Europe

    Britain and the EU need to reach an agreement on the key points of the Brexit. Northern Ireland border issue by June, Michel Barnier has said. The EU’s chief negotiator was speaking at a conference in the Irish border town of Dundalk, where he addressed representatives from across Irish civil society. British negotiators are apparently working to a different timetable to the European Commission, with David Davis having said he wants the issue resolved by October. We need to agree rapidly by June the scope of alignment, what I call the safety controls that are ... to respect the single market, he said He added: We want to succeed with the UK, not against the UK. Together with the Irish government we are looking for practical solutions. Mr Barnier is visiting the R...

    Angela Merkel has suggested Europe could enter a trade war with the US if Washington does not continue to exempt the EU from import tariffs it has placed on much of the rest of the world. The German chancellor said she had the support of both Theresa May and French president Emmanuel Macron. Europe has so far been let off steep aluminium and steel tariffs imposed by the US on countries including China and Canada. But the temporary exemption ends on Tuesday and visits from both Ms Merkel and Mr Macron in the last week appear to have failed to convince US president Donald Trump to extend it. In a statement released on Sunday after she arrived back from Washington, Ms Merkel said Europe was resolved to defend its interests within the multilateral trade framework. Sh...

    Melania Trump in private is excellent company, according to Brigitte Macron but unlike the French first lady, her US counterpart cannot so much as poke her nose outdoors. Speaking to Le Monde at the end of the French presidential couple’s three day state visit to Washington, Brigitte said the 48-year-old former model from Slovenia was actually really fun. We have the same sense of humour. We laugh a lot together. But Melania cannot do anything, the French first lady said. She can’t even open a window at the White House. She can’t go outside. She’s much more constrained than I am. I go out every day in Paris. The French first lady said she, too, was aware that she had to be careful what I say. I have the impression that every word is a word too many, I’m constantly ...

    British holidaymakers will be hit with a £6 fee every time they travel to the EU after Brexit under plans drawn up by the bloc. They will be required to provide personal details and information about their recent movements in order to enter the EU. And they will also be obliged to answer questions about any criminal history. The plan, which was signed off by EU ambassadors yesterday, will fuel concerns about how the UK and the EU will reach agreement on a highly contentious deal on cross-border travel after Brexit. Holidaymakers travelling to a host of European destinations will need to apply through the new system and pay the €7 fee The entrance fee has been proposed as part of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, which the EU insists is pri...

    The European Union spurned U.K. calls for a legislative fix to the threat Brexit poses to trillions of dollars of financial contracts, telling banks and insurers to solve the problem themselves. Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s financial-services policy chief, said the private sector must take the lead in ensuring that existing contracts won’t be disrupted when the U.K. exits the EU. At issue are 96 trillion pounds ($134 trillion) of derivatives and tens of millions of insurance policies that U.K. regulators say might be thrown into disarray because firms could lose their ability to fulfill agreements with clients. So far we don’t see evidence that most of the issues couldn’t be solved by the private sector itself, Dombrovskis said in a Bloomberg TV interview on Tues...

    A British woman has been rescued after being kept as a sex slave in Italy and raped repeatedly. The woman had reportedly met Mamadou Jallow, from Mali, on Facebook while she was living in Germany because of her job. He persuaded her to travel with him to Italy but when they arrived her bank account was emptied and she was kept captive in a room and allegedly raped repeatedly for two weeks by him and two other men. The woman only escaped when she managed to secretly use a mobile phone to call her family, who had informed police after they hadn’t heard from her for two weeks. The signal was traced to an isolated house in Rosarno, southern Italy and police helped the woman to escape.

    The U.K. government is changing its tune on immigration, with the chief Brexit backers lining up to say that taking back control doesn’t mean slashing numbers. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson makes the liberal case for immigration in an interview with the Telegraph on Thursday: “It is one of the myths of this thing. There are lots of people who voted Leave who are very liberal on migration, who shared my point of view, but see the democratic point of view. It’s about who’s running your country.” He says Britain has flourished by being open to immigrants. While Johnson, a former mayor of London, has long been seen as liberal on the issue, his comments come as other members of the government are also sounding more laid back about European immigration. Brexit Secretar...

    Britain is still at risk of crashing out of the EU without a Brexit deal or transition period if it does not produce a solution to the Irish border issue, the president of the European Council has warned. Donald Tusk said Britain had caused the problem in Ireland by voting for Brexit and would therefore have to help solve it. His comments, made in the European Parliament, come on the first day of talks between negotiators on the future relationship between Britain and the UK something the British side has wanted since last year. We want to use the positive momentum in these negotiations to finally settle outstanding issues such as the solution to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, Mr Tusk told MEPs in his report to MEPs on the March European ...

    The White House reacted Sunday night to France’s claim that it convinced President Donald Trump to maintain the U.S. military presence in Syria, days after the two allies took part in airstrikes against the Assad regime. Ten days ago, President Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria. We convinced him to remain, French President Emmanuel Macron said live on French television BFM and online investigative site Mediapart. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in response: The U.S. mission has not changed the president has been clear that he wants U.S. forces to come home as quickly as possible. We are determined to completely crush ISIS and create the conditions that will prevent its return. In addition we expect our regional allies and partners to take greater r...

    A school girl has spoken out after a ‘rape list’ was discovered in the boy’s bathroom of the co-ed school she attends in Cork. Earlier this week it emerged that a list of girls names had been discovered on the wall of the boy’s bathroom in Davis College in Mallow. The disturbing list invited male students to tick off names, and suggested the girl whose name received the most ticks would be raped. After Gardai opened an investigation into the incident, a girl who attends the school spoke on the Neil Prendeville show for Cork’s Red FM on Friday. She said: Threatening rape is just so serious. Boys need to learn that they can’t talk about girls like that. A guy sent (the image) to one of the girls on the list to show her. I think their whole mentality is based on att...