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from MacroScope:
Cameron’s dilemma
Britain’s David Cameron began the day on Monday gently slapping down two Cabinet colleagues who said if they had a vote today, they would opt to leave the EU. It was senseless, he said, to throw in the towel before he had had a chance to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Europe. He ended it by caving into rebels in his Conservative party who are demanding legislation now to commit to an in/out referendum before the next election.
The 25 year history of the Conservatives and Europe – internecine warfare and successive election defeats as they obsessed about something which figures low on most Britons’ priority list – suggests no good can come of this and if Cameron wins the 2015 election it moves Britain incrementally closer to the EU exit door. The more immediate question is whether Cameron has lanced the boil. Again, history suggests that if you give ground to the eurosceptics they merely demand more. And what the PM’s pro-EU Liberal Democrat coalition partners make of this isn’t hard to imagine which means he might not even have the numbers to get the bill through parliament. One of the leading rebels seized on that point, saying the move could well fail.
The anti-EU fringe party UKIP, which could well not win a single seat at the next election but has seriously spooked the Conservatives with strong showings in recent local elections, must be laughing all the way to the bank. If it can remake the Conservative party in its own image, its job will be done. But just as likely is a split party. The irony of Cameron doing all this while in Washington to bang the drum for an EU/U.S. trade deal is hard to ignore. President Obama pointedly said the British premier should fix its relationship with the EU. If Cameron believes Britain should remain part of its main trading bloc, as he says he does, he is going to have to start explaining why and that is difficult to imagine.
In the euro zone, all is not well of course. A poll of nearly 8,000 people in eight EU states by the Pew Research Center, released overnight, shows the debt crisis has wrecked faith in the EU although support for the euro is holding up. Interestingly, disillusionment seems to be growing fastest in France, hinting at a new schism with Germany.
from Breakingviews:
UK minus EU is another loser from Lawson
By Ian Campbell
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Nigel Lawson is back in the ring and as sharp as ever. The UK chancellor who dismissed his critics as “teenage scribblers” in the 1980s - as he fomented a housing bubble that weighed on the economy for half a decade - is now throwing his weight behind a UK exit from the EU. It will make Britain stronger, he jabs. Someone should throw in his towel.
from Breakingviews:
Barnier broadside leaves EU looking soft on banks
By Dominic Elliott
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The European Union’s top financial regulator seems out of touch on banking reform. His peers want banks to keep more capital, but Michel Barnier says the United States should give European banks a break.
from Global Investing:
Turkey: ceasefire with PKK may bring economic gains
Turkey's ceasefire last month with the Kurdish militant group PKK could boost its trade partnerships multilaterally, as increasing prospects for stability in the region bring economic opportunities in the Middle East and Africa.
The halt in the decades-long armed campaign came on March 21 after the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Abdullah Ocalan, sent a letter with the announcement from the island prison cell where he has been held since 1999 when he was arrested for treason.
from Photographers Blog:
Neither Croat, nor Serb
Knin, Croatia
By Antonio Bronic
Ethnic conflict shook Croatia to the core during the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Today, both Serbs and Croats in the country still bear the scars – something clearly visible if you visit the areas around the southern town of Knin. Before the war broke out, most of Knin’s citizens were Serbs. When Croatia declared independence in 1991, Serbs who wanted to remain part of Yugoslavia staged a bloody rebellion, and Knin became their stronghold. The town was recaptured by the Croatian army in 1995 and the Serb population fled in the thousands, leaving behind their homes, most of which were soon torched or blown up by the Croats.
After the war ended, some of the Serbs returned and Croatian authorities promised they would receive equal assistance in rebuilding their damaged properties. But 18 years after the conflict, many are still making do with basic or temporary living arrangements. Croatia, preparing to join the European Union on July 1, has told the EU that houses for returning refugees would be constructed. I thought I would go and investigate the situation, and after a bit of research and a few phone calls, I managed to find people to talk to both in Knin and the surrounding areas.
from MacroScope:
Cyprus Plan B – phoenix or dodo?
They’ve only been looking for it for a day but Cyprus’s Plan B has already taken on mythical status. A myth it might remain.
Ideas being floated include nationalizing the pension fund (back of the envelope calculations suggest that will raise less than a billion euros) and issuing bonds underpinned by future natural gas revenues (but no one is really sure how much they are worth). So to avoid default it still looks like the Cypriots may have to return to the bank levy they rejected so decisively in parliament on Tuesday, to raise the 5.8 billion euros the euro zone is demanding in return for a bailout.
from Ian Bremmer:
The top 10 grudges in the G-20
The G-20 is no happy family. Comprised of 19 countries and the European Union, once the urgency of the financial crisis waned, so too did the level of collaboration among members. Unlike the cozier G-7 -- filled with likeminded nations -- the G-20 is a better representation of the true global balance of power … and the tensions therein. So where are the deepest fault lines in the G-20?
Below is a ranking* of the 10 worst bilateral relationships in the G20. Russia is in four of the worst, while China is in three (although Russia and China’s relationship is fine). Several countries are also in two of the worst relationships: the United States (with the two belligerents mentioned above), Japan, the UK and the EU.
from Breakingviews:
Euro zone must change to allow Italy to reform
By Pierre Briançon
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The downside of democracy is that people take it seriously. The Italians have spoken, in their effervescent, yet rather clear way. Europe’s powers-that-be are sorry that the “pro-reform parties” didn’t win a governing majority in Rome. The vote has opened weeks of political uncertainty the country could do without. Whatever its next government, and no matter how stable it proves, Italy will pay a price if it fails to reform.
from Mark Leonard:
Cameron’s backward-looking speech
Britain is at a fork in the road with a choice to make about what role it will play in the 21st century. Yet, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron’s long-awaited speech about Europe is a miscalculation that will leave everyone frustrated.
With the speech, British euro-skeptics are denied an immediate referendum on EU membership, and pro-Europeans in Britain will lose their voice in the debate about Europe’s future while their country’s energy is wasted on renegotiating existing powers. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will have to deal with a quest for special treatment rather than have a reliable British partner at a time of uncertainty. Worst of all, Cameron’s promise to go for a cosmetic renegotiation followed by a campaign to stay in the EU is designed to obscure rather than resolve the fundamental dilemma facing his compatriots – a choice between two radically different British futures.
from MacroScope:
Cameron’s moment of truth
Finally, finally, finally we get the much-vaunted David Cameron speech on Britain’s relationship with Europe.
So, what will Cameron say? Most bluntly he will promise a straight in-or-out EU referendum if he wins an election in 2015 and after he has negotiated a “new settlement”. He correctly notes that public disillusionment with Europe is at an all-time high, which is precisely why offering a referendum could lead to Britain leaving the bloc, something even Cameron doesn’t want, although he argues a vote could lance that boil.
