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The EU's founding countries have long portrayed their union of European states as a political, economic and historical success story. But the downside of this merger is all too often ignored - and thisis increasingly endangering its future.

The Maastricht Treaty, the European Union's founding document, turned 25 last week. In the first few years after the treaty was signed, it seemed that no one was able to recognize the European Union's innate defects. However, if those continue to go unaddressed, they could bring about the end of the union. Back then, one of the cardinal sins of the newly formed European Union was its inability to correctly assess the conflicts in Yugoslavia, to exert a moderating influence on the warring parties and to prevent civil wars in the region. Before it even evolved into the EU, the European Community was inconsistent and unconvincing when it came to applying the values it claimed to represent to its dealings with Yugoslavia.

DW's Dragoslav Dedovic

With the treaty, Germany transferred not only its economic power but also its postwar instinct toward nondominance to the EU. Just like West Germany during the Cold War, the newly constituted union of states was an economic giant, but a dwarf in the foreign policy arena.

This dwarf has barely grown in the past quarter century. Occasional therapies have been administered, involving foreign and security policy growth hormones, but all have failed. Thus today, for example, there is no consistent foreign policy line on the Balkans - and the western Balkans are, again, increasingly unstable.

Internally divided

The European Union also lacks the ability to reach a consensus on internal issues. Germany's severity inits austerity dealings with southern EU states on the one hand and, on the other, its generosity toward refugees may accord with Germans' current financial and humanitarian state of mind. For the internal cohesion of the European Union, however, both were poison. Especially as all these decisions were forced through under pressure of events, although each was the end of a long negative development, a period in which there were still alternatives, yet no action was taken.

When Greece was admitted to the eurozone, all the members of the currency club turned a blind eye. So did the whole of the EU when the bloc admitted Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.

The Dublin Regulation, which states that refugees must remain in the country where they first set foot on EU soil, primarily protects Germany and the rich countries in the north and puts huge pressure on the Mediterranean countries instead. Stubbornly ignoring the looming displacement crisis in the south turned the Mediterranean into a mass grave and Syria's tragedy into a refugee drama that played out across the whole of Europe.

The US's military logic, which was not always in the European Union's interest, resulted in a series of interventions. The consequences of these were not just unimaginable destruction and the collapse of entire states on the edges of the European Union, but also an erosion of solidarity within the EU itself. In many places, solidarity with weaker member states or with refugees seems to have become an alien concept. The consequences of this are Brexit in London, Kaczynski in Warsaw, Orban in Budapest, and Putin, Erdogan and Trump at the gates - none of which makes the situation for the European Union any easier.

Could fall apart

The European Union's current situation is increasingly reminiscent of Yugoslavia's before it disintegrated. The disaster that befell the land of Tito can be summarized as follows: economic crisis plus the continual reduction of its societies to mere communities of descent. All political and economic problems were quickly reinterpreted as ethnic conflicts.

At the time, this seemed in the eyes of international observers to be a kind of atavism - a regrettable deviation from the mainstream of historical progress. Unfortunately, 25 years later we are forced to realize that the disintegration of Yugoslavia was obviously the start, not the end, of a development.

It seems that the elites have spectacularly underestimated people's fears. Today, even in the capitals of Western Europe, nationalism has become socially acceptable again. It almost happened in Vienna. The Hague and Paris may soon be next. It's worth noting that, to date, the Western countries that were victorious over National Socialism seem to lack the requisite social antibodies to protect them against nativist ideologies in modern disguise - they haven't developed as many as Germany, the country where the evil originated and was defeated more than 70 years ago.

The formula for salvation is very simple, however: Outwardly present a united community of shared values and show solidarity internally. It is better to make investments ahead of time than to attempt interventions later - and far less costly. But it must be done in good time. It almost doesn't matter whether leaders dig up the failed EU constitution of 2005 or reconsider the model of a core Europe. What's far more crucial is that either a consensus is reached on competence to act on foreign policy issues, solidarity among member states, and reliable joint budget management, or the European Union, in its current form, will perish. The clock is ticking.

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Opinion: We can still stop the Balkanization of the EU - Deutsche Welle

LONDON More than a quarter of employers in Britain say staff members from other European Union countries have considered leaving their firms or the country in 2017 after last year's Brexit vote, an industry group said on Monday.

The proportion rose to 43 percent of employers in education and 49 percent in healthcare sector employers, according to a survey of more than 1,000 companies conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

The CIPD said Britain's labor market remained strong, but the decision by voters to leave the European Union was likely to force companies to rethink their training strategies as they adjusted to having fewer EU workers in future.

Prime Minister Theresa May has promised tighter control over immigration when Britain leaves the bloc, which is likely to be in 2019, even if it means the country losing its unfettered access to the EU's single market.

The CIPD said recent official data showed employers who rely heavily on EU migrant workers were struggling to fill some vacancies: firms in retail and wholesale, manufacturing, health and accommodation and food services accounted for 45 percent of vacancies in late 2016.

Gerwyn Davies, the CIPD's labor market adviser, said the official data also showed the number of non-UK EU nationals working in Britain grew more slowly in the three months to September than before the referendum.

"This is creating significant recruitment challenges in sectors that have historically relied on non-UK labor to fill roles and who are particularly vulnerable to the prospect of future changes to EU immigration policy," he said.

Signs of shortages of migrant workers appeared last year in Britain's farm sector shortly after June's referendum as the fall in the value of the pound made the country a less attractive destination.

(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Alison Williams)

TOKYO Toshiba Corp will on Tuesday detail a writedown of close to $6 billion after bruising cost overruns at its U.S. nuclear arm, turning investor attention to the Japanese group's efforts to fix that and other balance sheet headaches.

TOKYO Japan's economy grew for a fourth straight quarter in the final three months of last year as a weaker yen supported exports, but tepid private consumption and the risks of rising U.S. protectionism cast doubts over a sustainable recovery.

SYDNEY Australian banks seeking permission from the country's competition regulator to bargain collectively with Apple Inc over its mobile payment system said on Monday they will focus on gaining access to the U.S. tech company's contactless payment function, removing the fees Apple charges as a bone of contention.

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UK employers worry that EU workers will leave this year: survey - Reuters

THESE are exhilarating times for the 52% of British voters who last summer opted to leave the European Union. After months of rumours that an anti-Brexit counter-revolution was being plotted by the Europhile establishment (who even won a Supreme Court case forbidding the government from triggering Brexit without Parliaments permission), it at last looks as if independence beckons. This week the House of Commons voted to approve the process of withdrawal. The prime minister, Theresa May, will invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty next month, beginning a two-year countdown to freedom.

But the triumphant mood is about to sour, for a reason few people have grasped. The first item on the agenda in Brussels, where divorce terms are to be thrashed out, will be a large demand for cash. To Britons who voted to leave the EU because they were told it would save them 350m ($440m) a week, this will come as a shock. The mooted bill is hugesome in Brussels talk of 60bn ($64bn), enough to host the London Olympics five times overand its calculations open to endless argument. Until now the Brexit debate has focused on grander matters, such as the future of the 600bn-a-year trading relationship between Britain and the EU. Yet a row over the exit payment could derail the talks in their earliest stages.

The tab is eye-watering. Britains liabilities include contributions to the EUs pension scheme, which is generous and entirely unfunded. The biggest item, which Britain will surely challenge, is the countrys share of responsibility for a multi-billion-euro collection of future projects to which the EU has committed itself but not yet allocated a budget. These liabilities, and sundry smaller ones, may be offset a little by Britains share of the EUs assets, mostly property in Brussels and elsewhere around the world. By one analysis (see article), the bill could be as little as 25bn or as much as 73bn.

So there is plenty to haggle over. But the very idea that the charge is something to be negotiated irritates many Eurocrats, who see it as a straightforward account to be settled. The European Commissions negotiators insist that the divorce agreement must be signed off before the wrangling can begin on anything else, such as future trading relations. Britain would prefer to tally up the bill in parallel with talks on other matters, in order to trade more cash for better access.

Garon! This isnt what I ordered

It is in everyones interests to reach an agreement. If talks fail and Britain walks out without paying, the EU will be left with a big hole in its spending plans. Net contributors, chiefly Germany and France, would face higher payments and net recipients would see their benefits cut. For Britain the satisfaction at having fled without paying would evaporate amid rancid relations with the continent, wrecking prospects of a trade deal; a rupture in everything from intelligence-sharing to joint scientific research; and, perhaps, a visit from the bailiffs of the International Court of Justice. Such an outcome would be bad for the EU but it would be even worse for Britain.

That imbalance will become a theme of the Article 50 negotiations. It suggests that the British will have to do most of the compromising. Mrs May must not waste the two-year timetable haggling over a few billion, when trade worth vastly more hangs in the balance. The EU can help by agreeing to discuss the post-Brexit settlement in parallel with the debate about money. Rolling the lot into one would increase the opportunities for trade-offs that benefit both sides.

But there is a danger of hardliners in London and Brussels making compromise impossible. Some in the European Commission are too eager to make a cautionary tale of Britains exit. And they overestimate Mrs Mays ability to sell a hard deal at home. The British public is unprepared for the exit charge, which is not mentioned in the governments white paper on the talks. The pro-Brexit press, still giddy from its unexpected victory last summer, will focus both on the shockingly large total and also on the details (heres one: the average Eurocrats pension is double Britains average household income). It has flattered Mrs May with comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, who wrung a celebrated rebate out of the EU in 1984. A small band of Brexiteer MPs have a Trumpian desire to carry out not just a hard Brexit but an invigoratingly disruptive one. Mrs Mays working majority in Parliament is only 16.

Everyone would be worse off if the Article 50 talks foundered. Yet the breadth of the gap in expectations between the EU and Britain, and the lack of time in which to bridge it, mean that such an act of mutual self-harm is dangerously possible.

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A row over money could derail Brexit talks before they have begun - The Economist

The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption

The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

This is a new era for U.S. relations with the European Union.

Gone are the days when the U.S. was more supportive of European integration than some Europeans are. The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, is expecting a more businesslike, "transactional" approach with President Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of the EU and backs the British exit plan.

"We do not interfere in U.S. politics ... and Europeans expect that America does not interfere in European politics," Mogherini told reporters at the end of her trip to Washington.

She says she raised concerns about the man rumored to become the next U.S. ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch, another supporter of Brexit and someone who has suggested the European Union "needs a little taming."

"I was told there is no decision taken on the next U.S. ambassador to the European Union," Mogherini said, adding that she explained to U.S. officials that all EU member states have to agree to accredit a foreign ambassador.

"That has to be taken into consideration," she stressed.

The European Union's foreign policy chief met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as several White House advisers, including President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Kushner is taking the lead on Middle East policy and Mogherini says she talked to him about the possibility of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and where the EU stands on that. She's also pressing the Trump administration not to walk away from the nuclear deal with Iran, which she oversees.

"The deal is working and we need to preserve it this way," she said, adding that she was reassured by what she heard in her meetings.

Mogherini says she also got reassurances from the Trump administration that the U.S. will continue to push Russia to implement an international peace plan on Ukraine before easing sanctions. The U.S. has made clear that it will maintain sanctions related to Crimea unless Russia returns the peninsula to Ukraine. Officials, though, have carefully left open the door to easing other sanctions, related to Russia's actions in Eastern Ukraine and its cyberattacks in the U.S.

The State Department did not issue a statement about Secretary Tillerson's meeting with Europe's top diplomat.

Read the rest here:
EU Foreign Policy Chief Meets With Secretary Of State Tillerson, WH Advisers - NPR

Updated / Saturday, 11 Feb 2017 21:03

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he fears Britain will divide the European Union's 27 remaining members by making different promises to each country during its Brexit negotiations.

"The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this," Mr Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio.

"They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front."

By the end of March Britain will trigger formal divorce talks with the EU, a major test for the bloc which is struggling to have a grip on other challenges like keeping Greece in the eurozone, the refugee crisis and the election of Donald Trump as US president.

To add to all of that, the Netherlands, France and Germany are holding general elections this year, in which populist anti-EU parties are expected to make strong showings.

"Now everyone is saying in relation to Trump and Brexit: 'Now is Europe's big chance. Now is the time to close ranks and march together,'" Mr Juncker said in the radio interview which will be aired tomorrow.

"I wish it will be like this, but will it happen? I have some doubt. Because the Brits will manage without big effort to divide the remaining 27 member states."

His warning echoed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in Bratislava last yearthat the bloc is in a critical situation.

Mr Juncker said one area where the remaining 27 could improve cooperation was defence. Britain and France are the only EU countries with nuclear arsenals.

Mr Juncker, who will host US Vice President Mike Pence in Brussels next weekend, said a protectionist trade policy by the Trump administration would be an opportunity for the EU to forge new trade alliances.

"It would be a change that we have to use," Mr Juncker said. "And we should not allow the Brits to pursue trade deals now with others because they are not allowed to do so."

He said that as long as Britain was in the bloc, the European Commission was in charge of negotiating trade deals.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage (above) has said Mr Juncker's comments show Brussels is "worried and nervous" about UK tactics.

Mr Farage said that the remarks "showed cracks were appearing" in the EU stance as tough exit horse-trading looms.

"I am surprised that Jean-Claude Juncker is so worried about the British," said Mr Farage.

"From a UK perspective, I am pleased to see his nervousness. Up until now we have been constantly told it is going to be us versus the other 27."

Britain's Brexit department declined to comment directly on Mr Juncker's remarks, but pointed to a recent speech by the Prime Minister in which Theresa May said she wanted a "strong and constructive" partnership with the EU.

Trump says he will bring down price of Mexico wall

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Juncker fears Britain could divide EU over Brexit talks - RTE.ie