Europe

    Plans to allow the United Kingdom an exemption from EU rules on freedom of movement for up to seven years while retaining access to the single market are being considered in European capitals as part of a potential deal on Brexit. Senior British and EU sources have confirmed that despite strong initial resistance from French president François Hollande in talks with prime minister Theresa May last week, the idea of an emergency brake on the free movement of people that would go far further than the one David Cameron negotiated before the Brexit referendum is being examined. If such an agreement were struck, and a strict time limit imposed, diplomats believe it could go a long way towards addressing concerns of the British people over immigration from EU states, while allow...

    A few hours after the Turkish President ordered that more than a thousand private schools in the country be shut down, the Turkish Prime Minister announced that the government is not planning to extend the state of emergency beyond the three months period that has been decided upon. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said last night (Saturday) that the government is not planning to extend the state of emergency beyond the three months period that has been decided upon, unless it is forced to do so. On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared a state of emergency, which allows him to enact laws without the support of the parliament and deny rights and freedoms if necessary. “Our goal is not to extend the state of emergency but if there will be a need t...

    The lone gunman who killed nine people and wounded a further 21 at a shopping center in Munich before shooting himself was an 18-year-old German of Iranian descent, police have said. Munich police had declared a cautious “all-clear” Friday night following a mass shooting in the shopping centre. The attack sparked a manhunt that shut down the entire city, as security forces hunted for a number of suspected attackers. However, police confirmed in a press conference that the shooter had acted alone, and was dead. A 15-year-old girl was among the dead, and several injured youngsters have been admitted to children’s hospitals in Munich, local media reported. Police stopped trains, buses and trams, closed highways to private cars and ordered citizens to stay in their homes as th...

    The more time goes by, the more plausible it becomes that the UK may never actually leave the European Union. Leaving the EU is so difficult, and the consequences are so economically damaging, that it may be easier for prime minister Theresa May's government to endlessly delay the process rather than to actually leave. Morgan Stanley economists Jacob Nell and Melanie Baker published a fascinating note to investors this morning in which they attempt to figure out how the UK will actually leave the EU, and what the UK's post-Brexit relationship with Europe will look like. Nell and Baker do not make any specific predictions about how the UK will leave the EU, but they do point out two key facts: • The EU will not give the UK a deal in which Britain gets access to the single m...

    Theresa May was warned by the French president, François Hollande, at their first meeting in Paris that the UK cannot expect access to the single market if it wants to put immigration controls on EU citizens. At a joint press conference in the Élysée Palace, Hollande made it clear that the new British prime minister was facing a choice about whether to accept free movement of people in return for free trade. Standing next to May and speaking in French with an official translator, he said: “It’s the most crucial point. That’s the point that will be the subject of the negotiation. “The UK today has access to the single market because it respects the four freedoms. If it wishes to remain within the single market it is its decision to know how far and how it will have to abide...

    The coup attempt in Turkey was thwarted thanks to intel provided by Tehran and Moscow, according to several Arab news outlets. Iran’s Fars News Agency (FNA) and news outlets in Syria reported that government officials in Ankara revealed that Erdogan “received a warning” from Russia hours before the attempted coup. In addition, it was reported that Erdogan consulted the Iranian government on how to thwart the coup. According to the reports, senior level Russian officials told Erdogan last Friday, hours before the coup, that an inevitable military attempt to overthrow him will take place in the near future. Russian military officials stated that encoded and highly sensitive messages that were sent to and from Turkish military officials indicating that the Turkish army was pl...

    A German reporter pressed Mrs May to explain why she had appointed Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary, asking: "Why are you putting - to put it in football terms - a player on the pitch who doesn't actually want to play?" The PM responded: "I think it would be dangerous for a British Prime Minister to talk about football in Germany. This is not something on which we have perhaps quite as good a record as the Germans do. "I have appointed a team of ministers who will take forward the position of the British Government. We are very clear that as a British Government we will be looking to build good relations with all European member states... "Those positive relations will underpin everything that I do as Prime Minister and everything my ministers do across the whole UK Governm...

    Jerusalem Online examined who is truly behind the recent coup attempt, what steps Erdogan can take to consolidate his rule, the threat that still exists for Erdogan’s regime, what will happen following the lynching of the Turkish soldiers and the bombing of the Turkish Parliament building, the international reaction, and what the implications are for Israel. In the wake of the recent coup attempt in Turkey, there are a lot of speculations regarding who is truly behind the recent coup attempt, what steps Erdogan could take to consolidate his rule from here, the threat that still exists for Erdogan’s regime, what will happen following the lynching of the Turkish soldiers and the bombing of the Turkish Parliament building, the international reaction to the coup attempt, and w...

    Turkey says it has detained 6,000 people following Friday’s coup attempt, as Washington rejected claims that it was somehow involved in the failed putsch. “The cleansing [operation] is continuing,” said Bekir Bozdag, the Turkish justice minister, in a television interview. “Some 6,000 detentions have taken place. The number could surpass 6,000.” The US State Department released a statement denying any link to the events, after the Turkish government, a nominal US ally, blamed the coup on an exiled Turkish dissident who has been given sanctuary in the American state of Pennsylvania. “Public insinuations or claims about any role by the United States in the failed coup attempt are utterly false and harmful to our bilateral relations,” the State Department said, summarising a ...

    Small savers protesting outside the Banca Etruria earlier this year. They call them le sofferenze the suffering. The imagery is striking, the thousands of sofferenze across Italy, unwanted and ignored, a problem unsolved. But despite the emotional name, these are not people. They are loans. Bad debts, draining banks of profits and undermining economic growth. The name is less clinical than the English term non-performing loans, a reflection of the Italian authorities’ emotional rather than business-like approach to the problem. None the less, the loans are indeed causing real suffering. The €360bn (£300bn) of sofferenze from Italian banks show borrowers are weighed down with debts they cannot afford, while the banks are struggling to offer new credit to the households and...