part in just one thematic topic for each side, making virtual talks complicated to organise when individuals are working from home. Talks may cover about 10 different themes.

The EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has the virus, while his UK opposite number, David Frost, has symptoms and has gone into self-isolation. Officials on both sides say they are in regular contact.

Read more:
Extend Brexit transition by years over coronavirus, UK told - The Guardian

BEREC, the European Union's telecommunication regulation agency, said today that no major internet congestion issues have occurred since the onset of the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

The agency said that while the overall traffic on fixed and mobile networks has significantly increased, no major downtime was recorded across Europe caused by bandwidth exhaustion incidents.

The agency's statement today comes after several internet experts made gloom & doom predictions that internet infrastructure might not be able to cope with the increase in internet traffic as most consumers are now stuck in their homes as national quarantines are imposed across Europe.

"Network operators have been able to cope well with this additional traffic load," the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) said today in a press release.

The agency said that some issues with internet access have been "observed and mitigated," but they were deemed "local and temporary," and the incidents have not been considered to be out of the ordinary.

The agency lauded telecommunications operators in some members for implementing customer-friendly measures such as increasing the amount of mobile data in their subscription packages as a way to prevent users from exhausting their monthly caps.

Furthermore, BEREC said it noticed not only "a stabilisation in [internet] traffic," but also "a decrease in the peak traffic" in some EU member states.

BEREC credited this decrease on "traffic reducing measures" put in place by "some of the larger CAPs" -- a term the agency uses for internet content and service providers.

Two weeks ago, the agency formally asked video streaming services to reduce streaming quality for European users to prevent overloading EU internet architecture.

Netflix and YouTube were the first to agree last week and began delivering SD (standard definition) streams to EU users, instead of their regular HD (high definition) quality. YouTube eventually expanded the measure to all of its global userbase, and not just for the EU.

Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Facebook answered BEREC's call later in the week, and also capped video streaming quality for EU or all of their users.

Akamai, Microsoft, and Sony, although not approached by BEREC officials, also agreed to slow down video game downloads during peak hours to avoid congesting internet infrastructure when a new game was published, or a game update rolled out to millions of users.

However, some internet experts have also publicly criticized BEREC's call to action as needless panic. Multiple internet service providers have come out and said that the internet backbone was specifically built to moments like these and designed to sustain sudden and very large volumes of traffic [1, 2, 3, 4].

Read more:
EU: No major internet congestion issues have occurred since COVID-19 onset - ZDNet

Russian medical specialists have been filmed disinfecting a nursing home in one of the worst-hit areas of Italy's coronavirus pandemic crisis. Incredible video footage released by the Russian Ministry of Defence showed the Russian team working alongside Italians to disinfect the home for Italian old-age pensioners. This has exposed the EU's failure to help one of its own member-states which has become the hardest-hit country from the coronavirus outbreak.

Vladimir Putin agreed to send aid to Italy after speaking with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Soon afterwards, military planeloads of medical equipment including 600 ventilators, military virologists, and epidemiologists landed in Italy.

This contrasts with the silence and infighting from the European Union, which has failed to agree on a joint economic response to the crisis.

Last week, Germany, the Netherlands and Austria all rejected Italy's pleas for so-called "corona-bonds" as a way to cushion the economic blow of the pandemic.

George Galloway has condemned the EU for its inaction to help embattled Italy.

The former Labour MP said:"A non-socialist country is now receiving an influx of health workers from socialist Cuba, whose were supposed to hate. Whom the West has quarantined this past half-century or more.

"Russia, which may well be on the brink of a major coronavirus crisis itself, is sending its doctors and its medicines to Italy.

"Where is the European Union?"

Despite these denials, the EUs foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned of a struggle for influence through spinning and the politics of generosity.

Senior EU diplomats claim the Russian assistance is a geopolitical move to extend Russian influence.

France and Germany were criticised by Italians after declining their request for medical masks and equipment during the initial outbreak.

Over the weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron warned Italy not to get "intoxicated" with Russian aid.

See the article here:
Russian experts wipe out COVID-19 in Italian care home as EU stands by and does nothing - Express.co.uk

The number of people infected with the coronavirus is increasing daily across Europe. The top political priority must be to take targeted measures to slow down infections, in order to protect high-risk groups and avoid overburdening health systems, write Anna Cavazzini and Petra de Sutter.

Anna Cavazzini and Petra de Sutter are MEPs for the Greens Group. Petra de Sutter is the chair of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

With solidarity between member states and a functioning internal market, we can guarantee that people are provided with the care they need, where it is most needed.

Europe will decide whether it stands together in solidarity. The European Union can now show its ability to better meet challenges as one, instead of when each acts alone.

The virus is not stopping at member states borders, nor do individual member states have the power to cope with this extraordinary European and global situation.

We must not reflexively relapse into a nation-state way of thinking and acting. We must remember existing common rules and solutions, develop them further, in line with the situation, and make use of the benefit of joint action.

The internal market is a key instrument to implement European solutions efficiently and show solidarity. While some member states have a strong position in the production of medical or pharmaceutical products, others rely on imports from their European neighbours.

The added value of the common market is that it ensures the supply of vital goods to people, and guarantees the independence of the EU, especially in times of crisis. It is precisely when European solidarity is called for that the fundamental freedoms of the internal market must not be undermined, but should be adapted to the situation.

Unfortunately, national measures in some member states do not at present follow the basic idea that the internal market and a common coordinated approach at European level bring added value for all.

When several countries restrict the export of life-saving medical goods such as respirators, protective clothing or gloves, European solidarity ends when it is most needed. If accession candidates such as Serbia are denied solidarity assistance from EU states, confidence in the European enlargement process is weakened.

The partial or total closure of borders in some member states does not contribute to effective control of the coronavirus either. Instead, tens of thousands of citizens from Baltic States have been stranded at the Polish-German border.

Temporary border controls in the Schengen area are legal for public health reasons, but unfortunately, all member states are now affected by the virus. In this respect, attempt to keep the virus out are not likely to succeed.

Green proposals for the European single market

Read the original here:
Strengthening EU cohesion with European responses to corona crisis - EURACTIV

Originally published on the blog by High Representative/Vice President Borrell.

A very difficult week lies behind all of us, with the Coronavirus pandemic and its global consequences dominating the headlines and our thoughts. These developments also overshadowed an important decision that did not receive the attention deserved. In the midst of the Coronavirus crisis, the European Union decided to open accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania. This is good news for the two countries, the Western Balkans and for all of Europe.

By making this important decision in such trying times, the EU moved forward on a truly important policy matter and it sent an important signal and clear message to the Western Balkans: the European Union is not complete without the Western Balkans. The EU proved to be united on one of its priority policies and did so while addressing a global crisis. The decision is indeed a beam of light in this darkness all around, as my esteemed colleague and Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, Nikola Dimitrov said, commenting the decision to open the accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania.

We have asked a lot from both countries, and they fulfilled it. Now, the EU also made the right step on its side. It is an encouraging message that hard work and real leadership on both sides leads to results.

In the same vein, I want to congratulate North Macedonia for becoming the 30th Member of NATO this week. This is an important step, further consolidating European and transatlantic security. I look forward to working closely together now also in the framework of EU-NATO cooperation.

With the start of the accession negotiations, a lot of work now lies ahead of us and the opening of accession talks was just a first step of an intense process. Profound social, political and economic reforms need to happen before the step to full membership. These transformations naturally take time and require efforts, but what is important is that the beam of light for two additional countries should also encourage the rest of the region to do what is needed and follow the path of reforms. For the benefit of the Western Balkans citizens.

In times like these, when we are all fighting an unseen crisis and its consequences, we have to demonstrate what European and global solidarity really means. Solidarity cannot be just a word that we use without any kind of commitment. Solidarity has to be proven by actions. Within the EU, Member States are showing solidarity as some of them are receiving patients from overburdened hospitals in other Member States, as well as sharing personal protective equipment between themselves. Joint work is also ongoing, to ensure repatriation of citizens stranded around the world. And we are not forgetting the people in the Western Balkans.

The EU announced this week a package of bilateral financial assistance to all six partners in the region. We will provide up to 38 million of immediate assistance to deal with the COVID19 related emergency. This money buys respirators, masks and other medical equipment, it pays for flights bringing aid and covers the immediate needs of people. In addition, the EU decided to support the region by reallocating 374 million for the social and economic recovery of the region, once the emergency is over.This means saving jobs, businesses, social benefits, it means allowing people to continue with their lives once we overcome this pandemic.

Let me give you the concrete details of the EUs immediate support to the health sectors of the individual Western Balkan countries and the support for the social and economic recovery:

The Western Balkans can count on the solidarity of the EU. And not only in times of crisis. The EU is the main donor, investor and trade partner of the Western Balkans. Since 2014, the EU granted over 1 billion in support to the people of the Western Balkans. These are important facts that demonstrate the EUs involvement in the region and its efforts to combat the virus inside the EU and abroad, including in the Western Balkans.

This is a time to get serious on solidarity and cooperation. We need to work hand-in-hand, in solidarity, supporting each other, as nobody is able to deal with the current situation alone.

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Accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia and the EU's commitment to the Western Balkans - European Western Balkans