FILE PHOTO: Wads of British Pound Sterling banknotes are stacked in piles at the Money Service Austria company’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, November 16, 2017. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger
LONDON, Sep 8 (Reuters) – Sterling sank to two-week lows against the dollar on Tuesday, extending losses as fears grew that Britain is preparing to undercut its Brexit divorce treaty and potentially torpedo its trade talks with the European Union.
The latest round of negotiations starts on Tuesday but the EU has warned there there will be no trade deal if Britain tries override parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement it signed in January, jeopardising the whole treaty and creating frictions in British-ruled Northern Ireland.
Tensions have flared anew even as clock ticks down to an October deadline for a new deal and then the end of the status-quo transition arrangement in late December.
“I sense participants are turning bearish on elevated chances of a no-deal Brexit but do not have a short position or hedge on board to reflect the view,” Neil Jones, head of hedge fund sales at Mizuho, said.
“We should be in store for a further pound selloff.”
The pound slipped more than 0.3% at $1.3125 by 0745 GMT while against the euro it touched 0.90 pence, also a two-week low.
Implied sterling-dollar volatility also rose, with one-month volatility, the contract encompassing the early-October deadline for a deal, reaching 10% for the first time since mid-June.
London, Sep 8 (IANS) UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he wants a post-Brexit trade deal with the European Union (EU) by an October 15 deadline, warning that a failure could mean the country would end its membership with the bloc without a deal.
“There needs to be an agreement with our European friends by the time of the European council on October 15 if it’s going to be in force by the end of the year…
“If we can’t agree by then, then I do not see that there will be a free trade agreement between us,” the Prime Minister said on Monday in a Downing Street statement.
The UK would then have a trading arrangement with the EU like Australia’s, Xinhua news aency quoted Johnson as saying.
EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is scheduled to start talks here on Tuesday with his British counterpart David Frost.
With Brussels also saying a future deal must be drawn up by October to enable it to be ratified by the 27 EU member states, time is running out for both sides.
Britain’s national newspapers on Monday turned the “Brexit battle of words” into front page news.
Both the Times and the Daily Express headlined Johnson’s message that a no-deal could be a good outcome for Britain.
Overshadowing the eighth round of talks between both sides was the confirmation that Johnson’s government will publish Wednesday details of an amended bill that will have implications on trade and border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the neighbouring Ireland.
Downing Street described the proposed amended bill as a stand-by arrangement if trade talks with the EU break down.
At a briefing for political journalists Monday, Downing Street said the move was to clarify the Brexit withdrawal agreement signed by Johnson in January.
The government claims, according to the Guardian newspaper, were that it would not amount to overriding the agreement, but new proposals would go beyond what was set out the Northern Ireland protocol.
Meanwhile, there was widespread criticism of the planned move from Dublin, the Scottish government and the main opposition Labour Party, local media reported.
The UK ended its membership of the EU on January 31, but is sticking with the EU’s rules under a transitional arrangement that is scheduled to end on December 31.
If no deal is in place, the UK and the EU will return to trade under World Trade Organization rules.
The Frankfurt Book Fair has canceled its physical, in-person fair and will proceed as an entirely virtual, online-only event. It will take place, as scheduled, October 12-18. The fair cited travel restrictions due to the Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for the cancellation. In an online interview following the announcement, Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos said 800 exhibitors and 40 national stands were affected by the cancellation.
Exhibitors who registered for this year’s fair will have their registration converted to one for the digital fair. In addition, exhibitor payments made for space rental will be either refunded or rolled-over into 2021 depending on a company’s choice. Registrations for this year and all programs affiliated with the fair will be free through June 2021.
While Boos did not share more details of what will take place he did say “I think we have created the largest portal in book publishing.” Boos added, “We have invested a few million euros into this digital platform. We will always have a physical event in Frankfurt and can support the business through these virtual offerings. We are aiming to send a signal of hope. Books are alive. People don’t care about the medium, they are interested in storytelling.”
The fair plans to release more information about how exhibitors can participate, as well as a program of events, this week. As outlined in previous updates, exhibitors have been told Buchemesse.de, the fair’s website, will serve as an online hub for the fair and will offer content streams for tracks at the fair—such as Frankfurt Kids and Gourmet Gallery—with magazine-style content.
A virtual Exhibitor Catalog is expected to serve as a focal point for the exhibitor or attendees presence. Each exhibitor will have the ability to create a profile that will include a logo, link to their company’s website, social media buttons, and further information. A one page document, such as a rights guide or company presentation, can be made available here as well. The catalog is expected to go live online by mid-September.
As for content, a series of virtual conferences will be thematically arranged by day, and will run from 9 to 11 a.m. ET each day, as follows:
October 12: Academic and scholarly publishing
October 13: Rights and licensing
October 14: Publishing insights
October 15: Audio
Exhibitors and participants will also be able to list and promote their own physical, digital or hybrid events, either public or private, in a dedicated calendar of events. The calendar, which is also expected to go live by mid-September, will be searchable.
A new Frankfurt Rights platform will serve a digital online catalog of rights available at the fair. Each digital exhibitor, including agents and rights holders,will be allowed a free company profile, where they can upload their rights guides, title information, rights availability, and previews of titles available to international participants after request.
The fair will go ahead hosting some live author events on the fairgrounds and in the city of Frankfurt throughout the week of the fair. Dubbed, Bookfest, the series of events will feature some 80 authors. Those appearing at live events in the city are primarily from Germany or live in Germany. They include Margit Auer, Max von Thun, Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, Bov Bjerg, Kristof Magnusson, Helmut Zierl, Max Giermann, Anastasia Zampounidis, Christian Stöcker, Andreas Steinhöfel, Eric Mayer, Linda Zervakis and Ahmad Mansour.
Scottish authors Irvine Welsh and John Niven will appear live in conversation, and the Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales, who lives in Germany, will be in conversation with fellow musician Malakoff Kowalski. The virtual Bookfest, taking place on Saturday, October 17 will include several North Americans, such as Elizabeth Gilbert, Don Winslow, Karin Slaughter, and Eliot Weinberger.
The European Union aims to impose economic sanctions on 31 senior Belarus officials including the country’s interior minister by mid-September, three EU diplomats said, in response to an August 9 election that the West says was rigged.
However, Greece and Cyprus – which are pushing for separate sanctions on Turkey in a dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean – still need to give their support to the Belarus blacklist, diplomats told Reuters.
All 27 EU countries must agree on such measures and Athens and Nicosia could use their support for the Belarus blacklist to obtain tough measures on Turkey, the diplomats also said.
Almost a month into mass demonstrations against the outcome of the contest, in which President Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory to prolong his 26-year-old rule, the EU aims to punish the government crackdown and support calls for fresh elections.
“We initially agreed on 14 names but many states felt that was not sufficient. We have now reached consensus on another 17,” one EU diplomat said. “These are senior officials responsible for the election, for violence and for the crackdown.”
EU foreign ministers gave their broad political approval for the sanctions – EU travel bans and asset freezes – at a meeting in Berlin late last month but did not decide who to target.
As repression continued against the opposition on Monday, the European Commission said EU sanctions would be imposed very soon, but did not give details.
“There is the political will and determination to have (sanctions) concluded as soon as possible,” a spokesman for the EU executive told a news briefing. “It’s not a question of whether, only when.”
Names could still be added or taken off the list, but the diplomats said formal agreement is likely to come on September 21, when EU foreign ministers hold their next scheduled meeting. The sanctions coming into effect on September 22.
ISLAMABAD: EU Ambassador to Pakistan Androulla Kaminara Sunday said the European Union fully backed Pakistan’s efforts to overcome the socio-economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and build back better for a more sustainable future.“The COVID-19 has shaken the world unexpectedly and we will continue to feel the socio-economic consequences of the virus for quite a long-time. Showing solidarity with each other during the trying times is the responsibility of all of us,” she said.
She said it was an unprecedented challenge, but Pakistan had so far managed the crisis very well. “The data from the WHO (World Health Organisation), which I have followed closely over the past few months, suggests that COVID-19 cases and deaths are on a steep decline in Pakistan.
At the peak of the daily infections in mid-June there were over 6,000 new infections per day and for most of August this has been reduced to about 500 new infections or lower per day. “It was heartening that the Pakistan government’s measures such as smart lockdowns as well as testing and tracing had helped slow down the spread of virus considerably, Androulla Kaminara remarked.
ISLAMABAD: EU Ambassador to Pakistan Androulla Kaminara Sunday said the European Union fully backed Pakistan’s efforts to overcome the socio-economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and build back better for a more sustainable future.
“The COVID-19 has shaken the world unexpectedly and we will continue to feel the socio-economic consequences of the virus for quite a long-time. Showing solidarity with each other during the trying times is the responsibility of all of us,” she said.
She said it was an unprecedented challenge, but Pakistan had so far managed the crisis very well. “The data from the WHO (World Health Organisation), which I have followed closely over the past few months, suggests that COVID-19 cases and deaths are on a steep decline in Pakistan.
At the peak of the daily infections in mid-June there were over 6,000 new infections per day and for most of August this has been reduced to about 500 new infections or lower per day. “It was heartening that the Pakistan government’s measures such as smart lockdowns as well as testing and tracing had helped slow down the spread of virus considerably, Androulla Kaminara remarked.
The government, she said, had taken a number of positive initiatives to stimulate the economy during the difficult time and also to help those segments of the population, which had been particularly affected by the pandemic.
One example was the expansion of the Ehsaas Programme to cover approximately 23 million households, she added. As regards the Pak-EU relations, Ambassador Kaminara said the European Union had been an honest and longstanding partner and friend to Pakistan.
Britain demanded “more realism” from the European Union Monday ahead of crucial post-Brexit trade talks, but the mood was soured by reports that London was looking to rewrite an agreement the two sides had already signed.
In this file photo taken on March 28, 2018 An anti-Brexit demonstrator waves a Union flag alongside a European Union flag outside the Houses of Parliament in London. (Photo by Tolga AKMEN / AFP)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief negotiator, David Frost, said “we must make progress this week” if an agreement is to be reached by the end of a post-Brexit transition period in December.
For that, “we need to see more realism from the EU about our status as an independent country”, he said ahead of Tuesday’s talks with the EU’s Michel Barnier in London.
“If they can’t do that in the very limited time we have left, then we will be trading on terms like those the EU has with Australia, and we are ramping up our preparations for the end of the year.”
Talks have been deadlocked for months over issues such as the extent of EU access to UK fishing waters, state aid and fair competition rules. Both sides say a deal must be agreed by a mid-October EU summit.
But there was concern in Brussels on Monday after the Financial Times reported Johnson planned to legislate to override parts of the Withdrawal Agreement struck before Britain left the EU in January.
“Everything that has been signed must be respected,” Barnier warned, saying he would discuss it with Frost.
The FT said legislation to be put before UK parliament this week would undermine agreements relating to Northern Ireland customs and state aid.
Under the protocol, Northern Ireland, which will have Britain’s only land border with the EU, will follow some of the bloc’s rules to ensure the frontier remains open.
Eliminating border checks with the Republic of Ireland was a key part of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of violence over British rule in the province.
“I trust the British government to implement the Withdrawal Agreement, an obligation under international law and prerequisite for any future partnership,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.
Johnson’s spokesman said the UK government was “fully committed to implementing the Withdrawal Agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, and we have already taken many practical steps to do”.
But he said it was taking “limited and reasonable steps to clarify specific elements” of the protocol in UK law, to “remove any ambiguity”.
The report provoked an angry backlash in Dublin and Belfast, where the prospect of a potential “hard border” is a reminder of “The Troubles”.
“This would be a very unwise way to proceed,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said in response to the FT report.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald said the UK would show “total disregard for the lives and concern of the people of Ireland” if it backtracked on the Brexit deal.
Jitters were also felt on the currency market, where the pound slid against the dollar and euro on fears that the UK-EU talks would fail, severely disrupting trade ties.
‘Sabre-rattling’
Some analysts however suggested the row over Northern Ireland is a move by London to raise the pressure in the trade talks.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar said the increased rhetoric from London and Brussels was inevitable “sabre-rattling” and “posturing” as the deadline approached.
Johnson has said that failing to reach agreement would still be a “good outcome” for Britain, dubbing it an “Australia-style” deal.
However, Australia trades with the EU under World Trade Organization rules and tariffs, which would significant disruption to cross-Channel trade.
Britain formally left the 27-member bloc on January 31 but remains bound by EU rules until the end of December while it tries to thrash out new terms of its relationship.
FILE – In this Friday, June 5, 2020 file photo, European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier gives a news conference after Brexit talks, in Brussels, Belgium. The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator said Monday Sept. 7, 2020, he is going to seek “clarification” from his counterpart in the U.K. over reports that the British government may be planning to renege on commitments made ahead of its departure from the bloc earlier this year. (Yves Herman, Pool Photo via AP, File)
<p>LONDON (AP) — The U.K.’s chief negotiator in post-Brexit trade talks called for “more realism” from the European Union ahead of the start Tuesday of another round of discussions between the two sides.
With expectations of a breakthrough in the talks diminishing, there are concerns that they could collapse in the coming weeks. Though the U.K. left the bloc on Jan. 31, it is in a transition period that effectively sees it abide by EU rules until the end of this year. The two sides have been negotiating future trade ties over the past few months but progress has been minimal.
David Frost, the British government’s chief negotiator, said the two sides “can no longer afford to go over well-trodden ground” in the deadlocked talks and that the EU needs to show “more realism” about the U.K.’s status as an independent country. The EU side will be led by its long-time Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.
“Today, I will sit down with Michel Barnier and drive home our clear message that we must make progress this week if we are to reach an agreement in time,” Frost said. “We have now been talking for six months.”
The trade discussions have made very little progress over the summer, with the two sides seemingly wide apart on several issues, notably on business regulations, the extent to which the U.K. can support certain industries and over the EU fishing fleet’s access to British waters.
Relations appeared to become further strained Monday following reports that Britain’s Conservative government was attempting to unilaterally ride roughshod over its divorce agreement with the EU that paved the way for the U.K.’s smooth departure earlier this year.
EU officials said any attempt to override the international treaty could jeopardize peace in Northern Ireland as well as undermine the chances of any trade deal.
The British government said the publication of planned legislation on Wednesday is intended to tie up some “loose ends” where there was a need for “legal certainty.” It said the Internal Market Bill will ensure goods from Northern Ireland, which is part of the EU, will continue to have unfettered access to the U.K. market, while making clear EU state aid rules, which will continue to apply in Northern Ireland, will not apply in the rest of the U.K.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said Britain could walk away from the talks within weeks and insists that a no-deal exit would be a “good outcome for the U.K.” He said in a statement that any agreement must be sealed by an EU summit scheduled for Oct. 15.
British businesses are worried about a collapse in the talks that could see tariffs and other impediments slapped on trade with the EU at the start of next year. Most economists think that the costs of a ‘no-deal’ outcome would fall disproportionately on the U.K.
Follow all AP stories about Brexit and British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/brexit.
Lampedusa, Italy – It is Saturday morning and Ahmed is squeezed onto a small Italian coastguard boat docked at one of Lampedusa’s ports.
There are about 30 other refugees and migrants on board.
Officers, covered head to toe in white protective gear, are on the ground, buzzing around the boat to prepare it for the next stop a few miles away – the Rhapsody ferry.
There, almost 800 refugees and migrants will enter a 14-day quarantine period.
Like Ahmed, they have been removed from the overcrowded reception centre in Lampedusa due to a lack of space, and now must undergo the two-week quarantine on board the ferry.
“Of course I am happy,” the 23-year-old told Al Jazeera by text message. “It’s always better than staying inside the centre.”
Saturday would have been his seventeenth day inside Lampedusa’s only reception centre, in Imbriacola district. A so-called “hotspot”, the centre has been the focus of a heated debate between the far right, governing political leaders and civil society.
It was built to house no more than 192 people, but last week there were as many as 1,500 as the number of migrants and refugees landing on the island’s shores rose during summer.
“They treat us like animals, I would say worse than animals,” said Ahmed, who arrived on August 19on a dinghy from the Tunisian town of Sfax. Each night, he and others used to sneak out just to get something to eat.
“Often there is no water or electricity, you sleep on the floor or on a dirty mattress, if you get one. There are no words to describe it … Some of them [staff] keep insulting us. I feel treated as we were terrorists,” he said.
What will happen to Ahmed once the ferry quarantine period ends?
Most Tunisians are considered economic migrants, and therefore are either returned to Tunisia – the Italian government established two charters for a total of 80 repatriations a week so far – or handed a seven to 30-day window period to return home by their own means. Often, once they arrive, they attempt to leave Italy in any way possible and reach northern Europe.
“I don’t care if they will send me back, I’ll come back again, and again, and again,” said Ahmed. “For me [it] is a question to either die or arrive.”
He is among 7,885 Tunisians who arrived in Sicily this year up to August 31 – a number almost six times higher than the same period last year.
As the coronavirus pandemic forced governments to shut their borders and halt activities, Tunisia is also paying a heavy price with its economy expected to shrink more than 4 percent this year, and the unemployment rate currently standing at 16 percent.
With Lampedusa’s hotspot overflowing and the threat of tourists being discouraged by the number of asylum seekers, far-right politicians are weaponising the pandemic in an attempt to advance anti-migrant policies.
On August 31, as more than 360 people were rescued at sea and brought to Lampedusa, a group of protesters – coordinated by a member of Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, the League – took to the port to stop their landing.
The previous week, Salvini praised Sicily’s Governor Nello Musumeci for ordering the closure of the region’s reception centres. Despite being immediately blocked by a court, the move greatly boosted the governor’s popularity.
In 2011, more than 50,000 Tunisians reached Lampedusa as they fled unrest in their country during the so-called Arab Spring [Antonio Parrinello/Reuters]
Lampedusa’s islanders are used to refugees and migrants landing on their shores. A southern tip of Europe, the island has for decades been the first point of entry to those crossing the Mediterranean.
In 2011, more than 50,000 Tunisians arrived.
“We welcomed them bringing warm food and helping setting tents across town,” recalled former fisherman Calogero Partinico, 63, sitting on a bench watching tourists, many walking around with no masks.
Like many others, Partinico has drawn a link between the rising number of refugees and migrants and the coronavirus pandemic, despite refugees making up 3-5 percent of COVID-19 cases in the country, compared with 25 percent detected among tourists, according to Italy’s National Health Institute.
“Islanders live with an ancestral fear over sickness – given the isolation and lack of hospitals on the island – and over the potential loss of the summer season,” said Marta Bernardini, an aid worker from Mediterranean Hope, a project of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy based in Lampedusa. “The coronavirus combined the two, fomenting a more hostile attitude towards migrants.”
There are also growing concerns over the use of ferry boats to quarantine migrants – an operation which has so far cost the government at least six million euros ($7.1m) for the rent of five vessels.
“No one wants them,” Lampedusa Mayor Toto’ Martello told Al Jazeera, pointing to some regional governors’ refusal to take in refugees and migrants. “Because since there is the COVID-19, there has been a media campaign against migrants saying that they are those bringing the virus.”
Further deepening Italy’s refugee crisis, the country’s reception’s capacity has recently been halved, said Sami Aidoudi, legal adviser and cultural mediator for the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI).
“Salvini’s security decrees cut funds, hence most services had been reduced,” he said, referring to the former prime minister’s 2018 anti-migrant policies.
Prior to those rulings, as an example, social services used to receive about 35 euros ($41) a day per migrant – an amount which has dropped to about 19 euros ($22). With the changes, some cooperatives were forced to close, while the quality of services fell at others.
Despite pledging for a substantial U-turn from Salvini’s hardline policy over migration, the current government has made few changes.
“They are starting to establish floating reception centres – the dream of the Italian right wing,” said Aidoudi.
Confining migrants to the sea, away from residents’ sight, “means absence of information for civil society, for those that can offer legal counselling and finally for migrants themselves”, he said. “We can’t assist them.”
