Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in the Presidential Palace in Ankara December 1, 2014.

Russia is forced to withdraw from the South Stream project due to the EU’s unwillingness to support the pipeline, and gas flows will be redirected to other customers, Vladimir Putin said after talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“We believe that the stance of the European Commission was counterproductive. In fact, the European Commission not only provided no help in implementation of [the South Stream pipeline], but, as we see, obstacles were created to its implementation. Well, if Europe doesn’t want it implemented, it won’t be implemented,” the Russian president said.

According to Putin, the Russian gas “will be retargeted to other regions of the world, which will be achieved, among other things, through the promotion and accelerated implementation of projects involving liquefied natural gas.”

“We’ll be promoting other markets and Europe won’t receive those volumes, at least not from Russia. We believe that it doesn’t meet the economic interests of Europe and it harms our cooperation. But such is the choice of our European friends,” he said.

The South Stream project is at the stage when “the construction of the pipeline system in the Black Sea must begin,” but Russia still hasn’t received an approval for the project from Bulgaria, the Russian president said.

Investing hundreds of millions of dollars into the pipeline, which would have to stop when it reaches Bulgarian waters, is “just absurd, I hope everybody understands that,” he said.

December 1, 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin at the concluding news conference in Ankara.

Putin believes that Bulgaria “isn’t acting like an independent state” by delaying the South Stream project, which would be profitable for the country.

He advised the Bulgarian leadership “to demand loss of profit damages from the European Commission” as the country could have been receiving around 400 million euros annually through gas transit.

The South Stream was intended to transport Russian gas through the Black Sea to Bulgaria – and through Serbia, Hungary, and Slovenia, further to Austria.

Russian gas giant Gazprom began construction of the onshore facilities for the pipeline back in 2012.

But the €23.5 billion project ran into difficulties, as it violated European Union regulations which state that the same company cannot both own the pipeline and the gas which is transported through it.

The crisis in Ukraine has turned the legal debate over the pipeline into a political issue, affecting the EU’s willingness to find a solution to the deadlock.

The EU Commission has been pressuring member states to withdraw from the project, with the new Bulgarian government saying it will not allow Gazprom to lay the pipeline without permission from Brussels.

Putin said that Russia is ready to build a new pipeline to meet Turkey’s growing gas demand, which may include a special hub on the Turkish-Greek border for customers in southern Europe.

For now, the supply of Russian gas to Turkey will be raised by 3 billion cubic meters via the already operating Blue Stream pipeline, he said. Last year, 13.7 bcm of gas were supplied to Turkeyvia Blue Stream, according to Reuters.

Moscow will also reduce the gas price for Turkish customers by 6 percent from January 1, 2015, Putin said.

“We are ready to further reduce gas prices along with the implementation of our joint large-scale projects,” he added.

Russia, Turkey don’t want chaos in Syria

The Russian president has said that Turkey is an important participant of the peace process in Syria, outlining the many similarities that Moscow and Ankrara have regarding the issue.

“We share a common opinion that the situation in Syria can’t be considered adequate, we share a common opinion that we don’t want to allow chaos in the region and the strengthening of terrorist organizations like it happened in Iraq,” he said.

According to Putin, it is important to create the conditions under which all citizens of Syria will feel safe and have equal access to governance.

“We certainly need to find an acceptable solution – first of all, acceptable for the Syrian people and all political forces in the country. And, definitely, we’re going to stay in contact with all participants in this process, including our friends in Turkey,” he stressed.

However, the sides still disagree on the future of Syrian President Bashar Assad, which Ankara wants removed from power.

“We sincerely expressed our attitude towards this [Assad's] regime. Mr. President has another stance on the issue. But in general, we have reached a certain agreement on [the] resolution of the Syrian conflict,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

“The only thing that we were unable to agree on is the way to resolve the crisis,” he added.

A civil war between Syria’s government forces and the Islamist opposition has been raging in Syria since 2011, taking over 200,000 lives, according to UN estimates.

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Almost 1.4 million Irish residents, or 30 percent of Ireland’s population, were forced to endure “enforced deprivation” throughout 2013, the state’s Central Statistics Office (CSO) says.

New figures, published on Wednesday, offer a sobering insight into the socioeconomic impacts of Austerity Ireland.

The CSO’s research analyzed Irish citizens’ income and living conditions throughout the course of 2013. It found the rate of enforced deprivation in Ireland had more than doubled between 2008 and 2013.

“Enforced deprivation” is a form of poverty characterized by a lack of two or more basics required for a comfortable standard of living. Such benchmarks relate to the ability to afford adequate food, heating and clothing.

Recent European Commission data indicates the Irish face much higher levels of poverty and deprivation than other comparable EU states.

Trade unionist and political economy expert Michael Taft warns Irish society “is riddled with high levels of poverty and deprivation.”

He says the fact over 1.3 million Irish citizens are living in deprivation is a “social and moral indictment of the priorities of a government that privileges tax cuts over poverty-reduction.”

Since Ireland’s 2008 economic crash, the proportion of people in consistent poverty has soared by 100%, according to Irish think tank Social Justice Ireland.

Of almost 1.4 million Irish people living without life’s basic essentials, over 440,000 are children and more than 90,000 are pensioners, the group warns.

A frayed social fabric

The CSO’s report found deprivation rates in Ireland rose from 13.7 percent in 2008 to 30.5 percent in 2013.

Meanwhile, Irish citizens’ average income after tax plunged to €17,374 (£13,300) in 2013 – a decrease of roughly 2 percent on 2012.

Taft said 53 percent of Irish citizens who are unfit to work due to illness or disability lack basic requirements deemed essential for a reasonable standard of living. He described the situation as a “social obscenity.”

“With poverty rampant, with over 1.3 million living in deprivation, the Government is playing its tax-cutting fiddle while society burns,” he said.

The political economy expert added private and social housing tenants in Ireland are also suffering serious financial stress.

On Tuesday, during a visit to Ireland, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the Irish populace were “heros.”

Her assessment related to Ireland’s supposed economic recovery, following a gruelling 4-year TROIKA bailout.

The IMF-EU structural readjustment program shredded Ireland’s social fabric, and sparked the highest levels of emigration the state has seen since the so-called Great Famine (1845-1852). One of Ireland’s darkest historical periods, the famine left a legacy of mass starvation and emigration in its wake.

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France has unveiled a multibillion euro cost cutting plan to be executed over two years in order to press down its deficit below the European Union’s cap.

The Finance Ministry revealed on Wednesday that the country would be shaving €9 billion (USD 9.60 billion) off costs through the plan.

Accordingly, some €4 billion (USD 4.26 billion) will be trimmed from the budget this year, including through €1 billion (USD 1.06 billion) worth of cuts from social security and health spending. The government also expects to save €1.2 billion (USD 1.28 billion) in 2015 thanks to lower servicing costs on public debt.

It is planning another €5 billion (USD 5.33 billion) in savings next year.

In its so-called “stability program” that each eurozone country must send to Brussels, France confirmed its budget deficit would be below the limit of three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017. The budget deficit will stand at 2.7 percent of GDP in 2017, just below the EU bar of 3.0 percent.

However, Paris ventured to enrage the EU by saying that to maintain economic growth, it will target smaller reductions in its structural budget deficit in 2016 and 2017 than called for by the bloc’s executive branch, the European Commission.

“Implementing those (EU) recommendations would have stifled growth and stopped us from curbing unemployment,” said French Finance Minister Michel Sapin, who added, “Our strategy is built around our determination to get the economy back up and running in the long term … to boost growth and jobs.”

The European Commission has said France must cut its structural deficit by 0.5 percent in 2015, 0.8 percent in 2016, and 0.9 percent in 2017. The country has said it would reduce its structural deficit by 0.5 percent per year until 2017.

The eurozone’s second-largest economy expanded at a sluggish rate of 0.4 percent in 2014 as the government battled stubbornly against high unemployment. Most economists believe that France needs a growth rate of around 1.5 percent to create jobs.

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International Monetary Fund representatives have cut short negotiations with Greek officials in Brussels, after they failed to present a viable reform plan. The move has left Athens, due to repay €1.6 billion by the end June, on the edge of default.

“The ball is very much in Greece’s court,” IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told the media during a specially scheduled announcement, before his team returns to Washington. “There are major differences between us in most key areas. There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently.”

With wages and pensions at 80 percent of total public spending “it’s not possible for Greece to achieve its medium-term fiscal targets without reforms, and especially of pensions.” Rice also told Athens to eschew “unsustainable” tax increases, but called on Athens to collect it’s existing VAT taxes.

Greece is carrying €320 billion ($360 billion) of external loans, but has been negotiating a cash-for-reforms deal for a €7.2 billion ($8.1 billion) tranche of a previously agreed bailout that will allow it to stave off an imminent deal.

Athens has insisted that it has presented a reform plan, while its delegation said it still believed that “intensifying negotiations” could produce a deal “in the coming days.” Its creditors have dismissed its promises as vague, and accused Greece of engaging in brinkmanship.

“There is no more space for gambling; there is no more time for gambling. The day is coming, I am afraid, that someone says the game is over,” said Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, after chairing an EU-Latin America summit, which he had to leave several times to negotiate with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. “We need decisions, not negotiations now.”

“We are working to assure an agreement which will ensure that Greece will recover with social cohesion and viable public debts,” Tsipras told the media after meeting the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, shortly after talks with German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande.

Tsipras was due to continue talks with Juncker on Friday, but in view of the latest impasse, it may now be postponed.

Tsipras’s Syriza party was elected in January with backing from traditional socialist voters and an overlapping group of those simply tired of endless austerity measures from Brussels. Since 2008, Greece’s GDP has collapsed by almost a third.

Now, he is experiencing discontent and pressure from both camps. On Thursday, Communist activists unveiled a giant banner with the slogan “We have bled enough, we have paid enough. Take matters in your own hands Greek people! Block the new measures and long-term bailout agreements.”

It was hung from the finance ministry building in central Athens. The banner depicted Tsipras as just another Euro-stooge, alongside his more moderate predecessors.

At the same time voters in the center, also have reason for discontent. The economy, which was inching towards a tepid recovery, has now plunged into another recession under his uncertain watch, while the latest figures show that unemployment has risen to 26.6 percent.

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Athens is likely to leave the eurozone and the EU if it fails to reach an agreement to unlock a €7.2 billion bailout installment, said a statement from the Bank of Greece.

“Failure to reach an agreement would, …, mark the beginning of a painful course that would lead initially to a Greek default and ultimately to the country’s exit from the euro area and – most likely – from the European Union,” the bank said in a statement Wednesday.

The manageable debt crisis Greece is now facing may turn into an uncontrollable and broader crisis, dangerous for the banking system and financial stability, the bank added. An exit from the eurozone would only add to hostility that is already felt, and, as a result, a deep exchange rate crisis would make inflation skyrocket.

“All this would imply a deep recession, a dramatic decline in income levels, an exponential rise in unemployment and a collapse of all that the Greek economy has achieved over the years of its EU, and especially its euro area, membership. From its position as a core member of Europe, Greece would see itself relegated to the rank of a poor country in the European South,” the bank said.

This is why the bank called a debt deal a “historical imperative” impossible to ignore.

The five-months of inconclusive negotiations have led to a high level of uncertainty in Greece, which is hitting the country hard, the bank said. This reflected in higher Greek bond yields and Greek businesses losing financing in the capital markets.

“On the domestic front, heightened uncertainty was reflected in the deterioration of economic sentiment and confidence indicators and in bank deposit withdrawals by businesses and households.”

Between October 2014 and April 2015 €30 billion was withdrawn from deposits, the bank said.

Fears of Greece leaving the euro escalated after the country delayed a €300 million payment to the IMF on June 5, saying it’ll bundle four June payments totaling €1.6 billion together and pay them at the end of the month.

So far the negotiations have failed to meet halfway over reforms in Greece which is the main condition for Athens to receive the last €7.2 billion tranche of the second bailout. But the Bank of Greece said a compromise on the main conditions and smaller issues remained to be covered.

Greece maintains it won’t accept new deep austerity cuts while the country’s creditors – the IMF, the ECB and the European Commission – insist on more financial responsibility from Athens.

Despite some write-offs of Greek debt made by creditors in 2012, its public debt currently stands at €316 billion, about 175 percent of the country’s GDP. The maximum acceptable level for the EU should be not more than 60 percent of GDP, according to the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact.

Austerity measures have seen unemployment rise from 12 to 27 percent in three years, GDP has fallen by 26 percent since 2008, Greeks are under a huge tax burden, and the number of people living below the poverty line is increasing every day, said Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras last week. His Syriza party came to power promising to end austerity.

Over the last five years, Athens has reduced pensions by up to 44 percent, reduced salaries in the private sector by up to 32 percent, and seen its labor market crushed, he added.

Source

Hungary has indefinitely suspended EU asylum rules under which it must take back refugees who entered Europe though Hungary, a government spokesman said. EU Commission called on for immediate explanation.

“Hungary’s asylum system is overburdened, the most overburdened among EU member states affected by illegal immigration,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Under the suspension of the asylum rules – drafted in the 1990s and known as the Dublin Regulation – Hungary is refusing to accept back the immigrants that entered Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone through Hungary and traveled to another country.

According to government figures more than 60,000 immigrants crossed into Hungary illegally in 2015.

“Hungary has used up the capacities at its disposal,” the statement said. “The situation requires fast action; in this escalated situation Hungary needs to take a move ahead of EU decisions.”

The European Commission, in turn, demanded for Hungary to explain its suspension of EU rules on Tuesday.

“As the Dublin rules do not foresee the suspension of transfers by the receiving member states, the Commission has asked Hungary for immediate clarification on the nature and extent of the technical failure, and on the measures taken to remedy the situation,” said the body’s spokeswoman.

Earlier Budapest cited “technical reasons” in explaining why it is not processing migrants’ claims who first entered the EU through Hungary but moved to another EU country.

The Dublin Regulation determines the EU member state responsible to examine an application for refugees seeking protection and provides for the transfer of an asylum seeker to that state.

Suspending the Dublin Regulation would mean that Hungary’s neighbor Austria would be one of the eastern EU ‘border states’ to receive immigrants. Vienna condemned Hungary’s move on Tuesday with the Interior Minister Johanna Mikl Leitner saying that “anyone who wants to have a Europe without borders, needs to respect the Schengen rules. Of course this also means respecting the Dublin rule.”

Earlier Budapest announced plans to erect a fence along the entire southern border with Serbia to keep out refugees and migrants.

“The problem needs to be handled outside” the EU, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on state radio on June 12. “I don’t consider it right that they send the refugees to us,” he added.”We think they should be stopped within Serbia.”

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) the number of asylum applications received in 2014 in EU has risen by 25 per cent compared to the same period in 2013. A quarter of the applicants are of Afghan, Eritrean or Syrian origin. Among the countries with the largest number of asylum applications the agency named Germany, France, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom.

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Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is ready to accept almost all the conditions proposed by the country’s international creditors at the weekend, marking the latest attempt to keep Greece in the eurozone.

The prime minister said he would accept all of the terms proposed with just minor exceptions. He agreed to the changes in the country’s value added tax system but asked to keep a special 30 percent discount for the Greek islands untouched.

Tsipras requested the move to change the retirement age to 67 in 2022 start in October, while the creditors want it implemented immediately. He also asked for the phasing out of the special ‘solidarity grant’ for poor pensioners to be done by 2019, more slowly than creditors have requested, the Financial Times said.

A two-page letter was sent to the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF late on Tuesday and obtained by a number of media outlets including the FT and Bloomberg on Wednesday.

The news comes ahead of a teleconference of EU ministers scheduled for 15:30 GMT Wednesday.

European stock markets rallied on Wednesday after the reports the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is ready to accept the creditors’ bailout terms. The Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares was up 2.48 percent by 10:20 GMT, while Germany’s DAX jumped 2.10 percent. The euro rose to $1.1122 from an intraday low of $1.1095.

On June 30 Greece failed to repay its €1.6 billion June debt to the IMF, becoming the first developed country to default on its international obligations.

Hours before the deadline expired on June 30 the Greek government asked for a new bailout program from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM); enough to cover the country’s financial needs for the next two years. The Eurogroup, however, has so far refused to provide a new lifeline for Athens.

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“The EU is not involved in changing the identity of people. Identity is something sacred and it should not be negotiable,” according to European Union ambassador Erwan Fouere.

So why is the EU demanding that Macedonia change its name in order to gain membership?

Mr. Fouere was responding to the latest European Commission report that removed references to the Macedonian language and used the term “state language” instead. The United Nations followed suit and removed all references to the Macedonian language. Macedonia had to demand reinstatement.

Greece claims that it wants the Republic of Macedonia to change its name to “prevent confusion” with the province of Macedonia.

Does the EU actually believe this? Then again, it is bailing out Greece after it blatantly lied about its economic situation.

The nonsensical name dispute was initiated by Greece in order to continue its policy of non-recognition and persecution of its large Macedonian minority. Former Greek Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis admitted in 1995, “My main aim was to convince the Republic [of Macedonia] to declare that there is no Slavomacedonian [using the Greek government’s pejorative term for the Macedonians of Greece] minority in Greece. This was the real key of our difference with Skopje.”

Ironically, Greece now claims that “Macedonia is Greek”, but it was not until 1988, when Greece realized that independence for the Republic of Macedonia was imminent, that it renamed “Northern Greece” to “Macedonia.” Prior to this, Greece’s policy was that Macedonia did not exist. Now its policy is “The more outrageous the lie, the more believable it becomes”.

The question is, does the world believe it? The answer appears to be “no”. 129 countries, including four of the five permanent UN Security Council members, have recognized Macedonia. Now will these countries take the next logical step and denounce the name negotiations as an unprincipled intrusion on the constitution of a sovereign nation?

Unfortunately, the United States, which has already recognized Macedonia, is calling for a “compromise”. The US views itself as a leader in spreading democracy and human rights throughout the world. So how does it justify asking a country to change its own name?

The European Union and NATO have taken it one step further. In addition to calling for a “solution”, the EU and NATO are allowing themselves to be handcuffed by Greece’s racist and xenophobic policies. Every NATO member-state supported Macedonia’s membership, yet Greece was permitted to veto it.

According to former US Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, “The name dispute is unnecessary and unfounded, since Macedonia was called the same in the time of former Yugoslavia and this did not cause any problems then”. He added, “Is there anything more immature and more foolish than ‘blackmailing’ a nation by denying its membership in international organizations, which goal is to preserve the peace and protect their members from aggression of non-members.”

Yet for two decades, the United Nations admission of Macedonia as a member under the “temporary” reference “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” persists.

If Greece’s “name dispute” with Macedonia made any sense, then where are the calls from the US State of Georgia for the Republic of Georgia to change its name? How about the Belgian province of Luxembourg demanding that Luxembourg change its name?

The first UN mediator for the name dispute, Robin O’Neil, said that “Macedonia must not and will not change its name in order to appease Greece. If Macedonia succumbs to pressures and changes its name, such events will only give more firepower to Greece until it reaches its final goal – Macedonia to vanish from the map.”

Every Macedonian government has continued the ridiculous name negotiations solely to satisfy American and Western European pressure to find a “compromise” with Greece. Instead of capitulating to countries that demand a change to Macedonia’s name and identity, the Macedonian government must immediately end the name negotiations and demand support from these countries.

By Bill Nicholov, President of the Macedonian Human Rights Movement International – www.mhrmi.org

Eurozone finance ministers have finally approved Greece’s third debt bailout after Greek parliament endorsed the rescue package following a tough all-night debate.

“New loans of up to €86 billion will be made available over the next three years to Greece,” the European Commission said in a statement on Friday after six hours of talks in the Belgian capital Brussels to nail down the painful reforms the debt-stricken Greece must implement in return.

“The message of today’s Eurogroup is loud and clear: on this basis, Greece is and will irreversibly remain a member of the Euro area. And the European Commission will support Greece in developing a new and fair growth, jobs and investment perspective for its citizens,” the statement quoted European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker as saying.

The past six months of negotiations with Athens had been difficult and testing, Juncker added.

According to officials, a total of some €13 billion would be disbursed for Greece by August 20.

Earlier on Friday, a majority of Greek lawmakers voted in favor of receiving the rescue package, which can help the country avoid defaulting on its debts and remain in the euro zone.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had earlier urged the legislature to approve the deal “to assure the country’s ability to survive and keep on fighting.”

Greece received two bailouts in 2010 and 2012 worth a total of €240 billion ($272 billion) from its troika of international lenders — the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — following the economic crisis in 2009.

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Redacted documents detailing covert meetings between the European Commission (EC) and powerful tobacco lobbyists have compounded fears a secretive EU-US trade deal would allow tobacco giants to sue governments that attempt to legislate in the public interest.

The documents, which confirmed the EC had met with lobbyists paid to peddle the interests of Big Tobacco, were published earlier this week.

The Commission took the decision to release the files after pro-transparency think tank Corporate Europe Observatory filed a Freedom of Information (FoI) request demanding details of the clandestine meetings be made public.

The documents focus on ongoing talks between the United States and European Union (EU) over the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty.

The negotiations, which focus on removing regulatory barriers to EU-US trade, have long been the subject of criticism on both sides of the Atlantic.

Each of the four documents released by the Commission detailed minutes of its meetings with British American Tobacco (BAT) and US tobacco giant Philip Morris. However, the lobbyists involved in the discussions, the issues broached, and even the dates of certain meetings were redacted.

This glaring lack of transparency has sparked widespread fear among TTIP’s critics that the trade deal would empower tobacco giants to sue governments that seek to regulate the tobacco industry more stringently.

Powerful tobacco firms have previously used comparable trade deals to sue the governments of other states who sought to crack down on tobacco advertising in the public interest.

Phillip Morris took legal action against the Australian government after it introduced mandatory plain cigarette packaging and is also currently embroiled in a $25 million lawsuit against Uruguay’s government in a bid to stop it from enlarging health warnings on cigarette packaging.
‘Chilling insight’

Global Justice Now said the EC’s heavily redacted documents offer “a chilling insight” into the “secretive nature of TTIP” and the sort of firms that will benefit hugely from the deal.

“The letter appears to show that the tobacco industry has far more knowledge about the TTIP talks than the rest of society,” a spokesman for the group told RT.

“This is a deal that is being made behind closed doors with the input of corporate interests, while the concerns of civil society have been consistently ignored or marginalized by the European commission.

“It’s not just about the fact that governments could lose billions – the mere possibility of these court cases could inhibit governments in the way they legislate,” the spokesman said.

“Every time policy makers were considering passing laws that may benefit labor standards, the environment or consumer protection, they would have to be thinking ‘Is this something that could result in a multi-billion lawsuit and therefore maybe we don’t want to go there?’”

The Commission’s heavily-redacted documents, which were released by Secretary-General of the EC Catherine Day, include a letter from British American Tobacco dated May 15. The 14-page letter was sent from the firm’s London office.

While one page highlights “serious concern with the consistency of [redacted],” the remaining 13 are completely blacked-out except for a string of closing remarks.

A previous letter from the commission to the tobacco giant is also extensively redacted, excluding a reference to “allegations” made by British American Tobacco. Observers suggest these allegations most likely relate to TTIP’s implications for Big Tobacco.

In a third document, which summarizes a meeting between the commission and Phillip Morris, the date of the meeting has been completely blacked-out.
Veil of secrecy

The CEO’s request for full disclosure of the documents made reference to the EU’s Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation and World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

However, Catherine Day flatly refused this request and instead offered limited access to the documents. In a bid to justify her decision, Day argued the documents contained information that relates to the EC’s negotiation stance on tobacco with respect to separate trade negotiations involving America and Japan.

She added full disclosure of the EC’s meeting with BAT would weaken the EU’s negotiation position in ongoing trade talks by revealing the Commission’s tactical strategy.

The controversial clause embedded in TTIP, which would allow corporate giants to wage lawsuits against governments that legislate against their interests, is known as the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS). It is a tool of public international law that gives investors the right to sue foreign governments.

It has been a deeply controversial subject throughout the TTIP talks and has sparked fierce opposition from MEPs, civil society and national governments.

Linda Kaucher of StopTTIP UK said the Secretary General of the EC’s claim that the redaction of the EC’s documents is in the public interest is “a disgrace.”

“The mass health implications of this involvement of Big Tobacco cross referenced with the ISDS element – which is already allowing tobacco companies to sue governments that bring in any regulations that are restrictive on the tobacco industry – show how unacceptable this is,” she added.
‘EC’s transaprency agenda is spin’

Global Justice Now said opposition to the ISDS is rife across the EU.

“The commission’s own public consultation on ISDS showed that a massive 97 percent of respondents didn’t agree with allowing corporations to sue governments through free trade deals like this,” a spokesman for the group said.

“These redacted documents show that we already have a huge problem in Brussels (like in the UK) with the enormous influence that the corporate sector has over political process.”

“The UK government has expressed numerous concerns about ceding sovereign power to Brussels, but at the same time is enthusiastically promoting a trade deal that would involve sacrificing a huge amount of our national democracy to the corporate sector.”

War on Want trade campaigner Mark Dearn said TTIP is “a secret deal by and for big business from which MPs and the public are excluded.”

“This is just the latest in a series of revelations over recent weeks which have shown that the EC’s supposed ‘transparency’ agenda is nothing more than spin,” he said.

Dearn warned Big Tobacco’s impact on global public health policy is already apparent.

“Big Tobacco is using the ISDS ‘corporate court’ mechanism to oppose public health policies around the world,” he said.

“We know that big tobacco has filed challenges against the British government over similar plans, highlighting that they believe their intellectual property to be worth £10 billion.”

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is a legally-binding treaty, which came into force in 2005 and has been signed by 168 countries worldwide. It obliges governments to limit their interaction with tobacco industry officials, and offer full transparency of any liaisons that occur.

Despite this fact, the EC remains unwilling to reveal any further details of its meetings with BAT and Phillip Morris.

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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will present a new 16-point plan aimed to stop the chaos with the inflow of refugees to the bloc, obliging the heads of the EU member states to better cooperate at a refugee summit scheduled to be held in Brussels on Sunday, the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper reported.

The key requirement of Juncker’s plan is that European countries stop sending thousands of migrants to their neighboring states inside the bloc without the consent of the neighbors, according to the media.

“The policy of pandering to unhindered border crossing is unacceptable,” the 12th point of the plan reads, as cited by the media.

According to the plan, each of the governments of EU states should choose one representative to be part of a contact group no later than one day after the Sunday’s summit. Juncker expects the contact group to effectively share information about registered migrants within the bloc, the media reported.

“Neighbors should work together, not against each other,” Juncker stressed, according to the media.

Europe has been beset by an enormous refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing to Europe to escape violence and poverty in their home countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

According to the EU border agency Frontex’s latest estimates, the number of migrants who have crossed the bloc’s external frontiers in the first nine months of 2015 has exceeded 710,000.

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Greek President Prokopios Pavlopoulos accused Turkey on Monday of facilitating the smuggling of migrants from its territory to Europe, in an interview with a German newspaper.

“I have serious concerns that Turkish human traffickers get support from authorities,” Pavlopoulos told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The Greek leader said that port authorities in Turkey did not do enough to prevent migrants from boarding smuggler boats bound for Europe. “In particular, port authorities are pretending to be unaware of this,” he claimed.

The European Union agreed in November to give Turkey 3 billion euros (almost $3.8 billion) in funds to help it bolster border security and accommodate some 2.2 million Syrian refugees. The European Commission has already transferred some 500 million euros, with the rest to be contributed by EU member states.

President Pavlopoulos confirmed that Greece would uphold its part of the deal to provide Turkey with funds – but only after Ankara delivers on its pledge to prevent migrants from crossing into Europe. “Turkey has so far not delivered,” he said.

The Greek president is in Berlin for three-way talks with his German counterpart Joachim Gauck and Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door refugee policy he described as “daring.”

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The European Commission has declared the Cologne sex attacks on New Year’s Eve have nothing to do with Europe’s ongoing migrant crisis, describing such links as “false associations”.

Internal minutes of a European Commission meeting held on January 13th illustrate the complacent attitude of senior European Union (EU) leaders to the Cologne sex attacks. They appear more concerned with limiting damage to the wider European project than facing problems caused by their own migration policies.

The New Year’s Eve attacks were perpetrated “almost exclusively” by migrant men of Arabic and North African descent. As Breitbart London previously reported they followed the model of similar ‘taharrush’ incidents in the Arab world where large groups of men attack and even rape women at major events.

Nevertheless, according to the First Vice-President of the Commission, Frans Timmermans, the Cologne sex attacks were nothing more than “a matter of public order” and were not in fact “related to the refugee crisis.” As such the role of the Commission is that of “sounding the voice of reason to defuse tensions and counter populist rhetoric” because of the “xenophobic reactions” prompted by the events. Specifically he calls for:

“…the unconditional rejection of false associations between certain criminal acts, such as the attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, and the mass influx of refugees.”

The minutes also show Commissioner Timmermans observing “that the flow of migrants at EU borders was not slowing down and estimates suggested that only about 40% of them, mostly Syrians, were fleeing war and therefore in need of international protection; meanwhile more and more third country nationals were slipping in who were driven by mainly economic reasons and did not qualify for such protection.”

Showing where his priorities lies, the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured left), spoke of preserving the “credibility of the Commission” at a time when it is “struggling to provide political inspiration for Europe” in the face of “unworthy” accusations from Member State leaders who impugned the reputation of the body.

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As Hungary’s central bank buys guns and bullets to protect against “international security risks,” a report citing a source close to the EU Commission suggests that the deepening chaos of the migrant crisis could force the EU to begin closing its borders to refugees on March 1st.

Danas, a daily newspaper published in Belgrade, Serbia, is reporting that, “The European Union will close the borders for refugees from the war zones of the countries of the Middle East on March 1.”

The article cites an individual “in Brussels close to the European Commission” as the source for the story.

“As we were told, closing borders to refugees will be gradually implemented, mainly for refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and then at the end of the process and from within Syria,” states the report.

If the report is accurate, the EU’s decision to close its borders to the flood of migrants that have poured into the continent over the last year represents an acknowledgment that its open border policy has been a massive miscalculation.

The move would also vindicate European countries such as Hungary that took steps to secure their own borders as soon as it became apparent many months ago that the clear majority of the “refugees” were not from war-torn areas but were in fact economic migrants fleeing to a higher standard of living.

Indeed, the Hungarian central bank is now so alarmed at the level to which the migrant crisis has been allowed to spiral out of control, it is stockpiling guns and ammunition to protect against “international security risks” arising out of the migrant influx.

“Hungary’s central bank…. is now beefing up its security force, citing Europe’s migrant crisis and potential bomb threats among the reasons,” reports Bloomberg. “The National Bank of Hungary bought 200,000 rounds of live ammunition and 112 handguns for its security company, according to documents posted on a website for public procurements.”

Any decision by the EU to close its borders could be a desperation move to try and rescue the Schengen free movement area, which is on the verge of collapse, a situation that could lead to the demise of the European Union itself.

Last month, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned that if the legitimacy of the Schengen agreement continued to be eroded by the migrant influx, the EU would face a “tremendous, enormous” threat to its existence.

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Unelected European Commission (EC) officials won’t be able to make new trade laws without asking Washington first, if the secretive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) comes into force, a leaked document reveals.

A secret document obtained by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), indicates the EC will also have the power to decide where Brussels should cooperate with the US. Domestic governments and the European Parliament will see power slip away from them.

Details of the leaked document, which were first published in The Independent on Friday, suggest that the EU Parliament’s role on the international stage could lessen, while US regulators take on a dubious role in European trade decisions under so-called “regulatory cooperation,” according to the CEO.

EU leaders insist it is just a means of “cutting red tape for EU firms without cutting corners.”

The Brussels-based watchdog believes the document uncovers the extent to which large corporations and industry groups will be able to influence EU-US trade deals with what are currently called “substantial proposals.”

Speaking to RT on Friday, director of Global Justice Now (GJN) Nick Dearden called the leaked document ominous.

“The leak absolutely confirms our fears about TTIP – it’s all about giving big business more power over a very wide range of laws and regulations,” he said.

“In fact, business lobbies are on record as saying they want to co-write laws with governments – this gets them a step closer.”

“This isn’t an ‘add on’ or a small part of TTIP – it’s absolutely central. TTIP is about non-tariff trade barriers. To me and you that means regulation and laws, the vast majority of which aren’t ‘trade barriers’ unless you see society as nothing but a gigantic market place,” Dearden added.

These plans effectively give US authorities the power to challenge and alter laws that counter America’s interests without accountable democratic debate, says Dearden.

“We’re talking about sovereignty at the moment in this country – it’s difficult to imagine a more serious threat to our sovereignty than this trade deal,” he said.

TTIP will create the world’s biggest free-trade zone, scrapping tariffs and other obstacles to the trade of goods and services between the US and Europe. Supporters insist the trade deal will encourage investment and create employment, while critics warn it could give too much power to big business.

An Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause, central to the agreement, would give corporations the power to sue governments when policy-makers introduce regulations affecting profits.

Critics say that the trade deal lacks transparency, impinges on sovereign governments’ right to rule in the public interest, and could result in regulators becoming captured.

Commenting on the leaked document obtained by the CEO, a spokesman for the European Commission said: “These accusations are unfounded and are not reflected in the EU proposal for simplifying rules for EU exporters. The text on regulatory cooperation will be published soon for everyone to see that this so-called analysis is completely false, presents a biased view of the European Commission’s work and ignores the reality of EU texts. Regulators – not trade negotiators – will continue to lead regulatory cooperation initiatives – both in the EU and the US.”

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Frans Timmermans, the Vice President of the European Commission, gave a speech saying that Europe is not allowed to remain majority European.

“Diversity is now in some parts of Europe seen as a threat” he said.

“Diversity comes with challenges. But diversity is humanity’s destiny.”

“There is not going to be, even in the remotest places of this planet, a nation that will not see diversity in its future. That’s where humanity is heading.”

“And those politicians trying to sell to their electorates a society that is exclusively composed of people from one culture, are trying to portray a future based on a past that never existed, therefore that future will never be.”

“Europe will be diverse, like all other parts of the world will be diverse.”

“The only question is, how do we deal with that diversity? And my answer to that is, by ensuring that our values determine how we deal with diversity and not giving up our values to refuse diversity. That will bring us down as a society.”

“If we don’t get this right, I truly believe Europe will not remain the Europe we built. Europe will not remain a place of peace and freedom, for very long.”

This speech is originally from October 2015, but there has been a complete media blackout, at least on the web.

They talk about “mixing the world”, but it is only in European white areas where this “mixing” must be enforced by law, and those who oppose it are labelled with scary-sounding words.

There is no international pressure on any Asian countries to destroy their Asian majority. There is no international pressure on any African countries to destroy their Black majority.

The European Commission has given its support to a visa-free travel deal with Turkey after Ankara threatened to back out of a landmark migration deal. It is proposed to lift visa requirements by the end of June, opening the flood gates of Hell to Europe where millions of undocumented Muslims, including terrorists among them, will invade and genocide white Europeans out of existence and transform Europe into Eurabia!

The decision was confirmed by European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager on Twitter.

“The European Commission is today proposing to… lift the visa requirements for the citizens of Turkey,” Vestager tweeted.

EU governments and the European Parliament still have to approve visa-free travel for Turkey.

“Turkey has made impressive progress, particularly in recent weeks, on meeting the benchmarks of its visa liberalization roadmap. There is still work to be done as a matter of urgency, but if Turkey sustains the progress made, they can meet the remaining benchmarks,” EC Vice President Frans Timmermans said.

That’s why the European Commission is “putting a proposal on the table which opens the way for the European Parliament and the member states to decide to lift visa requirements, once the benchmarks have been met,” he added.

According to the adopted document, visa-free travel will apply to all EU member states except for Ireland and the UK, who have their own visa requirements, and to the four Schengen-associated countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).

“The exemption concerns only short stays of up to 90 days (in any 180-day period) for business, tourist or family purposes, among others. The visa exemption does not provide for the right to work in the EU,” the document said.

The EC also proposed to strengthen a “suspension mechanism” to make it easier for EU member states “to notify circumstances leading to a possible suspension and enabling the Commission to trigger the mechanism on its own initiative.”

Among entry conditions for accessing the Schengen area for Turkish citizens will be “the need to be able to prove their purpose of travel and sufficient subsidence means,” the paper added.

Turkey’s Minister of European Union Affairs, Volkan Bozkir believes the visa-free agreement can be completed by the end of June. Speaking at a news conference with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara, Bozkir said he believed that Turkey met all 72 criteria set by EU for the deal.

According to Cavusoglu, the agreement would open a new page in Turkish relations with the EU.

“Turkey and the EU will always need each other…. The decision taken today could be a turning point in our relations,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara is about to complete the work on visa-free travel to the EU for its citizens, the country’s NTV channel reported.

The news about possible visa-free travel between Turkey and EU made headlines on Monday. An EU official told Reuters that Turkey has fulfilled 65 requirements, which means the number of conditions satisfied doubled in less than two weeks. As of the end of April, Turkey had reportedly met less than half of the conditions required.

Also on Monday the Turkish cabinet adopted a bill allowing visa-free travel for all EU citizens, including Greek Cypriots. Though visa requirement will be lifted for all Greeks in Cyprus, a Turkish official stressed to Reuters that Ankara doesn’t recognize Cyprus.

“This doesn’t mean the recognition of Cyprus. If the EU abolishes visas for Turkish citizens, then we will also abolish visas for the remaining EU countries,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “Right now, Greek Cypriots can already travel to Turkey, but we are issuing their visa on a separate paper. With this new arrangement they won’t need a visa.”

In April, Turkey threatened to back out of the migration agreement with the EU, unless travel rules were eased for Turkish citizens when entering the EU. The deal went into effect on March 21.

The agreement stated that Ankara promised to accept repatriated refugees from Greece with no EU entry permits, in exchange for sending the same number of vetted Syrian refugees. In return, Turkey would be given up to €6 billion in European funding over the next five years.

Turkish authorities have repeatedly come under fire from human rights groups and activists who said Ankara placed its Syrian refugees in war zones on the border with Syria.

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The European Union has reportedly brokered a controversial deal with Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir in an effort to limit refugees entering the continent from Africa.

The ambassadors of the 28-member-state bloc held a meeting on March 23, during which they agreed to work together with Bashir to stop the refugees’ flow to Europe, German newspaper Spiegel reported.

Under the deal, the bloc will provide eight African countries, including Sudan, with £40 million over three years to secure their borders, the daily has found.

The European Commission warned that “under no circumstances” should the public learn about the agreement.

Classified documents obtained by Spiegel indicate that Europe also will provide cameras, scanners and servers to the Sudanese government to register refugees.

Under the project, led by Germany, Sudanese border police will be trained and Germany will construct camps and detention rooms for Sudan.

According to Sudanese authorities, several people from Germany visited the African country in recent weeks to discuss the construction of closed camps.

Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, is a key route for refugees from Eritrea, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, who make their way via Khartoum to Libya, where they take boats to Europe.

The EU deal with the Sudanese president has concerned rights groups since Bashir faces International Criminal Court (ICC) charges of genocide and war crimes in the 2003 conflict in the western region of Darfur.

Sudan’s cooperation to stop the refugees, however, is questioned within the EU since the Sudanese government is accused of working with criminal networks in illegal crossing of refugees. According to a report by the human rights group, the Sudanese police and military have been selling refugees to human smugglers.

Europe is struggling with the biggest refugee crisis since the World War II. Refugees are fleeing conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria, to reach Europe.

The EU has already come under fire for brokering a deal with Turkey to return back all the asylum seekers and refugees who had used the Aegean Sea to illegally reach Greece.

The bloc, however, is in a stand-off with Turkey on the future of the agreement since Ankara refuses to make changes to its anti-terror laws as required by the EU.

On Friday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) denounced the deal as a “historic abdication” of Europe’s moral and legal responsibilities.

In an open letter to EU member states and institutions, MSF chief Joanne Liu said the agreement “effectively outsources caring for these people to Turkey.”

Over a million refugees entered Europe through Turkey and Greece last year and then made their way through the Balkans to Germany and other northern member states of the bloc.

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As the US and EU continue to secretly debate the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), talks aren’t only taking place behind closed doors. Frustrations are also being aired online, according to emails obtained by Politico.

An email sent on Friday and obtained by the website shows the European Commission warning the 28 EU ambassadors in Brussels that there will be no TTIP deal unless Washington changes its approach to negotiations.

The document focuses on agriculture, one of the most contentious of the 27 chapters currently under negotiation in TTIP talks.

The email expresses the Commission’s concern that “the EU has not seen substantial progress in areas of significant importance to EU agriculture, such as geographical indications, wine and non-tariff barriers.”

It goes on to state that “the US Administration does not yet seem to be in a place where it can reciprocate the EU’s efforts in TTIP and to start delivering on matters of EU interest.”

The email, written from the office of European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan, was agreed upon by several Commission departments, and President Jean-Claude Juncker’s office was aware of it being sent to the EU ambassadors, according to separate emails seen by Politico.

Friday’ email came in response to what the Commission referred to as a “somewhat unusual email correspondence” received on Wednesday from Washington’s ambassador to the EU, Anthony Gardner, that criticized Hogan for making a “series of misleading statements in the press” with a list of the remarks.

In a somewhat ironic statement considering the now public nature of his email, Gardner also said that “while differences of opinion are natural, especially on tough issues like agriculture, they should be aired privately, rather than in the public arena.”

He went on to express Washington’s position that “EU tariffs are 2-3 times as high as US tariffs and EU non-tariff barriers have virtually eliminated many of our key exports.”

However, an internal Commission briefing shared with EU ambassadors and obtained by Politico shows that the European Union has its own concerns over the possible removal of tariffs.

The document cites “substantial gains for US agriculture if tariffs and some non-tariff barriers are fully removed by the EU side. In the applied scenarios the US is a clear winner in trade in agricultural products in TTIP.”

The TTIP has been controversial since it was first proposed. Backers, including US President Barack Obama, stress that it would create the world’s largest free-trade zone, claiming the more integrated marketplace would help small businesses by opening up markets and making customs processes easier. They also say it would reduce trade tariffs on products.

However, many Europeans say the TTIP would place corporate interest above national interest, stressing that international corporations would be given power at the expense of small and medium-sized businesses. The secrecy surrounding the talks has also come under fierce criticism.

In order for the TTIP to come into force, all 28 EU member states and the European Parliament would have to ratify it – a possibility which seems increasingly unlikely. Negotiations on the deal have so far consisted of 13 rounds of talks over the course of three years.

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The European Union is proposing a government ID for using the Internet which will eradicate both on-line privacy and free speech.

Spearheaded by former communist official Andrus Ansip, the European Commission published a draft document outlining its proposed electronic ID that would not only allow the EU to track what you say on-line, but also what you buy.

According to the document:

It is recognised that a multitude of username and password combinations is both inconvenient and a security risk. However, the frequent practice of using one’s platform profile to access a range of websites and services often involves non-transparent exchanges and cross- linkages of personal data between various online platforms and websites. As a remedy, in order to keep identification simple and secure, consumers should be able to choose the credentials by which they want to identify or authenticate themselves. In particular, online platforms should accept credentials issued or recognised by national public authorities, such as electronic or mobile IDs, national identity cards, or bank cards.

To sum it up, the EU wants to monitor everything Europeans do on-line by having all their Internet activities linked to a government ID which will annihilate on-line anonymity.

The program has already drawn comparisons to the ‘Mark of the Beast’ from the Book of Relevation.

“And the second beast required all people small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark—the name of the beast or the number of its name,” Revelation 13:16 read, and it’s plausible the EU will eventually propose an implantable, biometric ID.

Furthermore, Mr. Ansip is from Estonia, a former communist country which has the most advanced mandatory ID system in the world.

“Much more than simply a legal picture ID, the mandatory national card serves as the digital access card for all of Estonia’s secure e-services,” the country boasts, and without the ID, citizens cannot:

• Travel within the EU as an Estonian citizen
• Use national health insurance
• Access bank accounts
• Take public transportation
• Or even vote

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