THE European Union faces an existential crisis and needs protecting from “galloping nationalism”, Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commission president, has told MEPs.
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Six teenagers were arrested last month on suspicion of killing a Polish man in Harlow, southeastern England, in a suspected hate crime.
Past year we compared Juncker’s SOTEU speech with Barack Obama’s SOTU speech.
Mr Juncker’s address may also be overshadowed by deepening controversy over his handling of criticism of his predecessor Jose Manuel Barroso’s appointment to Goldman Sachs International.
In his annual address to the assembly, Mr Juncker is expected to highlight the European Union’s need to tackle under-investment, communicate its message better to citizens, and outline plans to further pan-European co-operation in the field of security and defence. “The values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law”.
Juncker also urged states to complete the setting up of a European Border and Coast Guard, a project driven by last year’s chaotic arrival of over a million migrants and refugees, and proposed new cooperation among EU armies, as well as pushing for an acceleration of capital markets union. There are a huge number of issues to be resolved regarding trade, tariffs and market access, which must all be hashed out after Article 50 makes things formal.
The head of the European Union executive urged Britain to trigger its formal divorce as quickly as possible so that both sides can move on to face the challenges of a risky and uncertain world.
Britain still has to officially trigger the exit negotiations and Juncker said “we would be happy if the request for Brexit could happen as quickly as possible so that we could take the specific steps which need to happen”.
The European Parliament has also appointed a separate Brexit negotiator, former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt.
This “isn’t too bad” for the UK but would hurt German vehicle companies and French wine makers, because they would face tariffs to export into the UK, Mr Farage said.
“Europeans are exhausted of the endless disputes, quarrels and bickering”, he told parliament. It is as if there is nearly no intersection between the European Union and its national capitals anymore. “Never before have I seen so much fragmentation and so little commonality in our union”.
“That means that only those can have unlimited access to the internal market who accept that there will be free access for persons and goods”. In a chaotic wave of immigration a year ago, 1.3 million people reached the southern shores of the European Union, prompting bitter divisions over how to share responsibility for them. Britain will not be represented at the meeting which is being cast as a meeting of “EU 27” rather than an European Union summit.
“We respect and at the same time regret the United Kingdom decision, but the European Union as such is not at risk”, Juncker told MEPs.
Juncker also noted that the level of taxation in a country like Ireland is not the Commission’s issue. That’s why the Government has set out an action plan.
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“We want to create a new legal framework that attracts and enables investments in connectivity”, he said.
