The European Parliament’s co-lead negotiator for the next EU long-term budget warned on Wednesday (11 December) that introducing a “vague” conditionality that ties EU funds to national structural reforms could undermine the “principle of solidarity” in the bloc’s cohesion policy. The two chief negotiators for the Parliament on the file, however, struck a more cautious tone. Siegfried Mureșan, co-lead negotiator on the MFF for the centre-right EPP group, told journalists in Brussels that “we don’t want farmers to have payments suspended if a government doesn’t do a pension reform.” Thus, “this conditionality shouldn’t exist in a way in which it affects beneficiaries,” the Romanian politician added. Read more.
EPP: Commission should present proposal on relieving car industry from CO2 fines ‘ASAP’. The European Commission should present a proposal to spare car makers from CO2 fines “as soon as possible,” EU lawmaker Jens Gieseke said in Brussels on Wednesday (11 December), after the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) group adopted a position paper to “rescue” the European car industry. “Our position is that we want to avoid penalties,” Gieseke, who had led work on the centre-right group’s position paper, told journalists in a press conference. Read more.
France’s budgetary crisis will be resolved, but challenges remain over Paris’ high debt levels and climbing deficit, Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe said on Monday (9 December). “French debt and French borrowing, of course, [are] a challenge for the French economy at the moment, and for [its] parliament and for [its] current government,” Donohoe said after a meeting of euro area finance ministers in Brussels. He reiterated his “absolute confidence” in French political leaders’ ability to lay down measures to bring “the stability and the reduction in borrowing that will be needed for the French economy in the years ahead.” Read more.
Political and industry pressure is mounting on President Ursula von der Leyen’s new Commission to shore up Europe’s steel sector, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz echoing earlier calls by key industry players for an EU-wide crisis summit on Monday (9 December). Scholz hold a national meeting in Berlin on Monday morning, echoing calls from the European Steeel Association (Eurofer) as well as trade union IndustriAll. The two groups called for an urgent meeting with the EU executive to lay out concrete steps to implement a “Steel Action Plan” against mounting headwinds for a sector they said “was already suffering from the ongoing energy and raw material crises” and is now “once again being flooded by cheap foreign steel” from China, exacerbating global overcapacity. Read more.
The EU should make an offer to President-elect Donald Trump to avoid the imposition of tariffs on European exports to the US, which could include buying more US products, bringing down tariffs on imported cars and developing a joint clean steel standard, economic think tank Bruegel has proposed. In response to the threat, the EU should pursue a double strategy of offering Trump a deal to “facilitate” EU-US trade while also preparing for the case that negotiations fail, Brussels-based think tank Bruegel recommended in a paper published on Monday (9 December) morning. “The priority should be trying to avoid that those tariffs are imposed on the EU,” Ignacio García Bercero, lead author of the paper and non-resident fellow at Bruegel, told Euractiv. Read more.
EPP calls to ‘avoid penalties’ for carmakers but stick to 2025 CO2 targets. The EPP group adopted the position paper on securing the bloc’s struggling car industry with a large majority on Wednesday (11 December). Unlike a previous version of the paper seen by Euractiv, the EPP group did not call for a two-year delay of the 2025 CO2 reduction target of 15%. Instead, it calls for an assessment of compliance with the targets over three years so that carmakers could escape fines in 2025 if they over-achieve targets in subsequent years. “All these measures should consider the efforts and investments that companies have already taken,” the final paper reads, adding that any changes to the CO2 targets should avoid “legal challenges.” Read more.
UK finance minister Rachel Reeves told her Eurozone counterparts on Monday (9 December) that the country wants a “business-like relationship” with Europe, as Britain seeks to revitalise its faltering economy by fostering deeper trade and investment ties with its largest trading partner. Reeves’ attendance at Monday’s Eurogroup meeting – the first by a UK Chancellor of the Exchequer since Britain formally left the EU in 2020 – comes as part of a broader effort by London to “reset” its political links with Brussels that have yet to recover from the shock Brexit referendum in 2016. Read more.
France’s budgetary crisis will be resolved, but challenges remain over Paris’ high debt levels and climbing deficit, Eurogroup President Paschal Donohoe said on Monday (9 December). Donohoe added that French finance chief Antoine Armand had given his counterparts a full update on the country’s fiscal position during Monday’s Eurogroup meeting. “From all the engagement […] with Minister Armand and with the French authorities during this period… [I am] confident that the steps will be taken to stabilise the French situation,” he said. Read more.
Chinese companies condemned the European Union’s “over-emphasis” on economic security on Monday (9 December), arguing that Brussels’ push to reduce its strategic dependence on Beijing will ultimately harm European consumers and hamper the EU’s dual transition. Nine out of 10 Chinese firms operating in Europe believe that the EU’s “Economic Security Strategy” and its “de-risking” policy are having a negative impact on their business, the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU (CCCEU) reported in its annual survey. Read more.
Poland will focus on a regulatory review of the securitisation market to reinvigorate Europe’s long-stalled single market for capital during Warsaw’s upcoming Council presidency, Finance Minister Andrzej Domański said. Speaking to journalists in Brussels on Wednesday (11 December), Domański said Poland would also aim to promote a broader “equity culture” across the EU by removing regulatory obstacles which prevent EU citizens from investing their savings in stocks or other assets. “What we can focus on are rather relatively low-hanging fruits like securitisation, like making trade settlements more smooth,” Domański said. Read more.
[Edited by Anna Brunetti/Owen Morgan]
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Publish date : 2024-12-13 05:44:00
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