… rewrite plans for spending the European Union funds aimed at rebuilding the … than 200 billion euros of EU funds and revive the pandemic … already prepared by the other EU countries and to provide …
Food scarcity fears prompt plan to ease post-Brexit checks on EU imports
Ministers are preparing to relax post-Brexit plans for border checks on food and other imports from the European Union because of fears that they will further damage trade and could lead to severe shortages in UK supermarkets.
The Observer has been told by multiple industry sources that Boris Johnson’s new Brexit minister, Lord Frost, is considering allowing “lighter touch” controls on imports from 1 April than are currently planned, and scaling back plans for full customs checks, including physical inspections, which are due to begin on 1 July.
One source said he had been told that Frost was preparing to put the plans, which could mean imports being allowed in even if clerical errors have been made by European companies, before fellow cabinet ministers this week, as evidence grows of how Brexit has hit trade with the EU.
A Downing Street source confirmed on Saturday night that Frost had already ordered “a review of the timetable to ensure that we are not imposing unnecessary burdens on business” but added that it was “early in the process and no decisions have been made”.
With UK exporters to the EU having been severely hit by new rules, regulations and costs of operating under the post-Brexit regime, business organisations and senior figures in Whitehall now fear that EU exporters to the UK – particularly those involved with food – could be even less prepared than their UK counterparts were at the start of this year.
A big worry is that delays resulting from checks could hit food supplies including the “just in time” delivery network.
One senior industry figure said: “The worry is that if we go ahead with more checks and move to checks on imports, then exporters will not be prepared and on this side we are not ready for that either. There is not the infrastructure in place yet or the number of customs officials necessary to carry all this out. We have already seen exports badly affected. The next nightmare could be imports.”
While the Cabinet Office, run by Michael Gove, has attempted to downplay the effects of Brexit on UK trade, a survey last week by the Food and Drink Federation of its members that send goods to the EU found a 45% drop in exports since 1 January.
Asked by the Observer on Friday if he was confident that plans for more checks on imports from the EU could go ahead from 1 April and 1 July, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said: “We are working through these things with the joint committee and I think we are looking at everything. If there are problems we are trying to address them. The systems and IT are all on track but we are keeping everything under review to make sure it is all as smooth as possible.”
While a key claim of Brexiters was always that Brexit would mean “regaining control of our borders”, doing so has proved hugely problematic since the UK left the single market and customs union on 1 January.
In order to give businesses time to adapt the government decided that imports into the UK from the EU could operate as normal until 1 April. From that date, under current plans, all items of animal origin such as meat, honey, milk or egg products, as well as regulated plants and plant products, will require full documentation and, where necessary, veterinary certificates to be sold in the UK. From 1 July, all companies exporting to the UK will be required to fill out full customs declarations and goods could be subjected to physical checks at new UK customs centres.
Richard Burnett, the chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, said: “We are hearing from government that they are going to take a ‘light touch’ approach to the next phase, or perhaps even an extension of the grace period. Although this is sensible to continue the uninterrupted flow of food products from the EU into Great Britain, I am concerned that it weakens the government’s negotiating leverage when asking for similar easements from the EU for UK businesses attempting to trade with them.”
In a further sign of post-Brexit problems, Gove last week announced that grace periods to allow lighter enforcement on EU rules over supermarket goods, pharmaceuticals, chilled meats and parcels from Great Britain into Northern Ireland should be extended to January 2023.
Some of the current waivers are due to cease at the end of March, raising fears about further border disruption. The issue of the new border in the Irish Sea has caused renewed tensions in Northern Ireland, while also worsening already poor relations with Brussels, which is considering legal action against the UK for breaking Brexit agreements.
Frost, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, has called on Brussels to “shake off any remaining ill will” towards the UK for leaving and argued the government is acting legally to protect the everyday lives of people in Northern Ireland. “I hope they will shake off any remaining ill will towards us for leaving, and instead build a friendly relationship, between sovereign equals.”
In its report accompanying last week’s budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility repeated its view that the additional trade barriers caused by Brexit would reduce UK productivity in the long run by about 4%.
On Saturday night the shadow Cabinet Office minister, Rachel Reeves, wrote to the OBR’s chair, Richard Hughes, asking him to publish details of its assessment of the economic effects of the trade deal with the EU, including its effect on exports and different regions of the UK.
Referring to the OBR’s estimate of a 4% fall in productivity, Reeves told Hughes: “This is extremely concerning and that concern is compounded by the government’s lack of response in addressing or even acknowledging this gap.”
EU Ambassador hopeful of peaceful resolution of latest Guyana-Venezuela tensions
European Union (EU) Ambassador to Guyana Fernando Ponz Cantó is hoping for a peaceful resolution to the latest tensions between Guyana and Venezuela.
Speaking to reporters during an interview at his Sendell Place, Stabroek office on Thursday afternoon, Cantó said that the EU always supports international law. “We are supporting international law not only on this problem but on every problem and of course we also support respect for each other’s territorial integrity,” the Ambassador said.
He stated that the EU has also encouraged “peaceful and not violent” resolutions of these matters.
Joanell Serra discusses new book among this week’s author talks
Book Passage: 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera; 415-927-0960; bookpassage.com. March 9: Jason Dearen discusses “Kill Shot” with James Nestor. 5 p.m. online. Register online; March 10: Elizabeth Wetmore discusses “Valentine” with Julie Carlucci. 6 p.m. online. Register online; March 13: Joanell Serra discusses “(Her)oics: Women’s Lived Experiences During the Coronavirus Pandemic.” 4 p.m. online. Register online; March 14: Kazuo Ishiguro discusses “Klara and the Sun” with Pico Iyer. 1 p.m. online. $35. Register online; March 14: Julia Turshen discusses “Simply Julia” with Pati Jinich. 4 p.m. online. Register online.
Mill Valley Public Library: 375 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley; 415-389-4292; millvalleylibrary.org. March 11: The Mill Valley Public Library and the Marin Poetry Center present a book launch for “Why to These Rocks: 50 Years of Poetry from the Community of Writers.” 6:30 p.m. Zoom. Register online.
Point Reyes Books: 11315 Highway 1, Point Reyes Station; 415-663-1542; ptreyesbooks.com. March 8: James Canton discusses “The Oak Papers.” Noon online. Register online; March 11: Center for the Art of Translation presents Jessica Cohen, Allison Charette and Brian Bergstrom in conversation about “Elemental: Earth Stories.” 5:30 p.m. online. Register online.
Sausalito Books by the Bay: 100 Bay St., Sausalito; 415-887-9967; sausalitobooksbythebay.com/2021-events. March 10: Anne Evers Hitz discusses “Lost Department Stores of San Francisco” with Sausalito Woman’s Club member Denise Gustafson. 5 p.m. online. Register online.
Other talks
Community Media Center of Marin: cmcm.tv. March 10: Dain Bedford-Pugh discusses “The Prestige” for the Marin Movie Club. 7 p.m. Zoom. Register by emailing [email protected].
Corte Madera Library: 707 Meadowsweet Drive, Corte Madera; 415-924-3515; marinlibrary.org/events. March 9: Legal Aid of Marin staff attorney Tahirah Dean discusses “Housing Protections During the Pandemic.” 6 p.m. Zoom. Register online; March 11: The Corte Madera Library and the Alzheimer’s Association, Northern California and Northern Nevada Chapter, present “10 Warning Signs of Alzheimer’s.” 10 a.m. Zoom. Register online.
Marin Coalition: marincoalition.org/events/next-event-webinar. March 11: David Vautin, assistant director of major plans at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay Area Governments, discusses “Plan Bay Area 2050: The Impact On Marin.” Noon on Zoom. Register online.
Marin County Genealogical Society: maringensoc.org. March 10: Author and journalist Laurel Hilton leads Marin County Genealogical Society’s writing group. 4 p.m. online. Email [email protected] to get access.
Wonderfest: wonderfest.org/lifes-edge. March 10: Wonderfest and the Commonwealth Club present science writer Carl Zimmer in conversation with CalMatter’s Rachel Becker. Noon online. Register online.
— Compiled by Colleen Bidwill
The literary calendar appears Sundays. Email listings to [email protected]. Photos should be 300 dpi JPGs with a minimum file size of 2 megabytes and should include caption information.
Hostility, violence are ‘betrayals’ of religion, pope says in Iraq
TRAVELLING to the birthplace of Abraham, Pope Francis urged believers to prove their faith in the one God and father of all by accepting one another as brothers and sisters.
From a stage set on a dusty hill overlooking the archaeological dig at Ur, Abraham’s birthplace about 10 miles from modern-day Nasiriyah, Francis called on representatives of the country’s religious communities to denounce all violence committed in God’s name and to work together to rebuild their country.
“From this place, where faith was born, from the land of our father Abraham, let us affirm that God is merciful and that the greatest blasphemy is to profane his name by hating our brothers and sisters,” the pope told the representatives.
“Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion,” he insisted.
Pope Francis arrived in Ur after a 45-minute early morning meeting in Najaf with 90-year-old Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of Shiite Islam’s most authoritative figures.
At the large interreligious meeting later, with the Ziggurat of Ur, a partially reconstructed Bronze-Age pagan temple visible in the haze, Pope Francis insisted that when Jews, Christians and Muslims make a pilgrimage to Abraham’s birthplace, they are going home, back to the place that reminds them they are brothers and sisters.
Representatives of Iraqi’s Shiite Muslim majority, its Sunni Muslim community, Christians, Yazidis and Mandaeans, a group that claims to be older than Christianity and reveres St. John the Baptist, joined Pope Francis at Ur.
Farmon Kakay, a member of a delegation from Iraq’s small Kaka’i community, a pre-Islamic religion and ethnic group related to the Yazidis, said, “To see His Holiness is big news for me. We want the pope to take a message to the government to respect us.”
Faiza Foad, a Zoroastrian from Kirkuk, had a similar hope that Pope Francis’ visit would move the government and Iraqi society as a whole to a greater recognition of religious freedom for all.
Wearing a white dress trimmed in gold and decorated with sequins, Foad said that even though her religion is not an “Abrahamic faith,” participating in the meeting was a sign that all people are members of the one human family.
In fact, Rafah Husein Baher, a Mandaean, told Pope Francis that “together we subsist through the war’s ruins on the same soil. Our blood was mixed; together we tasted the bitterness of the embargo; we have the same identity.”
From the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and through the reign of terror of the Islamic State group, “injustice afflicted all Iraqis,” she told the pope. “Terrorism violated our dignity with impudence. Many countries, without conscience, classified our passports as valueless, watching our wounds with indifference.”
Just as Abraham set out from Ur and became patriarch of a multitude of believers in the one God, Pope Francis said, those believers must return to Abraham, recognize themselves as brothers and sisters and set out to share the news that God loves every person he created.
“We believers cannot be silent when terrorism abuses religion,” the pope said. “Indeed, we are called unambiguously to dispel all misunderstandings. Let us not allow the light of heaven to be overshadowed by the clouds of hatred!”
Called like Abraham to trust in God and to set out on the paths he indicates, believers must “leave behind those ties and attachments that, by keeping us enclosed in our own groups, prevent us from welcoming God’s boundless love and from seeing others as our brothers and sisters.”
No individual or group can live in peace or achieve progress alone, he said. “Isolation will not save us.”
The answer is not “an arms race or the erection of walls” either, the pope said. “Nor the idolatry of money, for it closes us in on ourselves and creates chasms of inequality.”
The journey of peace, he said, begins with “the decision not to have enemies.”
It means spending less money on weapons and more on food, education and health care, he said. It means affirming the value of every human life, including “the lives of the unborn, the elderly, migrants” and everyone else.
Women in Europe need ‘greater economic independence’ to avoid poverty: UN Special Rapporteur
Olivier De Shutter recently conducted a two-month mission to the European Union, where women are more likely to fall into poverty than men, a situation that has further deteriorated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
UN News spoke to Mr. De Shutter ahead of International Women’s Day marked annually on 8 March.
Why are women more likely to be affected by poverty than men in the EU?
Women are disproportionately more at risk of poverty compared to men (22.3 per cent compared to 20.4 per cent in the EU). What is perhaps even more striking is that for older women, particularly having reached pension age, the gaps are significantly higher (averaging 37.2% across the EU).
There is still a division of roles between women and men within households that makes it more difficult for women to seek long-term, full-time employment. Women’s careers are often interrupted to take care of children, and many more women work on a part-time basis, so the level of pensions they receive is much lower.
human rights, Olivier De Schutter, speaks at a press conference in Brussels on January 29, 2021 at the end of his mission to the European Union.” width=”100%” height=””/>
UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Olivier De Schutter, speaks at a press conference in Brussels on January 29, 2021 at the end of his mission to the European Union.
The majority of lone-parent households are also headed by women, and no less than 40 per cent of these families are at risk of poverty or social exclusion.
That is a huge percentage. Social protection systems have not been truly responsive to changing family patterns and women are disproportionately affected by this situation.
What has been the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on women?
Unfortunately, I am afraid the pandemic shall mean a significant step backwards in terms of gender equality. The crisis will probably lead to many more women than men having to renounce full-time jobs. Moreover, the closure of schools has increased the burden on women, who take care of children more than men.
However, there has also been a growing awareness that the essential functions they fulfil in the healthcare sector and care-economy are under-estimated. My hope is that these essential workers, the majority of whom are women, shall be better paid and have improved employment contracts in the future.
What should be done to combat poverty for everyone?
The COVID-19 crisis, for all the human suffering it inflicts, is an opportunity to reopen the debate as to which kind of society we want.
We need to build a society that has an inclusive economy that gives each individual a fair chance to make a decent living. That means fighting discrimination against people in poverty, creating more job opportunities for people with low levels of qualifications, and investing in people’s education and life-long training to ensure all people have a chance to compete. It goes far beyond the usual idea that we need just to create wealth and redistribute it afterwards.
Can you share any testimonies of the women you spoke to as part of your mission?
Behind the figures are real people who have most extraordinary things to say. I met a woman who was receiving food parcels but had no kitchen to cook the food she received. I met women who discovered there was not enough space in shelters they sought to join because they were fleeing domestic violence. The shelters had been overcrowded since the crisis because of the heightened rates of domestic violence.
What needs to be done to improve the situation for women in the EU?
Ultimately, it requires a new distribution of roles within the household, and without that change occurring it will be very difficult to overcome the existing gaps.
EU Member States should also invest more in early childhood education and care to allow women to take up full-time jobs. This would give greater economic independence, allowing them to make their own choices in life.
Increased support with childcare would help to give women more economic independence.
There should also be greater transparency in the wage policies of companies to ensure the principal of equal pay for work of equal value is complied with. We must overcome the 14% gender pay gap without further delay.
What drives you do to the work you do?
I have had a privileged existence and feel indebted as a result, and therefore believe it is the most natural thing to do to give a voice to those who have been silenced until now.
People in poverty have been treated as a problem to be taken care of but not as actors who have experiences that we can learn from. I see my role as giving a voice to these people and as a result to have policies that are much better informed by their lived experiences. I think it is the best way to improve our ability to combat poverty and reduce inequalities.
Gender Equality and the UN
- The UN says gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.
- One of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 5 on gender equality aims to end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
- The importance of protecting women’s rights has been highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic with a global increase in reported domestic and gender-based violence.
El papa Francisco condena el extremismo como una ‘traición a la religión’
(CNN) — Al visitar Ur, la antigua ciudad iraquí donde judíos, cristianos y musulmanes creen que nació su patriarca común Abraham, el papa Francisco condenó el extremismo como una «traición a la religión».
El pontífice visitó Ur el sábado en el segundo día de la primera visita papal a Iraq. Al dirigirse a una reunión de líderes interreligiosos, Francisco condenó la violencia que ha afectado a ese país en los últimos años y pidió amistad y cooperación entre las religiones.
«Todas sus comunidades étnicas y religiosas han sufrido. En particular, me gustaría mencionar a la comunidad Yazidi, que ha llorado la muerte de muchos hombres y ha sido testigo de miles de mujeres, niñas y niños secuestrados, vendidos como esclavos, sometidos a violencia física y conversiones forzadas «, dijo.
MIRA: FOTOS | Histórica visita del papa Francisco a Iraq
Francisco también elogió los esfuerzos de recuperación en el norte de Iraq, donde ISIS destruyó sitios históricos, iglesias, monasterios y otros lugares de culto. «Pienso en los jóvenes musulmanes voluntarios de Mosul, que ayudaron a reparar iglesias y monasterios, construyendo amistades fraternales sobre los escombros del odio, y en aquellos cristianos y musulmanes que hoy restauran mezquitas e iglesias juntos», afirmó.
El papa Francisco asiste a un encuentro interreligioso en la ciudad de Ur.
El discurso en el que solicita la cooperación entre religiones se produjo pocas horas después de que el papa celebró una reunión histórica con el clérigo musulmán chiíta, el ayatolá Ali al-Sistani, en la ciudad santa de Najaf. La reunión de 45 minutos con al-Sistani, de 90 años, quien rara vez aparece en público, representó una de las cumbres más importantes entre un papa y una figura musulmana chiita destacada en los últimos años.
Durante la reunión, transmitida por la televisión estatal al-Iraqiya, al-Sistani agradeció a Francisco por hacer un esfuerzo para viajar a Nayaf y le dijo que los cristianos en Iraq deberían vivir «como todos los iraquíes en seguridad y paz, y con todos sus derechos constitucionales”, según un comunicado emitido por la oficina del ayatolá.
El papa, a su vez, agradeció a al-Sistani y a la comunidad musulmana chiita por «[alzar] su voz en defensa de los más débiles y perseguidos, afirmando el carácter sagrado de la vida humana y la importancia de la unidad del pueblo iraquí», según una declaración de la Santa Sede.
La gira de cuatro días del papa Francisco por Iraq a través de seis ciudades es el primer viaje del pontífice fuera de Italia desde que comenzó la pandemia de coronavirus.
MÁS: Francisco, el primer papa en llegar a Iraq en la historia. Así fue el momento de su llegada
El papa aterrizó en Bagdad el viernes, donde fue recibido por el primer ministro iraquí Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Más tarde, Francisco se reunió con clérigos y otros funcionarios en una iglesia de Bagdad que fue el lugar de una sangrienta masacre en 2010. Regresó a Bagdad el sábado por la tarde y está programado para celebrar la Misa en la Catedral Caldea de San José.
Iraq ha impuesto un toque de queda total durante la visita papal de cuatro días para minimizar los riesgos de salud y seguridad. Francisco tiene previsto salir de Iraq el lunes.
Francisco se ha reunido con el destacado clérigo sunita Imán Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb en varias ocasiones en el pasado, y es famoso por firmar un documento de 2019 en el que se compromete a la «fraternidad humana» entre las religiones del mundo.
Tamara Qiblawi, Delia Gallagher y Aqeel Najm de CNN contribuyeron a este artículo.
Pope Francis condemns extremism as ‘betrayal of religion’ on historic trip
PLAINS OF UR, Iraq —Visiting Ur, the ancient Iraqi city where Jews, Christians and Muslims believe their common patriarch Abraham was born, Pope Francis denounced extremism as a “betrayal of religion.”
The Pope visited Ur on Saturday, the second day of the first ever papal visit to Iraq. Addressing a meeting of inter-faith leaders, Francis condemned the violence that has plagued Iraq in recent years and called for friendship and cooperation between religions.
“All its ethnic and religious communities have suffered. In particular, I would like to mention the Yazidi community, which has mourned the deaths of many men and witnessed thousands of women, girls and children kidnapped, sold as slaves, subjected to physical violence and forced conversions,” he said.
Francis also praised the recovery efforts in Northern Iraq, where ISIS terrorists destroyed historical sites, churches, monasteries and other places of worship. “I think of the young Muslim volunteers of Mosul, who helped to repair churches and monasteries, building fraternal friendships on the rubble of hatred, and those Christians and Muslims who today are restoring mosques and churches together,” he said.
The speech calling for cooperation between religions came just hours after the Pope held a historic meeting with revered Shia Muslim cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf. The 45-minute papal meeting with the 90-year old al-Sistani — who rarely appears in public — represented one of the most significant summits between a pope and a leading Shia Muslim figure in recent years.
During the meeting, broadcast on al-Iraqiya state TV, al-Sistani thanked Francis for making an effort to travel to Najaf and told him that Christians in Iraq should live “like all Iraqis in security and peace, and with their full constitutional rights,” according to a statement released by the Grand Ayatollah’s office.
The Pope in turn thanked al-Sistani and the Shia Muslim community for “[raising] his voice in defense of the weakest and most persecuted, affirming the sacredness of human life and the importance of the unity of the Iraqi people,” according to a statement from the Holy See.
Pope Francis’s four-day tour of Iraq across six cities is Francis’ first trip outside Italy since the coronavirus pandemic began.
The Pope touched down in Baghdad on Friday, where he was met by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Francis later met with clerics and other officials at a Baghdad church that was the site of a bloody 2010 massacre. He returned to Baghdad on Saturday afternoon and celebrated Mass at the Chaldean Cathedral of Saint Joseph.
Iraq has imposed a total curfew for the entirety of the four-day papal visit to minimize health and security risks. Francis is scheduled to leave Iraq on Monday.
Francis has met with leading Sunni cleric Grand Imam Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb on several occasions in the past, famously co-signing a 2019 document pledging “human fraternity” between world religions.
European Parliament expected to strip Catalan ex-president of immunity
The European Parliament is expected to withdraw the immunity of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and two fellow MEPs next week, allowing proceedings to extradite them to Spain to resume.
Last month, the parliament’s committee on legal affairs voted to recommend that the immunity of Puigdemont and his colleagues, Antoni Comín and Clara Ponsatí, be lifted. Although that decision is not binding, it is expected to lead to the waiver being approved when the chamber votes on Monday.
This is the latest episode in a complex and drawn-out legal wrangle, which began after the three politicians fled Spain in 2017, following a failed attempt by Catalonia to secede, led by Puigdemont’s government. The former Catalan president has been based mainly in Waterloo, Belgium, since then. Comín is also living in Belgium as is Ponsatí, who also lived in Scotland. Both were ministers under Puigdemont.
The Spanish judiciary has been trying to extradite the trio so that they can go on trial for sedition – and in Puigdemont and Comín’s cases, misuse of public funds – for their roles in the 2017 independence bid. Nine Catalan independence leaders are currently serving prison terms for sedition.
Since becoming MEPs in 2019, extradition procedures against all three have been suspended. The removal of their immunity would see the process resume, although they could attempt to appeal before the European Court of Justice.
Persecution claim
The Catalan MEPs argue that the immunity waiver request should be rejected because it contains procedural irregularities and is based on unsubstantiated charges. They also allege that the entire case is driven by political persecution on the part of the Spanish authorities, accusing the judiciary – in this case the supreme court – of ideological bias.
“We’re not asking MEPs to take sides on how to resolve the Catalan issue,” Ponsatí told The Irish Times. “We’re just asking them to understand that the Spanish judge who is prosecuting us is doing so for political reasons.”
If, as expected, the vote goes against the three Catalan MEPs, Ponsatí warns that this would mean the parliament is “taking the Spanish authoritarian approach to the conflict, which will have negative consequences”.
Esteban González Pons, a Spanish MEP for the European People’s Party, which is expected to vote to lift the immunity, pointed out that his country’s judiciary wants to try them for actions that took place more than a year before they became MEPs. Therefore, their parliamentary status, he says, should not be protected. He also addressed the issue of alleged persecution.
“Puigdemont’s party [Together for Catalonia] has formed part of the Catalan government, it took part in the recent elections, it will probably form part of the next Catalan government,” he told The Irish Times. “You can’t talk about political persecution when the party which the person in question belongs to is governing Catalonia.”
He added: “If the European Parliament decided that in Spain the rule of law does not work, then it would have to proceed to apply article seven to Spain and suspend its European funds.” He does not expect that to happen.
Symbolic victory
If the immunity of Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí is lifted then it will be a symbolic victory for the Spanish judiciary. However, a recent precedent suggests that efforts to extradite them are still likely to come to nothing. In January, the Belgian court of appeal ruled against allowing Lluís Puig, a former Catalan minister, to face trial in Spain for misuse of public funds. It found that the Spanish supreme court was not competent to request the international warrant for his arrest.
Puigdemont responded to that news by tweeting that it was “game over” for Spanish attempts to bring him and his colleagues to trial.
The upcoming vote could also have political repercussions in Spain, where the Socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez has needed the support of the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left in parliament. If, as many expect, Spain’s Socialist MEPs vote to lift the immunity of the Catalan politicians, that could add a new obstacle to stuttering negotiations between Madrid and the Catalan government over the territorial issue.
US, EU to suspend tariffs in Boeing-Airbus dispute
A first phone call on Friday clinched the first trade breakthrough to start rebuilding transatlantic relations between the United States and the European Union in the wake of the Trump presidency.
After US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke, both sides decided to suspend tariffs used in the long-standing Airbus-Boeing dispute for the next four months.
Von der Leyen said that “as a symbol of this fresh start, President Biden and I agreed to suspend all our tariffs imposed in the context of the Airbus-Boeing disputes, both on aircraft and non-aircraft products, for an initial period of four months.”
The discussion hardly covered all outstanding issues that were left to fester ever more under the four-year presidency of former President Donald Trump, but the EU gladly took whatever it could get from the first personal exchange between the Biden and von der Leyen.
Von der Leyen called it “a very positive signal for our economic cooperation in the years to come”.
“This is excellent news for businesses and industries on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said.
With the initiative to ease the aircraft fight that long weighed on trade relations, the European Union – a 27-nation bloc whose executive branch is the European Commission – is seeking to rekindle the spirit of cooperation between Washington and Europe that has long defined global diplomacy.
Von der Leyen hopes it is the first indication that both the US and Europe will stand shoulder to shoulder like they have so often over the past century to face global challenges.
Von der Leyen said she invited Biden to a global health summit in Rome on May 21 to streamline the fight against COVID-19, the common enemy that has killed over a million people in the EU and US combined. She hopes the commonality would extend to foreign policy issues as well, where both could cooperate better to face the rising power of China.
On Friday though, it was trade that mattered and the suspension will give a four-month window to address the more fundamental issues. In the aircraft dispute, the US was allowed to impose tariffs on $7.5bn of EU exports to the US and as a result of the deal, EU tariffs will be suspended on $4bn of US exports.
The tariff suspension will affect everyone from French winemakers to German cookie bakers in Europe and US spirits producers, among many others.
“Lifting this tariff burden will support the recovery of restaurants, bars and small craft distilleries across that country that were forced to shut down their businesses during the pandemic,” the US Distilled Spirits Council said.
Not that both sides can now drink to the cessation of trade hostilities.
Still outstanding, for example are the tariffs that Trump slapped on EU steel and aluminium, which enraged Europeans and other allies by calling their metals a threat to US national security. The so-called Article 232 proceeding both hurts European producers and raises the cost of steel for US companies. Europe retaliated by raising tariffs on US-made motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans.
And Friday’s mellow phone call has not dented Europe’s push for digital taxes on US tech behemoths like Google and Amazon.
The breakthrough in the aircraft dispute, heading into its 17th year, should not be underestimated, though.
Only last November, the EU imposed tariffs on up to $4bn worth of US goods and services over illegal aid for planemaker Boeing, even though the 27 EU nations already held out hope relations would improve under Biden.
The move came only a few weeks after international arbitrators gave the EU the green light for such punitive action. The World Trade Organization (WTO) had deemed illegal some US support for Boeing — which is a bitter rival of Europe’s Airbus — and said the EU could make up for that with a limited amount of penalties on US trade.
The WTO had ruled that Boeing was given an unfair edge over Airbus by tax breaks from Washington state, where Boeing once had its headquarters. But after the WTO decision, the state repealed the tax breaks, making the EU’s complaint obsolete in the view of US officials.
