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New on the Open Europe Blog Spain's slush fund scandal: This is not going away soon Open Europe Blog Dutch PM reiterates his desire for flexible Europe  Open Europe Blog Ken Clarke's loose talk illustrates Government's predicament on EU crime and policing  Open Europe Blog
Daily Press Summary Merkel and Hollande raise doubts over EU budget deal ahead of EU summitDuring a press conference with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti yesterday, French President Francois Hollande said, "We will do everything to find an agreement [on the long term EU budget] at the next summit, but conditions are not there yet." German Chancellor Angela Merkel also expressed doubts over the weekend saying, she could “not say yet if the talks will be successful”. In a feature on EU spending, Welt am Sonntag cites figures from Open Europe’s ‘Off Target’ report on EU regional subsidies, which found that 60% of what Germany’s pays into the structural and cohesion funds goes to other countries, and that the majority of the rest goes to the same regions in which they were originally raised in the form of taxes. The article quotes FDP MEP Michael Theurer, who sits on the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee as saying that “Every euro which does not yield the desired effect could be put to good use in other places”.  In a letter to Dutch MPs over the weekend, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans has revealed that around three thousand EU officials have a higher salary than Dutch PM Mark Rutte. Timmermans also criticised the 5.5% tax break which EU officials receive. Meanwhile, the German Government also confirmed that several thousand EU officials earn more than Chancellor Angela Merkel, reports FAZ. Elsevier FAZ Welt am Sonntag Open Europe research: EU regional policy Le Monde EUobserver Il Sole 24 Ore Les Echos La Tribune Euractiv AFP Reuters Handelsblatt Reuters 2 Spanish opposition demands Rajoy’s resignation over slush fund allegations  The leader of Spain’s opposition Socialist Party, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, has said that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy should resign over the slush fund allegations involving him and other senior members of his party. Rajoy is due to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin today. Meanwhile, a new Metroscopia poll published by El País shows that support for Rajoy’s Partido Popular is now at only 23.9% – down almost 6% from last month. Open Europe’s blog post discussing the slush fund allegations and their possible consequences is quoted by Spain’s second-largest daily El Mundo.  Open Europe blog El País El País 2 El País 3 El País 4 El Mundo Expansión Expansión 2 La Vanguardia FTWSJ Telegraph BBC IHT Süddeutsche MEPs vote to reintroduce subsidies which could aid tobacco growers in the EUThe front page of the Sunday Telegraph reported that tobacco growers in the EU could receive new subsidies which had been previously phased out after MEPs on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee voted to reinstate them. Open Europe’s Pawel Swidlicki is quoted as saying, “Reinstating direct production support for tobacco would be both financially wasteful and counterproductive …The CAP as a whole is simply not fit for purpose and its outdated protectionist tendencies damage Europe’s global competitiveness”. Sunday Telegraph  CBI DG: “There are huge opportunities here for a better Europe for British business”The FT quotes John Cridland, Director-General of the CBI, as saying, “If we are skilful and play our cards right, there are huge opportunities here for a better Europe for British business, a Europe that we can sell to the British public,” adding that a new EU treaty was likely and that repatriation of employment law was “not where I’d start”. Referring to Cameron’s speech, Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier commented, “Other countries ought to conduct this sort of debate without necessarily having a referendum after.” In the FT, Robert Zoellick, former President of the World Bank, argues, “Mr Cameron stated that he prefers the UK to remain in a healthy, more competitive EU. He countered British opponents of the EU with arguments about its benefits. Now UK business should help Mr Cameron. So should the Labour party. And the US”. In letter to the FAZ, the British ambassador to Germany Simon McDonald rejects the claim made in a recent article by European Parliament President Martin Schulz that UK Prime Minister David Cameron is only representing the City of London. McDonald argues that with the largest banking sector, the UK requires appropriate rules. He also argues for a greater role for national parliaments to make the EU more legitimate. Writing in Rzeczpospolita, Lukasz Warzecha argues that “It is not surprising that [Polish Foreign Minister] Sikorski did not regard Cameron’s speech very highly. Cameron pointed out in the EU everything which Sikorski stubbornly does not want to notice… excessive bureaucracy, regulations which restrict economic freedom, rigid and one-size fits all employment laws, everything ordered around preserving the single currency at any cost, and – the most significant thing mentioned by Cameron in his speech – the increasing distance between the EU and its citizens”.  Times Weekend FT FT FT: Zoellick Irish Times: McManus Rzeczpospolita: Warzecha Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov said yesterday Britain is exaggerating the risk of a wave of immigration from Bulgaria from next year with “fearful debates”. Open Europe's Mats Persson appeared on Sky News yesterday arguing that EU migration has probably had an overall positive impact on the UK, but that it has to be handled better politically.Telegraph Observer Guardian Sunday Sun Mail Open Europe research: Immigration SPD lays out conditions for approval of Cypriot bailoutIn an interview with Spiegel Online, SPD Chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück sets out four conditions for his party’s approval of a possible Cyprus bailout package: Cyprus consolidate its “completely inflated” banking sector by liquidating individual banks, stricter measures against money laundering and tax evasion, and that Cyprus introduces the financial transaction tax (FTT). Spiegel FAZ Handelsblatt The European Commission has asked national bank regulators to explain policies which obstruct the free movement of funds across the bloc, in a first attempt to tackle financial market fragmentation. The Commission is particularly keen to tackle restrictions of transfers within banks which operate in various member states, reports the WSJ.WSJ  According to calculations by Die Welt, the total legacy bank debts in the eurozone reach almost €300bn and, if transferred retroactively to the European stability Mechanism (ESM), they would threaten to overwhelm the ESM.  Welt Welt: Dams The Irish Times reports that the Irish coalition may be in doubt if the government does not secure a deal to reduce the burden of the Irish bank bailout, according to unnamed senior government sources.Irish Times  On Conservative Home, Andrea Leadsom MP argues that, “It is not anti-EU to talk of repatriation, of powers flowing back to Member States. The UK is not the only Member State considering whether competencies should be repatriated.”Conservative Home: Leadsom  Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to reimburse Italians for a tax on first homes (IMU) they had to pay last year, and scrap the tax immediately if he wins the upcoming elections. The operation would cost €7-8bn in total. In a radio interview this morning, Mario Monti likened Berlusconi to a “snake charmer”, who is trying to “buy Italians’ votes with Italians’ own money”.FT Repubblica Repubblica 2 BBC Il Sole 24 Ore Il Sole 24 Ore 2 Corriere della Sera Corriere della Sera 2 The EU/ECB/IMF Troika is pushing the Greek government to remove legislation which sees workers get pay rises based on how long they have been employed.Kathimerini Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said over the weekend that dropping the country’s bid for EU membership in favour of joining the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation would be an option worth considering. Turkish daily Milliyet noted that “Even if it is just a bluff, it reflects growing impatience [with the EU] in Ankara.” EUobserver Iceland has warned that mackerel in the northeast Atlantic risk being “fished to extinction” unless Britain and the EU give up at least a third of their annual quota to Icelandic and Faroese fishermen. Sunday Telegraph Sunday Times Irish Times Euractiv Times: Leader According to the Sunday Times, trips by MEPs have included one to a conference in Uruguay that cost taxpayers almost £430,000 and meetings in China, South Africa and Chile that cost £140,000 each. Sunday Times

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