Europe

    A topless Femen activist has disrupted polling in Italy’s national election while ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi was casting his ballot. The woman, who had the words ‘Berlusconi, you’ve expired’ written in black marker on her torso, jumped onto the table at the Milan polling station as Berlusconi was voting. Photographers in the room to shoot the scene jostled for position amid the chaos. Berlusconi was escorted out, reports the Metro. News reports recalled that Femen activists disrupted Berlusconi’s vote in 2013 as well. Polls have opened in Italy in in one of the most uncertain elections in years. It is being closely watched to see if Italy will succumb to the populist, eurosceptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe in recent years. The campaig...

    Members of Germany’s Social Democratic Party have voted in favour of joining a coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc. The decision clears the last major hurdle to the formation of a new government and a fourth term for Ms Merkel. Sunday’s announcement by the party’s leadership ends almost six months of uncertainty in German politics, the longest the country has been without a government in its post-war history. The centre-left Social Democrats had furiously debated whether to extend the so-called grand coalition for another four years after suffering a slump in last year’s election. In the end, two-thirds of the party’s 464,000 members approved a coalition deal. Parliament is expected to meet next week to elect Ms Merkel as chancellor, confi...

    A German court rang the death knell for certain diesel cars on Tuesday, striking a blow to the country’s flagship auto industry that could now be forced to spend billions to upgrade or replace millions of cars. Rejecting an appeal of a lower court decision, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that German cities Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, which appealed local court rulings, could ban diesel vehicles from urban traffic as a way to reduce pollution. Ultimately, the ruling clears the way for other cities to issue bans, which could result in the hometowns of German auto icons Mercedes-Benz, BMW AG, and Audi banning some of those manufacturers’ flagship products. Germany’s blue chip DAX index fell sharply on the news as the stocks of auto makers Volkswagen A...

    Theresa May was pitched into a new clash with Brussels today about handing European judges a permanent say over UK laws after Brexit. A draft withdrawal agreement due from the 27 other EU states tomorrow will name the European Court of Justice (ECJ) as the ultimate arbiter of treaty disputes after Britain leaves the bloc, according to reports from Brussels. Boris Johnson, however, said it would be incompatible with the result of the 2016 referendum for the court to have any long-term sway over domestic affairs. The reported legal text would make European judges, who sit in Luxembourg and are appointed by EU states, the referees whenever Britain or the EU is accused of breaking a treaty commitment. According to the Financial Times, the text will say the UK should b...

    The EU has ruled out the UK government’s preferred approach to a future trade deal, describing it as a risk to the European project, just as Theresa May is seeking to strike an agreement on the way forward within her cabinet. The inner cabinet is meeting at Chequers on Thursday to try to find an agreement among warring cabinet members on an approach sketched out to ministers by the prime minister’s Brexit adviser, Olly Robbins. Under what is understood to be the prime minister’s preferred model, the UK would stay lock-step in regulatory alignment with the EU in some areas while finding different ways to achieve the same outcomes in other sectors. Yet, with something close to incendiary timing, the European commission, hours ahead of the cabinet get-together, has pu...

    Angela Merkel told Theresa May on Friday that she was curious about, but not frustrated with the British government’s slow progress in outlining its vision of the future relationship with the European Union. Speaking in conciliatory terms as Britain’s prime minister prepares to present her ideas on security cooperation in Munich on Saturday, the German chancellor said that the two sides were seeking common ground. I want to say that I am not frustrated. I am curious how Great Britain imagines our relationship to be, said Merkel at a joint press conference with May in Berlin, a nod to rumours that she had made fun of the British PM’s circular negotiation tactics at a Davos reception last month. Of course we have our vested interests for example, as regards economic ...

    In a speech in Munich, the Prime Minister will warn that rigid institutional restrictions and deep-seated ideology must not be allowed to jeopardise the safety of citizens. She will set out plans for a new treaty between the UK and the European Union to enshrine security cooperation and warn a reluctance to agree a new type of partnership would have damaging consequences. Mrs May will say: The challenge for all of us today is finding the way to work together, through a deep and special partnership between the UK and the EU, to retain the co-operation that we have built and go further in meeting the evolving threats we face together. This cannot be a time when any of us allow competition between partners, rigid institutional restrictions or deep-seated ideology to i...

    German workers won a key victory in their fight for a better work-life balance when a big employers group agreed to demands from the country’s largest trade union for the introduction of a 28 hour working week. The agreement between IG Metall, which represents a wide swath of industrial workers, and the Südwestmetall employers federation, shows how unions in Germany, that for years have been a model of wage restraint, are flexing their muscles in ways more typical of organised labour in France, home of the 35-hour working week. It also comes with Germany in the midst of its longest postwar stretch without a government and Angela Merkel struggling through her fifth month of coalition negotiations, raising questions about whether a country that once lectured Europe on...

    German workers won a key victory in their fight for a better work-life balance when a big employers’ group agreed to demands from the country’s largest trade union for the introduction of a 28-hour working week. The agreement between IG Metall, which represents a wide swath of industrial workers, and the Südwestmetall employers’ federation, shows how unions in Germany, that for years have been a model of wage restraint, are flexing their muscles in ways more typical of organised labour in France, home of the 35-hour working week. It also comes with Germany in the midst of its longest postwar stretch without a government and Angela Merkel struggling through her fifth month of coalition negotiations, raising questions about whether a country that once lectured Europe ...

    The Government's own analysis of the economic hit to GDP from a no deal Brexit would be 16% to North East England, Sky News can reveal. Northern Ireland could also face a GDP slump of 12% if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. Sky News can reveal the latest figures contained in the EU Exit Analysis - Cross Whitehall Briefing, which was controversially leaked last week. The losses are predicted to come over 15 years. It comes as the Cabinet tries to establish a common position on the Northern Ireland border in the crucial subcommittee meeting in Parliament on Wednesday. The SNP's Stephen Gethins asked her: "The Scottish Government analysis has shown that a 'no deal' scenario could cost Scotland up to 8.5% of GDP. Government analysis suggests that Northern Irela...