Why the EU single market nonetheless isn’t getting sufficient love from Brussels

Good morning. Right this moment, the person who proposed a plan to repair the EU’s single market tells our colleagues that Brussels shouldn’t be being bold sufficient in its treatments. And Laura reveals a cross-party European parliament proposal to chop off all EU funding to Hungary.

To the Letta

Policymakers within the EU ought to deal with fixing the bloc’s inside market moderately than spending their power on tariffs and defence initiatives, Enrico Letta tells Alice Hancock and Barbara Moens.

Context: The previous Italian premier final 12 months penned a report on the state of the bloc’s 30-year-old inside market, which identified the gaps and highlighted the areas the EU ought to deal with to deepen integration.

The European Fee will in the present day announce a brand new technique for the only market guided by Letta’s concepts. It is going to checklist actions comparable to simplifying compliance for small firms, harmonising waste disposal, and attainable joint guidelines for sending folks to work in different EU international locations, in response to a draft seen by the FT.

However Letta stated that whereas this was “positive”, the “top priority” needs to be for the fee to current extra binding guidelines to member states. This implies tabling rules, which member states have to repeat and paste into their rule books, moderately than directives, which they will implement as they select.

“We are entering a moment in our history when directives are like the cavalry horses against the tanks,” Letta stated.

Letta warned that policymakers ought to deal with strengthening the EU’s inside market moderately than placing all their power into tariff retaliation lists within the commerce struggle with the US, or new defence initiatives. Progress “will not come by inertia”, he stated.

The “crazy Trump nightmare” of tariffs was a “lose-lose” scenario for the EU, not solely due to the financial impression, but additionally as a result of it sucked up all the eye in Brussels, Letta stated.

Brussels wanted the braveness for “strong negotiations with the member states”, notably bigger ones, Letta stated. He feared massive international locations “were not ready to accept a big movement of consolidation” and have been too preoccupied with defending their very own firms and pursuits.

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Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk has seen its share worth fall 60 per cent from its peak, and final week ousted its chief govt. The market stance in direction of its star drug Ozempic highlights the pitfalls of being a one-trick pony. 

Turning off the faucet

European lawmakers throughout occasion teams are calling on the European Fee to freeze all funding to Hungary as Budapest continues to chip away on the rule of legislation, writes Laura Dubois.

Context: The EU at present withholds some €18bn in funds devoted to Budapest over issues about corruption, discrimination in opposition to LGBT+ folks and breaches of the rule of legislation. The European parliament final 12 months sued the fee over the unfreezing of about €10bn in a deal to get Budapest to again help for Ukraine.

Parliamentarians at the moment are stepping up the stress.

“We urge the European Commission to increase pressure on Viktor Orbán’s government to cease violating EU values and EU laws by immediately suspending all EU funding for Hungary,” a bunch of 26 lawmakers wrote in a letter to the fee, seen by the FT.

The letter, initiated by Inexperienced MEP Daniel Freund, lists quite a lot of measures which it says represent an “alarming regression” on the rule of legislation, together with some undermining the independence of the judiciary.

They spotlight a draft legislation “enabling the state to blacklist NGOs deemed a threat to sovereignty”. The legislation, which was mentioned in parliament yesterday, would enable a “Sovereignty Office” to analyze NGOs or media organisations receiving overseas funds, and impose probably heavy fines. Critics view it as a measure by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to quell dissent.

The lawmakers additionally criticise Hungarian laws permitting the suspension of citizenship for twin nationals perceived as threats, and a ban on the Budapest Satisfaction march.

“Given these troubling developments, we firmly believe the EU must adjust its response,” write the MEPs. “We therefore consider a freezing of all funds proportionate to the risk posed to the union’s financial interests.”

The lawmakers additionally warned in opposition to permitting Hungary to claw again some funds utilizing loopholes.

Up to now three years, Hungary has spent about €6bn from the EU funds per 12 months, in response to fee figures.

What to look at in the present day

1. Annual EU funds convention

2. EU and African Union overseas ministers meet in Brussels.

3. European parliament president Roberta Metsola meets the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, and opens the chamber’s plenary session in Brussels.

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