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Officials from a migrant centre in Ceuta, North Africa, which has been overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving, have claimed immigration is an EU problem, not a Spanish problem.

Ceuta has become a magnet for African migrants hoping to reach Spain as it has the EUs only land border with Africa.

Early on Monday morning, almost 200 migrants from Guinea arrived in the Spanish city of Ceuta where they have been staying in a temporary centre for immigrants.

REUTERS

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African migrants react as they arrive at the CETI, the short-stay immigrant centre, after crossing the border from Morocco to Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta

It is a problem for the European Union because the autonomous cities are the way to enter the continent

Ceuta immigration spokesman

Government delegate in Ceuta, Nicols Fernndez Cucurull, blamed a security failure in the surveillance of the border for the migrants managing to enter successfully.

A spokesman from the immigration centre said: It's not our problem and we're not going to solve it.

It is a problem for the European Union because the autonomous cities are the way to enter the continent.

Often these people go to countries like France or Germany.

He said the EU does not pay attention to Ceuta because it is outside the Schengen area, which has abolished border control between EU nations.

A source from the temporary migrant centre said: Here we meet their most urgent needs for a maximum of three months, until the police authorise their transfer to the host NGOs.

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This week the Spanish police also arrested 19 North African migrants hiding in fairground lorries after a funfair in Ceuta.

The comments come as Ceuta has decided to close its border crossing because of the sheer number of migrants arriving in the city in Morocco.

The week-long agreement with the Moroccan authorities involves closing the border crossing Tarajal.

Ceuta is home to 85,000 people, measures just seven square miles and lies just across the Strait of Gibraltar from Spain.

It is protected by fences with barbed wire, video cameras and watchtowers and many migrants have died or been injured trying to enter the territory.

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Border SHUT as Spain blames EU for immigration crisis - Express.co.uk

5 hours ago by Mark Kane

Tiguan GTE concept

The European Union doesnt intend to follow in Chinas footsteps by introducing a minimum quota for all-electric or plug-in hybrid car salesor at least that is what they are saying publicly at this moment.

Renault ZOE

Currently in the EU there are only general emission requirements, that are designed to nudge(when testing is applied correctly anyway) manufacturers into selling more environmentally friendly vehicles, or pay penalties for exceeding the average norms.

With that said, in some other countries inside the Union, there are additional requirements for a certain percentage of sales to be zero emission, or low emission.

Generally speaking, the Commision is looking into ways to promote use of low carbon energy and transport, but none of them includes quotas for electric cars, the spokeswoman told reporters.

We do not discriminate between different technologies.

China is expected to set a 8% base requirement from 2018, while California (and other ZEV states) are promoting plug-ins through ZEV credits, that indirectly require the sale of plug-ins (2% of sales need offset viaZEV credits for 2018, 4% in 2019up to almost 16%in 2025), or force amanufacturer who falls short to buy credits from those who do sell plug-ins, to buy itself more time for compliance.

The European Union Commission declined quotas and underlined its stance, after the German newspaper Handelsblattstated that sourcesatthe European Commission were looking to setquotas for low emission cars, such as electric cars from 2025.

source: Reuters

Tags: europe, Europpe EV mandate

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European Union Says No To Electric Car Quotas - InsideEVs

The European Union ranks as the worlds second-largest economy by gross domestic product, but few people globally see it as an economic leader ahead of China or the United States, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.

Across the 38 nations in the survey, a median of just 9% view the countries of the EU as the worlds leading economic power. By comparison, 42% name the U.S. and 32% name China, while an additional 7% name Japan.

Even in the 10 EU countries included in the survey, a median of only 9% see the EU as the worlds top economy. By contrast, 42% name China and 38% name the U.S., with an additional 7% naming Japan. (Europe is the only region globally where more people today see China than the U.S. as the worlds leading economy.)

The comparatively low international rating of the EUs economy comes despite its economic power at least as measured by gross domestic product in purchasing power parity dollars (i.e., exchange rates adjusted for differences in the prices of goods and services across countries). By this measure, EU member countries collectively generated $20.3 trillion in GDP. The EU trails only China and ranks ahead of the U.S. and Japan.

As recently as 2014, the EU outranked all other countries in terms of GDP, but even then, few people globally cited it as the worlds top economy, according to earlier Pew Research Center surveys.

The country most likely to name the EU as the worlds top economy in the new survey is Germany, itself the worlds fifth-largest economy by GDP. Still, only one-in-four Germans say the countries of the EU are the worlds leading economic power, compared with 41% who name China and 24% who name the U.S.

The only other European countries where one-in-ten people or more see the EU as the worlds top economy are the Netherlands (13%) and Poland (10%). Outside of Europe, other countries where at least one-in-ten name the EU include Jordan (15%), Tunisia (15%), Colombia (14%), Vietnam (14%), Canada (11%), Mexico (11%), Tanzania (11%) and South Africa (10%).

Only 3% of Italians see the EU as the top economy, while a slightly larger share (7%) name Japan and about four-in-ten each say the U.S. or China. And just 5% of Greeks cite the EU or Japan as the leading economy, while 39% name China and 44% say the U.S. No more than 5% of Italians or Greeks have ever named the EU as the worlds leading economy since the question was first asked in these nations in 2012.

Countries outside the EU where 5% of people or fewer say the EU is the leading economy include Nigeria (4%), Lebanon (3%), Senegal (3%), South Korea (3%) and India (2%).

While few Europeans see the EU as the worlds top economy, Americans are far more positive about the status of their own economy. About half of Americans (51%) say the U.S. is the worlds top economic power, even though the U.S. ranks below the EU when it comes to GDP. (On a per capita basis based on purchasing power parity dollars, however, the U.S. outranks the EU, as well as China and Japan.)

The Japanese, much like Europeans, tend not to see their own country as the worlds top economic power. Just 7% of Japanese say this, and Japan does in fact rank behind China, the EU and the U.S. in GDP.

Topics: Europe, Globalization and Trade, World Economies

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Few see EU as world's top economic power despite its relative might - Pew Research Center

Within the European Union, Romania and Bulgaria have the highest shares of first children births to teenage mothers. In 2015, a total of 12.3 percent of all births of first children in Romania were part of this category. With 11.9 percent, that value is very high in Bulgaria as well.

According to Eurostat, Hungary is next, with 9.0 percent. In comparison, the share of first births to teenage mothers in Italy is only 1.2 percent, in The Netherlands and Slovenia it is 1.3 percent.

In all of the European Union, 47 percent of women gave birth to their first child, when they were between 20 and 29 years old, while 45 percent of first-time mothers were in their thirties, Eurostat said today. All of this applies to 2015.

There were 93,000 births of first children to teenagers in all of the E.U., and 87,000 to women aged 40 or older. Most of the latter cases were registered in Italy and Spain. In those two countries, but also in Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg and Portugal, there were more first births to women in their thirties, than to those in their twenties, as opposed to all other E.U. countries.

On average, women in E.U. countries, who gave birth to their first child, were 29 years old.

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European Union: Most teenage mothers in Romania and Bulgaria - The Sofia Globe

European Union countries have begun the process of sending migrants who arrived over the last five months via Greece back there to have their asylum applications assessed, resuming a practice that was suspended as Greece struggled to cope with a massive refugee influx.

EU rules oblige migrants to apply for asylum in the country they first entered. But the requirement was put on hold as hundreds of thousands of people, many of them Syrian refugees, reached Greece on boats from Turkey in 2015.

The EU's executive arm recommended in December that member countries gradually resume sending unauthorized migrants who arrived after March 15 back to Greece, which often is the first point of entry to the 28-nation EU.

Some countries have requested permission from Greece to return such people, but none have been transferred since mid-March, Greek officials say.

"Greece has to give assurances that they have adequate reception conditions," European Commission spokeswoman Tove Ernst said Tuesday, adding that the country's services for migrants, overwhelmed a year ago, had improved to the point that the commission felt comfortable making its non-binding recommendation for transfers to resume.

Greece's asylum service says it has received requests to accept more than 400 returned migrants. Seven people, most of them Syrian nationals, have been accepted so far.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry confirmed Tuesday that Berlin has asked Athens to take back 392 asylum-seekers.

"So far, no transfers to Greece have taken place yet," Johannes Dimroth told The Associated Press. "However, I can tell you that to date the confirmation from Greek authorities has been received in three cases."

The Greek asylum office put the German request number at 354 asylum seekers.

Austria, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and non-EU countries Norway and Switzerland have also asked to transfer smaller numbers, according to the asylum service.

Greece's migration minister said the returns would involve "tiny numbers."

"We will accept a few dozen people in coming months," Ioannis Mouzalas told private Skai TV Tuesday. "This will be done provided we have the proper conditions to receive them."

Mouzalas said it was a "symbolic move" dictated by Greece's EU obligations.

He added that Greece's EU partners so far have taken in more than 30,000 refugees and migrants under relocation and family reunion programs.

Greece's asylum service said the refugees and migrants returned to Greece under the rules known as the Dublin agreement would be housed in rented accommodations or camps on the mainland. They also will have the option of seeking asylum in Greece, the service said.

Dimroth said it wasn't possible to say when the deportations from Germany would take place, or how many people the country ultimately would seek to send back to Greece. He said it depends on the number of people who request asylum in Germany and fulfill the conditions to receive it.

The number likely to be sent to Greece represents only a tiny fraction of the total number of migrants required to leave Germany.

Germany deported a total of 3,085 people to EU member states Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein in accordance with the Dublin agreement during the period Jan. 1 to June 30 this year. The figure for the same period last year was 1,758.

Under a September 2015 agreement, EU countries committed to take in 160,000 migrants from overburdened Greece and Italy over two years. Fewer than 30,000 people have relocated a month before the scheme expires.

The European Commission is encouraging EU nations "to show solidarity with Greece, in particular by continuing to fulfil their relocation commitments."

Costas Kantouris reported from Thessaloniki, Greece. Frank Jordans and David Rising in Berlin contributed.

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EU nations start process of returning migrants to Greece - ABC News