EU Economy: Netherlands' Central Bank President Knot: "European economy 'very much okay'

Netherlands Parliament and offices of the PM in the Hague

Klaas Knot, the president of the Netherlands’ Central Bank, said Europe’s economy was “very much okay” despite worries over trade wars, slowing growth and uncertainty over Brexit.

Speaking on Dutch television last Sunday, Knot, who also sits on the European Central Bank’s governing council, said subdued inflation was troubling, but it was “premature” to talk about a possible recession.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi acknowledged on Thursday that economic growth in the euro zone was likely to be weaker than earlier expected due to the fall-out from factors ranging from China’s slowdown to Brexit.

Knot, usually viewed as one of the more hawkish members of the governing board, said the bloc would see “a few quarters of slightly lower growth, and that’s mostly due to foreign trade.”
Internal demand remained “very good”, he said.

A Reuters report by by Toby Sterling; editing by John Stonestreet

EU-Japan Trade deal: Five things about the world's biggest trade deal

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British Brexit Disaster: EU fears short article 50 extension will mean no-deal Brexit in June - by Daniel Boffey

EU officials fear Theresa May is setting the UK on course for a no-deal exit at the end of June because she will not have the political courage to ask for the longer Brexit delay they believe she needs.

Senior figures in Brussels have been war-gaming the likely next steps by the British government, and believe a delay to the UK’s exit date of 29 March is inevitable.

But they fear the prime minister’s strategy of seeking simply to survive from day to day will lead to her requesting an inadequate short three-month extension for fear of enraging Brexiters in the Conservative party.

EU officials and diplomats said the danger of the UK then crashing out in the summer was an underappreciated risk given that the escalation of no-deal planning and the cries of betrayal by Brexiters would give momentum to a cliff-edge Brexit.

On Thursday the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, became the first cabinet minister to admit that the two years of negotiations allowed under article 50 may have to be prolonged, describing the Brexit impasse as “a very challenging situation”.

EU sources suggested it was unlikely that the heads of state and government of the 27 member states would reject such a request given the pressure that would be applied from the business community.

On Thursday, Portugal’s foreign minister, Augusto Santos Silva, said he believed a delay would be the wisest course given May’s hopes of a renegotiation.

Read more: EU fears short article 50 extension will mean no-deal Brexit in June | Politics | The Guardian

Britain-Brexit: The Messier Brexit Gets, the Better Europe Looks - by Steven Erlanger

After Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, its leaders were in a panic. It was mired in a migration crisis and anti-Europe, populist forces were gaining. Britain’s decision seemed to herald the start of a great unraveling.

Two years later, as Britain’s exit from the bloc, or Brexit, looks increasingly messy and self-destructive, there is a growing sense, even in the populist corners of the continent, that if this is what leaving looks like, no, thank you.

Nothing has brought the European Union together quite as much as Britain’s chaotic breakdown. “A country is leaving and has gotten itself into a right old mess, making itself ridiculous to its European partners,” said Rosa Balfour, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

The challenges facing Europe — low growth, eurozone governance, migration, debt, border security and populism — have by no means gone away. Nor has Europe found consensus on how to deal with them.

The very prospect of losing a country like Britain, considered so pragmatic and important in the world, is deeply wounding for the EU.

But on the whole, while all parties will suffer with Brexit, particularly in the event of a so-called “no deal” departure, analysts tend to agree that the European Union, which will remain the world’s largest market, is likely to fare far better than Britain.

 Read more at :The Messier Brexit Gets, the Better Europe Looks - The New York Times: Steven Erlanger

Capitalism: slowly but surely the Capitalist system is self-destructing

Capitalism: all we have to do is look how some major multinational corporations, including the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Industries, weapons or financial Industry, are exploiting the world community, to realize they are the ones who are destroying the image and reputation  of Capitalism

http://www.asanet.org/news-events/speak-sociology/real-structural-problem-self-destruction-capitalism

EU: Pesticides in food: what is the European Parliament doing to help?

Europeans are concerned about pesticide residues in food and their
potential effect on health. Find out how MEPs are tackling the issue.

About 50% of the food tested by the European Food Safety Authority
(EFSA) in 2016 contained pesticide residues, with 3.8% exceeding legal
limits.

In the EU, pesticides and the active substances in them are
carefully monitored, but in recent years, concern has been raised over
the approval procedure, especially after controversy about the renewal
of glyphosate approval in 2017.

To better protect people’s health the European Parliament wants action to improve the management of pesticide use in the EU.

More transparent pesticide approval procedure

In February 2018, Parliament appointed a special committee to look into
the EU’s authorisation procedure for pesticides. On 16 January, MEPs
backed the committee’s final report pushing for more transparent
procedures to ensure political accountability.

MEPs recommend that:

*The public should be granted access to studies used in the authorisation procedure

*Manufacturers asking for substance approval should register all
regulatory studies in a public register to ensure all relevant
information is taken into account

*Scientific experts should review studies on carcinogenicity of
glyphosate and maximum residue levels for soils and surface water should
be set

*Pesticides and their active substances should be tested thoroughly,
taking into account cumulative effects and long-term toxicityPesticides
should no longer be used over a wide area near schools, childcare
facilities, playing fields, hospitals, maternity hospitals and care
homes

Better access to studies on food chain safety

In December 2018 Parliament voted in favour of an update of the general
food law regulation covering food safety in EU at all stages of the food
chain, including animal health, plant protection and production.

The proposed new rules aim to improve public access to studies used by
the European Food Safety Agency in the risk assessment of food products,
and to ensure the studies are reliable, objective and independent.

A common European registry would be set up for commissioned studies, so
the European Food Safety Agency can check whether companies are
suppressing any unfavourable studies. If there is reason to doubt the
evidence provided by the applicants, the agency could request additional
studies.

Read more at:
EU: Pesticides in food: what is the European Parliament doing to help?

Britain- Brexit: For the poor, it’s not Europe that’s the problem. It’s austerity - by William Keegan

As the Brexit farce proceeds, it is worth remembering that before David Cameron made his catastrophic error of calling a referendum, the EU was way down the list of British people’s concerns in almost every opinion poll. Indeed, not even in the first 11.

The central point is that Brexit became the focus for all manner of discontents, many of them understandable. But leaving the EU would indubitably not be the answer to them, and would be guaranteed not to make the discontents into “glorious summer”.

Indeed, it would exacerbate the sources of this discontent. Why? Surely it is becoming increasingly obvious that growing swaths of British industry – much of it foreign-owned by conglomerates that enjoy the advantages of the single market – are cutting back their investment plans and in many cases planning to relocate to mainland Europe. The prospect of the diminution of the economic base of the country has dire implications not only for employment and living standards, but also for the tax base on which living standards depend.

We have spent 45 years becoming an integral region of Europe, creating an economic omelette that no one in their right mind would try to unscramble. Unfortunately there are a lot of not-so-right minds about, some of them in the cabinet, and we have the misfortune to have a prime minister who transmits but does not listen, and is fixated on a treacherous mission.

Read more: For the poor, it’s not Europe that’s the problem. It’s austerity | Business | The Guardian