EU - what's next?

The conclusions adopted say Council agreed to set "out the path towards opening accession negotiations in June 2019." The first IGC, when talks would actually begin, however will be by end-2019 if council is satisfied that #Macedonia has advanced with domestic reforms.

— laurence norman (@laurnorman) 26. јун 2018.

Gargantua wrote:čitaj "najranije u junu 2019. ako....."

Gargantua wrote:EK za MKD piše pozitivni izveštaj sa preporukom već x godina, problemi su političke tj bilateralne prirode na nivou članica.

Delić francuskog protivljenja je i da uteraju Nemcima u sklopu nadvlačenja oko internih reformi. Msm proširenje je, između ostalog, i kusur za druge procese.

KinderLad wrote:Mi smo malo komplikovaniji slucaj, i na pozitivnu i na negativnu stranu.

Ja sam za to da pratimo CG pa da vidimo

Gargantua wrote:EK za MKD piše pozitivni izveštaj sa preporukom već x godina, problemi su političke tj bilateralne prirode na nivou članica.

Delić francuskog protivljenja je i da uteraju Nemcima u sklopu nadvlačenja oko internih reformi. Msm proširenje je, između ostalog, i kusur za druge procese.

Filipenko wrote:Rekao sam "će". Ne na pristupne pregovore, već na finalizovanje poglavlja, i u krajnjoj liniji, samo pristupanje.

Srbiju gotivi više zemalja (možda!) ali je to nebitno jer je potreban koncenzus. Doći će Makarona ili ko već i reći "e ne može", bilo samoinicijativno, bilo da odrade posao za neku od većih zemalja EU koja će da se pretvara da je otvorena a u stvari kobas kruti.

...

DER SPIEGEL: It currently looks as though the EU will be more divided than ever at the upcoming Brussels summit. Does that worry you?

Salvini: In the coming months, it will be decided if Europe still has a future in its current form or whether the whole thing has become futile. It's not just about the budget for the next seven years. Next year will see new European Parliament elections. Within one year, we will see if united Europe still exists or if it doesn't.


http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/interview-with-italian-interior-minister-salvini-a-1215157.html

Italy Threatens to Torpedo EU Summit in Migration Standoff
28. јун 2018. 16:08 CEST


Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte threatened to throw a European Union summit into disarray, a dramatic act of brinkmanship that set Conte against his fellow EU leaders and risked sinking Angela Merkel’s hopes of winning a deal to sell back home in Germany.

Conte issued a threat to veto the summit’s conclusions on Thursday during a two-day meeting of EU leaders in Brussels taking place under the cloud of a bloc-wide dispute over migration. The EU standoff is reopening a north-south rift and undermining east-west ties, while threatening the German chancellor’s coalition in Berlin.

Conte is demanding other EU members share the burden of refugees landing in Italy at a time when German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has told Merkel to broker a deal that would allow migrants to be sent back to Italy. Conte and Merkel met on the sidelines before the summit began.

Conte told reporters he had received many positive assurances from fellow leaders but “today we want these proposals to become fact.”

He said he doesn’t want to consider the “possibility” of vetoing a final statement, but if Italy doesn’t get what it wants “we surely won’t reach common conclusions.”

Italian officials later reiterated the threat during Thursday evening, while inside the room Conte refused to allow other topics such as trade to be signed off until migration was handled. Agreement has to be reached on all conclusions, he told his fellow chiefs. The stalemate forced the cancellation of a planned press conference by EU leaders Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk.

Leaders discussed matters including security and defense, jobs, growth and enlargement, however, “as one member reserved their position on the entire conclusions, no conclusions have been agreed at this stage,” Tusk’s spokesman said in a statement.

Draft Conclusions

A veto would be an unusual step that would nullify not just all aspects of migration policy agreed by the 28 leaders, but also their conclusions on all other matters, effectively wrecking the summit. It would leave Merkel to return home empty-handed, forcing a showdown with the Bavarian party that is threatening to defy her and potentially split the coalition.

The German case is the tip of deeper political crisis in Europe as advocates of a harder line in countries including Austria, Italy and in eastern Europe sense the momentum is with them to push their case. Yet the threat of unilateral border closures could unwind the passport-free system of travel in Europe, and Merkel warned earlier on Thursday that the issue of asylum and migration “may well turn into a question of the EU’s destiny.”

Leaders are expected to labor into the early hours of Friday as they battle to forge a compromise out of a cacophony of proposals.

Italian Demands

Italy wants an end to the Dublin rules which dictate asylum seekers must make their request in the first EU state they set foot in. It also demands that migrants arriving by boat are distributed among EU countries before they disembark. France and Spain want EU-run “closed centers” in Italy to process migrants there -- a step rejected outright by Conte’s government. Many favor “regional disembarkation platforms,” centers to administer would-be migrants in north Africa itself.

According to draft conclusions obtained by Bloomberg, the leaders will promise to “stand by Italy and other front-line” states to stop people smugglers and work on disembarkation platforms to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants. The document also includes an appeal to counter the flow of refugees between member states -- so-called secondary movements -- which are seen as jeopardizing the open-border Schengen area. Work on changing the Dublin asylum rules is postponed.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in an interview that leaders were working on “more Turkey-like agreements” which saw officials in Ankara stem the flow of migrants in exchange for aid. He said that it will be easier to reach a broader agreement once the number of arrivals has been reduced.

“I do sympathize with Italy, they are facing the whole burden,” he said, while urging Conte to be sensitive to the pressures facing other leaders, particularly on migrants’ movements within the EU. “Italy has a big interest in coming to a common conclusion, we all have,” Rutte later told Bloomberg Television.

Ben Judah‏ @b_judah
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1013438869897871362

Reporting for the @thesundaytimes this week in the Alps, and from France and Italy, the crisis threatening Angela Merkel was in plain sight.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/c9cb9294-7c91-11e8-8ce4-0bcac63244b2

What wasn’t in plain sight — but came through strongly in interviews with players in Brussels, Paris, Berlin and Rome — was that the latest migrantion crisis has sidelined @EmmanuelMacron’s grand plans for Eurozone reform.

“If I had to sum it up,” said @ArnaudDanjean, a centre-right French MEP and lead author of Macron’s recent Strategic Review, “the narrative is extremely positive and attractive but the deliverables matter and there are no actual results to make the narrative convincing.”

Macron’s grand plans require a strong Merkel — able to make Eurozone concessions — and a pliant ally in Rome. Italy, with its weak economy, should be France’s first ally for Eurozone reform. “Instead,” says @ArnaudDanjean “Because of migration, Matteo Salvini is Macron’s enemy.”

“Italy will not be the refugee camp of Europe,” said @guglielmopicchi, the new deputy foreign minister and a friend of Steve Bannon, the American alt-right firebrand. “Whereas former governments were weak this one is speaking frankly its mind.”

It was a mistake, many now think, for Macron to focus on reforming the Eurozone — by trying to get Germany to give its weaker members a helping hand — when the real issue was migration.

“Macron has one Achilles heel,” says @rumeliobserver, the Austrian think-tanker who was the architect of the 2016 EU-Turkey migration deal. “He has no answer when it comes to migration. He says all the right things but when it comes to implementing them he has no idea.”

The emptiness of Macron’s policy, says Knaus, was captured when Salvini turned back the Aquarius NGO rescue ship last month. Quickly the French president reprimanded the Italian, then refused to let the boat into France.

There has been much commentary that Merkel won the policy battle at the EU Summit. But in truth, this isn’t what the main battle that the emerging “axis” of anti-immigrant leaders in Austria, Italy and Bavaria, backed up by Hungary, is fighting for.

“What they have in common isn’t a desire to solve migration,” says @rumeliobserver. “What they have in common is a not a policy but a narrative — of toughness, deportations and anti-Islam.” At the summit they won the narrative — with crisis talk and plans for detention centres.

This matters more to them. As the battle is not for the borders but for the soul of the European centre-right. What Kurz, Salvini and Orbán really want is to break the grip of Merkel’s centrism over mainstream European conservatism.

This has alarmed, those that not longer ago, hoped that Macron would be the one transforming Europe. “Their agenda is actually to destroy the EU using lies and fear on migration,” said @AnaGomesMEP Gomes, a Portuguese socialist. “It is a fascist strategy and agenda.”

Kurz, by contrast, is having a transformative effect on German politics. He shows there is another way to build a coalition in Europe — bringing the far and centre right together like his his own government in Vienna.



And Kurz, thanks to the way the German and Austria media work, he is in some ways also a German player. Macron, remains an outsider.

What Salvini, Kurz and Orbán are playing for is the future of the Conservative bloc in the European Parliament. “Merkel is still the Queen of the EPP,” said @ArnaudDanjean. “But when Kurz was visiting he was received very, very warmly.”

This has made saving Merkel a symbol. For her allies across Europe, propping her up is saving liberal conservatism.

Running up to this summit,” said one Merkel ally. “The amount of calls we’ve been getting from allies across northern Europe on how to save Merkel has been huge. They get what is at stake.”

What Kurz, Salvini and Orbán really want is to break the grip of Merkel’s centrism over mainstream European conservatism.