Divided pro-EU leaders open talks after tense election

[webfact]

Divided pro-EU leaders open talks after tense election

By Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald

 

Activists display a banner outside the EU Parliament during the European Elections in Brussels, Belgium May 26, 2019.   Reuters/Bart Biesemans

 

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Parties committed to closer European Union integration began bargaining over jobs and policy on Monday after an election to the EU parliament which fragmented the centre but gave only limited gains to nationalists.

 

National leaders of the bloc, many of whom hailed the vote as a vindication, will meet to chart the next steps on Tuesday.

 

Matteo Salvini, Italian deputy prime minister, leader of the anti-immigration League and potential builder of a far-right alliance across Europe, said his 34% of the Italian national vote was a mandate to rip up euro zone budget austerity rules.

 

But despite other wins for eurosceptics in big countries, including France, Poland and would-be ex-member Britain, the result was taken as a vote of confidence by mainstream leaders after turnout surged and nationalists advanced only modestly.

 

"The European elections were tangible proof that European democracy is alive and well," Margaritis Schinas, chief spokesman of the executive European Commission, told reporters.

 

"The populists didn't win this election."

 

Facing a more hostile Russia, China's growing economic might and an unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump, many Europeans appeared to heed a message that the EU needed to stick together to protect workers' rights, free speech and democracy. Turnout rose to 51% from just 43% in the last election in 2014.

 

Salvini, calling the shots in Rome and who now emerges as leader of a potential new European Parliament group hostile to the Brussels establishment, told a news conference: "The time has come to totally re-discuss old and outdated rules that have hurt Europe. Otherwise a vote like this cannot be explained."

 

But the far-right and other nationalists, including Nigel Farage's triumphant new Brexit Party, Marine Le Pen's National Rally, which edged President Emmanuel Macron's liberals in France, and the ruling parties of Poland and Hungary may find it hard to overcome long-standing differences and turn what may be about a quarter of Parliament's seats into a united force.

 

LEADERS TO MEET

The 28 EU national leaders, including outgoing British Prime Minister Theresa May, will meet over dinner in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss the succession to Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other key jobs, including the head of the European Central Bank, in the light of the election results.

 

Hard bargaining, playing off national interest, party lines and gender issues, will last at least until a key summit on June 20-21. A standoff is likely with parliament, where EU party chiefs want the national leaders to back down from a refusal to replace Juncker with a lawmaker from among their winning ranks.

 

The vote saw the centre-right EPP, dented by losses for the likes of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and centre-left S&D lose a joint majority in the legislature.

 

But gains for liberals, like those of French President Emmanuel Macron's new movement, and for the Greens, second in Germany, third in France and fourth Britain, means a four-party alliance is already in the works. These four pro-Union groups lost fewer than 20 seats to retain 503 in the 751-seat chamber.

 

PARLIAMENT NEGOTIATIONS

Leaders of those groups met on Monday, although building a common platform, let alone agreeing on who to back for top EU jobs, is unlikely to be smooth. Sources in three parties said a planned dinner on Monday to thrash out a position to put to national leaders seemed by late afternoon unlikely to go ahead.

 

At the expense of Merkel, long Europe's key power-broker but now in her final term, there has been leftward shift in the balance of power, with the Greens, Macron and Spain's newly re-elected socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez flexing muscles.

 

"We are going to build a social Europe, a Europe that protects," Sanchez said before he flew to Paris for talks with Macron to coordinate ahead of the wider Brussels summit.

 

That could mean a bigger push to tax multinational companies and tighten environmental rules on industry, as well as a more protectionist bent in trade negotiations, with a greater stress put on pressing commercial partners to combat climate change.

 

The battle for top jobs may also be divisive for parliament.

 

Manfred Weber, the first-placed EPP's German lead candidate, is pushing hard to be nominated as Juncker's successor. But the Socialists have a claim with Dutchman Frans Timmermans, Junker's current deputy. Macron and his liberal allies may push for one of the few women in the race, Danish EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, or French Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

 

The euro made early gains on relief at the limited success of eurosceptics but settled back as investors pondered the fragmentation of the pro-EU middle ground of European politics.

 

Provisional results published by the European Parliament at 1305 GMT showed the EPP on 180 seats, S&D on 145, liberals on 109 and Greens on 69 for a total of 503. Two far-right groups shared 112 seats, rising to 171 with a third eurosceptic bloc.

 

Farage's party won 29 seats, matching Merkel's conservatives as the biggest in the chamber, one ahead of Salvini's League.

 

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Gabriela Baczynska, Daphne Psaledakis, Robin Emmott, Francesco Guarascio, Philip Blenkinsop and Jan Strupczewski; Writing by Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Jon Boyle)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-05-28

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[Laughing Gravy]

So will the EU reform. Not a chance. They will go for even further integration and federalisation. They will continue to call those countries who want their own control far right extremists. When the EU are doing the exact same with their protectionist policies.

 

I guess they will never learn and only realise when it is to late which doesn't seem that far away.

[Topdoc]

Anyone who understands Target2 will find it impossible to be optimistic about the EU project.

 

https://www.cass.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/research/cass-knowledge/2018/october/how-the-target2-payment-system-keeps-the-euro-project-alive-for-now

 

https://briefingsforbrexit.com/target2-the-silent-bailout-system-of-the-eurozone-by-david-blake/

[potless]

5 hours ago, Topdoc said:

Anyone who understands Target2 will find it impossible to be optimistic about the EU project.

 

https://www.cass.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/research/cass-knowledge/2018/october/how-the-target2-payment-system-keeps-the-euro-project-alive-for-now

 

https://briefingsforbrexit.com/target2-the-silent-bailout-system-of-the-eurozone-by-david-blake/

Edited 4 hours ago by Topdoc

One of the few worthwhile posts on the subject. Years ago I was told by a man that if Italy fell over, there would be a domino effect on the entire banking system. i ve also known that E.U. doesnt want the masses to realise what is/has been going on. For decades, the U.K. and other governments have been selling their citizens down the river. The "loans" are in effect gifts and should be described as such. i would have liked to see your post on a more relevant thread. Perhaps an opportunity will arise and hopefully before the usual suspects begin their lengthy squabbles. 

Two You Tube clips you may like from the "Yes Minister" comedy. "why the U.K is in the E.U." and then " Yes Minister explains the E.U." The current BBC mob wouldnt dare to broadcast that material these days.

[robertson468]

1 hour ago, potless said:

One of the few worthwhile posts on the subject. Years ago I was told by a man that if Italy fell over, there would be a domino effect on the entire banking system. i ve also known that E.U. doesnt want the masses to realise what is/has been going on. For decades, the U.K. and other governments have been selling their citizens down the river. The "loans" are in effect gifts and should be described as such. i would have liked to see your post on a more relevant thread. Perhaps an opportunity will arise and hopefully before the usual suspects begin their lengthy squabbles. 

Two You Tube clips you may like from the "Yes Minister" comedy. "why the U.K is in the E.U." and then " Yes Minister explains the E.U." The current BBC mob wouldnt dare to broadcast that material these days.

Very interesting and thank you for sharing that knowledge.  Sadly, Remainers are banking on the Euro Zone because they cannot see an alternative to trading outside of it, which is crazy!  There is a whole World out there, the vast majority of which is more than happy to stike up trade deals.  And do we think that Germany will just sit back and not try to deal with the UK bearing in mind it's huge car industry..........don't think so.

 

It is up to our Politicians to get out there and make offers to other Countries, instead of planning their own bid for power and twiddling their worry beads.  I have never come across such a self serving and selfish group, (who feel only they know best) of people in all my life.

[potless]

21 minutes ago, robertson468 said:

It is up to our Politicians to get out there and make offers to other Countries, instead of planning their own bid for power and twiddling their worry beads.  I have never come across such a self serving and selfish group, (who feel only they know best) of people in all my life.

Gravy train too tempting. Good politicians are suppressed in the main by the party line. For the most part I have stayed out of the political discussions. dont need the agro. The long con that the E.U. has engaged in reminds me of the Lewis Carroll poem "The walrus and the carpenter"

[potless]

3 hours ago, potless said:

  8 hours ago, Topdoc said:

Anyone who understands Target2 will find it impossible to be optimistic about the EU project.

 

https://www.cass.city.ac.uk/faculties-and-research/research/cass-knowledge/2018/october/how-the-target2-payment-system-keeps-the-euro-project-alive-for-now

 

https://briefingsforbrexit.com/target2-the-silent-bailout-system-of-the-eurozone-by-david-blake/

As a post script to my previous reply to you, Tony Blair has just been interviewed on Sky news, spouting about a second referendum. The interviewer put it to Blair that Blair himself had proposed referendums regarding the E.U. The reply was "yes, but AFTER we had joined the single currency."