The Merkron Edition
55th Edition | 15–21 June 2018
It’s the 55th Edition of Brussels Brief* and we are back still in the Age of Aquarius, with a touch of Merkronomics and Parisian bistros.
It was World Refugee Day yesterday and it was poetic timing as Europe and the world at large deals with one of the inevitable consequences of global technological acceleration and geopolitical instability. Some call them ‘migrants’ (escaping poverty), others are ‘asylum-seekers’ (escaping political/religious oppression), ‘refugees’ (escaping war and conflict) and ‘expatriates’ (skilled migration). All have in common one aspect, the passing of borders with a view to a long-term, possibly permanent, stay in a different country to the one of their birth. However, no matter the type of migration (except expatriates), failed policy and outright intolerance have spiraled into a moral vandalism plaguing the public sphere. Nowadays you have public officials openly slighting countries where many migrants come from, dehumanising them, and even outcasting its own citizens based on racial profiling. Beyond Trump and Salvini, when negativity is rewarded with political capital, it is a dangerous game that could lead to the worst of outcomes. If you think using children and vulnerable migrants as political pawns is low, think of our own past in Europe to know that things could get much worse, much too quickly. There is a reason why authors as Orwell and Huxley described dystopias in the future and we should use the past to know when we are heading for catastrophe.
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The Brussels Brief Team 👨👩👦 ✌️ 🇪🇺
*Collated and Curated over ‘Le Mellotron 24/7’ and a cup of hot something ☕ in Brussels Brief HQ.
“This standoff shows how Europe has lost its moral compass in the Mediterranean”
- Karline Kleijer
Head of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) Emergency Desk, one of the many NGOs involved in rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean.
🔝 FRONT PAGE — Top News This Week
The Age of Aquarius: Part II. As The Aquarius, the ship holding migrants which became at the centre of a European political cluster-storm safely arrived in Spain (video), the cat was let out of the proverbial bag in the urgency to address the European migration crisis. The first to feel the effects of said was Germany that has received almost double as many claims for asylum as any other EU country, despite a recent drop in overall figures. However, this wasn’t enough to prevent a standoff between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Bavarian allies that could have potentially crumbled her 3-month-old government coalition. The German Interior Minister who belongs to Bavaria’s Christian Social Union had plans to return migrants who had registered in other European countries, a move that Merkel firmly opposed triggering her to call for a ‘European solution’ instead. It seems she has a two-week deadline in which to find the said solution, which was aided by her meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron who agreed to her approach on asylum breaking a long-established EU impasse on the matter. However, her approach will definitely be challenged by the so-called “axis of the willing” against illegal migration and its poster boy, Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz, who is calling for a strengthening of Europe’s external borders via Frontex. Much of the hard-line attitudes on immigration are being spurred by US President Donald Trump’s recent zero-tolerance policy at the EU-Mexico border where families have been separated and has received both fierce condemnation and tacit acceptance in Europe. [Washington Post, Sky News, EUobserver, Politico Europe, Euractiv, Handelsblatt, Euronews, Euronews, Eurotopics, Voice of America]
💸 ITS THE ECONOMY, STUPID — Top Economic, Trade and Innovation News
Merkron, mais oui! After over a year’s of courtship Cousin Manu finally got the answer he wanted. The French President has been eager to move forward with ambitious reform of the Eurozone and has proven to be serious about reform at home, but he has been in need of a dancing partner in step with him. Meanwhile, Angela Merkel has been hesitant to embrace sweeping reform and worried about a lack of economic prudence which the German voters fear they will pay for. But maybe the chaos of the world finally convinced Merkel that Macron was the one she should bet on. Among the new announcements from the happy couple is the wish to reform the financial crisis tool, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), to better handle future financial crises; a new Eurozone budget with taxes to finance it and a European unemployment insurance scheme. Now the duo just have to convince the remaining EU leaders that their newfound fondness is in the best interests of everyone. [Politico Europe, Euractiv]
Trading places. Trump is raising the drawbridge on global trade and the Commission will launch countermeasures starting Friday against the US President’s tariffs. Meanwhile, Trade Commissioner Malmström has been scurrying around the globe eagerly trying to fill the US size void in left in global trade. The new target of Malmström’s ambition is Australia for whom the EU is the second largest trading partner even though many trade barriers remain. But Malmström ought to be mindful of the home-turf as the EU-Canada trade deal, CETA, is now being challenged by the new populist Italian government amidst a popular blowback against global trade. [Axios, Bloomberg, Euractiv]
🇬🇧 STATE OF THE (DIS)UNION — Brexit Stories
Brexit carrousel. As if the speculation wasn’t already at fever level this week brought a carousel of unresolved issues in the Brexit process and infused it with speculation. In the run-up to the anticipated EU Council conclusions on the Brexit negotiations next week. The EU is expected to address the UK’s lack of preparation which could manifest itself in a no-Brexit or soft Brexit as disagreements abound. Even one of the most promising areas of potential future cooperation, foreign and security policy, is under threat as the EU made it clear that the UK cannot maintain the current relationship post-Brexit nor keep the European Arrest Warrant despite the latter’s insistence on its importance in battling terror. On the UK side, the infamous £350 million NHS bus is still haunting Remainers’ dreams after Theresa May alluded to a ‘Brexit dividend’ as a source of funding for a boost to NHS spending. However, it seems that the Prime Minister’s hardline attitude is not being softened by pro-EU MPs as the UK parliament who again yesterday voted to reject a motion that would increase the role of lawmakers to prevent a no-Brexit scenario. [Bloomberg, Business Insider, Sky News, The Guardian, The Independent, France 24] 300,000
- The approximate amount in Euros French far-right leader Marine Le Pen must repay to the European Parliament for funds paid incorrectly to an assistant.
🏢 BRUXELLES MA BELLE — News about the city
Flying ahead. Despite recovering business following the 2016 terror attacks, Brussels airport is going on sale after the summer. The move comes after two of its major shareholders, Canadian and Australian funds, settled a dispute to allow the sale to go ahead. Meanwhile, the airport is not holding back in jumping on the blockchain bandwagon as they test a pilot project for freight forwarding. The application BRUcloud will use distributed ledger technology to track cargo movement as it goes through Europe’s 23rd busiest airport. [Reuters, CCN]
Are we there yet? There is no escaping the constant construction work going on around the city. But much like the renovation Schuman metro, there is no shortage of delays surrounding the mammoth pedestrianisation project in the city. Businesses have been cursing the delays that threaten to continue until 2020. A renovation that has been completed, however, is that of Brussels North station with a newly renovated central hall for the 66-year old station. [Brussels Times] ✂️ EXTRA — From The Cutting Room Floor A Europe of soccer. Go to a scholarly conference on the question of European Identity these days and stacks of thick books will come your way along with hour-long lectures. And still, there is no consensus on what it means to be European amongst the continent’s team of professional scholars. Maybe the answer to what unites Europeans more than anything was never to be found in dusty libraries but on the green fields as soccer is arguably the quintessential European sport which both promotes internal unity in the struggle against a foreign team but also encourages a civil rivalry between equals and shows how peoples of different countries have more in common than what separates them. No matter what here’s to a European nation winning the World Cup! [Daily JSTOR]
A Europe of cafés. If soccer is the essence of European sport then one can arguably make the case that the Parisian bistro café is inseparable from French culture. Or at least that is what Parisian bistro owners are trying to persuade UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural organisation, of having Paris’ sprawling café scene added to the list of intangible cultural heritages. France already has Pyrenees fire festivals and folk dance from Brittany on the list, which also features arts such as Japanese Kabuki theatre. Perhaps, France should consider adding its ‘striking’ culture to the list. If you’re taking a flight this summer beware that 33% of delays are caused by French air-traffic controllers who had 254 days of industrial action between 2004–2016 with Greece a distant runner-up at a mere 46. Culture really is a strange and elusive thing. [The New York Times, The Guardian] 💡 OPINION — Top minds muse on the European project
Economic realism. The movements and governments who claim to have the antidote to globalist elitism by selling a program of populist nationalism is not a sustainable model according to Anatole Kaletsky. The dominance of nationalism over egalitarianism is evident in populist practices of electing rich demagogues and in tax cuts which end up benefitting global corporations. Also, Italy and the US will learn what Britain already has: bellicose and illiterate economic policies will not improve the everyday life for most people and address the political grievances which led them to vote for populist governments [Project Syndicate]
When one friend closes a door… The Decline of the West and the Rise of the Rest has been a geopolitical axiom by many observers for a long time and the willful dismantling of the Transatlantic partnership between Europe and the US by President Trump accelerates an ongoing trend. Where the G7 summits of leading Western countries are waning the new global players are rising in fora like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) which brings together such unlike partners like China, India, and Russia. But Europe need not fall into a geopolitical coma according to Shada Islam, director of Europe and geopolitics at Friends of Europe, but should seize the moment to double down on expanding cooperation with Asian countries, preferably through the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) which brings together global players from across the G7 and SCO. While there is little confidence in Europe at the moment, people around the world look to the EU as the blueprint for tomorrow’s global order. [Euractiv]
🎧 PRESS PLAY — Media Corner
🔊 Podcast of the Week. Former Danish PM, Helle Thorning Schmidt is the focus of the interview of Politico’s EU Confidential this week sparking speculation of a European comeback in the new Commission for the College of Europe alumna. [Politico Europe]
🎥 Video(s) of the Week. A lesson in etiquette if there ever was one by French President “Monsieur” Emmanuel Macron who chastised a child who called him ‘Manu’ during a meet and greet. We have been guilty of calling MR Macron “Cousin Manu” in the past and would welcome a personalised punishment from the President himself. [Euronews]
✏️ Cartoon(s) of the Week. EU migrant crisis, World Cup 2018, Germany and asylum row [Cagle.com]
📺 GIF of the Week
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