EU wants ‘new alliance’ with Africa

The President of the European Union says Brexit is threatening a hard border with the North, and not the EU.

Reuters has gathered a selection of highlights from the speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday.

The European Commission proposed new rules on Wednesday that would require internet platforms to remove illegal terror content within an hour of it being flagged by national authorities.

As part of an assessment of the current arrangements, the Commission held a public consultation in summer 2018 which received 4.6 million responses, the highest number ever received in any public consultation organised by the European Commission. “We – Commission and Parliament -must look to the future”, the Commission President warned.

Looking at the slow, but steady recovery from the global economic crisis, Juncker noted that Europe’s economy had grown for 21 consecutive quarters.

During Juncker’s term of office, the Commission focused on fewer priorities but priorities related to fundamental issues, he said.

As many as 165,000 immigrants arrived in Scandinavian in 2015 alone. I supported the accession of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

“We want to build a new partnership with Africa”.

In discussing migration, Juncker said that Europe needed to continue investing in trade with Africa, pointing out that 36% of Africa’s trade was with the EU.

In March, the European Union issued new guidelines ordering faster content removal with the explicit threat of introducing legislation if actions weren’t taken fast enough. He also called for building reciprocal relationships between the European Union and Africa, including a free trade pact. The speech is a yearly fixture and is used by the president to take stock of the past year and present priorities for the year ahead. And despite his detailed knowledge of numerous Union’s national languages, Juncker, who hails from Luxembourg, surrounded himself with native speakers for the translation of the address to avoid any translation mishaps. ‘We need a lot more.

Member states would then be required to choose whether to permanently remain in summertime or wintertime.

“The Commission will resist all attacks on the rule of law”.

And in a busy day at the European Parliament, MEPs voted in favour by 448 to 197 (and 48 abstentions) of imposing an Article 7 procedure against Hungary, warning there is a “clear risk” of breaching EU values by its government.

A more sober appraisal of his four years at the helm would have to include the growing friction between Brussels and central European member states and bitter resentment from southern Europe at the lack of solidarity…