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Irelands prime minister has suggested that Britain could strike a Norway-style deal with the EU forging a bespoke customs union with Europe and joining the European Free Trade Association (Efta).

In his first visit as Taoiseach to Belfast, Leo Varadkar hit out at the advocates of a hard Brexitand said their plans for border controls would throw up a trade border across Ireland.

He also said promoters of such a way forward had failed to come up with detailed proposals in the 14 months since the EU referendum last year and that he believed they would never be able to do so.

The Eftaincludes Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein and previously included Britain, before it joined the EUs predecessor, the EEC, in 1973.

Eftas members adopt nearly all EU legislation and standards so they can trade with the bloc, but with exceptions in certain areas, such as agriculture and fisheries. Downing Street has not yet ruled out Efta membership.

There are people who do want a border, a trade border between the United Kingdom and the European Union and therefore between Ireland and Britain and therefore across Ireland, Mr Varadkar said in a speech at Belfasts Queens University on the future relations of northern and southern Ireland.

These are the advocates of the so-called hard Brexit. I believe the onus is on them to come up with proposals for such a border and to convince us and convince you: citizens, students, academics, farmers, business people, civil society, that such a border is in your interest and that such a border would not be a barrier to trade and commerce.

They have already had 14 months to do so, which should have been ample time to come up with detailed proposals. If they cannot, and I believe they cannot, then we can start to talk meaningfully about solutions that might work for all of us.

Theresa May has said Britain will leave the single market and EU customs union (AP)

Turning to the subject of trade, he continued: If the United Kingdom doesnt want to stay in the Customs Union, perhaps there can be an EU-UK customs union instead. After all the EU has a customs union with Turkey, surely therefore its possible to have one with the United Kingdom?

If the United Kingdom doesnt want to stay in the single market perhaps it could enter into a deep free trade agreement with the European Union and rejoin Efta, of which it was a member prior to accession, or the European Economic Area.

The Irish PM, who took office in June, also suggested a long transition period where Britain remained in the single market so that future long-term arrangements could be worked out.

He said: If these things cannot be agreed now, then perhaps we can have a long transition period during which the United Kingdom stays in the single market and the customs union while we work all of these things out.

Theresa May ruled out staying in the single market and EU customs union in her Lancaster House speech at the start of 2017.

Efta members, except Switzerland, are also all separately members of the European Economic Area, except Switzerland, which effectively participates in the area through a series of bespoke treaties.

All the Efta member states are members of the Schengen borderless area, except for four remote self-governing areas of Norway, including the arctic archipelago Svalbard.

Irelands ambassador to the EU revealed on Friday that a record 500,000 British people had applied for Irish passports in the first half of 2017 to safeguard their positions as EU citizens.

Read the original post:
Ireland's prime minister tells Theresa May to strike Norway-style Brexit deal with the EU - The Independent

Rich Walker directs a robotics company, Shadow Robot, out of a modest office in London. He says the wait for clarity post-Brexit is hurting businesses. Joanna Kakissis/NPR hide caption

Rich Walker directs a robotics company, Shadow Robot, out of a modest office in London. He says the wait for clarity post-Brexit is hurting businesses.

Rich Walker directs a robotics company, Shadow Robot, out of a modest office in London.

He's tired of the British government fighting over how to exit the European Union. It's hurting his business.

"The fuse is burning," he says, referring to March 2019 deadline. "And we've not managed to get anything done or sorted out since last year."

Walker, who wanted Britain to remain in the EU, wants to know if some of his roboticists will be forced to leave because of tougher immigration rules. He wants to reassure his customers, many of them professors dependent on research grants, that the British economy and the currency, the pound, will stay stable.

He wiggles the fingers of a black-and-silver robotic hand that costs more than $150,000.

"These go all over the world, into research communities, people doing advanced technology around robotics," he says. "We need to know what's going on with tax and trade rules. We need to have an idea of where the economy is going so we can plan."

The government of British Prime Minister Theresa May is torn between those who want a clean break from the European Union and those who want to preserve as many ties as possible, such as remaining in the single market and the customs union, after Britain leaves the EU in 2019.

The infighting has gotten so bad that it's recorded in breathless detail daily in the British press. It's been at full pitch since disastrous elections in June left May's conservative government hanging on to power.

Pro-EU Cabinet members such as Philip Hammond, who leads the U.K. Treasury, want a slower exit. Hammond is pushing a transitional deal with the EU that would keep current trade rules in place until new rules can be negotiated.

"When the British people voted last June, they did not vote to become poorer or less secure," he told financiers in a recent speech. "They did vote to leave the EU and we will leave the EU. But it must be done in a way that works for Britain."

What works for Britain is now up for grabs, especially when it comes to immigration rules.

May's office said there are plans to end the free movement of EU citizens to and from the U.K. after March 2019. Others in her Cabinet want the doors to stay open.

Alan Soady of the U.K.'s Federation for Small Business wants clarity.

"If you run a small business, let's say a tech start-up company, you have five employees, two of those are EU citizens; you want to know whether they are going to be able to stay," Soady says. "If you are recruiting right now, and employing an EU national, you don't know whether that person will come under the new arrangement or whatever the old arrangement is. And businesses do need some certainty around that."

Citing business concerns, staunchly pro-EU politicians are seizing on the government's Brexit paralysis.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair told Sky News he hopes Brexit is dead.

"I think it's absolutely necessary that it doesn't happen because everyday it brings us fresh evidence that it's doing us damage economically," he said. "Certainly, doing us damage politically."

There are indeed signs that Brexit is damaging the City of London, the historic financial center. For starters, big banks are looking to relocate their European headquarters.

"They are reaching the point where they can no longer wait to see what the government is deciding to do," says Barbara Casu, a professor at London's Cass Business School. "We are hearing news of banks choosing the new headquarters within the European Union. For example, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch has announced a move to Dublin, following on Morgan Stanley choosing Frankfurt."

Outside the Lamb Tavern, a pub in the financial district where insurance executives are having lunchtime pints, there's talk of moving their headquarters to Luxembourg.

But David Buik, a market commentator with city broker Panmure Gordon, says talk of London's demise as a global financial hub is misguided.

David Buik, a market commentator with Panmure Gordon, supports Brexit. His peers, he says, "want me taken away by two guys in a white coat. But I'll live with that." Joanna Kakissis/NPR hide caption

David Buik, a market commentator with Panmure Gordon, supports Brexit. His peers, he says, "want me taken away by two guys in a white coat. But I'll live with that."

"I've been here in the city for 55 years," he says. "And I have seen the evolution and the development of the City of London on the international basis. And we have nothing whatsoever to be frightened of."

Unlike many in the financial district, Buik supports Brexit. His peers, he says, "want me taken away by two guys in a white coat. But I'll live with that."

There are many more Brexit supporters in the town of Romford on the outskirts of London. It's in the borough of Havering; near 70 percent of voters there cast ballots to leave the EU, one of the highest pro-leave percentages in the country.

Town Councillor Lawrence Webb of the nationalist UKIP party blames EU bureaucracy for Romford's economic woes.

"Just take a look around you. There is a boarded-up shop there; there is a boarded-up shop on the corner there," he says, walking down a lively main street. "We have in Romford town center an above-average number of businesses that are closed or not trading."

Town Councillor Lawrence Webb of the nationalist UKIP party wants Britain to leave the EU as soon as possible and restore its prosperity through new trade deals with the U.S. Joanna Kakissis/NPR hide caption

Town Councillor Lawrence Webb of the nationalist UKIP party wants Britain to leave the EU as soon as possible and restore its prosperity through new trade deals with the U.S.

He's wants Britain to leave the EU as soon as possible and restore its prosperity through new trade deals with the U.S.

Rich Walker, the roboticist, says that with all the chaos in the government, a quick exit seems highly unlikely.

"But if [Brexit] didn't happen because we were too incompetent to make it happen," he says, "that would be something."

NPR producer Samuel Alwyine-Mosely contributed to this report.

Original post:
UK Businesses, Officials Push For Clarity, Transitional Deal With European Union - NPR

The European Union sees scope to team up more with Australia and New Zealand on foreign aid projects as it shakes up its relations with Pacific island countries.

The EU will soon start negotiating a new partnership agreement with developing Pacific island countries, to replace an existing deal which also covers Africa and the Caribbean and expires in 2020.

Pascal Lamy, a former European Union commissioner for trade and former head of the World Trade Organisation was in Sydney on Thursday following talks with officials in Noumea and New Zealand.

Mr Lamy said there was ample scope for further cooperation with Australia and New Zealand because of strong trust levels.

"We roughly think alike, and we have good reasons to act alike, given that we are also under budgetary restraints," he told AAP.

He said oceans, fisheries, and climate change resilience would be priority areas along with regional security, renewable energy, health and education.

Pacific island nations are considered among the most vulnerable in the world to climate change as they grapple with rising sea levels and increased frequency and intensity of cyclones and storms.

Mr Lamy said the new agreement would reflect the changing strategic environment, alluding to the increased role of China.

China's influence in the Pacific is growing and between 2006-2016 200 aid projects were showered with $US1.8 billion.

According to a Lowy Institute interactive tracker map, Chinese aid to Fiji has already gazumped Australia's contribution.

Beijing's aid to Samoa and Tonga is close to outstripping Canberra's assistance.

Mr Lamy said the new deal would also reflect the United Nations' sustainable development goals.

The EU allocated 800 million euros ($A1.1 billion) in aid to Pacific island countries between 2014-2020

There are half a million EU citizens living in the South Pacific.

New Caledonia is expected to hold a referendum on whether to seek independence from France in 2018.

View original post here:
European Union to recast Pacific ties - SBS

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's European future is uncertain, European Council head Donald Tusk said on Thursday amid escalating rows with Brussels over the Polish government's tightening grip on the judiciary, environment and state media.

The ruling conservatives drive to expand their powers has led to a crisis in relations with the European Commission and sparked one of the biggest internal political conflicts since Poland overthrew communism in 1989.

"There is a question mark over Poland's European future today," Tusk, Poland's prime minister until 2014, told reporters after testifying in Warsaw in a case related to the 2010 plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others.

"I do understand emotions of Poles who are concerned about courts, or Poland's future in the EU."

Tusk's centrist Civic Platform party was in power for eight years until the Law and Justice (PiS) party, headed by Lech Kaczynski's twin brother, Jaroslaw, won the 2015 elections and swiftly moved to introduce sweeping reforms.

Although some Poles view their judiciary as corrupt and dominated by communist-era ways of thinking, others see the PiS-driven reform efforts as a power grab inimical to democracy.

"There are plenty of issues where the Polish government's actions seem very controversial from the point of view of the whole EU. Including Budapest, sometimes," Tusk said.

Hungary, normally Poland's ally, voted for Tusk's re-election to the top EU post in March, disappointing the PiS.

Tusk also criticized Prime Minister Beata Szydlo's government over the logging in the primeval Bialowieza Forest.

The European Court of Justice ordered an immediate halt to the logging last week, saying that Warsaw's attitude in the case hinted at "a prelude to an announcement that Poland does not need the European Union and the European Union does not need Poland."

Reporting by Marcin Goclowski; Editing by Lidia Kelly and Louise Ireland

Read the rest here:
EU's Tusk says Poland's European future uncertain - Reuters

EU member nations are considering adopting measures that would allow states to protect against runs in failing banks by preventing people from accessing account deposits for up to 20 days. Reuters has revealed the proposal after receiving a leaked EU document.

Also Read:European Commission Launches Digital Currency and Dark Web Consortium

It has been revealed that EU states are considering implementing measures that would allow states to temporarily prevent citizens from making withdrawals from the accounts of failing banks. The proposals have been drafted since the start of 2017, and are designed to prevent bank runs and crises within the financial sector.

The proposed account freezes extend the ability for states to suspend account withdrawals which currently exempt insured deposit accounts that hold less than 100,000 euros. The plan would allow the suspension of payouts for five working days, with a possible extension of 20 days allocated for exceptional circumstances. Existing EU legislation allows for states to initiate a two-day suspension of certain payouts in the event of potential bank failure with deposits explicitly excluded.

The European Union is no stranger to bank runs, with Spanish bank, Banco Popular, failing in recent months the collapse of which was intensified by a sudden run on deposits. Another example is the 2013 Cyprus banking crisis, which saw much of the countrys population rush to convert their savings into alternative stores of value. This was in response to announcements that EU backed austerity measures allowing the seizure of citizens deposits to bail out failing banks had been passed. The events garnered great attention for bitcoin as a potential flight asset, with many attributing the April 2013 bitcoin bubble to Cypriot money suddenly flooding the bitcoin markets.

The proposals have received criticism from some European financial institutions, who have suggested that the proposed measures may exacerbate the risk of citizens withdrawing their funds in periods of financial uncertainty. Charlie Bannister of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe told media We strongly believe that this would incentivize depositors to run from a bank at an early stage.

Do you think that the proposed legislation could intensify the risk of bank runs by making citizens more likely to withdraw deposits during periods of financial uncertainty? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Excerpt from:
European Union Proposes Account Freezes to Protect Failing Banks - Bitcoin News (press release)