Almere-Digest

February 6, 2019

The Netherlands: Food waste - the Netherlands throws away 5 million KG of food every day

February 5, 2019

EU-US Relations: Europeans fear Trump may threaten not just the transatlantic bond, but the state of their union - by Dan Balz and Griff Witte

As President Trump prepares to deliver his second State of the Union address, the leaders of the United States’ closest allies in Europe are filled with anxiety
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They are unsure of whom to talk to in Washington. They can’t tell whether Trump considers them friends or foes. They dig through his Twitter feed for indications of whether the president intends to wreck the European Union and NATO or merely hobble the continent’s core institutions.

Officials say Trump, by design or indifference, has already badly weakened the foundation of the transatlantic relationship that American presidents have nurtured for seven decades. As Sigmar Gabriel, a former German foreign minister, put it: “He has done damage that the Soviets would have dreamt of.”

European leaders worry that the next two years could bring even more instability, as Trump feels emboldened, and they are filled with fear at the prospect that Trump could be reelected. The situation has left the continent facing a strategic paradox no one has managed to crack.

“We can’t live with Trump,” Gabriel said. “And we can’t live without the United States.”

In more than two dozen interviews in London, Paris and Berlin — the three European capitals at the heart of the Western alliance — government officials, former officials and independent analysts described a partnership with Washington that, while still working smoothly at some levels, has become deeply dysfunctional at others.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron have tried different strategies, but all have struggled to develop consistent and reliable relationships with Trump. Lacking a better alternative, the dominant European approach has been to wait him out and hope the damage can be contained.

In all three capitals, there is talk about somehow trying to go it alone, if necessary — to chart Europe’s course. Merkel stated it as bluntly as anyone when she said in a Munich beer hall that Europe must “take our destiny into our own hands.”

That was two years ago this spring, and since then, Europe has taken only cautious steps in that direction — proposals for a European army being one example. Despite modest increases in European defense spending, the United States continues to account for over two-thirds of military spending among NATO members. Europe struggles to keep big, multilateral initiatives alive without American support.

European officials continue to work as hard as ever to preserve relationships with the president and the administration, despite fears and frustrations.

“We manage,” said a senior European politician, who like others in government spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss a sensitive relationship. “Governing by tweets is not the same as governing by diplomatic engagement. It’s a different process. But it’s something we accept and adapt to. I don’t think that our surprise on a daily basis is any greater than that of his own administration.”

Others, often those who are no longer in government, express a less sanguine view. They see a president ticking through his campaign promises and notice uncomfortably that Europe is on the wrong end of many of them.

Littered among the wreckage, as seen by the Europeans: an all-but-ruined Iran nuclear deal, tit-for-tat tariffs, a global climate accord that is missing the world’s largest economy, a possible arms race triggered by the cancellation of a key nuclear treaty, and a unilateral retreat from Syria without even a courtesy call to allies that work alongside U.S. forces.

More than any one issue, however, there is the sense that Trump and Europe are fundamentally at odds.

Note EU-Digest: Hopefully the EU will be able to defend itself over the coming two years or less against this loud-mouth, uncouth ego-maniac, spoiled bully, before he is either locked-up, or impeached.

February 4, 2019

EU: A European Army ? Not without a real Europen Federation

February 3, 2019

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

February 2, 2019

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

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

February 1, 2019

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

January 31, 2019

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.