Presidents Sassoli and von der Leyen and Prime Minister Costa will hold a joint press conference on the priorities of the Portuguese Council Presidency at 13.00 CET on Wednesday.
When: Wednesday 20 January 13.00 CET
Where: EP Press room and via Interactio
After the debate in plenary, EP President David Sassoli, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa will comment on the programme of the Portuguese Presidency, which focuses on the economic and social recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, achieving an inclusive climate and digital transition, and giving a new impetus to EU relations with Africa and Latin America. They are also expected to talk about COVID-19 vaccination, EU’s relations with the new US administration, and shaping the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Interpretation will be available at the press conference in English, French and Italian and Portuguese.Journalists wishing to actively participate and ask questions, please connect via Interactio by using the link.You can also follow it live from 13.00 CET via Parliament’s webstreaming and EbS+.
BRUSSELS — The European Union’s top migration official on Tuesday criticized Bosnian authorities for failing to properly care for hundreds of migrants living in sub-zero temperatures on its territory, warning the Balkans country of its obligations if it hopes to join the EU.
Bosnia has faced sharp criticism for leaving around 1,000 people without shelter after a fire gutted the makeshift Lipa refugee camp near the northwest border with EU-member Croatia just before Christmas. The authorities at first said they would move the migrants to another location, but finally set up military tents at the site instead after locals elsewhere protested.
“Bosnia-Herzegovina must show it’s capable of managing migration. It must take responsibility, address the humanitarian situation,” Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told EU lawmakers.
“As a country with a perspective of EU accession, we expect Bosnia-Herzegovina to work on sustainable, long-term solutions, to set up facilities evenly distributed across the full territory of the country,” Johansson said. She said she would visit the area in February.
The problem is not new. Bosnia has been widely criticized in recent years for mishandling the arrival of thousands of people, many fleeing war and poverty. The politically unstable and impoverished Balkan country is still recovering from its own war in the 1990s.
Divided into two feuding entities, Bosnia lacks a unified policy on migrants. The Serb-run part of the country has refused to accept any, and the overburdened northwestern region has complained it has been abandoned despite help from international organizations.
Migrants come to Bosnia with the aim of reaching Croatia before moving on into Western Europe. Many have complained about being pushed back, which is illegal under international refugee law, and violence at the hands of Croatia’s police.
Johansson said thanks to EU help, around 900 people at the site in Bosnia now have shelter in weather-proof tents, with access to heating and food supplies.
“Thanks to our action, the situation has improved, but only from grave to serious. Stopping immediate risk to life is the beginning, not the end, of ensuring acceptable, dignified living conditions,” she said.
The Lipa camp was only ever set up as a temporary measure to cope with the impact of the coronavirus over the summer. Bosnian central authorities wanted to move some migrants to a nearby facility at Bira, but local authorities blocked the move as protests erupted.
“Winter has a long way to run and I must admit that it is frustrating to have to set up tents and temporary shelters when we have an empty, fully equipped and winterized facility just 30 kilometers (19 miles) down the road,” Johansson said.
Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed to this report.
PanARMENIAN.Net – The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) plans to clear the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again next week, 22 months after the plane was grounded following two fatal crashes, AFP reports.
“For us, the MAX will be able to fly again starting next week,” after publication of a directive, EASA director Patrick Ky said in a video conference.
“We have reached the point where our four main demands have been fulfilled,” Ky said during the conference, organised by the German association of aviation journalists.
The MAX was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes that together killed 346 people — the 2018 Lion Air disaster in Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines crash the following year.
Investigators said a main cause of both crashes was a faulty flight handling system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. Meant to keep the plane from stalling as it ascends, the automated system instead forced the nose of the plane downward. The findings plunged Boeing into crisis, with more than 650 orders for the 737 MAX cancelled since last year.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered Boeing to revamp the jet and implement new pilot training protocols, before finally approving the plane for a return to service in November.
Ky had already indicated in October that EU approval was likely after Boeing promised a new sensor would be added to prevent the type of problems that caused the crashes.
The European Union will unveil plans on Tuesday to bolster the euro internationally in a bid to deal with the dominance of the US dollar and insure the bloc doesn’t face severe financial risks, such as American sanctions, but demonstrates financial resilience, Bloombergreported.
A draft plan to this end outlines the said goals and proposes means to achieve them, including through the development of new markets like green finance, for example.
The European bloc believes its landmark recovery fund, designed to effectively help countries recover from the pandemic-induced crisis, could help boost the euro.
The stimulus package will provide 750 billion euros ($905 billion) in grants and loans, raised by jointly backed debt, while a third of these funds will have to be spent on green projects.
“Promoting sustainable finance is an opportunity to develop EU financial markets into a global ‘green finance’ hub, bolstering the euro as the default currency for the denomination of sustainable financial products”, the draft plan said, dwelling on the idea of sustainability.
Another perceived breakthrough that could also prove to be a game changer in that area is the ECB’s push for the introduction and enhancement of a digital euro, the paper has it.
“Further development of the European digital finance sector will reinforce the EU’s open strategic autonomy in financial services and the capacity to protect the EU’s financial stability and values”, it reads.
Another circumstance that has created a new reality for the EU is Brexit, and the latter is essentially driving the bloc to update its financial infrastructure accordingly, and pressuring separate companies to move parts of their derivatives-clearing business from London to the EU.
“We need a clear step-by-step masterplan that helps key financial sector businesses move from the United Kingdom to the European Union”, said Markus Ferber, a lawmaker in the European Parliament. “A mere ‘wait and see’ approach will not do to bolster European financial markets”, he noted.
Washington’s JCPOA Exit is to Blame
Calls to boost the European currency have gained steam of late due to the fallout from Washington’s reimposed sanctions on Iran (after President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the US out of the landmark JCPOA deal with Iran in May 2018) that also aimed to punish European financial institutions, companies, and individuals who went on doing business with the Islamic Republic.
Washington’s powers to enforce international sanctions because of the dollar’s hitherto unique status as an international trend-setting currency “has seriously affected the EU’s and its member states’ ability to advance foreign policy objectives”, the draft document says, stressing that America’s policies have, at times, “compromised [the] legitimate trade and investment of EU businesses”.
Donald Trump’s presidency has baffled the majority of Americans for four years. What should we make of decisive Christian support for an American politician whose life and priorities are fundamentally anti-Christian? Why would elected members of any party support legal maneuvers that would undermine American democracy? How could insurrection against the people’s government be configured as patriotism?
As Trump’s reign implodes, these anomalies betray the last gasps of a long-standing American religion that is now passing away — the religion of Christian America sustained by a corrupted version of Christianity.
For the record:
11:26 AM, Jan. 19, 2021An earlier version of this essay mistated Richard Hughes’ middle initial. It is “T” not “L.”
If faith can inspire extremism, a dying belief system can inspire unthinkable deeds, even unthinkable acts of violence, as its adherents attempt to preserve its power — in this case, in the American public square.
To be clear, this dying American religion has little or nothing to do with Jesus, who consistently lifted up oppressed and marginalized people — women, the poor and ethnic minorities, for example — but everything to do with white, patriarchal dominance. And as it dies, it opens up space for new voices that have been marginalized for many years, and there we find fresh hope.
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In order to grasp the effect of Christian America on our current crisis, we must look back 500 years to a young Protestant pastor who erected a theological foundation that, in due time, would help sustain a nation the pastor could never have imagined — the United States.
The pastor focused his work on a single city and sought to transform it into a model kingdom of God, a city where God would rule over the church but also over politics, art, music and every other aspect of human life.
The pastor was John Calvin, his city was Geneva, Switzerland, and his work inspired the Puritans who settled New England, the Presbyterians who dominated the Middle Colonies, and the Baptists who would dominate the American South.
By 1776, when the American nation was born, Calvin’s vision of a social order ruled by his concept of the Christian God informed the majority of the faithful throughout most of the 13 colonies.
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The Founders, though some were Christian, had a radically different vision for the nation — a vision of liberty and human equality grounded not in the Christian religion or fealty to biblical text but rather in “Nature and Nature’s God,” as Thomas Jefferson put it in the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution’s 1st Amendment went even further, stripping the Christian religion — or any religion, for that matter — from exercising a favored status under the law.
Calvin’s and the Founders’ ideals were clearly at odds , though they have coexisted, often with considerable unease, for most of the nation’s history.
Calvinism, as it has played out in the U.S., explicitly stands for Christian dominance but also implicitly promotes two other forms of cultural and political power — whiteness and patriarchy. Virtually every other form of Christianity that emerged from Western Europe and took root in the United States did the same, and by the 1950s, most Americans understood that the ideal of Christian America meant Protestant dominance, white dominance, male dominance and heterosexual dominance. There was little quarter given anyone who seriously questioned these boundaries.
Then came the 1960s, when the Founders’ promise of liberty and equality for all began to bear new and — if measured in Calvin’s terms — altogether radical fruit. People of color, women, gays, lesbians and nonconforming people of every sort found in the revolution of the 1960s a legitimacy they had not known before. Emboldened, they began to claim their rightful place in America’s public square.
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By the late 1970s, Christians chiefly committed to white and patriarchal power launched a counterrevolution that played itself out in U.S. churches and communities, winning over fundamentalists and evangelicals in particular. Intent on controlling the nation’s halls of power, their efforts sailed under the banner of saving Christian America.
A little more than a generation later, when voters chose the nation’s first Black president, it was clear that the counterrevolution was failing. “All men are created equal” had pushed Calvin’s legacy to the wings of the American stage.
Philosopher-theologian Paul Tillich once defined religion as one’s ultimate concern precisely because it deals with questions of meaning, life and death. That definition is helpful as we seek to understand the role of Christian America in the crises of our time.
The ultimate concern of millions who consciously or unconsciously follow the lead of Christian America focuses squarely on preserving the privilege and power that their earlier dominance had afforded them. They are determined to block women, people of color, immigrants, gays, transgender people and others marginalized for most of American history from attaining the status they think is reserved for them.
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Because their privilege and power define for them the meaning of life, and because they regard the loss of power and privilege as a living death, their devotion to status is not merely political. It is also deeply religious. And that is why Christian America advocates have so often claimed that God Almighty anointed Donald Trump as president of the United States.
We will, therefore, see more assaults — perhaps even more violent assaults — on the Constitution and the government established by America’s Founders. And those who launch those assaults will inevitably ground them in the venerable tradition of Christian America that is dying before our eyes.
Richard T. Hughes is a professor emeritus of religion at Pepperdine University and the author of “Christian America and the Kingdom of God” and “Myths America Lives By: White Supremacy and the Stories That Give Us Meaning.”
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Plans submitted by EU member states so far for spending a record 1.8 trillion euros to rebuild economies wrecked by COVID-19 fall short on reforms and must be improved, in the view of the European Commission, three diplomatic sources said.
FILE PHOTO: European Union flags flutter outside the European Commission headquarters, where Brexit talks are taking place, in Brussels, Belgium, December 24, 2020. REUTERS/Yves Herman
The EU executive’s downbeat assessment, shared with envoys from the 27 member states at a closed-door meeting on Jan. 7, highlights the uphill battle the European Union faces in spending so much money.
Red tape, political wrangling and a track record of fraud risk hampering efforts to put EU countries on a more even footing after the pandemic, which has exacerbated the wealth gap across the continent.
“The plans lack structural reforms, strategic vision, concrete targets, and cost-effectiveness. A lot of work remains to be done,” said one Brussels diplomat, relaying criticism by the Commission at the meeting.
A second diplomat said the Commission had stressed that some plans were not concrete enough and lacked measurable targets.
A third added: “Most governments are good at spending money but not so good on reforms. They need to update these plans to take that on board. They have to work a lot to be able to absorb the money quickly and spend it on decent projects.”
At stake is 1.1 trillion euros from the bloc’s 2021-27 budget and an additional 750 billion euros from the EU’s first-ever joint borrowing.
The Commission did not say which countries had submitted the poorest plans, the sources said.
NET PAYERS TO BLOCK?
The 27 national capitals have until the end of April to submit final proposals to the Commission. They then have to be endorsed by other EU countries before the money is expected to start flowing in the second half of the year.
“If these preliminary plans are not improved, if they are rubbish, they shouldn’t be accepted by the Commission. Even if they were, the net payers would block,” the third person said, referring to wealthier member states such as the Netherlands that are especially keen to avoid waste.
Fewer than half of EU countries have so far submitted their initial plans and the Commission has told those which have not to hurry up, according to the sources, to avoid delays in disbursing money meant to lift the bloc from a record recession.
The European Commission had no specific comment on the Jan.7 meeting.
European Economic Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said on Monday, after discussing the national recovery plans with euro zone countries, that “good progress” was being made but that there was a need to “increase the ambition of reforms”.
Many draft plans need to be “strengthened” with more details on timings, targets and milestones to ensure the money is spent well, he said.
Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Gareth Jones
The head of the EU’s border force is under growing pressure to stand down after being accused by the European commission of acting unlawfully and giving misleading evidence to MEPs.
The allegations against Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, relate to the agency’s failure to recruit any of the 40 officers it is obliged to employ to protect the rights of people crossing into Europe.
The former French civil servant is accused of presenting his explanation for the lack of recruitment of “fundamental rights officers” in a “misleading manner” when giving evidence to the European parliament last month, according to a letter from the commission’s director-general for migration and home affairs, Monique Pariat.
In her letter to Leggeri dated 18 December, Pariat further claimed that the head of the border agency had acted “unlawfully” in 2019 by publishing two vacancy notices for positions in Frontex without the approval of its management board.
The most incendiary claims about the involvement of Frontex border guards in “pushbacks” – denied by the agency – are also the subject of an internal investigation. A first draft of an internal report on the issue is due to be presented to the management board on Wednesday.
Frontex has previously stated it is fully cooperating with Olaf and its investigations “do not necessarily imply any malpractice”.
Fabrice Leggeri, Frontex executive director, is pictured (left) near the Greek-Turkish border in Orestiada, Greece on 12 March 2020. Photograph: Florion Goga/Reuters
Asked whether Leggeri should consider his position, the EU’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, told the Guardian: “I have no comment on that. Now that we have processes going on and they have not been finalised and I think they should be finalised.”
However, the former Swedish minister added that it was clear that “some of the things being said by the executive director in parliament [are] not true”.
Johansson said she had been “very upset” by claims first made in October over Frontex’s alleged complicity in illegal and often dangerous pushbacks aimed at preventing asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea, adding that systems for reporting abuse needed to be in place.
Evidence against Frontex includes testimonies and video footage showing one of the agency’s vessels manoeuvring dangerously near a crowded dinghy full of people and creating waves that drove them back.
A joint investigation from Lighthouse Reports, Bellingcat, Der Spiegel, ARD and TV Asahi documented six instances where the agency was either directly involved in a pushback or in close proximity to one.
In a statement in October, Frontex restated its commitment to preventing refoulement, or illegal pushbacks, of people seeking international protection.
Johansson said: “The first time I’ve heard that, I called immediately the executive director. I was very upset and he has to clarify what’s actually going on.
“I was not really satisfied with the explanation. So that’s why I called for an extraordinary meeting of the management board, and there have been several extraordinary meetings and also ordinary meetings of the management board, and they are taking their responsibility to find out what has been going on.
“But also what kind of proper routines that should be in place in Frontex. We know that by the regulation they should have 40 fundamental rights monitors in place by 5 December – they have none. So this is also part of things that need to be clarified and need to be set up in a in a proper way,” she said.
“It’s for me, 100%, clear that our own agency has to be fully complying to EU [law] and fundamental rights.
“They also have to be able to prove that in an efficient way and to have proper routines for reporting in place to make sure that if officers on Frontex missions have seen or been aware of illegal things going on there have to be proper systems to report that.”
Last year Frontex, which has a €5.6bn (£4.7bn) budget for the next seven years, was given a mandate to create a 10,000-strong armed force to be deployed at the EU’s external borders as a response to the migration crisis. In recent days, the agency unveiled a new uniform for its guards.
Frontex police and Spanish civil guards on a patrol vessel at Malaga port after the interception of a dinghy carrying Algerian migrants. Photograph: Jesus Merida/SIPA/PA Images
Frontex’s executive director has strongly rejected allegations about the agency’s operational conduct during repeated EU parliamentary scrutiny hearings.
Leggeri has blamed delays in establishing a robust internal monitoring mechanism, including the recruitment of 40 rights experts, on ineffective bureaucracy from within the commission itself.
In Pariat’s letter, which has been shared with the parliament’s committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs, she said there had been sufficient time and resources available to Leggeri to fulfil his obligations. “The commission has consistently and swiftly provided all necessary guidance in order to allow the agency to reach that objective,” she wrote.
Sophie in’t Veld, an MEP from the liberal Renew Europe group, said there were clear flaws in the agency’s structure. “The system is a mess, you can’t handle a body like this when you have 10,000 armed people at your disposal,” she said.
Veld told the Guardian that “answers are expected” and if they are not provided then, “inevitably, the discussion will have to be about the director’s position itself”.
A Frontex spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, some misunderstandings in such demanding times and online discussions are unavoidable. We regret any that might have occurred and look forward to continued collaboration to together keep our borders safe with the essential participation of the standing corps, fully respecting fundamental rights.
“EU commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas and commissioner Ylva Johansson have expressed confidence in Mr Leggeri at many occasions in recent months. The Frontex Management Board, which represents the border authorities of member states, has not raised any objections to his leadership. Mr Leggeri has no plans to resign and remains determined to lead the agency is these challenging times.”
The deal creates the most vertically integrated group in the bioplastics industry. Novamont is focused largely upstream and has created a supply chain of agricultural raw materials, biobased monomers, bioplastics and low-impact formulations. BioBag has a growing e-commerce platform, which is an important market channel for their existing applications and for the expanded product range that will be derived from Novamont’s innovations and upstream integration.
According to Novamont, the two companies share a “strong cultural compatibility” developed over two decades of partnership. “This agreement allows Novamont to expand its model of circular bioeconomy,” Novamont CEO Catia Bastioli says. “By joining our best skills and energies and fully integrating our supply chains we can better serve our partners upstream and downstream while further accelerating circular solutions for different market sectors and for communities pursuing our goal of producing more with less.”
The two companies plan to initiate projects that enhance separate organic waste collection and composting systems, especially in North America, the Scandinavian countries, Eastern Europe and Australia. Financial terms were not disclosed. BioBag generates about €41 million ($49.5 million) in annual revenue.
British meat exports to the European Union have run into red tape over the past two weeks, with tonnes of fresh supplies worth hundreds of thousands of pounds stuck in EU ports.
Five lorries with 115 tonnes of meat in total are impounded in Calais, while at least five containers of fresh pork have been stuck in Rotterdam for two weeks due to an incorrect veterinary certificate, The Times reported. According to London-based DH Foods, the meat in the containers was “completely rotten” due to the holdback, and there is nothing the company can do about it.
“We can no longer sell it, but we can’t even bring it back into this country because we don’t have the right forms to do so”, DH Foods managing director Tony Hale stated.
A driver walks next to lorries parked on the M20 motorway towards Eurotunnel and the Port of Dover, as EU countries impose a travel ban from the UK following the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Folkestone, Britain, December 21, 2020. REUTERS/Toby Melville
In the meantime, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association Nick Allen noted that the export health certificates system is extremely complicated, as some of the forms have up to 50 different stamps on them.
“The new post-Brexit customs system for meat products is convoluted, archaic, and badly implemented”, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association Nick Allen said. “If continental supermarkets are unable to have products delivered the way they need them to be, this trade will simply be lost as EU customers abandon UK suppliers and source product from European processors”.
Various British industries have faced new challenges since the country left the EU, as the bloc’s restrictions came into force at the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020. Meat, dairy, and seafood exports were among the first victims of the trade barriers. According to reports, earlier this month, Dutch customs officers even forced British lorry drivers to give up their sandwiches, as they were prohibited from taking meat and dairy products into the EU.
