Trudeau finally signs CETA free trade deal with European Union

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revelled in a long-awaited moment Sunday — signing Canada’s free trade deal with the European Union, but not before recognizing the challenges ahead to bring it fully into force.

Trudeau expressed hope that the so-called provisional application of the deal — approval only by the Canadian and European parliaments but not Europe’s 28 states and myriad regional governments — might happen within months.

That, said Trudeau, would result in 98 per cent of the deal coming into force. That’s much higher than the 90-per cent estimate that most European and Canadian officials have said would accompany provisional application of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, known as CETA.

Trudeau had initially expected to sign the deal in Brussels days ago, but the restive Belgian region of Wallonia nearly killed it because its opposition to the pact’s investor-state dispute settlement mechanism gave it a veto under Belgium’s complicated constitution.

After seven arduous years of negotiation, Trudeau joined presidents of the European Council and European Commission, Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker, and signed the massive 1,600-page pact and its accompanying strategic partnership agreement.

The road to full ratification remains long. After Trudeau and his EU counterparts took a moment Sunday to revel in the milestone, the prime minister was willing to acknowledge it would take more than ceremony to fully ratify the deal. “The work is only just beginning right now,” Trudeau said.

(...)

But opposition among anti-trade activists and left-wing political parties in some European countries has been fierce and nearly blocked the deal. On a sleepy Sunday morning in the largely shuttered EU capital, Trudeau’s entourage was greeted by a small but vocal group of protesters at the European Council.

Trudeau acknowledged the discontent but said political leaders had to work to overcome it.

“That leadership that we were able to show between Canada and Europe is not just something that will reassure our own citizens but should be an example to the world of how we can move forward on trade deals that do genuinely benefit everyone,” Trudeau said. With the Liberals and Conservatives both favouring the deal, its approval will sail through Parliament.

But Europe is another matter. The European Parliament must approve CETA. Before leaving Brussels, Trudeau met with its leader, Martin Schulz, the German social democrat."

National Post

Germany's Oettinger to take over EU Commission budget post

"German Günther Oettinger is to replace Kristalina Georgieva as the European Commission's budget commissioner. Bulgaria's Georgieva resigned on Friday and will move to become CEO of the World Bank."

Deutsche Welle

Sakharov Prize To Yazidi Women

"The European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought and expression to Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, two women from Iraq's Yazidi community who suffered attack and persecution by ISIS.
Murad and Bashar were among thousands of women and girls abducted and held as sexual slaves by ISIS fighters after they rounded up Yazidis in their village of Kocho, near Sinjar in northwest Iraq, in the summer of 2014.
Murad has also called for the recognition of the massacre of Yazidis as genocide."

(...)

NDTV

Lithuania’s agrarians pull off surprise election win

Lithuania’s center-right opposition Peasants and Greens party said it would begin negotiations to form a coalition government on Monday after it declared victory in the second round of the country’s general election on Sunday.

The Peasants and Greens won 54 seats in the 141-member parliament. The conservative Homeland Union came in second with 31 seats, the ruling Social Democratic party won 17 seats, AFP reported. Turnout was 38 percent.

“Our government will be transparent, responsible, professional and resolute,” said Saulius Skvernelis, the party’s candidate to be the next prime minister, according to Reuters.

The party had already emerged as the biggest in some constituencies in the first round of the vote, held on October 9.

If Skvernelis becomes prime minister, it will mean that for the first time in 15 years, the country’s leader will not be a member of the Social Democrats or the Homeland Union.

A new government is expected to take over from the current coalition of the Social Democrats, Labour and Order and Justice parties before the end of 2016.

Politico.eu

Turkey coup attempt 2016

Bridges over the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul were blocked by troops late evening local time on Friday 15. July. "Fighter jets and helicopters were seen flying over the Turkish capital, Ankara, and gunshots heard. Soon after, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that an attempt to overthrow the government was under way. A faction of the army then said, via a state broadcaster, that it had seized power to protect democracy from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A curfew, martial law and the preparation of a new constitution was announced. Mr Erdogan, who was on holiday in a seaside resort town, called on his supporters to take to the streets in protest and returned to Istanbul. Over the course of a violent night, TV stations were raided by soldiers, explosions heard in Istanbul and Ankara, protesters shot at, the parliament and presidential buildings fired upon, a military helicopter shot down and the Turkish military chief taken hostage.

For the plot to succeed, the army faction needed public support or wider military backing. Neither materialised. Opposition parties also condemned the coup. In the early hours of Saturday morning, groups of soldiers involved began to surrender. Troops abandoned their tanks with their hands up.

Security forces also took back key installations and bases, including the military headquarters. By Saturday evening, some of the same places that had seen such chaos the night before were filled with jubilant supporters of Mr Erdogan."

BBC webpage

EU orders Apple to pay up to €13 billion in taxes

The European Commission has ordered Ireland to claw back up to €13 billion (£11.1 billion; $14.5 billion) in back taxes from Apple.
The European Union has never ordered a company to pay this much before, with Tuesday's decision smashing the €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion; $1.6 billion) levied against the French energy giant EDF in 2015.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU's competition commissioner, announced the figure at a European Commission press conference.
"Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies — this is illegal under EU state aid rules," Vestager said in a press release ahead of her speech. "The commission's investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years. In fact, this selective treatment allowed Apple to pay an effective corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003 down to 0.005 per cent in 2014."
Apple said the decision would affect how much it invests in Europe and how many people it employs in the region.
An Apple representative said: "The European Commission has launched an effort to rewrite Apple's history in Europe, ignore Ireland's tax laws, and upend the international tax system in the process. The commission's case is not about how much Apple pays in taxes — it's about which government collects the money. It will have a profound and harmful effect on investment and job creation in Europe."Apple follows the law and pays all of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. We will appeal, and we are confident the decision will be overturned."
Ireland's finance minister, Michael Noonan, said in a statement: "I disagree profoundly with the commission's decision." He added: "The decision leaves me with no choice but to seek Cabinet approval to appeal the decision before the European courts."
(...)
businessinsider.com/

EU leaders want their own army, but can't agree on much else

"As the other 27 European Union members wake up from its long August holidays, thoughts are turning to what will be a critical quarter for the bloc as it makes preparations for divorce talks with Britain and a future without the world’s fifth-largest economy.
That began in earnest this week with the summit of the ‘big three’ post-Brexit EU economies – France, Germany and Italy – that kicks off a whirlwind of intra-EU diplomacy leading up an informal meeting of the “EU27” in Bratislava on September 16.
Here are five things we learned from the Hollande-Renzi-Merkel show:
1)"Brexit won’t break us…"
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they? But even so, there was a distinct note of defiance yesterday as Matteo Renzi, the Italian Prime minister, said that many people had felt that “after Brexit Europe would come to an end”, but that “this was not the case”. In truth, it will be a decade or more before anyone really knows whether Brexit heralded the beginning of the end for the EU or – as Mr Renzi promised – the start of a brave new European future unshackled from Britain, that most reluctant of EU members. For core Europe, nothing less than survival is at stake.
2)"But we admit there are some problems that need fixing…"
Whatever the brave rhetoric, the reality is that – as Francois Hollande, the French president noted - the forces of “fragmentation” are rising in Europe and (as he didn’t say) Britain’s vote for Brexit is adding a significant load to those centrifugal political forces.
The sharp rise in terrorism, the failure to protect external EU borders and the current failure of the European project to deliver sufficient jobs and prosperity to the coming generation are the daunting challenges that face Europe’s leaders – as well as those in Britain.
The decisions taken in Europe over the next year or two will determine whether those challenges will be better met inside the EU or, as Britain has decided, out of it.
3)"So we’re going to raise an EU army…"
Not as a cure for southern Europe’s chronic youth unemployment problem, but as a token of what Mr Renzi called a new future of deeper European co-operation, and a statement that Europe was prepared to take its place in the world.
Britain has always blocked plans for a so-called ‘EU Army’, arguing that it would undermine Nato as the cornerstone of European defence and (we don’t say out loud) our influence in Washington and at the Nato conference table.
But with Britain ‘out’, Europe is now determined to open this new strategic front. Like the decision to stage the press conference on the Italian aircraft carrier Garibaldi, anchored as it was near the grave site of Altiero Spinelli, one of the intellectual fathers of European federalism, the symbolism was deliberate. Importantly, the German chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government published a white paper advocating new pan-European military command structures after Brexit, has agreed that Europe must do “more for our internal and external security”.
4) "But that’s because we can’t agree on much else…"
 The focus on promises for a more unified defence apparatus belie the reality of the European project’s current predicament – that on the really existential economic questions surrounding the economy and the Eurozone, there is no political agreement.
The French want deeper economic integration for the Eurozone, the Italians want permission to tax and spend but the in Germany – where there are massive surpluses – there is absolutely no political will to pay for either of these demands.
As Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at the Eurasia group, says, Mrs Merkel “will only pay lip service” to Franco-Italian pleas to end German austerity-economics – meaning that far more important than what was addressed at this summit, was what was left unsaid.
5) But that doesn’t mean Britain will get an easy ride
While Europe clearly has its problems, the tone of this meeting will have served as a quiet warning to those who believe that Europe will cut Britain a sweetheart deal when the talks finally begin.
No-one was expecting any concrete detail on Brexit talks, since Britain has not yet indicated which of the myriad possible relationships with Europe – Norway, Swiss, Canada, WTO or bespoke – it will press for when it invokes Article 50.
But while the tone was respectful, it was also rather coldly clear – the European Union is fighting for its political survival and it will cling to its core ideals to protect itself."
Telegraph

Austria Will Veto Turkey’s Bid to Join European Union

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz will block any effort to advance negotiations necessary for Turkey to join the European Union, he told Austrian newspaper Kurier in an interview over the weekend.
The move comes after Chancellor Christian Kern called for ending Turkey’s accession talks last week. Kurz said that Turkey is “moving away from Europe” and that “what happens there isn’t compatible with European fundamental values.”
“I have a seat and vote in the council of foreign ministers, which decides unanimously whether new negotiating chapters with Turkey are opened,” Kurz told Kurier. “And I’m against that.”
Talks about Turkey’s EU accession are split into 35 chapters, of which 15 have been opened and one provisionally closed, according to the EU. The latest chapter, which would govern Turkey’s payments to and receipts from the EU budget, was opened June 30.
Bloomberg

Euro zone economic growth slows in second quarter

Economic growth in the euro zone slowed in the second quarter as uncertainty before the British vote to leave the European Union swirled, data showed on Friday, and economists said it could be a sign of future weaker growth.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in the 19 countries sharing the euro rose 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter in the April-June period, halving from the 0.6 percent growth in the first quarter of the year, European statistics office Eurostat said.

(...)

First estimates on euro zone inflation released on Friday by Eurostat showed a slight rise to 0.2 percent in July from 0.1 percent the previous month, but still far away from the ECB target of a rate close to 2 percent, while core inflation remained stable.

DNAI

Malta with fourth largest population surge in European Union in 2015

On 1 January 2016, the population of the European Union (EU) was estimated at 510.1 million, compared with 508.3 million on 1 January 2015. During the year 2015, almost 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, while more than 5.2 million persons died, meaning that the EU recorded for the first time ever a negative natural change of its population. The remainder of the change (positive) is driven mainly by net migration.

Malta registered the fourth largest population increase in 2015.

The most populated EU Member States continue to be Germany (82.2 million residents), France (66.7 million), the United Kingdom (65.3 million) and Italy (60.7 million). Together, they are home to more than half of the EU population, Eurostat said.
During 2015, the population increased in seventeen EU Member States and decreased in eleven.

The largest increase was observed in Luxembourg (+23.3 per 1,000 residents), ahead of Austria (+14.4‰), Germany (+11.8‰), Malta (+11.7‰), Sweden (+10.6‰), Denmark (+8.4‰) and Belgium (+7.2‰).

In contrast, the largest decreases were recorded in Lithuania (-11.3‰), Latvia (-8.7‰) and Croatia (-8.2‰), followed by Bulgaria (-6.7‰), Greece (-6.0‰), and Romania (-5.6‰).

In total, the population of the EU increased by almost 2 million people (+3.5‰) during the year 2015.
Accounting for 16.1% of the total EU population at 1 January 2016, Germany continues to be the most populated Member State, ahead of France (13.1%), the United Kingdom (12.8%), Italy (11.9%), Spain (9.1%) and Poland (7.4%). For the remaining Member States, nine have a share of between 4% and 1.5% of the EU population and eleven a share below 1.5%.
During the year 2015, nearly 5.1 million babies were born in the EU, 40 000 fewer than the previous year. Across Member States, the highest crude birth rates in 2015 were recorded in Ireland (14.2 per 1 000 residents), France (12.0‰), the United Kingdom (11.9‰) and Sweden (11.7‰), while the lowest were registered in Italy (8.0‰), Portugal (8.3‰) and Greece (8.5‰). At EU level, the crude birth rate was 10.0 per 1 000 residents.

There were slightly over 5.2 million deaths registered in the EU in 2015, 286 000 more than the previous year. Bulgaria (15.3 per 1 000 residents) had in 2015 the highest crude death rate, followed by Latvia and Lithuania (both 14.4‰), Hungary (13.4‰) Romania (13.2‰) and Croatia (12.9‰). At the opposite end of the scale, Ireland (6.4‰), Cyprus (6.9‰) and Luxembourg (7.0‰) recorded the lowest. The crude death rate was 10.3 per 1 000 residents in the EU.

Consequently, Ireland (with a natural change of its population of +7.7‰) was in 2015 the Member State where births most outnumbered deaths, ahead of Cyprus (+3.9‰), Luxembourg (+3.7‰), France (+3.0‰), the United Kingdom (+2.7‰) and Sweden (+2.4‰). In contrast, among the thirteen EU Member States which registered a negative natural change in 2015, deaths outnumbered births the most in Bulgaria (-6.2‰), Croatia and Hungary (both -4.0‰), Romania (-3.8‰), Lithuania (-3.5‰) and Latvia (-3.3‰).
MaltaIndependent

Election in Spain Gives Conservatives More Seats but No Mandate

"The conservative Popular Party of Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s caretaker prime minister, won the most votes in Spain’s repeat national elections on Sunday, as the Socialists held off a challenge from the Podemos Party to remain the largest left-wing formation.
The fragmented result, however, did not settle who will form the country’s next government. Instead, Mr. Rajoy and the leaders of Spain’s other parties face another tricky round of coalition negotiations. National elections in December were also inconclusive.
With 99.8 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Rajoy’s Popular Party had won 137 of 350 parliamentary seats, up from 123 seats in the December elections. The Socialists captured 85 seats, five fewer than in December.
Podemos won 71 seats, effectively unchanged from December, after forming an election alliance with United Left, another radical party, which won two seats six months ago.
Another emerging party, Ciudadanos, got 32 seats, down from 40 seats, according to the preliminary results.
No party came close to winning a parliamentary majority on Sunday. Still, the results put Mr. Rajoy back in the driver’s seat, either to try to form a right-wing coalition or to pressure the Socialists into a broader coalition that could help preserve the dominance of Spain’s establishment parties, which Podemos would like to uproot."
(...)
NYT

Britain votes to leave the EU

A referendum - a vote in which everyone (or nearly everyone) of voting age can take part - was held on Thursday 23 June, to decide whether the UK should leave or remain in the European Union.

Leave won by 52% to 48%.

The referendum turnout was 71.8%, with more than 30 million people voting. It was the highest turnout in a UK-wide vote since the 1992 general election.

England voted strongly for Brexit, by 53.4% to 46.6%, as did Wales, with Leave getting 52.5% of the vote and Remain 47.5%.

Scotland and Northern Ireland both backed staying in the EU. Scotland backed Remain by 62% to 38%, while 55.8% in Northern Ireland voted Remain and 44.2% Leave.

For the UK to leave the EU it has to invoke an agreement called Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Cameron or his successor needs to decide when to invoke this - that will then set in motion the formal legal process of withdrawing from the EU, and give the UK two years to negotiate its withdrawal.

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David Cameron's resignation 

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will step down after the UK voted to Leave the European Union.

Speaking in Downing Street, he did not set out a precise timetable for his departure but said "we should aim to have a new prime minister in place by the start of the Conservative party conference in October".

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Ratings agencies downgrade UK credit rating after Brexit vote

The UK has lost its top AAA credit rating from ratings agency S&P following the country's Brexit vote.

S&P said the the referendum result could lead to "a deterioration of the UK's economic performance, including its large financial services sector".

Rival agency Fitch lowered its rating from AA+ to AA, forecasting an "abrupt slowdown" in growth in the short-term.

Serbia's Pro-EU Populists Win Vote

"The incumbent pro-European Union populists swept Serbia's parliamentary election in a landslide Sunday, leaving pro-Russia nationalists far behind, according to preliminary unofficial results. The triumph by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's Progressive Party means Serbia will continue on its path toward EU membership despite opposition from right-wing parties, which seek close ties with traditional Slavic ally Russia instead.(...)

The preliminary results released by the independent CESiD polling agency show the Progressives winning 49 percent of the vote and their Socialists coalition partner with 11 percent. Two ultra-nationalist parties lagged far behind — the Radical Party with 8 percent and DSS-Dveri with 5 percent. Three pro-Western opposition parties fragmented their support and were each hovering around the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats in parliament. (...)

Vucic called the election two years early, saying he needed a new mandate to press ahead with tough reforms demanded by the EU at a time Serbia is facing deep economic and social problems. But his opponents said he really wanted to tighten his autocratic rule and win another four-year mandate while he is still popular. (...)"

ABC

These are the five biggest risks...

These Are the 5 Biggest Risks That Could Break Up the European Union:
1) Italy’s banking crisis
2) Unmanagable Greece
3) The end of Schengen
4) Turkey as an EU member
5) Brexit
Link

Germany pushes for EU migrant policy change

German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Wednesday there would be no tolerance for anti-migrant violence after facing a far-right protest during a visit to a refugee centre. About 200 people massed in the eastern town of Heidenau, some booing and shouting "traitor, traitor" and "we are the mob" as she arrived at the shelter, in a show of defiance over a record influx of asylum-seekers.
Germany is at the forefront in developing new ways to tackle what analysts are calling the biggest migrant crisis since World War II. “The majority of the Germans see that these people need help,” Orkan Kösemen, a project manager at the Bertelsmann Stiftung NGO. “They know that Germany has enough economic power to take on refugees." “The majority of the population, they’re not those protesters. But the numbers of refugees are high, and I suppose you can’t accept them every year. But still, we’re not in a situation where these protests are nationwide.”It’s not the first time far-right supporters have taken to the street in protest at Merkel’s migration policy.
But Germany's policy is very different to that of Slovakia or Hungary, where the authorities are rushing to finish a wired fence on their border with Serbia.“The situation today is much better that the situation we had in the beginning of the 90s, where many refugees who had to leave their country because of the civil war in the Balkans came to Germany,” Professor Christine Langenfeld, the chairperson of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Immigration told RFI.
“We have radical right-wing politicians and criminals who are trying to take advantage of the situation,” she explains. “But at the moment a vast majority, and this is shown by polls, wants to help refugees. But they want that a distinction to be made between those who come for economic reason and those who really need protection.”
Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum applications this year and Merkel appears to be leading the way for other EU leaders on this issue .She met French President François Hollande on Monday and called for the EU members to share the burden of migration in a fair way.The two countries will draft common proposals which could include quotas and the construction of EU-run registration centres in Greece and Italy. This quota system was rejected by EU leaders a few months ago but Germany seems determined to push for it.
“The current asylum system, the Dublin system, where refugees can only ask for asylum in the first EU country that they enter, is not working any more even though this system, kept away many refugees from Germany,” explains Kösemen. “Secondly, she currently has enough political power to do so. If you look at other large European states, there governments face strong domestic political opposition on the issue of migration.”
The current EU asylum rules are called the Dublin regulations - under them, migrants can only apply for asylum in the first EU member state they enter, and face deportation if they try to apply in another. Given the huge number of refugees arriving in Greece and Italy, that system does not work any more. That's why Germany has suspended that rule for Syrian refugees.
Some, like migration expert Tim Finch, are calling for new rules.In The Guardian newspaper he argues in favour of a system where refugees would apply for asylum from refugee camps outside Europe - and Europe would in return welcome more asylum seekers.“This is a plan that I’m proposing without much optimism that it will be picked up,” Finch told RFI. “But I think over time we will move more in this direction. We have only two alternatives, either what we have now, which is allowing this chaos to persist, and in the end accepting that people will get through and giving some sort of status anyway. Or there’s what I’m proposing, which, to me, is very much better.”
RFI

Population growth: UK to become biggest country in European Union by 2050

 

 "The UK will become the most populous country in the European Union by 2050, according to new estimates. That is, as long as we are still in the EU by then.

Eurostat's predicts that the UK's population will continue to rise, from 65 million in 2015 to 67m in 2020. By 2050 it will have reached more than 77m. In 2080, Eurostat believes the UK will have a population of more than 85m.

Conversely, Germany's population is in decline, marginally between 2015 and 2020 (80.7m to 80.6m) but by 2050 it will have dropped to 74.7m. By 2080, the country's population will have reached 65.4m.

The UK's population is growing through a combination of natural increases and migration. Eurostat's demography report also shows that population growth in Germany, Italy and Austria was “solely” due to migration in 2013: the natural population change was actually negative. Germany had the biggest number of migrants that year (692,7000) followed by the UK (526,000) and France (526,000)." (...)

Link

Mediterranean migrant crisis: EU refugee quotas to be proposed

"The European Commission will make the controversial proposal that EU member countries should take in refugees under a quota scheme.
The UN estimates that 60,000 people have already tried to cross the Mediterranean this year.
Migrants are being driven to make the journey by "horrific abuse" in Libya, according to Amnesty International.
More than 1,800 migrants have died this year in the Mediterranean, a 20-fold increase on the same period in 2014.
The European Commission's migration policy, to be announced on Wednesday, will also propose organising legal means for migrants to come to Europe so they do not turn to traffickers. However, it will need to be agreed by EU states. European leaders will discuss the proposals at a summit at the end of June.
The measures proposed by the EC are the latest in a series of steps designed to stop migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. More than 200,000 migrants fleeing conflict or poverty from countries such as Syria, Eritrea, Nigeria and Somalia are estimated to have crossed the Mediterranean last year, with thousands dying making the journey.
Quotas would be determined using a number of factors, including a country's population, economic indicators and the number of asylum seekers previously accepted.
Germany keenly supports the idea of quotas, having received 200,000 asylum applications last year.
Countries such as Italy and Malta, where large numbers of migrants arrive by boat, have also called for EU members to share responsibility for migrants more evenly. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has described a quota as "a question of fairness", adding that asylum is "not an act of mercy but a human right".
However, other EU countries are fiercely opposed to the idea of quotas. A UK government spokesman said: "The UK has a proud history of offering asylum to those who need it most, but we do not believe that a mandatory system of resettlement is the answer." "We will oppose any EU Commission proposals to introduce a non-voluntary quota." Leaders in Hungary, Slovakia and Estonia have also objected to a quota system, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calling it "a crazy idea".
On Monday the EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, will ask the UN Security Council to permit the use of force against people traffickers operating out of Libya. Without a UN mandate, military action to destroy or halt traffickers' boats in Libyan or international waters would be illegal.
Libya's ambassador to the UN, Ibrahim Dabbashi, told the BBC that his country is against the proposal. "The Libyan government has not been consulted by the European Union. They have left us in the dark about what their intentions are, what kind of military actions they are going to take in our territorial waters, so that is very worrying," he told the World Service's Newsday programme.
Amnesty International has warned that military action could leave migrants trapped in Libya in desperate conditions.
(...)"
BBC

Exit poll: UK Conservatives just shy of a majority

"The exit poll in Britain's general election predicted late Thursday that the Conservative Party will win 316 seats, just short of a majority in the House of Commons, meaning that David Cameron will likely remain prime minister. (...)
Cameron's Conservatives would need 326 for an outright majority in the 650-seat House of Commons, although in practice it's about 323: the Speaker does not vote, and Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, who had five seats before the election, do not participate.
If the exit poll is accurate, the Conservative Party would be in a commanding position to form the next government by seeking coalition partners from smaller parties. "
Link to Fox

European Union GDP growth to hit 1.8 per cent this year

"The European Commission expects GDP to rise 1.8 per cent across the European Union, and by 1.5 per cent across the euro area as a whole. It's expected to benefit from low oil prices cutting business costs and giving consumers more disposable income, stronger exports as a result of the weak euro, and loose monetary policy from the European Central Bank.
"Oil prices remain relatively low, global growth is steady, the euro has continued to depreciate, and economics policies in the European Union are supportive," it said.
"On the monetary side, quantitative easing by the European Central Bank is having a significant impact on financial markets, contributing to lower interest rates and expectations of improving credit conditions."
And it said inflation - which recently crawled out of negative territory - will stay close to zero during the first half of 2015, before picking up towards the second half of the year.
However the European Commission slashed cash-strapped Greece's growth forecast to just 0.5 per cent for 2015, down from 2.5 per cent three months earlier."
Link - NewsEconomics

EU parliament urges Turkey to recognise 'Armenian genocide'

"The European Parliament on Wednesday urged Turkey to use the centenary of Ottoman-era massacres to "recognise the Armenian genocide" and help promote reconciliation between the two peoples.
The parliament voted "by a wide majority," according to the session chair, in favour of the resolution as tension grows over the characterisation of the tragedy ahead of the 100th anniversary of the 1915 killings of Armenians during World War I. (...)"
Yahoo