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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - France and Germany put aside bilateral tensions on Tuesday to call for an overhaul of the EU, which has been buffeted over the past decade by a euro zone debt crisis, an influx of migrants and refugees, rising eurosceptic populism and Brexit.

FILE PHOTO: French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a news conference following a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting in Toulouse, France, October 16, 2019. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau/File Photo

Some European Union leaders fear that regional and political rifts could tear apart a project they credit with keeping peace and prosperity on the continent, including in eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

Paris and Berlin, long seen as the axis of the continents post-World War Two unification process, said a Conference on the Future of Europe was necessary to make the EU more united and sovereign across a range of challenges.

These include Europes role in the world and its security, they said in a document that comes amid growing concern that Europe is ill-equipped to deal with new security and economic challenges, especially from a rising China.

Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron described the NATO transatlantic military alliance as brain dead, urging Europe to bolster its capacity to act because it cannot rely eternally on an unpredictable United States.

The two-page Franco-German paper said other areas where Europe needed to be more united included its near neighbors, digitalization, climate change, migration, the fight against inequality, the social market economy and the rule of law.

It said a reflection lasting more than two years should consider reforms that would, among other aims, promote democracy and the functioning of a bloc that will group 27 countries after Britains expected departure on Jan. 31.

Many EU citizens feel their voices are not heard in Brussels and have little trust in its institutions, sentiments that drove Britains 2016 referendum vote to leave the bloc.

The EUs two heavyweights said citizens would need to be closely involved in the reflection on Europes future through a bottom-up process of consultations.

They said recommendations agreed at a closing conference in the first half of 2022 should be presented to the European Council of member states leaders for debate and implementation.

Diplomats said the document sent a message, ahead of an EU summit on Dec. 12-13, that member states must be closely involved in reflections on Europes future amid institutional jockeying for a leading role.

A new European Commission, the EUs executive, which starts its five-year mandate on Dec. 1, has already proposed a 2020-2022 conference.

Manfred Weber, leader of the center-right European Peoples Party in the European Parliament, said in an opinion column on Tuesday that it is the role of an assembly directly elected by European citizens to fight for a more democratic Europe.

There are many in Brussels and other European capitals who prefer to make decisions through quick backroom deals, in which the direct choice of the voters becomes victim to personal power games, the German EU lawmaker wrote on Politico.

Many in the blocs assembly were furious when EU leaders, horse-trading over top posts at a July summit, brushed aside the so-called Spitzenkandidaten, the main parliamentary groups candidates for the post of European Commission president.

France and Germany have been at loggerheads over the past year as Macrons ambitious plans for reform have often run into resistance from the more cautious Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Berlin was irked last month that Macron blocked the opening of EU membership talks with North Macedonia and Albania, and Merkel described Macrons brain death comments on NATO as drastic words.

The idea behind the joint proposal on the future of Europe was to show that Franco-German cooperation was not itself brain dead, a French diplomatic source said.

Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris ansd Jonas Ekblom in Brussels; Editing by Giles Elgood

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France and Germany propose EU overhaul after Brexit upheaval - Reuters

In its annual investment report, the European Investment Bank said leaders had lost a decade of weak investment and policy focused on short-term crisis management. The fund warned that real Gross Domestic Product growth has slowed down over the last year in line with falling export demand and weakening manufacturing output. Trade dispute and Brexit are contributing to rising uncertainty and deteriorating expectations regarding the economic environment and investment outlook, its report adds.

The EIB has slammed the blocs investment in climate change mitigation, which is lower than that of major economies like the US and China.

Infrastructure investment is also stranded on 1.6 percent of EU GDP, the lowest in 15 years, the fund said.

Its report urges EU leaders to take advantage of historically low interest rates in order to boost public spending.

Andrew McDowell, an EIB vice-president, said: Europe cannot afford to wait out another cyclical downturn. After a lost decade of weak investment, we need to tackle the slowdown now if we are to respond to the historic challenges we are facing.

The EIB, as the EUs financial arm and climate bank, has played a crucial role in kick-starting investment in Europe after the financial crisis and we now stand ready to further support investment for a more sustainable and competitive European economy.

Debora Revoltella, director of the EIBs economic department added: We have to accelerate investment to fully exploit the benefits of the digital revolution, realise our climate goals and rebuild Europes social cohesion.

There is a long list of investments that require public intervention or a private sector that finds the right conditions to overcome uncertainty: firms digitalisation, innovation and business dynamism as well as smart delivery of infrastructure and public services, green innovation and energy efficiency, and e-government, e-learning and e-training.

In a survey of 12,500 EU businesses, the EIB found that most firms are pessimistic about the current political environment.

The number of firms planning to reduce investment has risen for the first time in for years.

Rising uncertainty due to Brexit and further escalation of international trade tensions are beginning to take their toll on investment across the European Union, the report said.

This may be further aggravated by a deteriorating economic, political and regulatory climate, as discussed in the next section.

MUST READ:How 'EVEN Bank of England predicts surge in investments after Brexit'

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EU on the brink: Brexit and trade tensions push bloc's economy towards 'downturn' - Express.co.uk

Heated negotiations are currently taking place on a technical level within the European Union regarding the fate of migrants who cross into Greece, as Athens seeks to strike a delicate balance between the two main lines of thought on the matter as expressed by Berlin and Paris.

The German perspective supports the idea of financial assistance being offered to Central Europes Visegrad countries and other states that have so far refused to take in migrants from Greece, while France seeks strict sanctions for states that do not follow Europes line.

At the same time, it is blatantly clear in Athens that Ankara is using the migration crisis as a tool to pressure Greece and to transform it into a bilateral issue of discussion.

Ankaras stance was already apparent in late October when Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar proposed to his Greek counterpart Nikos Panagiotopoulos that the migration issue be included in the discussions regarding confidence-building measures between the two countries something which Athens rejected.

Sources say that Ankara is also using the migration issue as a lever of pressure on Athens regarding the eight Turkish servicemen that were granted asylum in Greece and which Ankara wants extradited for their alleged role in the 2016 coup attempt.

Moreover, Ankara claims Greece is harboring some 8,000 people that it says belong to the organization of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen who it says was behind the coup.

In addition, Turkish media reports over the last month have been presenting Greece as a country that mistreats migrants and returns them to Turkey in a violent manner.

On the other hand, Turkey is presented as a country that is hosting 4 million migrants and refugees. The explosion of flows in 2015-16 was clearly linked to the war in Syria.

However, the spike in flows over recent months, averaging 550 people per day, has been attributed to the EUs tough stance toward Turkey over its violations of Cypriot sovereignty and Europes opposition to Turkish operations in Syria.

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Migration sparks heated debate in the European Union, Vassilis Nedos | Kathimerini - http://www.ekathimerini.com

It is the title of the Conservative manifesto, plastered on mugs, T-shirts and the Tory battle bus, while Boris Johnson doesnt miss the chance to say: Get Brexit Done. Like an earlier slogan on a bus, Get Brexit Done is deeply misleading: the UKs departure from the European Union is only the start of a new phase in the Brexit odyssey.

The day after Brexit the UK will embark on arguably the biggest negotiation of the post-war era: to reconstruct 46 years of trade, security and foreign policy ties with the EU. Philip Rycroft, the former permanent secretary of the Department for Exiting the EU, told the Guardian: Obviously its going to be a huge negotiation, probably four or five times bigger than the withdrawal agreement negotiation and will absorb a huge amount of government effort.

Trade is a top priority for both sides. Rycroft, who oversaw post-Brexit planning at DexEU ahead of the original 29 March deadline, said the government had already done a huge amount of work. Some on the EU side wonder whether it will be enough. Lotta Nymann-Lindegren, a former diplomat, who followed Brexit for the Finnish government, said: The discrepancy between the two sides will be bigger in phase two because the United Kingdom has not negotiated any trade agreements in the past 40 years or so. That experience gap will be a challenge for the negotiations that will influence how fast we can go, she added.

On Brexit day, the countdown clocks will reset to a new deadline. If the UK leaves on 31 January, only 11 months remain to hammer out the basics of the future relationship. Michel Barnier, the EUs chief negotiator, told the Guardian that it would be possible to negotiate a basic free-trade deal in that time.

In private, Brussels is much more sceptical. Not in my wildest dreams would I imagine that a possibility, one senior EU diplomat said of the 11-month timetable, citing the difficulties of agreeing a zero-tariff, zero-quota trade deal if the UK seeks to diverge from EU standards on workers rights and environmental protections.

To woo Nigel Farage and Brexit party voters, the prime minister insists that he can negotiate the deal in 11 months, with no extension of the transition period. Labour wants a back-up plan and is pressing to avoid the trap door to no deal on 31 December 2020. Under the transition, the UK remains part of the EU single market and customs union, without decision-making power or representation. The government has until 1 July 2020 to agree with the EU a one-off extension of the transition period, until the end of 2021 or 2022.

If the next government seeks to extend the transition, it could soon run into trouble. Aside from a potential political backlash against vassalage and the inevitable extra payments to the EU budget that come with a longer transition, a decision on extension risks becoming hostage to a deal on fisheries.

The two sides want to agree future fishing quotas by 1 July 2020. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, once described fisheries as a lever in the future negotiations a sign of how seriously EU governments treat this small, but politically-sensitive industry. EU diplomats do not exclude that a fisheries deal may be a quid pro quo for extending the transition. Given how France acts now, its very likely that they will be a difficult partner, another senior diplomat told the Guardian.

Both sides want to prioritise security, such as a replacement for the European arrest warrant and access to crime-fighting databases that are used every day by British police. While negotiators share the same goal, the terrain is strewn with political minefields, such as Brussels insistence that database access is linked to EU rules on data protection and the oversight of the European court of justice, or Germanys constitutional ban on extraditing its nationals to non-EU countries.

Beyond trade and security, there is everything else. The political declaration agreed between Boris Johnson and the EU reveals what lies beneath the tip of the iceberg. The two sides want agreements or cooperation on aviation, carbon pricing, anti-money laundering, illegal migration, data protection, sanctions on rogue states, and much more.

The next Brexit chapter could be more testing for the EU. During phase one, the 27 had a shared interest in seeing the UK pay the Brexit bill and protect the rights of their nationals in the UK. Under phase two, their goals diverge somewhat: The interests of the EU side are more diverse, whether [they focus on] industrial produce, whether it is the labour force they provide, whether it is fisheries, suggests Nymann-Lindegren. Other Brussels sources are more optimistic about maintaining unity, suggesting that member states will be united against any attempt by the European commissions trade department to run the British talks in secret.

While British officials are racking up Eurostar miles, the main parties hope to return to the traditional domestic agenda on public services. But political time and capital will be spent on creating a new immigration system, laws on farming and fishing, competition and industry. Before the referendum, British sources predicted Brexit could dominate the annual Queens speech for several years after the vote. Under the withdrawal act bill, 46 years of EU law will be copy-pasted on to the UK statute book. It would be very odd if the conclusion of all of that is we are not going to do anything about it, Rycroft said. It rather obviates the point of coming out.

Just as the laws are repatriated, so are the controversies, especially over issues such as farm subsidies, GM crops or state aid. An extra layer of complexity will be tussles between Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast (if the Stormont assembly sits) over who gets to repatriate powers from the EU.

So far, the government has managed to negotiate 18 continuity deals covering 48 countries and 8% of UK trade, according to the BBC. But these deals simply rollover existing agreements the UK enjoys as an EU member. For Brexiters, the prize is new trade deals, although the governments own analysis shows that gains will be marginal at best. Looking at these speculative gains in the middle distance, the UKs former ambassador to the EU, Sir Ivan Rogers, has said: There is just an immense volume of technical work, even to aim to stand still, not roll backwards, in the next few years.

The saga of withdrawal has obscured the debate on what Brexit means. EU officials worry that there is no British consensus on the post-Brexit future: whether it is a distant Canada-style free trade deal favoured by Boris Johnson, or the closer ties sought by Labour. Without consensus at Westminster, negotiations in Brussels could soon get stuck again. The UK needs to have a majority for a vision of Brexit, the senior diplomat said. Otherwise we face the same problem. They need to know what their aim is.

Donald Trumps verbal grenade lobbed into the British campaign was a reminder that the UK has a choice: to follow European standards or embrace US regulatory norms. It is the chlorinated chicken conundrum: if the UK chooses to allow imports of US chlorine-washed chicken (and other produce) it will face much tighter controls on the food it can export to the EU, as well as price pressure on British farmers. There is no middle way between regulatory superpowers.

Those unanswered questions are why those who were involved in withdrawal hope that Brexit will be at the centre of the campaign. I dont think the public is ready for [phase two], Rycroft said. He hopes that politicians will level up with the public and give them a clear intention of what is coming down the track, because this story is by no means at an end.

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'Get Brexit Done'? The reality will be far more difficult and tortuous - The Guardian

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union plans to allow more U.S. beef imports cleared a key hurdle on Monday when EU lawmakers specializing in trade backed the move, which is likely to ease transatlantic tensions.

FILE PHOTO: Cuts of USDA prime dry-aged beef are seen in the dry-aging room in the lobby of Gallaghers steakhouse in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., July 27, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

Members of the parliaments international trade committee voted 26-7, with four abstentions, for an agreement that will see U.S. farmers take up the majority of an existing 45,000-tonne allotment.

The whole of the European Parliament will vote on the deal on Thursday, but it is widely expected to follow the lead of its trade committee. If approved, increased shipments of U.S. beef should start at the beginning of 2020.

The message of this agreement is clear: we would like to de-escalate trade tensions with the U.S., but we want to see the same efforts of de-escalation on the other side of the Atlantic, said Bernd Lange, the head of parliaments trade committee.

He said that the two sides still needed to find a solution to a dispute over subsidies to Airbus (AIR.PA) and Boeing Co (BA.N) and to the U.S. tariffs applied to EU steel, aluminum and olives.

The agreement on beef is designed to settle a dispute that dates back to 1981 when the European Union banned the use of growth hormones in meat across the bloc, including in imports.

The EU and the United States eventually concluded an agreement in 2009 to grant a quota for hormone-free beef imports, which currently stands at 45,000 tonnes.

However, under World Trade Organization rules, the quota also had to be made available to non-U.S. suppliers.

Exporters from Australia and Uruguay, and more recently Argentina, decided to sell into the quota, pushing the U.S. share from nearly 100% to 30%.

Under the deal, to which the other countries had to agree, U.S. farmers will gain an initial 18,500 tonnes of the quota, rising to 35,000 tonnes after seven years.

Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

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EU on course to allow in more U.S. beef from 2020 - Reuters