Europe

    The European Commission president said the UK could apply to rejoin under Article 49 of the Lisbon Treaty even after it leaves the EU in March 2019 - if the Government or British people want "find a way out" of Brexit. It comes after European Council president Donald Tusk declared himself open to a change of heart from the UK on Tuesday. Urging Brits to reconsider, Mr Juncker described Brexit as a lose-lose situation for Britain and the EU and a catastrophe. Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, he went on: "Mr Tusk said that our hand remains outstretched. The British people, the British Government, may wish to find a different way out of the Brexit situation and we are very much willing to deal with them. We are not throwing the British ...

    Emmanuel Macron will press Theresa May to take in more unaccompanied child refugees and pay more towards policing the port of Calais in a meeting between the two leaders on Thursday. The French president will on Tuesday visit the refugee camps in Calais ahead of the summit to survey the camp where his government estimates 400 people are living in the hope of reaching the UK. The Touquet accords, signed in 2003, effectively moved the British border to the French side of the channel and allowed UK immigration officers to carry out checks in Calais. While serving as economy minister in the French Socialist government in March 2016 ahead of the EU referendum, Mr Macron himself warned the agreements would have to be renegotiated if the Leave campaign won. Now the Frenc...

    A new biography of French first lady Brigitte Macron appears to have confirmed the existence of a long-rumoured erotic novel written by her husband about the early days of their romance, when she was his married teacher. The book says the text focused on Emmanuel Macron's controversial relationship with the woman who was his drama teacher before becoming his wife. Mr Macron’s youthful literary aspirations have already been well documented, but the new book, titled Brigitte Macron, l'affranchie (Brigitte Macron, Liberated), claims it has proof of the erotic fiction. It quotes a neighbour of his family in the town of Amiens, who was a typist by profession, who says that he approached her for help. I knew him from the neighbourhood and one day he asked me to type up ...

    Philip Hammond and David Davis have made a direct appeal to German business leaders to help them forge a Brexit deal to secure the future of Britain’s financial services. The chancellor and Brexit secretary travel to Germany on Wednesday on a charm offensive they hope will shift the EU’s implacable opposition to services being included in a final deal. They said they were seeking a bespoke deal with the EU described as the most ambitious in the world which should cover the length and breadth of our economies including the service industries and financial services. They warned that a continued integrated approach to banking after the UK left the bloc was vital if Europe was to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial catastrophe and the eurozone crisis that followed, pr...

    The European Union has expressed surprise at David Davis’s complaints about its planning for a no deal Brexit given the scenario was first put forward by Theresa May. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Brexit Secretary said he would urge the EU to drop measures and guidance that could require UK companies to relocate to Europe or risk contracts being terminated in the event of no deal. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described Mr Davis’s moaning as extraordinary given the Government has set aside £3.7 billion to prepare to leave the EU without an agreement, and has repeatedly stated that no deal is better than a bad deal. And European Commission chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas told a daily Brussels briefing: “We are somehow surprised that the United ...

    A delegation of pro-Brexit politicians and campaigners will this week warn the EU’s chief negotiator that there is huge support for reverting to WTO rules instead of accepting a bad deal, in what they say will be a display of Churchillian iron will. Steven Woolfe, an MEP, will meet with Michel Barnier in Brussels along with former CBI head Lord Digby Jones, Labour Leave chairman John Mills, and former British Chamber of Commerce chief John Longworth. The group hopes to foster a more positive tone in the negotiations and to show Mr Barnier that large swathes of the UK are determined to quit the bloc - despite bids from Tony Blair and Lord Adonis to reverse the referendum result. Mr Woolfe said he set up the meeting as he was irritated that the EU’s chief negotiator ...

    Emmanuel Macron has warned fellow European leaders to remain focused on their collective interest during Brexit negotiations lest an unfavourable situation befall the remaining 27 EU members. The French President said the continent could suffer if individual countries used Brexit to follow their own interests and that states must avoid the “prisoner’s dilemma”. In the famous game theory scenario, two people act for their own gain and both lose out even though they pursued an apparently rational course of action. I think this is the right method as it avoids divisions and once again allows us to preserve the collective interest, Mr Macron told the Daily Telegraph.  Each of us can have our own interests. That’s what the prisoner’s dilemma is all about. Everyone can ha...

  Baba Vanga, the blind mystic who many claim predicted 9/11, Brexit and the rise of ISIS, had two major predictions for 2018. The Bulgarian peasant, who correctly predicted that the 44th President of the US would be African-American, has said China will become the world’s next super power even taking over the US. She also predicted a new form of energy will be discovered on Venus. There are not currently plans to spend a space mission to Venus. However the Parker Solar Probe, named after the solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker, is due to launch in July 2018. Baba predicted a new form of energy will be discovered on Venus. Baba Vanga said China will become the world’s next super power even taking over the US. And while it will not actually land on Venus, it will use the pla...

    A Paris hospital’s decision to reject an Egyptian trainee doctor because of his beard has been backed by a court, which agreed that patients might have seen it as a religious symbol. Public hospitals, like other state institutions, must remain secular under France law, and staff are banned from wearing obvious religious symbols such as headscarves. Nawel Gafsia, a lawyer acting for the doctor, named only as Mohamed A., argued unsuccessfully that the 2-inch beard did not necessarily indicate his religious practices. My client could have been a hipster, Ms Gafsia said. However, the 35-year-old doctor himself did not deny that his physical appearance was likely to indicate conspicuously a religious conviction, according to a written judgement by the Versailles appeals...