European Union Considering RBS Proposal (RBS) Investopedia The European Union is considering an alternative approach to help The Royal Bank of Scotland plc (RBS) out of its current dilemma. The Scottish retail and investment bank has tried for nearly a decade to sell its Williams & Glyn mortgage unit, a ... |
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European Union Considering RBS Proposal (RBS) - Investopedia
President Trump thinks so, telling the Financial Times in an interview on Monday that, since the U.K. voted for Brexit, the "European Union is getting their act together."
"It just seems to be that there is a different spirit for holding together," Trump said. "I don't think they had that spirit when they were fighting with the U.K. and [the] U.K. ultimately decided to go out. ... I actually think it is going to be a great deal for [the] U.K., and I think it is going to be really, really good also for the European Union."
EU leaders are standing firm in the face of Brexit. And the economic outlook for the eurozone is brighter. Economic numbers released Monday suggest things are looking up for a region that has struggled to create jobs and generate momentum since the global financial crisis.
The unemployment rate across the countries that share the euro currency fell to 9.5% in February, its lowest level since May 2009. Analysts said rising business confidence was part of the reason.
A survey of about 3,000 manufacturing firms published at the same time shows factory output and orders rose last month at the fastest rate since April 2011.
"Eurozone manufacturing is clearly enjoying a sweet spell as we move into spring, but it is also suffering growing pains in the form of supply delays and rising costs," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.
Related: Trump's anti-EU rhetoric could actually help Europe
Europe faces a series of big political tests this year, and good news on the economy could determine whether the EU survives the Brexit shock of losing a member for the first time in its 60-year history.
Trump hailed Brexit as an example of people taking back control from political, business and media elites. And he has offered Prime Minister Theresa May talks on a bilateral trade deal that could be vital to Britain's future outside the EU.
But the president appears to have revised his earlier view that the EU would splinter as other countries chose to follow Britain through the exit door. His attacks may have contributed to that greater sense of unity -- analysts say it gives mainstream politicians a rallying cry.
Related: 5 huge obstacles to an amicable Brexit
Big test looms in France
EU leaders last week unveiled a draft set of tough principles for negotiating Britain's exit.
And Dutch voters rejected the far-right populism of nationalist Geert Wilders in an election in March. Still, the stakes will be much higher later this month when France holds elections. Right-wing leader Marine Le Pen has promised a referendum on France's EU membership if she wins the presidency.
"We are at the mercy of a currency adapted to Germany and not to our economy," Le Pen told a rally of her supporters on Sunday, according to Reuters. "The euro is mostly a knife stuck in our ribs to make us go where others want us to go."
There was positive news for France in March's manufacturing survey: New orders increased at the fastest pace in nearly six years.
The jobs numbers were less encouraging. French unemployment remained at 10%, with nearly three million people looking for work.
The eurozone has created nearly 3.9 million jobs since unemployment peaked at 19.3 million in April 2013. But more than 15 million people are still unemployed, and youth unemployment continues to plague several countries, including Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. Youth unemployment in Greece and Spain is still above 40%.
CNNMoney (London) First published April 3, 2017: 10:24 AM ET
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Trump is right. Europe is getting its act together - CNNMoney
In 2012, the two countries agreed to the construction of the Nord Stream 2 - a 746 mile-long underwater pipeline for transporting natural gas directly from the Russia coast to Germany.
The pipeline is set to begin operations as early as 2019, with Russian gas being delivered to the coastal resort of Lubmin before being redistributed across central and eastern Europe.
The Nord Stream 2, which will run parallel to the Nord Stream 1, was allegedly launched without the consultation of Baltic states.
GETTY
According to Andra Jeinska, director of Latvias Conexus Baltic Grid - a company 34 per cent owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, the Baltic states "were not invited" to any talks.
The joint venture by Berlin and Moscow has already cost an incredible 6.4billion and has come under fire from the European Parliaments Energy Commissioner Miguel Aras Caete.
Mr Caete, a Spaniard, claims the project does not respect the rules of the common market.
GETTY
In a letter to the EU presidency in February, Energy Committee Chairman Jerzy Buzek said the project was counteracting the necessary diversification (of energy sources) while making a number of Member States even more vulnerable and jeopardising safe gas supply in the EU as a whole.
According to the Energy Commission, the pipeline project will never be one of common interest adding that in the future, Germany would be in total control of the gas supply to a large part of the continent.
However, the news has not been met with total outrage across the EU.
Latvia, for example, is currently wholly dependent on Russian gas, and has received the news with a sense of relief.
Arvils Aeradens, Latvias Economic and Energy Minister explained: It is much better for us to take control, not Russia.
Three other Baltic states, as well as Finland, Romania and Bulgaria, have also expressed a deep desire to become energy independent from Russia.
GETTY
The EUs own gas production, especially in the Netherlands, is likely to have by 2020, leading to a higher demand for gas imports.
Gas reserves in politically stable Norway of 1900 million cubic metres pales in comparison to Russias 47,000 million cubic metres - essentially the worlds largest gas reserve.
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Germany-Russia joint gas operation causes anger in the European Union - Express.co.uk
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Speaking out on Spains move to seize Gibraltar as leverage for the European Unions Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom as it moves to withdraw from the bloc, chief minister of the British Overseas TerritoryFabian Picardo made his views clear in the strongest terms in an interview withReuters.
Lashing out at recently re-selected EU president Donald Tusk who is overseeing the Brexit negotiations, Mr. Picardo said: Mr Tusk, who has been given to using the analogies of the divorce and divorce petition, is behaving like a cuckolded husband who is taking it out on the children.
Referring to the fact that the majority of Gibraltariansvoted to remain in the EU but had no interest in being divorced from Britain to be ruled by Spain, Mr. Picardo continued: We are not going to be a [bargaining] chip and we are not going to be a victim of Brexit as we are not the culprits of Brexit: we voted to stay in the European Union so taking it out on us is to allow Spain to behave in the manner of the bully.
The Falkland Islands and a dozen other territories are, like Gibraltar, sovereign parts of the United Kingdom, but are not automatically part of the EU only Gibraltar has that distinction. Leveraging this difference to their advantage, the EUsurprised Downing Street on Friday by declaring that any Brexit deal agreed with the UK wouldnt automatically apply to Gibraltar too, and any such deal would be subject to a veto by Spain.
The move suggests Brussels has de-facto sided with Spain over their territorial claim over Gibraltar, which they ceded to Britain in 1713 but later desired to re-claim. Wishing to settle the dispute, the British government held a referendum of Gibraltarresidents in 2002 which asked whether they would accept Spanish co-rule. Over 98 per cent rejected the notion.
Mr. Picardo said the paragraph excluding Gibraltar from negotiations and handing their fate to Madrid should be cut out of the EUs draft letter of reply.Removal of the reference to Gibraltar would be a sign of good faith and good will, he said.
A spokesman for Downing Street said of the spat: The Prime Minister said we will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes, nor will we ever enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content.
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Gibraltar: European Union Is Acting Like 'Cuckolded Husband' over Brexit - Breitbart News
British Prime Minister Theresa May has started the formal process that will divorce the United Kingdom from the European Union, overturning four decades of integration with its neighbors and shaking the foundations of a block that is facing challenges to its identity and its place in the world.
Britain's top envoy to the EU, Tim Barrow, hand-delivered a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk formally triggering a two-year countdown to the final split.
"Today the government acts on the democratic will of the British people," May told lawmakers in the House of Commons. This is a historic moment from which there can be no turning back. The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.
UK PM THERESA MAY SIGNS ARTICLE 50 LETTER WITH CALL TO 'COME TOGETHER'
She added: We are leaving the European Union but we are not leaving Europe.
Tusk tweeted that "after nine months the UK has delivered," followed by a photo of Barrow handing him the letter in front of British and EU flags in Brussels.
There is "no reason to pretend this is a happy day," Tusk said during a speech later, emphasizing that the priority now is to minimize costs for EU citizens and member states.
But for Britons who voted 52 to 48 percent to leave the bloc in a referendum nine months ago, it was a time for celebration.
Former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who campaigned for years to take Brexit from fringe cause to reality, said Britain had passed "the point of no return."
"I can still, to be honest with you, scarcely believe today has come," he said.
For "remain" campaigners, it was time to fight for a divorce settlement that preserves what they see as key benefits of EU membership, including free trade in goods and services and the right to live and work anywhere in the bloc.
"The phony war is over," said Joe Carberry, co-director of the pro-EU pressure group Open Britain. He said Britain had decided that it would leave the bloc -- but "the issue of how we will leave, and the democratic checks and balances along the process of the negotiations, remains unresolved."
FARAGE ON BREXIT: THE WORLD IS NOW OUR OYSTER
May's six-page letter to Tusk triggering Article 50 was polite and conciliatory, stressing that Britons want to remain "committed partners and allies to our friends across the continent."
She said the two sides should "engage with one another constructively and respectfully, in a spirit of sincere cooperation."
May said it is in the "best interests of both the United Kingdom and the European Union that we should use the forthcoming process to deliver these objectives in a fair and orderly manner, and with as little disruption as possible on each side."
Both Britain and the EU say a top priority will be guaranteeing the rights of 3 million EU citizens living in Britain, and 1 million Britons living elsewhere in the bloc.
European leaders expressed dismay, with Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen saying Britain's goodbye to the European Union is "incredibly sad" and he expects "many bumps on the road."
Germany's Foreign Ministry said Britain would remain a "close partner and friend" of the EU, but that "being a close friend is not the same as being part of the family."
The loss of a major member is destabilizing for the EU, which is battling to contain a tide of nationalist and populist sentiment and faces unprecedented antipathy from the new resident of the White House.
It is even more tumultuous for Britain. For all the U.K. government's confident talk of forging a close and friendly new relationship with its neighbors, it cannot be sure what it's future relationship with the bloc will look like whether businesses will freely be able to trade, students to study abroad or pensioners to retire with ease in other EU states. Those things have become part of life since the U.K. joined what was then called the European Economic Community in 1973.
It's not even certain that the United Kingdom will survive the exit intact. Scotland's parliament voted Tuesday to back First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's call for a referendum on independence within two years. Scottish voters backed remaining in the EU in last year's vote, and Sturgeon insists Scotland must not be "taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice."
The trigger for all the economic and constitutional uncertainty is Article 50, a previously obscure clause of the EU's Lisbon Treaty that allows a member state to withdraw from the bloc. The two sides now have until March 2019 to agree on a divorce settlement and -- if possible -- establish a new relationship between Britain, the world's fifth-largest economy, and the EU, a vast single market stretching over 27 countries and half a billion people.
May said Britain's aim was to reach a deal on divorce terms and a new relationship within the two years -- something EU officials say is unlikely. May conceded Wednesday that there would have to be a "phased process of implementation."
Brexit Secretary David Davis the man charged with leading Britain's side in the talks has called it "the most complicated negotiation in modern times, maybe the most complicated negotiation of all time."
Tusk has said that within 48 hours he will respond with a draft negotiating guidelines for the remaining 27 member states to consider. Leaders of those nations will then meet on April 29 to finalize their negotiating platform before instructing the EU's chief negotiator, French diplomat Michel Barnier.
Then Barnier will sit down with his British counterpart, Davis, who has said the first item on the agenda will probably be: "How we do this?"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lucia I. Suarez Sang is a US/World News Editor/Writer for FoxNews.com.
She can be reached at lucia.suarez@foxnews.com.
Follow her on Twitter @luciasuarezsang
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Brexit triggered: UK prime minister sends letter to European ...