Brexit deal deadline could slip
Preparations for next week’s EU leaders summit have dominated much of the week, with the migration crisis, eurozone reforms, trade war with the US and the long-term budget all jostling for position on a packed and politically charged agenda. Which doesn’t leave much room for calm and measured discussions on Brexit -and what is there to debate when the European Council draft conclusions already warn that the UK increasingly risks a no-deal exit as “no substantial progress” has been made on the crucial issue of the Irish border.
With the discussions having stalled in Brussels, the European Parliament’s Mr Brexit, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, headed to London to meet various MPs and have a “friendly but frank” exchange of views with David Davis. While he remained resolute that the UK’s proposal for an Irish border backstop solution was untenable , he did hold out an olive branch that a little extra time could be granted if it helped find a deal. The summit meeting on 18 October has always been seen as the ultimate deadline for an exit agreement to allow time for ratification from the European Parliament. Verhofstadt conceded for the first time that a few extra weeks would be envisaged “but you can’t go beyond end of 2018”. An EU summit is already scheduled for 13 December but could we see a special Brexit one squeezed into November?
Bulgarian hat-trick on clean energy
For the second time in a week, MEPs and energy ministers negotiated into the early hours of the morning to reach a deal on the EU’s energy ambitions for 2030. Last week in Strasbourg they celebrated at 3.30 a.m. a deal on renewable energy that boosted the EU’s target from an initial 27% to 32%. This week’s talks went on even longer into the night, covering energy efficiency and a new governance instrument to help member states deliver their goals. While climate campaigners still felt they had not gone far enough to keep the EU on track to meet the Paris climate goals, the results were more ambitious than had been expected and the EU is feeling confident that it can go to the next round of climate talks in Poland in December as the global leader. The outcome was a fitting swansong for one of the key negotiators and most colourful of MEPs, the pony-tailed Green Claude Turmes, who crosses to the other side of the negotiating table as the Luxembourg Minister for Sustainable Development.
Copyright battle looms
Attempts to update copyright laws to meet the challenges of the internet have passed their first hurdle in the parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee but the tight vote indicates the battle is not over. MEPs voted through amendments to ensure fair pay for artists and journalists and that they don’t lose out to sharing platforms and news aggregators. However a vocal minority, led by the German Pirate party MEP Julia Reda claim these measures could “break the internet”. Round two is in Strasbourg in early July.
Richard Steel, Senior Associate, Interel EU Insight