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(Business in Cameroon) - The city of Maroua hosted on 9 March 2017 the official launch of the Livestock Productivity Improvement Support Project (PAPE) in the Far North region of Cameroon.

With a duration of three years and costing a total of 890,000 Euros, the project is supported by the European Union to the tune of 800,000 Euros (over FCfa 500 million). PAPE comes as a response to the numerous problems faced by the agricultural and livestock systems in northern Cameroon. It is meant to strengthen the capacity of the players in the sector to improve the productivity in livestock activity, boost availability, access and the smooth and inclusive management of livestock resources and infrastructure. PAPA will moreover facilitate the rehabilitation of livestock markets and promote governance in the livestock trading system.

Through this support, the EU expresses the importance it attributes to the development of rural areas in general, and in particular, to the recovery of the economy in the Far North, a region which, these past years, has been experiencing a slowdown in the agricultural and livestock activities, declared the Chief-Ambassador of the European Union delegation in Cameroon, Franoise Collet.

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The European Union supports agricultural and livestock activities in the Far North region of Cameroon - Business in Cameroon

Ankara [Turkey]: A group representing Rohingya in Europe has called on the European Union to support a United Nation (UN)-led investigation into "Myanmar's Crimes against Rohingya."

The European Rohingya Council (ERC) said in a statement it was "deeply shocked and extremely concerned" about the EU's decision not to support the UN investigation, reports the Anadolu News Agency.

It was reported earlier last month that the EU decided not to back up the international investigation sought by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein.

The fresh wave of violence and subsequent reprisals against the civilian population began last year mid October after insurgents, believed to be mostly from the Rohingya minority, attacked Myanmar border posts on October 9, killing nine police officers there.

"The EU's backing up of the military formed Commission of Inquiry to investigate the very crimes the military has been committing is completely shocking. This irresponsible stand of the EU will be a green light for the Myanmar armed forces to further commit atrocities against Rohingya," the ERC said in its statement.

"We strongly urge the EU to reverse its decision, and to support the U.N. led the international investigation of the crimes against Rohingya perpetrated by Myanmar armed forces in Northern Arakan," the statement added.

It said that Myanmar does not allow international media into the affected area in Rakhine State and will not cooperate with a UN probe into the killings, rape and mass arrests of Rohingya is proof of the government's humanitarian crimes.

The statment suggested that "only an independent UN-led international investigation of Myanmar's abuse against Rohingya can reveal the crimes against Rohingya," that could help end "Myanmar's state-sponsored institutionalized persecution of Rohingya community."

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Rohingya group urges European Union support for probe into 'Myanmar's Crimes against Rohingya' - Zee News

The case follows on from the Commissions Animal Feed Phosphates cartel decision pursuant to which fines totalling 176 million were imposed on a number of producers of animal feed for price fixing and market sharing throughout the EEA.

During the investigation into the infringement, all the companies involved engaged in settlement discussions with the Commission with a view to obtaining a 10 percent reduction in the fine that would otherwise have been imposed had they not settled with the Commission. However, during the settlement process Timab, a subsidiary of the Roullier Group, decided to withdraw from the settlement procedure. The Commission therefore followed the standard administrative infringement procedure against Timab despite the fact that it had entered into settlements with the other companies involved in the cartel. This was the first time, therefore, that the Commission rendered a decision in a so-called hybrid case i.e. where some parties settle but others do not.

During the initial settlement discussions, several meetings were held between the Commission and Timab, during which evidence of the infringement was discussed. On the basis of the evidence available, the Commission informed Timab that a fine in the range of 41 to 44 million would be imposed on it. However, in its final decision of 20 July 2010, the Commission levied a fine of nearly 60 million on Timab.

Timab challenged the Commissions decision before the General Court of the European Union (GCEU) in case T-456/10, claiming that the Commission had infringed its legitimate expectations regarding the amount of the fine, on the one hand, and its right not to incriminate itself, on the other. Such challenge was unsuccessful, however.

On appeal to the CJEU, the Commissions decision and the GCEUs ruling were upheld in their entirety (judgment of 12 January 2017). The CJEU made it clear that the Commission was not bound by the range of fines it had first proposed to Timab during the settlement procedure since, at that time, the Commission had relied on tools specific to this procedure. The CJEU held that outside of the settlement procedure, the Commission is only bound by the contents of its statement of objections which does not set forth a range of fines. Consequently, Timab could not have a legitimate expectation that the range of fines proposed by the Commission during the settlement process would be imposed on it. In addition, the CJEU stated that once Timab had withdrawn from the settlement procedure, the Commission was free to rely on new elements of evidence unearthed during the standard investigation procedure to set the amount of the fine. This was justified by the fact that the settlement procedure and the standard investigation procedure are independent and separate from one another.

At the same time, however, while the settlement and standard investigation procedures are to be considered as independent of one another, the CJEU ruled that the Commission could refer to admissions made by Timab during the settlement procedure without breaching Timabs right not to incriminate itself. Specifically, the CJEU recalled that while the Commission cannot compel a company to admit its participation in an infringement, it is not prevented from taking into account, when setting the amount of the fine in the standard procedure, the assistance provided voluntarily by that company to establish the existence of the infringement.

The CJEU therefore confirmed that the Commission has a considerable margin of discretion to revise a proposed fine upwards concerning companies that have withdrawn from a settlement procedure. Therefore, when contemplating whether to engage in settlement talks with the Commission, companies should carefully assess their exposure to fines under both the settlement and standard procedures. They should furthermore take into account the fact that prior admissions made during a settlement procedure may affect their defence in the standard procedure.

Juliette Lehucher contributed to this post.

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The Court of Justice of the European Union Confirms the ... - The National Law Review

EU leaders meet today and Friday for their last summit before the United Kingdom is anticipated to trigger Article 50 later this month, setting off formal exit negotiations. The two-day session will include focus on a new white paper launched last week by European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker on the future of Europe by 2025.

For while massive attention has focused on the impact of last Junes Brexit referendum for the United Kingdom, how the bloc itself changes will probably prove the more important, but the most overlooked, outcome of the vote. To this end, Junckers paper outlines five main scenarios for how the EU could evolve with a view to shaping debate and finalising a vision for the future that can potentially see the continent emerge from the current political and economic storm engulfing it.

The scenarios range from the EU retreating to no more than the current economic Single Market which seeks to guarantee freedom of movement of goods, capital, services and people. At the other end of the spectrum, however, is a quite different future where the remaining 27 member states decide to do much more together, reigniting European integration.

Brexit, Budget and Donald Trump: PM's Brussels talk in 60 seconds

Of the 5 scenarios, Carrying on is perhaps the most likely to be realised. This would see the EU muddling through from where it is today and seeking to deliver on the Bratislava Declaration agreed by all 27 non-UK member states last year. This manifesto includes better tackling migration and border security, beefing up external security and defence, and greater stress on enhancing economic and social development, especially for young people across the continent who have been badly impacted by the fall-out from 2008-09 international financial crisis, not least in countries like Spain and Greece.

However, even that middle range future is by no means certain in the current economic and political context. Further setbacks in coming years would instead see either a Nothing but the Single Market or Doing less more efficiently scenario come to pass. In either of these futures, the current scale of EU functions would be rolled back with attention and limited resources focused instead more on a smaller number of policy areas, including the Single Market.

Based on current trends, perhaps the least likely scenario to be realised by 2025 is Doing much more together. This would see all 27 remaining states sharing more power, resources, with decisions agreed faster and enforced much more quickly.

More possible, however, is the Those who want to do more scenario which would see more coalitions of the willing emerging in select policy areas to take forward the integration agenda on a flexible, rather than across-the-board basis. A model here could be the Eurozone where some 19 of the current 28 EU members have decided to enter into a monetary union with the euro as the single currency.

Despite the detail in the approximately 30 page white paper, the worst-case scenario of the bloc imploding is not included as a distinctive future for the EU. Nonetheless, given the build-up of challenges now facing the union which go well beyond Brexit this outcome cannot now be dismissed in the period before 2025.

Indeed, some 60 years after the Treaty of Rome, which was one of the EUs founding treaties, European Council President Donald Tusk said last month that the threats facing the EU are now more dangerous than ever. He identified three key challenges which have previously not occurred, at least not on such a scale that the EU must tackle.

The first two dangers relate to the rise of anti-EU, nationalist sentiment across the continent, plus the state of mind of pro-European elites which Tusk fears are now too subservient to populist arguments as well as doubting in the fundamental values if liberal democracy. The EU chief is conscious here that, following Brexit, and US President Donald Trumps election, it is continental Europe which will provide a lodestar in 2017 for whether right-wing populism will continue to find fertile electoral ground.

In elections in countries beginning with the Netherlands next week, where polls indicate the far-right Freedom Party could emerge as the largest single party, left-wing and centrist parties are under pressure from insurgency parties championing euroskeptical, anti-immigrant platforms. It is France, however, which alongside Germany has traditionally been the twin-engine of EU integration, which will be the key election to watch in the continent.

The reason is the far right, National Front candidacy of Marine Le Pen who has called for closer ties with Russia, questioned the need for Nato in the 21st century, and called for a French referendum on the countrys EU membership. While she is not currently the favourite to win, she stands a realistic shot of getting to the second-round run-off election in May and Tusk and other EU leaders are well aware that if she pulls off an upset victory, it would be an even more savage blow to the bloc than Brexit, not least given Frances membership of the Eurozone.

The third threat cited by Tusk, this time external to the EU, is what he calls the new geopolitical reality that has witnessed an increasing assertive Russia and China, and instability in the Middle East and Africa which has driven the migration crisis impacting Europe. Intensifying this is the new uncertainty coming from Washington with Trump questioning much of the post-war tenets of US foreign policy, including broad-based support for European integration.

Taken overall, Junckers paper underlines that debate over Europes future will intensify as the formal Brexit talks between the EU and United Kingdom commence. Many leaders are scrambling to come to terms with intensifying internal and external challenges, and their decisions in coming months will define the longer-term economic and political character of the bloc in the face of what could yet become, collectively, an existential threat to the unions future.

Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics

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These are the five possible futures faced by the crisis ridden European Union - The Independent

Kevin Schembri Orland Saturday, 11 March 2017, 08:00 Last update: about 20 hours ago

The European Parliament is about to take the next step in the road to changing the Dublin system, which regulates EU asylum policies and has been a hot potato in the EU since the very start of the migration crisis, with many frontline states calling for alterations to the mechanism.

On 9 March, EU Parliament MEP and Swedish liberal Cecilia Wikstrm, will present her draft report on the EU Asylum Rules to the Civil Liberties (LIBE) Committee within the EU Parliament, which will then be discussed and voted on before moving to the next stage.

The draft report is a first response to the Commission's proposal, presented in May 2016, for reform of the Dublin regulation, and consists of proposed amendments to it. This regulation, which determines which member state is responsible for processing an asylum application, is currently undergoing a number of changes. In the report, Ms Wikstrm proposes ways to remedy the issues currently existing within EU asylum rules.

Back in May 2016, the EU Commission had presented proposals to reform the Common European Asylum System, by creating a fairer, more efficient and more sustainable system for allocating asylum applications among Member States. The basic principle will remain the same asylum seekers should, unless they have family elsewhere, apply for asylum in the first country they enter but a new fairness mechanism will ensure no Member State is left with a disproportionate pressure on its asylum system. The proposals also include transforming the existing European Asylum Support Office (EASO) into a fully-fledged European Union Agency for Asylum to reflect its enhanced role in the new system and reinforcing of the EU's fingerprinting database, Eurodac, in order to better manage the asylum system and to help tackle irregular migration.

MEP Wikstrms report focuses on her suggestions for alterations made to the European Commissions proposals, and will be the basis for discussion within the LIBE committee, and will also play a part in the EU Parliaments overall discussions on the amendment proposals.

The MEPs key proposals include that EU countries where the refugees arrive must register all asylum seekers, while guarding and maintaining their borders to prevent unregistered asylum seekers from passing through the EU. It also states however, that the Commission proposal requires that a member state take on 150 percent of their fair share of asylum applications before receiving assistance from the corrective allocation system (this percentage is based on a key, reflecting total population and GDP on the concerned country). I suggest that this threshold should be lowered to 100 percent. I also suggest that corrective allocation should stop once the relative share of a member state under corrective allocation has dropped to 75 percent of total allocations, in order to ensure that member states do not fluctuate in and out of corrective allocation.

In addition, the MEP, through the report, also argues that if a member state does not guard its borders, and allows unregistered asylum seekers continue on to other EU countries, then the Council should have the ability to suspend transfers from that particular state.

One clause which the Rapporteur recommends removing from the existing text, was the Commissions proposal to impose a requirement to establish whether an asylum application is admissible before determining the responsible member state for processing. MEP Wikstrm argues that this would create too much administrative burden on the EUs frontline states, and says that relocation should be a quick and that admissibility should be checked by the country that is responsible for processing the asylum application.

Another aspect of the draft report deals with family reunification. Member states should ensure, in particular when benefiting from corrective allocation, that procedures are efficient and allow applicants for international protection to be promptly relocated to other Member States. With a view to avoiding costly and time-consuming secondary transfers and in order to provide an efficient access to family unity for applicants under the corrective allocation mechanism whilst not unduly overburdening frontline member states, a light family reunification procedure should be envisaged which would allow for the transfer of applicants that are likely to meet the relevant criteria to allow them to be reunited with family members in a particular Member State.

The MEP also highlights children and unaccompanied minors, and proposes that guardians in receiving member states be appointed before unaccompanied minors are transferred. In addition, other proposed amendments include that interviews with minors shall be conducted in a child-friendly manner in the presence of the guardian and, where applicable, a legal advisor or counsellor.

The document reads When it comes to unaccompanied minors, the quick appointment of guardians (within five days), improved best interest assessments, as well as the use of multidisciplinary teams for assessments, will allow authorities to build trust with the minors, as well as break the negative influence of smugglers and traffickers. This will greatly improve the chances that minors will trust and work within the system. We cannot go on with a system that causes thousands of children to go missing, as is unfortunately the case today. Together with greatly improved family reunification procedures and the procedure to request, the application of the discretionary clause minors will get a quicker access to the procedures and a stable environment.

In her report, the MEP referred to the Commissions suggestion to introduce an opt-out from the corrective allocation system, which would have allowed member states to buy themselves out of the corrective allocation by paying 250000 per applicant. I find it unacceptable to put such a price tag on human beings, and I therefore suggest deleting the provision. In the report, she states: I have suggested introducing a conditionality between the proper participation in the corrective allocation mechanism, and the European Structural and Investment Funds. It would not seem logical to allow member states to benefit from the solidarity of others whilst ignoring their own commitments under our commonly agreed rules.

The MEP also suggests that a five-year transition period be allowed, thereby giving time for countries to adapt to the new procedures.

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The road to changing European Union asylum policies - Malta Independent Online