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New on the Open Europe Blog Did MEPs really vote to reject the EU budget deal?  Open Europe Blog Is Spain using accounting tricks to make its 2012 deficit look smaller? Open Europe Blog Are Greek banks improving or struggling for liquidity?  Open Europe Blog
Daily Press Summary Cameron to seek cuts to EU red tape at EU summit; Schäuble ups the ante by publishing balanced budget as “strong signal for Europe”At today’s meeting of EU leaders, David Cameron will demand that European leaders agree to dramatic cuts in red tape, including an “action plan” by June on how SMEs can be exempted or more lightly regulated. He will also press for renewed efforts to carry out a decision last December to scrap all existing and planned regulations which are no longer of use or where action is not needed at EU level. Meanwhile, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said yesterday that his budget for 2014, which involves spending cuts of more than €5bn to balance the budget in 2015, was “a strong signal for Europe” and shows that “fiscal consolidation and growth do not exclude each other”. Publication of the budget was deliberately brought forward by a week to bring out the figures before the EU summit, according to German officials. Le Figaro reports that French President Francois Hollande could face criticism as France is set to miss its 2013 deficit target. The FT reports that French officials want the emphasis of eurozone budget discipline to be on reducing structural – rather than nominal – deficits and Bloomberg reports that the draft summit conclusions do call for a shift to focusing on the “structural budget deficit.” The draft conclusions also call for “an appropriate mix of expenditure and revenue measures, including short-term targeted measures to boost growth and jobs, particularly for the young”. Telegraph FT FT: Editorial EUobserver Independent Jornal de Negócios Guardian: Garton Ash Le FigaroNew Statesman: Simms Guardian CiF: Gabriel Welt: Hundt Welt FAZ Bloomberg France and UK prepared to arm Syrian rebels without EU unanimityFrench Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France Info this morning that France and the UK would be prepared to arm Syrian rebels even without unanimity from other EU countries. Fabius said, “France is a sovereign nation”, and added, “We need to act very quickly…We will demand, along with the British, that the next [EU] meeting [on the Syrian arms embargo] be moved forward.” Les Echos BBC European Parliament insists on further negotiations on long-term EU budget; Telegraph: UK could have to contribute another £1.7bn to cover shortfall in 2012 budgetMEPs yesterday approved a motion rejecting the agreement on the long-term EU budget negotiated by EU leader last month “in its current form” with 506 voting in favour, 161 against, and with 23 abstentions. Although the majority of MEPs have come to accept the headline spending figures, they are looking for concessions on the structure of the budget including a mandatory midway revision clause on the basis of qualified majority voting, the ability to reallocate funds to different spending areas, and an agreement on direct EU taxes. MEPs are also demanding that any funding shortfalls in the 2012 and 2013 budgets are settled with fresh funds from member states and not rolled over into the 2014-2020 budget. The Telegraph notes that outstanding claims from 2012 alone could total £14bn, of which the UK would have to contribute £1.7bn. FT Times Telegraph IHT EUobserver WSJ Mail Express FAZ Süddeutsche: Winter European Voice EuractivWelt Welt 2 Welt: Mülherr Expansión La Tribune Five-Star Movement Senate faction leader: I’d like next Italian PM to come from outside of politicsIn an interview with Il Corriere della Sera, Vito Crimi – the Five-Star Movement’s faction leader in the Italian Senate – said, “We’ll tell the Italian President that we want a five-star government, not a government of the Five-Star Movement…I’d like [the next Italian Prime Minister] to come from the civil society and be extraneous to [political] parties.” On the euro, he said, “It’s not about leaving or not. The point is to understand the [eurozone] countries’ speed and implement different monetary policies.” The new Italian parliament convenes tomorrow. La Stampa reports that Pier Luigi Bersani’s Democratic Party is willing to back a Five-Star Movement MP for speaker of the lower chamber. Separately, Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi – a key member of Bersani’s party – told Italian magazine L’Espresso that he would consider running for Prime Minister in case of new elections “if the conditions were there.” Corriere della Sera: Crimi Repubblica L’Espresso: Renzi Repubblica 2 La Stampa Ahead of its official launch on 14 April, the German anti-euro party Alternative für Deutschland held its first public event attended by 1,200 people, reports FAZ. One of the party’s founders, economics professor Bernd Lucke, said that rather than waiting for a “disordered break-up of the euro” due to imbalances in the eurozone, “solidary burden-sharing among [European] partners” needs to be discussed to prepare an exit from the euro.FAZ MEPs vote to water down reform of Common Agricultural PolicyMEPs voted yesterday on hundreds of amendments to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Key measures include forcing farmers to allocate an initial 3% of their farmland for wildlife in return for subsidies, rather than the 10% proposed by the Commission, capping subsidies at €300,000 per farm, retaining the EU’s controversial system of sugar quotas until 2020 as well as restoring direct subsidies for tobacco production. The FT reports of complaints from the food industry that the EU’s sugar regime contributes to high prices and sugar shortages. The votes will now mandate MEPs to negotiate with EU ministers. The Irish Times quotes European Parliament President Martin Schulz as saying, “We’ve got to find another way to avoid having to sit here for hours voting and, let’s be candid, we sometimes don’t even know what we are voting about in the end.” Open Europe research: CAP FT EPHA Trouw EUobserver BBC Irish Times Ireland successfully returned to the markets yesterday, issuing €5bn in ten-year bonds with stronger-than-expected demand. Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan noted Ireland is now only €1.5bn short of its overall funding requirement up to the end of 2014.FT City AM Le Monde Telegraph Eurozone looks for ways to slash cost of Cypriot bailoutEurozone finance ministers will hold an extraordinary meeting in Brussels tomorrow to discuss the Cypriot bailout. The eurozone is seeking ways to reduce the bailout from €17bn to €10bn. Options include: larger privatisations, increasing corporate tax, using pension fund assets to purchase government debt and a tax on deposits. It also remains unclear whether the IMF will take part in the plan, with Germany leading calls for it to be involved. FT WSJ FAZ Süddeutsche Troika leaves Athens without agreement on next tranche of bailout fundsThe EU/IMF/ECB Troika will leave Athens today after failing to reach an agreement with the Greek government over further reforms to allow the release of the next tranche of bailout funding. Differences remain on cuts to civil servant numbers and plans to increase social security payments. The Troika will return to Athens at the start of April, with the next tranche of funds expected to be approved and released by mid-April. Open Europe’s blog on Greek banks was reproduced by Greek daily Capital. Capital Kathimerini Kathimerini 2 Conservative MP Jesse Norman writes in the Telegraph that “the nation state is the fundamental guarantor of legitimate power. Given our history, we have a moral obligation, and a huge practical interest, to reaffirm in a constructive and modest way the wider case for flexibility and localism and democracy; for a Europe of nation states.”Open Europe research: The case for European localism Telegraph: Norman Writing in Dutch daily Trouw, Patrick van Schie, Director of Teldersstichting – a think-tank closely affiliated with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party – argues that “Brussels-style democracy apparently means that voters are only allowed to agree with the policy of the ruling elite. If voters have the courage to vote differently, it is concluded that European integration is ‘too difficult’ for them.”Trouw: van Schie The European Commission looks set to support Portugal’s calls for an extra year to meet its deficit target of 3% of GDP – despite the target having already been pushed back from 2013 to 2014.FT Süddeutsche An EU directive coming into force on Saturday will require EU governments to pay their bills within 30 days and businesses to settle most commercial transactions within 60 days in an effort to help improve businesses’ cash flows.WSJ The Catalan parliament yesterday adopted by an overwhelming majority a motion calling on the Catalan government to try and open talks on an independence referendum with the Spanish central government.El País La Vanguardia El País reports that the Spanish government may consider setting differentiated deficit targets for individual Spanish regions if it were given more time to cut its overall deficit by the European Commission and its eurozone partners.El País El País 2 In the Times, historian Anthony Beevor writes, “Recent calls for a major centralisation of power to deal with the euro crisis will make the EU even less democratic than it is already, thus provoking much more of that militant nationalism that the European ideal wants to make redundant.”Times: Beevor MEPs yesterday agreed to cut the number of seats in the European Parliament from 766 to 751 following the 2014 European elections. Germany will lose three seats while Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal and Romania will all lose one seat each.Euractiv European Parliament

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