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New on the Open Europe Blog European press on the EU budget deal: Behold the birth of the Anglo-German axis Open Europe Blog EU budget debate sees rare outbreak of consensus in the House of Commons  Open Europe Blog EU budget talks: The dust has settled - and they all won! Open Europe Blog
Daily Press Summary Ed Balls: It would be “stupid” for Labour to become the anti-referendum partyShadow Chancellor Ed Balls told the Yorkshire Post yesterday, “If we allow ourselves either to be the status quo party on Europe, or the anti-referendum party on Europe, then we’ve got a problem.” He added, “But I think we would be pretty stupid to allow ourselves to get into either of those positions.” In the House of Commons, David Cameron was congratulated by MPs from all parties on securing a cut to the EU budget. Appearing to agree that Parliament’s vote for a cut to the budget had bolstered his hand, he said, “It is important that other European leaders recognise when we sit around that table, we don’t just listen to the European Parliament, which has its legitimate views, but we listen to our own parliaments.” He said that rejection of the budget by the European Parliament would lead to a “very serious situation.” The Times reports that Labour announced last night that its MEPs would back the budget cut. Meanwhile, Labour has forged a 12-point lead over the Conservatives for the first time in almost a decade, according to a Guardian/ICM poll. Open Europe blog Comment is Free: Persson Mirror Times Sun Telegraph Irish Times BBC Guardian Eurozone calls for money laundering investigation in Cyprus, refuses to rule out losses for depositorsEurozone finance ministers announced yesterday that they would be commissioning a private sector study into potential money laundering in Cypriot banks, ahead of any bailout for the country. Dutch Finance Minister and Head of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem also refused to rule out losses for depositors as part of a bailout, despite Cypriot Finance Minister Vassos Shiarly saying “[It] is unlikely to happen and we will not accept it under any circumstances”. The Eurogroup still aims to have a bailout in place for Cyprus in March. Handelsblatt reports that the CDU is demanding the ECB provide an explanation for why it sees Cyprus as systemically important for the eurozone. Open Europe’s Raoul Ruparel is quoted by the Telegraph arguing that a Greek-style debt restructuring is “almost impossible” for Cyprus because a large amount of its government bonds are issued under foreign rather than domestic law. CityAM WSJ Kathimerini Guardian El País Süddeutsche Welt Bild Spiegel Telegrapgh Handelsblatt France faces opposition to calls to weaken the euroEurozone finance ministers briefly discussed the eurozone exchange rate yesterday and agreed to discuss the issue again at the G20 meeting this weekend, after French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici called for “strong action” to slow the euro’s rise. However, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said, “The discussion about a supposed overvaluation of the euro’s exchange rate simply deviates from the real challenges.” Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter also stressed that any “artificial weakening” of the currency is “unnecessary”, according to the IHT. IHT Le Figaro EurActiv Spiegel DWN Il Sole 24 Ore French Court of Auditors sees “little chance” of France meeting its deficit targetDidier Migaud, the President of the French Court of Auditors, warned this morning that France’s deficit target of 3% of GDP by the end of the year “has only a little chance of being met” without additional measures. In its report published today, the Court questioned the French government’s growth and revenue forecasts for this year, and noted, “Stepping up the efforts to rein in spending in the public administration as a whole is now the absolute priority”, since the government has relied mainly on tax hikes to cut the deficit in 2012-13. In today’s Le Figaro, French Professor Jacques Sapir and the paper’s former editor-in-chief Philippe Villin argue that French President François Hollande “faces a clear choice: either he pursues deflation, and the punishment will be terrible in terms of unemployment, and therefore politically and socially, or he has the courage to make the eurozone explode…The times of procrastination are over. Faced with the terrible reality, one needs to choose: one more effort, Monsieur le Président!” Le Monde: Migaud Les Echos Le Figaro: Sapir and Villin City AM reports that new EU proposals, laid down by the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) yesterday, target the bonuses of senior executives at hedge funds and private equity funds to bring in pay controls. The rules will restrict how and when managers can take their bonuses to make them more similar to bankers’ bonuses.  City AM FAZ Welt Spiegel Reuters Draghi explains details of ECB bond-buying programme to Spanish MPsECB President Mario Draghi will this afternoon explain to Spanish MPs the details of the ECB’s OMT bond-buying programme. The hearing will be behind closed doors, but Draghi will speak to the press afterwards. Meanwhile, Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos and Europe Minister Íñigo Méndez de Vigo have both suggested that the European Commission could relax Spain’s deficit targets for 2013-14 following the publication of its new growth forecasts – due on 22 February. El País Expansión Expansión 2 Cinco Días  Lega Nord leader Roberto Maroni – who will run for Governor of Italy’s Northern Lombardy region – has not ruled out introducing a new “local currency” to be used alongside the euro if he wins the regional elections on 24-25 February.Il Sole 24 Ore Bloomberg Repubblica Irish Times The Mail notes that, in the House of Commons yesterday, Immigration Minister Mark Harper refused to say how many Bulgarian and Romanian migrants the Government is expecting to come to the UK once transitional controls are lifted.Mail The Dutch Court of Auditors has complained that only four EU member states have given an account of their use of EU funds concluding that it is unclear “if the money of European taxpayers is spent according to the present rules.”DWN The FT reports that India’s Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has called for an urgent meeting to revive negotiations over the EU-India free trade agreement. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama is expected to call for comprehensive trade and investment talks with the EU in his annual State of the Union speech today.FT Reuters Euractiv EU ministers will hold a meeting in Brussels tomorrow to deal with the fallout from the horsemeat scandal as investigations in France and the UK continued yesterday. Meanwhile, the European Commission has stated that no health risk has been identified so any ban of beef imports by the UK would be illegal under EU law.European Voice Euractiv FT Eurozone finance ministers suggested that they may seek to attract private capital to aid the eurozone bailout fund, the ESM, in its task of recapitalising banks directly, to ensure its capacity is not drained quickly.Irish times European Voice FAZ Nu.nl reports that the Dutch Lower House wants to be informed better and earlier about EU issues. Pieter Omtzigt, a member of the CDA opposition, has been mandated by all parties to present proposals to Dutch Foreign Minister Timmermans that would allow for more transparency.Nu.nl Speaking at a conference in Warsaw yesterday, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said, “Let's stop talking about EU treaties and institutions; let's talk about how to overcome the crisis”, reports Polish magazine Puls Biznesu. Timmermans added, “Too many [European citizens] believe that Brussels only cares for Brussels, not for them.”PB Bloomberg reports that Ireland, which holds the EU presidency, and the European Parliament are pushing for the new rules on bank liquidity buffers, part of the Basel III regulations, to be implemented in 2018 rather than 2019.CityAM Bloomberg Standard & Poor’s yesterday moved its rating outlook on Irish sovereign debt from negative to stable. CityAM  Former ECB chief economist Jürgen Stark has suggested in an interview with Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung that independent central banks no longer exist. Not in the US, not in Europe, and certainly not in Japan”.NZZ PSA Peugeot Citroën has received EU approval for a French Government €1.2bn loan guarantee on the condition the car maker delivers a restructuring plan within six months. France had wanted to guarantee €7bn of its borrowing. Telegraph WSJ  A study by Ernst & Young shows that eurozone banks are holding €918bn of ‘bad loans’, amounting to 7.6% of all loans granted in the eurozone.DW

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