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The European Union Election Observations Mission (EUEOM) has challenged stakeholders in the August elections to grow their responsibility and give one another a right to safety to vote on their cognizant.

The mission has called on the stakeholders to grow this responsibility to the proportion of their influence as state bodies and political players ahead of the polls.

EUEOM stated that their role will be to have a keen eye on the electioneering processes in Kenya and that they will not by any way act as investigators or take part in the organization of the elections.

The mission at a presser in Nairobi on Monday clarified that looking at how Kenyan law and the international laws are upheld and respected during the campaigns, elections and the aftermath of the August 8 polls.

A team of 30 long-term observers on the mission had been deployed across the country since April this year and were keen on the political parties primaries.

Another 32 short term observers are also in the country drawn from Switzerland, Norway and other EU member states countries will be in the company of diplomatic troops that will witness the August elections.

The group has observed that the campaigns had already sparked public debate and that Kenyans were now evidently aware of the significance of their right to vote.

The team will make public all its observations and recommendations so as to ensure their role is properly understood throughout the period pledging that they will operate strictly impartial and independent since the organization, safety and integrity of elections it is the responsibility of the stakeholders.

They have noted that the new constitution provides for balance of power, public participation, inclusion of women and that it will be a moment to see how these constitutional provisions play out in the process.

The body however notes that it is no secret that there were concerns about the possible outbreak of violence which they believe is not inevitable as it would create a situation where everybody loses calling for individual responsibility to grant each other the right and safety to vote according to their conscious.

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European Union mission warns of possible post-election violence, hands stakeholders major challenge - The Standard

According to analysts customs unions concern trade in goods so they should not constrain what the UK does in the services sector. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Signing Britain up to a customs union with the European Union need not prevent it from striking important trade deals elsewhere, according to influential new thinking in Whitehall.

Officials and business leaders are anxious to puncture what they see as myths about a customs union that have deterred ministers from considering it as a much-needed economic option after Brexit.

While leaving the existing EU customs union is a direct consequence of Brexit, civil servants believe that agreeing a new customs union with the EU is not only possible but still compatible with key aims of Liam Foxs Department for International Trade.

There is a crucial difference between the [existing] customs union and a [future] customs union and [chancellor Philip] Hammond understands this now because the Treasury have taken him through it, said one official familiar with the process.

The simplistic analysis by those who want to paint it in the worst way is that its totally unacceptable because we would still be bound by EU trade deals. That is true of membership of EU customs union but you can have customs unions with the European Union customs union.

Such a deal would allow physical products to trade freely across borders without export duties or delay only as long as the EU and UK shared a common external tariff with other countries. But most experts are agreed that such a deal need not prevent Britain seeking deals with countries outside the EU to liberalise trade in the crucial services sector.

Customs unions are about trade in goods by definition because you only pay tariffs on goods, explained the anonymous official. They are nothing to do with the trade in services, which is the majority of what the UK does, so why should signing up to a customs union to facilitate what you do in trade in goods constrain what you do in services?

We could go off and see if we can do better than the EU in trade in services, they added. There is an argument that is not a bad thing to try because the EU generally, particularly France and Germany, has never been keen on liberalising trade in services. Its never been keen in the single market, let alone with third parties, so the UK striking out on its own might be able to do a bit better. The point is what you dont do is ruin your trade in goods while you find out.

Importantly from a British perspective, Turkey, which has such a customs union with the EU, is not obliged to follow EU single market rules on allowing freedom of movement.

Its still challenging, but a lot of this is why people have started talking about customs union so much recently, said the official, who believes some immigration agreement would still be necessary. You cant get anywhere on trade in services without discussing the terms on which the people providing the services can move back and forth.

Nonetheless, this variant of soft Brexit could prove more palatable than full membership of the single market to many in Westminster and business.

Though retaining a customs union with the EU would madden the Tory right, there is a strong macro-economic case for doing so, said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. According to the Treasurys unpublished analysis, the economic benefits of future [free trade agreements] would be significantly less than the economic cost of leaving the customs union.

The government has spoken little about its plans since Theresa Mays Lancaster House speech when she called instead for a bespoke customs union with carve-outs for vulnerable sectors such as the car industry.

This was dismissed by EU leaders as cherry-picking and would breach World Trade Organisation rules that say bilateral customs unions are only permissible if they cover substantially all trade in goods.

Privately, officials in Brussels are said to be much more open to the idea of a wide-ranging new customs union with Britain, as long as it respects existing common market rules and has a dispute resolution mechanism such as the European court of justice.

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New customs union with EU after Brexit is still an option, analysts say - The Guardian

The European Union, whose parliament meets here on the French border with Germany, has not exactly been popular in recent years.

Complaints about unelected bureaucrats, lack of transparency, compromised sovereignty, unrestricted migration and costly member obligations have all fueled Euroskepticism.

But it seems the EU has finally gotten its groove back.

Two new surveys find that over the past year, citizens of member countries have decided that maybe this whole European idea the ambitious postwar project to promote continental peace and prosperity isn't so terrible after all.

The first survey, from Pew Research Center, polled people in 10 EU countries. In all but one, fond feelings for the union increased, most by a sudden huge amount. Here in France, favorability rose from 38 percent last year to 56 percent this spring. Across the border in Germany, it went from 50 percent to 68 percent. Even in Brexiting Britain, positive sentiment for the EU climbed from 44 percent to 54 percent.

The other survey, from the European Commission's Eurobarometer, also found an upswing in the share of European citizens who view the EU positively and have trust in it. Again, the upswing occurred in virtually every country.

What's going on? How did the EU turn its reputation around?

To some extent, Europeans may simply be realizing that the grass isn't actually greener on the other side the other side being, in this case, life outside the European Union.

Britain's upcoming exit has led to political chaos and economic uncertainty, not to mention sagging consumer confidence and departing jobs. Tens of thousands of jobs may leave London's financial sector alone.

The same Pew survey found that majorities of nearly every country say Brexit will be bad for both the EU and Britain. Even a plurality of Brits believe Brexit will end badly for them. (Greece, which was threatening to "Grexit" the euro zone before departure portmanteaus were cool, is the only surveyed country in which a plurality believes Britain will be better off.)

Perhaps other EU members have watched Britain's isolationist dysfunction and started to better appreciate the European project, even with its many flaws.

Not just coincidentally, in no country that Pew surveyed did a majority of respondents say they want to leave the European Union. This finding jibes with other recent polls.

Nonetheless, even though they don't want to leave, in nearly all of the countries at least half of respondents still want to hold a referendum to vote on whether to leave.

This may seem peculiar, given that Britain got such an unwelcome surprise when it held its own referendum. But this desire to hold a vote may reflect frustration with the lack of a say in what happens in Strasbourg (and Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt, where other major EU business gets done). A referendum could be viewed as a way to gain more leverage over EU officials, even if the vote is really a bluff.

"People think that voting will empower them," says Luigi Zingales, a University of Chicago professor who has studied economic and public opinion trends in the EU. "Most Europeans are happy with the idea of some form of European integration and the common market. They just want more voice in the process."

Zingales also argues that a force bigger than Brexit may be more important in reviving the EU's reputation: the fact that finally, a decade after the global financial crisis struck, so many European economies are actually improving.

Zingales notes that in the Pew data, only his home country of Italy hasn't started feeling more warmly toward the EU. Italy also happens to be the only surveyed country whose citizens are more pessimistic about their economy today than they were a year ago.

"When things go poorly, you blame everybody: your government, the EU government, probably also the United Nations," he says. "When things go well, maybe you're now sort of OK with everything."

Lending credence to this theory is that trust in the EU government and trust in national governments have been rising in virtual lockstep, according to the Eurobarometer data.

In other words, a healing economy may lead to less scapegoating, more political stability. As things get better, people realize they overreacted, and their far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-internationalist, burn-it-all-down feelings subside.

If economics are indeed what's driving the retreat from insularity in Europe, that bodes well for the United States, too. Our recovery, after all, is light-years ahead of most of Europe's. Maybe our fever will break soon as well.

Catherine Rampell is writing from Strasbourg, France. Her email address is crampell@washpost.com. Follow her on Twitter, @crampell.(c) 2017, Washington Post Writers Group

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Millennial View: Catherine Rampell The newly popular European Union - SouthCoastToday.com

According to 2015 figures, the UK fishing industry is made up of more than 6,000 vessels. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

The government has announced its withdrawal from an arrangement that allows other countries to fish in British waters. The environment secretary, Michael Gove, claimed the UK was taking back control.

On Monday ministers will trigger withdrawal from the London fisheries convention, signed in 1964 before the UK joined the European Union, to start the two-year process to leave the agreement. The convention allows vessels from the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands to fish within six and 12 nautical miles of each others coastlines.

We will be saying were taking back control, Gove said on the BBCs Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. We will have control. We can decide the terms of access.

Gove said leaving the European Union would involve exiting the EU common fisheries policy, which allows all European countries access between 12 and 200 nautical miles off the UK and sets quotas for how much fish nations can catch.

When we leave the European Union we will become an independent political state and that means that we can then extend control of our waters up to 200 miles or the median line between Britain and France, and Britain and Ireland, he said.

One critical thing about the common fisheries policy is that it has been an environmental disaster. And one of the reasons we want to change it is that we want to ensure that we can have sustainable fish stocks for the future I think its important that we recognise that leaving the European Union is going to help the environment.

According to 2015 figures, the UK fishing industry is made up of more than 6,000 vessels, landing 708,000 tonnes of fish worth 775m. About 10,000 tonnes of fish were caught by other countries under the London convention, worth an estimated 17m.

Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermens Organisations, welcomed the governments decision, saying it was an important part of establishing the UK as an independent coastal state with sovereignty over its own exclusive economic zone.

Ben Stafford, head of campaigns at WWF, said achieving sustainable fishing was about much more than which country fishes where. He said: It is about ensuring that fishermen use the right fishing gear, that fishing takes place at levels that maintain sustainable stocks and that we pioneer ways to monitor what is happening at sea in order to understand the impacts of fishing.

Leaving the EU means we could get these things right, but we will still need to cooperate with our neighbours, as fish do not recognise lines on a map.

Will McCallum, Greenpeace UKs head of oceans, said: For years, successive UK governments have blamed Brussels for their own failure to support the small-scale, sustainable fishers who are the backbone of our fishing fleet.

If Brexit is to herald a better future for our fishers, the new environment secretary, Michael Gove, must keep the 2015 Conservative party manifesto commitment to rebalance fishing quotas in favour of small-scale, specific locally-based fishing communities.

Tom West, a consultant at the environmental law firm ClientEarth, described the move as a negotiating tactic. As a country outside the EU, we need to consider how we can best cooperate with our neighbours rather than unilaterally withdrawing from all agreements in the hope that standing alone will make us better, he said.

Many fish stocks in UK waters are shared with our neighbours and so need cooperation and shared management.

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UK to 'take back control' of waters after exiting fishing convention - The Guardian

In this momentous period of real change much more than Brexit is on the table, for how we conduct ourselves matters. Government ministers will listen and consult, doing our best to be open and responsive to Parliament. Equally, we hope parliamentarians can set aside partisan politics to work together wherever possible in the best interests of our country.

Such a co-operative approach is easiest when there is already a degree of consensus, yet it matters most on the many issues where there are real disagreements. We can of course rely on politicians of all colours to keep challenging the Government whenever they take a different view. The great clamour of discussion and debate is what makes our democracy so admired the world over. Yet by channelling our collective energies towards a single endpoint, and by coming together to improve our country, we can show British voters that there is more to our politics than just pessimistic bickering.

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As Britain leaves the European Union, let us do so in a way that brings this country together - Telegraph.co.uk