«Candidates standing in the European elections next month are being asked to back the campaign to combat sexual abuse and harassment»
*
«An existing parliament-based “Me Too” initiative has now launched an election campaign targeting MEP candidates and encouraging them to sign a pledge “showing their commitment” to efforts to outlaw sexual abuse»
*
«Euro area finance ministers gave a cool reception to the Franco-German proposal to create a eurozone budget at their meeting in Brussels on Monday (19 November).»
«It would remain part of the broader reformed EU budget and would not create a separate structure, leaving its fate as part of the gruelling negotiations between member states over the EU’s long-term finance plan for 2021 to 2027.»
«The proposal did not include a stabilisation tool, to help struggling economies in times of downturn, as was earlier championed by France’s president Emmanuel Macron.»
«But some of the fiscally conservative northern countries questioned what was the added value of such an instrument, given that the bloc already had EU structural funds, innovation funds, the so-called ‘Juncker plan’, and the European Investment Bank (EIB), all of which tended in the same direction»
«Many questions remain»
«We need to be really convinced that something is in the interest of the Netherlands, in the interest of Dutch citizens, in the interest of the Dutch taxpayer, and if it’s not, then we’re out»
«The French and German finance ministers said that the eurozone budget should be in place in by 2021.»
«France’s Bruno Le Maire and Germany’s Olaf Scholz both said that a compromise could still be reached with their colleagues»
«But opposition also came from the south, with Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini saying in Rome that if the Franco-German proposal damaged Italy, then he would oppose it»
«His populist government aims to break EU fiscal rules in order to splurge on welfare, raising the risk that the commission would, later this week, propose to put Rome under a disciplinary procedure»
«And with the Italian problem uppermost in finance ministers’ minds, appetite for eurozone reform is running low.»
