Mediaboss Marketing

EU citizens living in the UK have expressed panic and confusion after it was alleged that Government regulations will allow the Home Office to remove some of them from the country if they do not have a comprehensive sickness insurance (CSI).

Abriefingpublished by a barrister specialising in immigration law claims that the Home Office acquired controversial new enforcement powers against EU citizens from 1 February.

It warns those EU citizens who are not considered to have a right of residence, including some students and spouses of UK citizens, and who do not have CSI, could be deported or refused entry back into the UK if they leave.The majority of EU nationals living in the UK are entitled to use the NHS, meaning many do not have the insurance.

The Home Office has said this interpretation of their guidance is incorrect, and that the regulations are not new, nor will the Government remove EU citizens from the country if they do not have CSI.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Independent: It is completely wrong to say that we have new powers to deport EU citizens without comprehensive sickness insurance. EU citizens will not be removed from the UK or refused entry solely because they do not have this insurance.

"Their right to remain will remain unchanged while we are a member of the European Union and they do not need any additional documents to prove their status.

But the briefing, published on the website 'Free Movement' which offers updates and advice on UK immigration and asylum law, nonetheless provoked a wave of panic from European nationals residing in the UK. Dozens of people posted comments on a link to the article shared on a Facebook page for the campaign group the3million.

Im scared, one person said simply, while another expressed confusion, saying: It raises more questions than answers.

Among those expressing concern were a number of European mature students studying in the UK, as well as spouses of British citizens who are not in work all of whom are at risk of being removed from the country under the new regulations.

Speaking to The Independent, Sylvia Gawron, a Polish national who studied at Dundee University and has just finished a PhD, said: Throughout my time as a student I was not aware of the requirement for CSI. I've just been told to go and register with the nearest GP by the university.

Despite having completed my undergraduate and PhD studies in Scotland, I won't have any rights to stay in the country and pay my 'debt' in taxes to the British society for allowing me to gain my education here.

I feel like EU citizens are now treated as a second class citizens nobody cares about our rights, our families and those who depend on us. We have been left in limbo wondering what is going to happen to our futures here.

And Andrea Blendl, a German PhD student in Scotland, said: Reading through the briefing document this morning was a huge shock. I have no CSI, so the Home Office would consider me not to have a right of residence.

I was never made aware of the CSI requirement and my university could not give me any guidance, either.

According to the briefing document, if I leave and re-enter the UK, I might commit a criminal offence against the Immigration Act.

This issue is particularly concerning for me, as I am supposed to travel to Sweden for a workshop on Wednesday and obviously dont want to commit a crime upon my return to the UK. I find this situation very scary.

The barrister who wrote the briefing, Colin Yeo of Garden Court Chambers in London, said he believed the changes would not have as serious an impact as feared, but that the Home Office was being careless and wascausing unnecessary panic to EU citizens.

He told The Independent: According to the regulations, if you are perfectly self-sufficient in the UK and youre not claiming benefits or anything like that, but you dont have comprehensive sickness insurance, you dont have a right of residence and therefore you could be removed.

I dont actually think the Home Office is going to enforce this against say, the French wife of a British citizen. I think theyre using it against people they dont like, like Polish rough sleepers.

Guy Verhofstadt says hes received thousands of letters from Brits wanting to remain EU citizens

The position of a Polish homeless person who hasnt committed any criminal offences or claimed public funds is exactly the same as the wife of a British banker but doesnt have CSI, according to the regulations. Theyre both equally removable as far as the Home Office is concerned.

I think theyve drawn it up without really realising the power theyve granted themselves and the way that its going to make people feel, because this is going to make people feel very insecure.

Nicolas Hatton, founder of the3million which demands that the Government guarantee the rights of EU nationals in the UK post-Brexit told The Independent the unannounced changes and the wave of anxiety that had followed was a dangerous sign about the Government's approach to the rights of EU citizens.

The recent changes that have been highlighted are a sign of the continued bureaucracy surrounding EU citizens rights in the UK with the approach of Brexit, Mr Hatton said.

Were not seeing a change in strategy or in the Home Offices approach. The changes to regulations on 1 February fit into the same vein as what has happened in the last seven years. Its very dangerous.

The anxiety levels among EU citizens are really high. Its been going on for too long. Some people are really struggling to cope with the situation. Thats why the reaction to these changes is so strong. People have been living through this for eight months now.

Theresa May has got no credibility among EU citizens, because shes using us as bargaining chips and shes not considering the human life behind the numbers. Shes just seeing three million people as one big number with which she can negotiate Brexit.

When contacted by The Independent, theHome Officesaid it would be "securing the status" of EU nationals in the UK "as a priority".

European citizens resident in the UK make a vital contribution both to our economy and our society. That's why we will be making securing their status, as well as that of British nationals in the EU, a priority as soon as we trigger Article 50 and the negotiations begin," saidaspokesperson.

It comes amid reports that Ms May is to end rights given to EU nationals under freedom of movement rules when she triggers Article 50 next month, which would establish a cut-off date of around 15 March after which EU citizens would not be entitled to live in the UK permanently.

It is unclear if the Governments plan would be a breach of the EU treaties that guarantee freedom of movement.

Under the plan, the 3.6 million EU citizens who are already in Britain and others who come before that date would have their rights protected providing the EU agreed to the same status for UK citizens living in the EU.

Read more:
Brexit: EU nationals express panic after Government 'alters residency rules' - The Independent

European Union and United Nations work together to improve lives in more than 170 countries

Partnership between the European Union and the United Nations has benefited millions of people in more than 170 countries across the globe, according to the latest report showcasing the results and strength of the collaboration between the United Nations and the European Union.

From the Millennium Development Goals to the new 17 Sustainable Development Goals, the European Union has worked together with the United Nations to ensure access to education and health, save lives, increase resilience, and promote the values enshrined in the UN Charter of peace and human rights.

EU President Jean-Claude Juncker stressed the need for a greater emphasis on multilateralism and collective action to address global challenges. He emphasized the European Unions commitment to the ``spirit of global solidarity at the heart of the 2030 Agenda in an introduction to the report which covers activities of the partnership between the United Nations and the European Union 2014-2015.

The results of this ambitious and wide-ranging partnership can be seen at country level. The EU and the UN have worked, for example, with Governments in Iraq, the Central African Republic, Thailand, Ukraine and Colombia to integrate human rights in their development plans.

Partnership is crucial to success. According to the report, ``Saving and Empowering Lives, in nearly 40 countries, the EU and the UN have partnered with civil society organizations and national authorities to improve protection for millions of refugees and internally displaced persons.

Training is another fundamental area of cooperation to help countries promote and honour commitments to gender equality, the empowerment of women and end abuse of women and children among others.

Tens of millions of vulnerable people in 49 countries in 2014-2015 benefitted from food assistance provided by the United Nations and the European Union in nations ravaged by war or malnutrition. Despite efforts by the EU and the UN, nearly 800 million people are still undernourished, and tackling hunger is critical to the partnership.

In a world beset by crises, the European Union and the United Nations play a fundamental role in providing relief to the some 65 million people who were uprooted from their homes globally due to armed conflicts, climate change, population growth and unplanned urbanization.

With their immense convening power, the EU and the UN helped coordinate contributions from donors, international organizations, civil society and national authorities to address the needs of refugees and internally displaced persons in Africa, the Middle East and Europe itself.

Innovative initiatives using private sector partnerships and new technologies like biometrics and ATMs provide help quicker and in a more economically efficient manner.

From floods, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and other emergencies, the EU and the UN have expanded cooperation on rapid response to crises, increasing resilience and recovery.

The EU-UN partnership in Peace and Security continued to deepen in 2014-2015, providing a valuable contribution to the increased attention currently being paid to the importance of mediation, conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy now evident in both the European Union and the United Nations.

In 2015, the EU and the UN agreed on priorities for 2015-2018 for strengthening the partnership on peacekeeping and crisis management. The EU-UN Partnership has promoted democracy, the rule of law and good governance in countries across Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Working together, the EU and the UN have expanded global access to essential services, provided training and opportunity for enhanced inclusive, green growth and decent jobs.

The UN and the EU played crucial roles in the historic Agreement on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, paving the way to further develop national climate plans; the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction; the Addis Ababa Action Agenda; Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The historical year of 2015 marked a landmark in continuing to strengthen the partnership between the EU and the UN. The partnership was highlighted during the first-ever European Year for Development in 2015 and the annual European Development Days.

The next edition of the European Development Days in June 2017 will focus on investing in development, marking a new step in forging an ever stronger partnership between the EU and the UN.

Contact information Ludmila Tiganu, Communications Specialist, UNDP Brussels, ludmila.tiganu@undp.org

See the original post here:
Saving and Empowering Lives: Partnership between the United Nations and the European Union in 2014-2015 - ReliefWeb

WHAT WILL become of these? Euros fall off a table after being minted. The EU also may be teetering on the brink.. (photo credit:REUTERS)

After the Brexit referendum, the breakup of the European Union through a collapse or voluntary disbandment can no longer be considered a fully absurd scenario. To create a framework of thought it is worthwhile to start analyzing what that could mean for Israel, even though Israel will not play any role in the process if it develops.

Particularly in the new century, the EU has taken increasingly hostile and occasionally antisemitic positions toward Israel on several issues. This led the Simon Wiesenthal Center to put the EU in third place in its 2015 list of worldwide promoters of antisemitic and/or anti-Israel incidents. It gave as reason: The European Union has chosen to label products from the Golan Heights and disputed territories on the West Bank alone, ignoring the products of other occupied and disputed territories in the world such as Western Sahara, Kashmir, Tibet and products from areas controlled by terrorist Hamas and Hezbollah. This use of double standards against Israel typifies modern anti-Israelism and has been at the core of antisemitism for many centuries.

The above example of discrimination is only one of the many justified criticisms Israel has of the EU. This hostility originates on a continent where the greatest mass murder of the Jews to ever take place occurred less than a hundred years ago. The Holocaust was not a German and Austrian project alone. Many other European authorities and individuals collaborated. Some elements of its impact continue to exist today.

Today there is a large amount of indirect support of Israel-hatred and antisemitism coming from Europe. The European Commission has done nothing to develop selection procedures concerning immigration from Muslim countries with high levels of antisemitism. There is a testimony from the Dutch former EU commissioner Frits Bolkestein that when he raised the issue of Muslim immigration in a meeting of the EC around 2000, his colleagues considered him a racist.

Nor has the EU, with all of its talk about the rise in antisemitism, tried to develop a unified reporting system for antisemitic incidents in its member countries.

One major argument which seemingly favored the existence of the EU from an Israeli viewpoint has been that some member countries could take stronger anti-Israel positions if they were not bound by common EU positions.

In recent months, various actions taken by France have shown that this argument is weaker than often considered.

Presidential elections are due there within several weeks. The presidency of Socialist Franois Hollande has been such a failure that for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, a sitting president is not running for a second term. He did the favor to two journalists, Gerard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, of giving them access to regular private conversations during his time in office.

In their recently released book, they list impotence as the main characteristic of the Hollande presidency.

Recently, Israel became an even more convenient scapegoat for the French authorities. In January, France organized a useless international conference on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The organizers knew that a few days later US President Donald Trump, who holds radically different views from his predecessor, would be inaugurated. France subsequently could not even obtain the adoption of the conferences statement in the EU Foreign Affairs Council, as it was blocked by Britain. It is not far-fetched to assume that the French Socialists hope to attract Muslim voters, of which there are many, with their anti-Israel positions.

WHEN THE new Swedish government, dominated by the Social Democrats, was installed in 2014, one of its earliest actions was to recognize the non-existent Palestinian state. It well knew that if there were free elections among Palestinians in the West Bank, the genocide-promoting Hamas would most likely obtain a majority.

The Swedish government did not feel the need to act in coordination with its EU partners on this issue. The Irish foreign minister, Charles Flanagan, has stated that his government constantly considers recognizing a Palestinian state.

Against this background, the disappearance of the EU would mainly present advantages for Israel. If the office of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy would be abolished, a source of ongoing multilateral incitement against Israel would end.

The disappearance of the European Commissions Legal Service would also be very positive for Israel. It is responsible for the one-sided opinion that the West Bank is occupied territory according to international law and that the settlements are illegal. Many leading international legal experts contest this position.

Whether the EU remains as it is, whether some countries leave it, or whether it is abandoned altogether, should not be of particular interest to Israel. If the EU disappears, the Common Market will most likely remain. So will collaboration in research and a few other fields of interest to Israel. There will also be a common interest in continuing to jointly fight terrorism, mainly that committed by Muslims. When countries will need to guard their own borders, this may make them more sensitive to Israels problems.

Finally, there is one great advantage to the disappearance of the EU. The Israeli population is substantially bigger than that of 14 of the 28 EU member states.

Another six have populations on the same order of magnitude. Only eight have much larger populations. Israels force in bilateral relations will greatly increase if compared to the current confrontation with the EU behemoth with its more than 500 million inhabitants.

Relevant to your professional network? Please share on Linkedin

Prev Article

On Netanyahus historic visit to Australia

Iran, uranium and Israels stakes in Kazakhstans leadership transition

Next Article

Read more here:
Is a disbanded European Union good for Israel? - Jerusalem Post Israel News

German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern called for European Union (EU) members to close ranks in the face of pressures from the new US administration and from Russia.

Gabriel warned it would be a mistake for European countries to seek individual answers to current challenges, rather than EU-wide solutions.

"We are witnessing a new delineation of the world,"Gabriel said. He was speaking after a meeting with Kern, a fellow Social Democrat, in Vienna.

Kern said USPresident Donald Trump was openly attempting to weaken the EU, while there were similar efforts "in our eastern neighborhood," referencing Russia. He called for a "phase of closing ranks" within the EU.

Gabriel stressed that Europe needed above all a common foreign, defense and security policy, Austrian media reported.

Gabriel said people needed to be realistic about the political situations in countries such as Libya and Tunisia and their ability to abide by immigration deals

'Realism' on North African migrants

Gabriel called for more realism amid controversial proposals for refugee holding camps in North Africa.

"I advise people not to paint a world that does not exist," Gabriel said.

On Monday the new President of the EU Parliament Antonio Tajani called for refugee camps in Libya and a billion-dollar "Marshall Plan" for Africa. "Either we are acting now, or millions of Africans are going to Europe in the next 20 years," Tajani told the Funke Media Group.

Gabriel later met with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz

Early in February EU leaders agreed on a plan to stem the flow of migrants via the Mediterranean including support for setting up safe refugee camps in Libya.

Gabriel said it was dangerous to think that the EU-Turkey agreement on intercepting and inviting migrants was transferable to unstable and politically chaotic countries such as Libya and Tunisia.

In 2016 the EU signed a deal with Turkey to stem the flow of refugees in exchange for increase resettlement of Syrian refugees residing in Turkey and an acceleration of visa-free travel for Turkish citizens.

Gabriel also met with Austria's Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz who said he felt encouraged by these proposals. Kurz said the discussion on the refugees crisis had finally begun to become more honest, saying he had long been seeking to turn back refugees.

More focus on vulnerable members of society

Kern and Gabriel also stressed that the EUshould focus more on the most vulnerable members of society, and on delivering prosperity to all.

They said EU members needed to restore the promise of prosperity as a primary issue and to transform the internal market into a social market economy.

Gabriel's Social Democratic Party (SPD) is hoping for a winning swing in this September's election. Austria will head to the polls one year later.

aw/jm (dpa, KNA, AFP)

See the original post here:
German and Austrian leaders call for European Union to close ranks ... - Deutsche Welle

Rubber crumb fields pose very low risk, says European Union report The Indian Express The report published on Tuesday by the European Chemicals Agency says that based on current evidence, it has found no reason to advise people against playing sports on synthetic turf containing recycled rubber granules. Late last year, Dutch ... and more »

Original post:
Rubber crumb fields pose very low risk, says European Union report - The Indian Express