⊂ EUROPE ⊃
Refugees try to storm border fence: Macedonian police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of refugees who stormed the border from Greece on Monday, as frustrations boiled over at restrictions imposed on people moving through the Balkans. The EU is currently drafting emergency plans for Greece and other countries in the Balkans to help avoid a humanitarian crisis. Clashes broke out as demolition teams dismantled huts in part of a migrant camp known as the Jungle in the French port of Calais.
reuters.com, bbc.com
Ukraine is the focus of German OSCE presidency: Both Ukraine and Russia continue to violate a ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the UN Security Council on Monday. He added that Kyiv needs to implement an electoral law allowing limited concessions to rebels in eastern Ukraine in order to reach a political solution to the two-year conflict. Germany holds the rotating chair of the OSCE, the body monitoring a shaky year-old ceasefire that Steinmeier credited with deescalating tensions.
dw.com
EU and Canada agree on approach on investment: The EU Commission and the Canadian government have agreed to include a new approach on investment protection and investment dispute settlement in the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This represents a clear break from the old Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) approach and demonstrates the shared determination of the EU and Canada to replace the current ISDS system with a new dispute settlement mechanism and move towards establishing a permanent multilateral investment court.
europa.eu
Eurozone annual inflation down: The eurozone annual inflation is expected to be -0.2 percent in February 2016, down from 0.3 percent in January, according to a flash estimate from Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU. The European Central Bank is under growing pressure to step up support for the eurozone’s flagging economy. The surprise drop in prices marked the third time in a year that inflation has turned negative, fanning fears that the eurozone is headed for all-out deflation – a sustained period of falling prices.
europa.eu, theguardian.com (ECB)
16 EU states raised minimum wage: 16 out of 22 European Union states with a minimum wage raised it at the beginning of this year. In January 2015, Germany introduced a statutory minimum wage of 8.50 euros per hour, making it the 22nd country in the 28-nation EU to adopt such a wage policy. A survey released by the left-leaning Böckler Foundation on Monday said Germany’s minimum wage was moderate and the lowest among Europe’s biggest economies.
dw.com
Commission presents EU-US Privacy Shield: The EU Commission has issued the legal texts that will put in place the EU-US Privacy Shield and a Communication summarising the actions taken over the last years to restore trust in transatlantic data flows since the 2013 surveillance revelations. The US authorities provided strong commitments that the Privacy Shield will be strictly enforced and assured there is no indiscriminate or mass surveillance by national security authorities.
europa.eu
Energy Union: Parliament braced for “tsunami of legislation” euractiv.com
Mergers: Commission clears acquisition of EMC by Dell europa.eu
Survey: Highest support for development aid amongst EU citizens in 6 years europa.eu
⊂ QUOTES ⊃
„We can’t simply abandon this country now. When one country defines its border so that the other has to suffer—that is not my Europe.“
German Chancellor Angela Merkel insists that border closures would lead to dangerous chaos in Greece.
wsj.com
„We want a free and open Poland … a Poland where there is room for everyone. We’ve come to make it clear that freedom and democracy are the most important values guarded by the constitution.“
Mateusz Kijowski, head of the Committee for the Defense of Democracy (KOD), protests against the Polish government, which is accused of weakening the country’s democratic foundations.
dw.com
⊂ COUNTRIES ⊃
Russians rally to remember Nemtsov: Supporters of the murdered Russian opposition politician, Boris Nemtsov, marched through Moscow on Saturday to mark the first anniversary of his death. The 55-year-old Nemtsov, an opposition leader and former deputy prime minister, was gunned down near the Kremlin walls late in the evening of Feb. 27, 2015, as he walked home with his girlfriend from a restaurant. Police put the number of attendees at 7,500 people, but one group of observers put it at 25,000.
bbc.com, reuters.com, newyorker.com
Finland avoids fourth year of contraction: Finland’s economy avoided a fourth year of contraction as consumer spending edged up to end the year. Gross domestic product rose 0.1 percent from the third quarter, according to data from Statistics Finland in Helsinki. The EU Commission predicts Finland’s economy will slowly start to recover in 2016 and 2017. The Commission’s winter 2016 forecast predicts that real GDP growth in Finland will increase by 0.5 percent in 2016 and 0.9 percent in 2017.
bloomberg.com
Turkish authorities close critical media group: A Turkish court has ordered the closure of all branches of a critical media group. Turkish dailies “Bugün” and “Millet”, TV stations “Bugün TV” and “Kanaltürk”, all of which operate under the roof of İpek Media Group, are to be closed down. The Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office on October 26th, 2015, ordered the group to be placed under the management of a trustee panel while an investigation is ongoing into the group’s purported ties to the US-based cleric Fetullah Gülen.
derstandard.at
Spain faces new elections: Spanish Socialist party leader Pedro Sanchez faces a confidence vote in Parliament this week. If he wins it, he can take office, and the political stalemate since December 20th is over. However, the Socialists have only got 90 lawmakers in the 350-seat chamber. So far, Sanchez has managed to broker a deal with the 40 representatives of the pro-market Ciudadanos group, but the incumbent People’s Party and the anti-austerity group Podemos have both vowed to vote against him.
bloomberg.com
France: Hollande delays French labor law overhaul amid opposition bloomberg.com
Italy: Starbucks to open first store in Italy theguardian.com
⊂ DATA ⊃
52 percent of Brits support the campaign to take Britain out of the EU in a June 23rd referendum, according to an online survey taken for “The Independent” newspaper published on Friday.
uk.reuters.com
⊂ JOB-BOARD ⊃
politjobs.eu: 350.org seeks campaigner *** Steltemeier & Rawe seeks Senior Associate (m/f) *** 1&1 sucht EU Public Affairs Manager VKU sucht Referentin/en *** Afore Consulting seeks Junior Consultants in European Public Affairs
politjobs.eu, politjobs.eu/submit (Inserat schalten)
⊂ MALFUNCTION ⊃
Bernie Sanders gets Pussy Riot’s approval: The leader of the Russian feminist punk-rock collective Pussy Riot, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, says she is a huge fan of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and all the “energy and emotions” of his campaign. She agrees with his policy prescriptions and his views on, for instance, Social Security and Medicare, and believes that his attempted “political revolution” is historic, whether or not the senator wins the nomination.
thedailybeast.com