G7: Macron gamble pays off as Trump reacts in a more conciliatory tone towsrds Iran

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/iran-zarif-macron-trump-g7-nuclear-1.5260294

The Netherlands - Ukraine: E.U. Reaches Compromise With the Netherlands on Closer Ukraine Ties

Referendum:PM Rutte reaches nebulous EU compromise

European Union leaders reached a compromise with the Netherlands on Thursday that should allow the bloc to enact an agreement on closer ties with Ukraine, regarded as a landmark deal to counter the influence of Russia.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said on Thursday that he now had the necessary guarantees to start pushing the agreement through his country’s Parliament and to overcome the objections of Dutch voters, who voted against the agreement in a referendum in April.

The Netherlands has been the lone holdout in ratifying the agreement within the European bloc’s 28 member nations.

“I am going to fight to get a majority” in Parliament, Mr. Rutte said. “We will have to see. It won’t be easy. We’ll have to work hard for it.”

If it is approved, the deal would allow the European Union to show a unified front against Russia, and to boost trade and cooperation with Ukraine, which has found it difficult to remain out of Moscow’s sphere of influence.

“The E.U. can now keep a united front against the destabilizing policies of Russia,” Mr. Rutte said.

The agreement between Ukraine and the European Union had looked like a done deal until earlier this year, when the Dutch government was forced into a nonbinding, or advisory, referendum. The rejection by voters had left the bloc in a conundrum because the agreement needed unanimous approval from member countries.

Under the compromise, Mr. Rutte obtained assurances the agreement was not a step toward European Union membership for Ukraine, and that it could not be used as one in the future. The deal does not provide a collective-security guarantee or extra money for Ukraine, and it also requires the Ukrainian government to do more to counter corruption.

The Dutch prime minister said enacting the deal was essential for national and geopolitical reasons, and pointed to Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian conflict and its annexation of Crimea.

The Netherlands will hold national elections on March 15, and the move to sidestep the advisory referendum results with an updated agreement might not play well with an electorate that has been increasingly prone to snubbing the political elite.

In a post on Twitter, Geert Wilders, a lawmaker known for his opposition to Islam, immigration and the European Union, posted a photo of Mr. Rutte with the Dutch words for “Resign and go.”

Mr. Rutte also realized the challenge ahead.

“This is not an election-winning point,” he said. “It is not a vote winner. But my job is ultimately to make decisions in the interest of the Netherlands and our security.”

Note EU-Digest: Details of the compromise were not announced and the statement by PM Rutte of the Netherlands on this so-called compromise are still nebulous .

Read more: E.U. Reaches Compromise With the Netherlands on Closer Ukraine Ties - The New York Times

Greece: With Greek ‘No’ Vote, Tsipras Wins a Victory That Could Carry a Steep Price - by Liz Alderman

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras may have won a victory at home on Sunday as the Greek people dealt a resounding “no” to European austerity policies.

But Greece risks paying a high price for that decision. While the vote sharply consolidated Mr. Tsipras’s popularity, that could fade quickly if he leads the country deeper into bankruptcy and financial chaos, creating a new round of instability with consequences for Greece and the broader European project.

If anything, Mr. Tsipras is likely to find it harder, rather than easier, to strike a new financing deal quickly with European creditors, heightening the risk that Greece will careen out of the eurozone unless Europe decides to give Mr. Tsipras and his defiant nation another chance.

“What we need now is more wisdom from both sides,” said Loukas Tsoukalis, the president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, an Athens-based think tank. “Greece can’t go on because we’re on the edge of cliff,” he said. “After all this, the question is whether our partners would be so unwise as to push Greece over the edge, because that would be damaging for everyone.”

Some European officials acknowledged Sunday that greater flexibility might now be needed from their camp. Just as the referendum vote divided Greece, so, too, did it reveal fault lines between those European countries that appear willing to bend to keep Greece in the eurozone, and others, including Germany and the Netherlands, whose policy makers have all but suggested that the eurozone would be better off without Greece.

Read more: With Greek ‘No’ Vote, Tsipras Wins a Victory That Could Carry a Steep Price - The New York Times

European Banking Union: Deal on Banking Union Will Test Goal of United Europe - by Andrew Higgens and David Jolly

Battling to defend its credibility after a series of troubled bank failures across the Continent, the European Union hoisted a long banner on the outside wall of its Brussels headquarters last year to trumpet Europe’s march “toward a genuine economic and monetary union.”

It was hardly a rousing battle cry. But it did at least acknowledge that despite the adoption of a common currency, the euro, Europe still had much to do to achieve real economic and monetary integration, a central pillar of the so-called European project since the early 1990s.

Shortly before midnight on Wednesday, after months of meetings in Brussels that often dragged into the wee hours, European finance officials finally reached a deal on how to plug a gaping hole in Europe’s economic defenses, agreeing to a centralized system to shut down sickly banks in the 17 member nations that use the euro.

But as with many of Europe’s grand ambitions, the construction of what was conceived as a solid banking union has been crimped by the often contradictory interests of different countries. The exercise has yielded more of a muddle than a unifying mission. A banking union has often been described as Europe’s most ambitious project since its decision in 1992 to establish a common currency. But the effort to create one has highlighted how difficult it is to act ambitiously for a bloc that has grown from six to 28 member states.

It has no clear shared view on whether it is the nucleus of a future European state, a free-trade zone, or merely an intergovernmental organization that irons out disagreements between countries. Add to this the fact that the bloc’s leaders have starkly different views of what caused Europe’s financial crisis and the long economic malaise that followed, and “it is no wonder the E.U. finds it so hard to take decisions,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a policy research group.

“You have a sick patient on the bed and doctors gathered around who cannot decide on the nature of the illness or the medicine required to cure the patient.

Read more: Deal on Banking Union Will Test Goal of United Europe - NYTimes.com