Subject: The Brief, sponsored by Google: A very unhappy birthday
From: EurActiv <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2017 16:02:12 +0000

The Brief, sponsored by Google: A very unhappy birthday      subscribe
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    <http://eurac.tv/7eDu?sid=33541>    Today's EU policy news,
17.03.2017, 5PM

       = A very unhappy birthday =

      === By  James Crisp <http://eurac.tv/7eDf?sid=33541> ===

 The EU-Turkey migrant deal is one year old tomorrow. It is time to wish
it  an unhappy birthday. <http://eurac.tv/7eDg?sid=33541>

 Or perhaps a  very happy unbirthday <http://eurac.tv/7eDh?sid=33541>
because there was a flavour of Ankara in Wonderland in the air today.

 Turkey’s interior minister threatened to “blow the mind” of Europe 
by shipping 15,000 <http://eurac.tv/7eDi?sid=33541> refugees a month to EU
territory.

 Erdogan, fresh from his battles with Germany and the Netherlands over the
country’s banning of Turkish campaign rallies, must have been grinning
like the Cheshire Cat.

 Turkey agreed to crack down on migrant flows, mainly of Syrians, in
exchange for more aid, visa-free travel and the speeding up of Ankara's
long-stalled EU accession talks.

 It’s not  the first time <http://eurac.tv/7eDj?sid=33541> that Turkey
has used the migrant deal as a stick to batter the EU with. It almost
certainly won’t be the last.

 It is no better than European leaders deserve after pushing through the
pact, which can by neatly summarised as “we give you money, you stop
foreigners coming here”.

 It’s true that the numbers of migrants making the perilous crossing by
sea have dried up. Since the deal began, the Commission said today, about a
million refugees had not tried to come to Europe  by dangerous routes
<http://eurac.tv/7eDk?sid=33541>.

 “We are absolutely committed to continuing making this agreement
work,” it added.

 But you can’t make a pact with  Mad Hatter Erdogan
<http://eurac.tv/7eGD?sid=33541> and not expect him to turn on you.
Especially not when the deal is  as morally questionable
<http://eurac.tv/7eDl?sid=33541> as this one.

  Amnesty International calls <http://eurac.tv/7eDm?sid=33541> the deal a
“shameful stain on the collective conscience of Europe” and “one in
which Europe’s leaders attempted to buy themselves out of their
international obligations, heedless of the cost in human misery”.

 "We really need to rethink the frame of this agreement," said Lucio
Melandri, senior emergency specialist with the United Nations children's
agency UNICEF.

 Even if Erdogan doesn’t kibosh the agreement, a Greek high court
judgement could scupper the deal, as Nikolaj Nielson reports
<http://eurac.tv/7eDn?sid=33541> here.

 Just as we went to press, Erdogan struck again. He ordered Turks in Europe
to outbreed Europeans.

 “I say to my brothers and sisters in Europe... have five children, not
three. You are Europe's future. This is the best answer to the rudeness
shown to you, the enmity, the wrongs,” he said.

 Like Alice, we’re through the looking glass.

      == The Roundup ==

 The  storm clouds parted <http://eurac.tv/7eDv?sid=33541> long enough to
allow Angela Merkel to travel to Washington for a meeting with Donald Trump
today. They planned to discuss Russia, NATO and trade.

 The US marked the anniversary of Russia’s  annexation of Crimea
<http://eurac.tv/7eDw?sid=33541> with a vow not to lift sanctions until the
peninsula is returned to Ukraine. The EU also extended personal sanctions
on influential Russian citizens.

  Austria’s Reiffeisen Bank <http://eurac.tv/7eDx?sid=33541> is preparing
to work with customers in Ukrainian regions controlled by pro-Russian
separatists. The decision has angered the European Parliament.

 Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn met the leaders of  six Balkan
countries <http://eurac.tv/7eDy?sid=33541> yesterday. He encouraged them to
form a common market, which the EU claims could create 80,000 jobs.

 Meanwhile,  Albania has warned <http://eurac.tv/7eDz?sid=33541> Macedonia
not to bring ethnicity into its political crisis. Ethnic Albanians make up
one quarter of Macedonia’s population.

 France has been leading the charge for reform of the  Posted Workers
Directive <http://eurac.tv/7eDA?sid=33541>, but its efforts may be
torpedoed by the ‘Molière clause’. Some French local authorities have
angered the EU’s eastern member states by banning languages other than
French on their work sites.

  The circular economy <http://eurac.tv/7eDB?sid=33541> is good for your
wallet. According to the UN, more efficient use of resources would save the
world more than €2 trillion each year.

 Economists believe Spain has  what it takes
<http://eurac.tv/7eDC?sid=33541> to become one of the EU’s “big four”
once the UK leaves the bloc.

 Want to know what  the British people <http://eurac.tv/7eDD?sid=33541>
really think of Brexit? EURACTIV’s video crew walked the streets of
London to find out…

 *Samuel White contributed to this Brief.*

      == Look out for… ==

 The annual St  Patrick’s Day Festival <http://eurac.tv/7eEj?sid=33541>
returns to Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels on March
19th 2017. Voluntarily organised by Irish sports clubs Belgium GAA
(Gaelic Athletic Association) and FC Irlande, it promises to be a great
celebration of Irish sports, games, activities, culture, music, food and
most importantly, drink.

 *Views are the author’s, not our sponsor’s.*

      *This Brief is powered by Google. France’s Jean-Baptiste Hironde
launched music mixing app  Edjing <http://eurac.tv/7eDF?sid=33541> back in
2012: since then 35 million downloads have led to countless fantastic
Friday nights. Europe needs more Jean-Baptistes, so Google is bringing
together developers, businesses and educators on March 28 to discuss the
future of the app economy: * click here to register.
<http://eurac.tv/7eDG?sid=33541>*

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