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Russian president Vladimir Putin said he’s ready to turn the leaf on the first two years of diplomatic scandals between the US and Russia, and is seeking areas of cooperation with his US counterprart (and according to various now debunked lunatics, spy) Donald Trump, calling the furor over election-meddling allegations part of the deep political crisis in Washington.
In his first public comments on the outcome of Robert Mueller’s investigation which found no collusion or conspiracy between Trump and Russia, Putin welcomed the controversial findings.
“We said from the very start that this notorious commission of Mr. Mueller wouldn’t find anything because we know this better than anyone,” Putin told the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg on Tuesday, adding that it was “utter nonsense aimed solely at a domestic audience and used for internal political struggle in the U.S.”
In retrospect, he was right.
As a reminder, Trump scored the biggest political victory of his presidency – even as the credibility of the US liberal medial plumbed new lows – last month after AG William Barr published a summary of Mueller’s finding that there was no collusion during the campaign. Trump, who repeatedly – and correctly – condemned the 22-month inquiry as a “witch hunt” said he’d been completely exonerated.
Agreeing with his US colleague, Putin said that witch hunts are “a black page” in U.S. history and “I would not like it ever to happen again” (here the conspiracy nuts should be ready to chime in with a witty rejoinder). The outcome of the Mueller investigation showed that “a mountain gave birth to a mouse,” the Russian president said.
While Putin said when the two leaders met in Helsinki last year that he’d wanted Trump to win the 2016 election because of his pledge to improve relations – and because Hillary Clinton’s State Department did everything in its power to set the stage for a war between Russia and Ukraine – he avoided generating more controversy, and said he supports Trump’s re-election in 2020.
“We respect the wishes of the American people,” he said. “Whoever is president, we’re ready to work with them.”
To be sure, much bad blood remains between the US “deep state” and Moscow: recall that US intelligence agencies “concluded” that Russia was behind hacking aimed at damaging Democratic Party contender Hillary Clinton (which unveiled that the DNC had rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders, and that Hillary Clinton was a professional in saying one thing to the public and something else to Wall Street). Russia, naturally, rejects the allegations. Trump pledged during his campaign to improve ties with Russia and has repeatedly said he wants good relations with Putin.
As for how the former KGB spy and Trump are getting along currently, Putin said he has “plenty of disagreements” with Trump, whose administration has imposed a series of new sanctions on his country, but is ready to work with the U.S. on issues of joint interest including terrorism and arms control.
“We hope that when this situation normalizes, opportunities will emerge for bilateral cooperation on all issues,” Putin said.
* * *
Separately, Putin also said that Russia will dramatically increase its presence in the Arctic region by building new ports and other facilities and expanding its fleet of icebreaker vessels, as the competition for the area’s natural resources intensifies.
Putin told the leaders of Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden at the Forum that Russia’s efforts will help quadruple the level of cargo shipments across the Arctic sea route.
“This is a realistic, well-calculated, and concrete task. We need to make the Northern sea route safe and commercially feasible,” he said.
And here is another irony: climate change is directly benefiting Russia – the shrinking polar ice in the Arctic region is expected to offer new opportunities for resource exploration and the development of new shipping lanes, leading Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, and Norway into a competition for jurisdiction in the region.
Putin set a goal for the amount of cargo carried across the shipping lane to rise to 80 million metric tons by 2025 from the 20 million tons transported in 2018, the majority under Russian-flagged vessels. Russia, the only country with a fleet of nuclear icebreakers, is moving to expand its current inventory of four nuclear-powered vessels to a total of nine by 2035, he said. It also has four nonnuclear icebreakers in its fleet, according to RFE.
In 2017, Jim Mattis, the former U.S. defense secretary noted the Russian buildup and said that “America has got to up its game in the Arctic.”
“The Arctic is key strategic terrain. Russia is taking aggressive steps to increase its presence there. I will prioritize the development of an integrated strategy for the Arctic,” said Mattis, who left his position at the end of 2018.
At the Arctic forum, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended the military buildup, saying, “We don’t threaten anyone.”
“We ensure sufficient defense capabilities given the political and military situation around our borders,” He added.
Source: InfoWars
FILE PHOTO: The Twitter application is seen on a phone screen August 3, 2017. REUTERS/Thomas White
April 10, 2019
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Twitter launched on Wednesday an emoji for the European Parliament elections in May, seeking to provide a visual link to channel conversations around a vote set to affect the European Union in the coming years.
Together with Facebook and Google, Twitter has come under pressure to do more to combat disinformation about the elections.
All three companies have pledged to the European Commission to crack down on fake news to avoid heavy-handed legislation.
The emoji features a ballot box and a ballot paper in EU navy blue, with a tick mark on the ballot paper in EU yellow, all surrounded by the iconic ring of stars, which is triggered when the hashtags #EUElections2019 and #EP2019 are used.
“This emoji will encourage more voters to easily connect with the conversation, find out what’s happening and participate in the democratic process,” Karen White, Twitter’s public policy director, said in a statement.
The European Commission is keen to address the threat of fake news and foreign interference during campaigning for the parliament elections, as well as for national elections in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland and Portugal.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, editing by Robin Emmott)
Source: OANN
Mar 17, 2019; Ponte Vedra Beach, FL, USA; Eddie Pepperell on the 18th green during the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship golf tournament at TPC Sawgrass – Stadium Course. Mandatory Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
April 9, 2019
The gravity of the event and the nuances of Augusta National are the driving factors behind only three rookies winning the green jacket in the 82 Masters contested since 1934.
Ten professionals among the 87-player field will be making their Masters debuts this week.
There are few household names, but plenty of talent that could make some noise this week. Rating the rookies in this year’s field:
Eddie Pepperell, England (World Golf Rank: 40): Pepperell first popped onto the worldwide scene by posting the low round on Sunday at last year’s Open Championship. He made another final-round run at The Players last month, again showing that he can handle the biggest stages. We like the 28-year-old’s game — and mental makeup — to be hovering around the first page of the leaderboard come Sunday.
Matt Wallace, England (36): Some will recall Wallace’s hole-in-one at last year’s PGA Championship. But the Englishman is well known on the European Tour after posting three victories in 2018. His form hasn’t been stellar since a solo second at the Dubai Desert Classic in January — a T6 at Bay Hill being his only other top-10 this year. But Wallace’s game garners a lot of respect from fellow players.
Lucas Bjerregaard, Denmark (43): Other pros had hinted at the Dane’s all-around game before he slayed Tiger Woods en route to a semifinal showing at the WGC-Match Play event last month. He missed the cut last week and fatigue has to be a concern after a busy stretch in the U.S. for the European Tour star.
Keith Mitchell, United States (60): It’s understandable that Mitchell’s results have tailed off since winning his first PGA Tour event at The Honda Classic and then posting a T6 the next week at Bay Hill. He went T47 at The Players before failing to advance out of the group stage at Match Play. Mitchell has a lot of game and, more important at Augusta National, length to spare.
Corey Conners, Canada (84): Talk about a whirlwind turn of events. Conners had to Monday qualify just to be in last week’s field at the Valero Texas Open. He then went on to win the event and secure the final spot in this year’s Masters — along with a slew of other perks. He’s an unlikely contender but should at least be playing with nothing to lose.
Aaron Wise, United States (67): In the field courtesy of his victory at the AT&T Byron Nelson last year, there is little to suggest that Wise is prepared to make a run this week. He has four missed cuts in his past seven starts and only one top-20 result. His swing is highly inconsistent at the moment, which was on full display during his Match Play loss to Woods.
Andrew Landry, United States (128): Landry admitted losing some focus after winning his first PGA Tour event at last year’s Valero Texas Open. He didn’t make the cut in his title defense, which has been fairly standard of late. He has five MCs in nine events in 2019 and hasn’t posted a top-20 result since last July.
Adam Long, United States (108): Another first-time winner this season at the Desert Classic, Long promptly missed his next five cuts. On the Web.com Tour this time last year, Long will no doubt enjoy the pageantry and the azaleas, but sticking around for the weekend would be considered a significant accomplishment.
Kevin Tway, United States (98): It has been going steadily downhill for Tway since beginning the 2018-19 season with a victory at the Safeway Open. That includes six consecutive missed cuts dating back to February.
Michael Kim, United States (330): How does the world’s 330th-ranked player make his way into the Masters field? By winning last year’s John Deere. Since then, Kim has missed 13 of 18 cuts, including all eight in 2019. He tied for last in the limited-field Tournament of Champions and missed two more cuts prior to that.
–Derek Harper, Field Level Media
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: People participating in the class war safari observe buildings at the upper class district at Solsidan in Saltsjobaden near Stockholm, Sweden January 28, 2012. REUTERS/Anders Wiklund/Scanpix Sweden/File Photo
April 9, 2019
By Simon Johnson
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Sweden’s Social Democrat-led government will outline tax cuts for top earners on Wednesday, widening the gap between rich and poor in a country that has long enjoyed a reputation for social equality.
The boost for wealthy Swedes is part of a compromise deal, struck between center-left and center-right parties after a September election resulted in a hung parliament, aimed at excluding the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats from government.
It mirrors a dilemma facing politicians in other European countries such as Germany and Denmark where mainstream parties have faced a choice between papering over left-right animosity or giving populist parties a taste of power.
But with many Swedes increasingly unhappy with public services such as policing, schools and care for the elderly, analysts warn the tax cuts in fact risk fuelling xenophobia and populist sentiment, widely seen as rooted in growing inequality.
The policy, which will be outlined in a “mini-budget” update to the main autumn bill, scraps a 5 percent surcharge levied on the income of workers who earn more than about 700,000 Swedish crowns ($75,700) a year. The extra tax was introduced during the economic crisis of the early 1990s to support public finances.
Those top earners will still be heavily taxed compared with many other countries, at around 60 percent. But the move, which takes effect next year, is likely to widen the divide between society’s “haves” and “have nots”. It follows a series of policies in recent years that benefited the well-off, including the scrapping of a wealth tax.
While Sweden is still has one of the most equal societies, the divide between the richest and poorest people has grown faster than in any other developed nation in recent decades, according to the OECD. The organization uses the “Gini coefficient” to measure how equally income is distributed across society.
The 20 billion crown revenue loss from this tax cut and a wider income tax reduction introduced in December’s 2019 budget, will in part be offset by cuts in spending on care for the elderly and the overseas aid budget, and higher environmental taxes.
Some in the center-left Social Democrats are angry over what they see as a betrayal of the values of a party that built Sweden’s famed welfare state and engineered a society widely seen as setting the standard for equality and fairness.
“It’s about defending democracy and for our group that means defending the welfare state where no one is left behind,” said Markus Kallifatides, a Social Democrat lawmaker.
“Sweden is not that society anymore.”
But for many others, sidelining the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats is worth the price.
“Reducing taxes for high income earners is not going to reduce inequality, of course,” Swedish Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson told Reuters on March 29.
“There is no question this is not the priority of the Social Democrats, but you need to get a majority so you have to compromise.”
In September’s election, the Social Democrats posted their worst result for more than a century with the Sweden Democrats, eurosceptic nationalists who want to close the doors to asylum seekers, becoming the third-largest party.
To break the deadlock, the Social Democrats and Greens agreed a four-year, 73-point program with the Centre and Liberal parties who insisted on income tax cuts and deregulation of the housing rental and labor markets as the price of support.
NOT SO EQUAL
While the measures may be painful for the architects of Sweden’s welfare state, they are just part of a change that has been going on for years.
The top 1 percent in Sweden now own a greater share of the country’s wealth than the top 1 percent in the United States, according to Credit Suisse’s 2018 Global Wealth Report.
“There is a kind of renaissance of an economic aristocracy,” said Ola Pettersson, chief economist at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation.
While Sweden has not seen the kind of unrest that has hit some countries, there is a growing sense among many Swedes that riots in Stockholm in 2013 and a surge in gang violence are evidence of the kind of social fragmentation that has provided fertile soil for populists around Europe.
Until the 1970s, successive Social Democrat governments turned the screws on Sweden’s elite with high income taxes, wealth taxes, inheritance taxes, gift taxes and real estate taxes.
Many rich Swedes – like IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad – took their fortunes abroad.
Faced with the exodus, Sweden instituted market-oriented reforms and embraced small businesses and entrepreneurs.
A wealth tax, which had been reduced and watered down over many years, was abolished in 2007. High property tax has been replaced with a fee capped at 7,812 crowns.
Inheritance tax has also been scrapped. Compare that to Britain, where beneficiaries pay 40 percent tax over a threshold of 325,000 pounds ($425,000).
At the same time a decade of ultra-low rates has meant the value of real estate and stocks has soared, giving a boost to those who rely on capital gains as opposed to a monthly wage for the bulk of their income.
Between 2006 and 2014, a center-right government also started reducing income taxes, with the top rates – excluding the surcharge – coming down in steps to around 60 percent from about 90 percent in the late 1970s. Welfare benefits were cut.
“Sweden is the best country in the world: for rich people,” Jan Emanuel Johansson, a Social Democrat lawmaker-turned-healthcare businessman, said in a satirical video on YouTube.
The millionaire, a popular public figure who won Swedish reality TV survival series “Robinson”, said growing inequality would have exact a price for society as a whole, including social unrest on the streets.
“Either you can say, I don’t care. I’m one of the privileged and I can build a higher wall round my house,” he added. “Or we have to realize that what is bad for those who ride the subway, at some point in the future is going to be bad for those who drive a Rolls-Royce.”
(Reporting by Simon Johnson; Editing by Pravin Char)
Source: OANN
Italian leader Matteo Salvini is forming an alliance of nationalist-populist parties from across Europe, bringing his proposed “League of Leagues” to life.
Touting a “vision for Europe for the next 50 years,” Salvini joined figureheads of three other prominent parties to announce their challenge of the establishment in European Parliament ahead of upcoming May elections.
“We are building a community, a family. I am working on a new European project,” Salvini said at an event in Milan branded ‘Towards a Common Sense Europe!’
“It is the alliance that looks into the future. We will start from today, and from today our family will enlarge.”
The bloc will reportedly initially consist of Salvini’s own Lega (League) party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Finns Party of Finland, and the Danish People’s Party of Denmark (DPP), but other factions are expected to soon join.
Vi ripropongo la Conferenza internazionale
“Verso l’Europa del Buonsenso!”#europadelbuonsenso
-Matteo Salvini (Lega – ENF)
-Jörg Meuthen (Alternative für Deutschland – EFDD)
-Olli Kotro (The Finns Party – ECR)
-Anders Vistisen (Dansk Folkeparti – ECR)https://t.co/d4beXeRLdF pic.twitter.com/yUUruNQwLv— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) April 8, 2019
“The name of the alliance, which we signed up to this morning, is the European Alliance of People and Nations, or EAPN,” said AfD spokesman Joerg Meuthen. “At the moment, we are four parties. But when the last plenary session in Strasbourg ends on April 18th, by this day, I am sure we will have at least 10 member parties of our alliance.”
.@Joerg_Meuthen: Noi vogliamo far sì che venga riformata l’Unione europea in modo che si possa dare molto più potere agli Stati membri e meno poteri alla burocrazia di Bruxelles.
🎙 #europadelbuonsenso— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) April 8, 2019
“We want to ensure that the European Union is reformed so that more power can be given to the member states and less powers to the bureaucracy in Brussels,” Meuthen is quoted as saying in a tweet from Salvini.
Orgoglioso della prima conferenza internazionale organizzata oggi a Milano, per un’alleanza che parla di futuro, per riportare al centro il lavoro, la famiglia, la sicurezza, la tutela dell’ambiente.
Con l’obiettivo di riportare i Popoli al governo.#europadelbuonsenso pic.twitter.com/D2kN9xhKPQ— Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi) April 8, 2019
“Proud of the first international conference organized today in Milan, for an alliance that talks about the future, to bring back to the center the work, the family, the safety, the protection of the environment, with the aim of bringing the government back to the people,” Salvini tweeted in his own words.
Salvini announced his intention to begin uniting anti-globalist forces across the continent last year.
“To win we had to unite Italy, now we will have to unite Europe… I am thinking about a ‘League of the Leagues of Europe,’ bringing together all the free and sovereign movements that want to defend their people and their borders,” Salvini told a massive crowd of 50,000 in Milan in summer of 2018. “I will tour capital cities – and not just European ones – to create an alternative to this Europe founded on exploitation… and mass immigration.”
Alex Jones breaks down how the globalists are attempting to collapse civilization within the next six months by intensifying their migrant-fueled destabilization of the West.
(PHOTO: MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP/Getty Images)
Source: InfoWars
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager talks to the media at the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Yves Herman
April 8, 2019
By Richard Lough
PARIS (Reuters) – Europe needs to decide on a digital tax and should lead the way if there is insufficient consensus globally, the EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, said on Monday.
There is still disagreement among EU members over how to implement a so-called “GAFA tax” – named after Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon – to ensure the global internet giants pay a fair share of taxes on their massive business operations in Europe.
France has been driving hard for such a tax, but at a meeting of EU finance meetings over the weekend, Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Denmark blocked a draft EU-wide GAFA tax proposal, officials said.
“We are becoming an increasingly digital world and it will be a huge problem if we do not find a way to raise (digital) taxes,” Vestager told France Inter radio.
Vestager, who is widely talked about as a candidate for the European Commission presidency when Jean-Claude Juncker’s term expires in November, said European countries first needed a deal which could lead to a EU-wide harmonized tax.
“The best thing is a global solution. But if we want to obtain results in a reasonable period of time, Europe must take the lead,” the commissioner added.
Lawmakers in France’s National Assembly, France’s lower house of Parliament, will on Monday begin debating a draft national GAFA tax law. The bill proposes a 3 percent tax on digital advertising and other revenues of tech firms with worldwide revenues of more than 750 million euros ($842 million).
Vestager, a former Danish economy minister, has a high profile in Brussels for attacking tax avoidance and monopoly powers among U.S. multinationals, and is seen as a contender to be the next Commission president.
She hasn’t announced a public bid for the job, but if she does she would likely need the backing of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Asked if she was interested in the Commission presidency, she said: “I take a lot of interest in the future of Europe. My point is that before we decide on any kind of new face for the Commission, we really need to know what we want to do.”
Internet giants are coming under increasing pressure from regulators globally. Separately on Monday, Britain proposed new online safety laws that would slap penalties on social media companies and technology firms if they fail to protect their users from harmful content.
(Reporting by Richard Lough and Simon Carraud; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini (R), French far-right leader Marine Le Pen (C) and Austrian far-right leader Heinz-Christian Strache give a thumbs up at the end of the “Europe of Nations and Freedom” meeting in Milan, January 28, 2016. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo/File Photo
April 7, 2019
By Alissa de Carbonnel and Giulia Paravicini
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini sends texts with smileys to French far-right leader Marine Le Pen and posts selfies with Austrian far-right politician Heinz-Christian Strache.
The face of the leader of Italy’s far-right League party is beamed onto big screens at right-wing rallies from Prague to Sofia.
Buoyed by his own success and voter fatigue with mainstream parties, Salvini is trying to build bridges before elections on May 26 to the European Parliament, the European Union’s legislature.
With the two biggest political blocs expected to lose their combined majority, he and other far-right leaders hope to form an opposition, eurosceptic alliance with enough seats in the assembly to block or hold up legislation.
“Our idea is to come together … into a new party that better reflects the euroskeptical views that unite us,” Salvini’s foreign affairs advisor Marco Zanni told Reuters. “Now is our chance to unite forces once and for all.”
But when Salvini starts his campaign for the elections on Monday in Milan, representatives of only three, relatively small far-right European parties will be present.
Le Pen will not be there. Nor will representatives of Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party (PiS), which governs Poland.
Salvini promises a much bigger rally next month. But the absence of Le Pen and other leading far-right and nationalist leaders speaks to the policy differences and rivalries that have long stood in the way of unity among such groups.
Far-right leaders share the broad ideological goals of curbing the EU’s perceived liberal course and returning power to the member states’ capitals. But they differ in other areas, and an attempt by U.S. President Donald Trump’s former strategist, Steve Bannon, to act as a power broker among Europe’s populist groups has fizzled.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER?
Investors expect heightened political uncertainty after the May 26 election, in which 705 members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will be elected, or 751 if Britain fails to leave the EU as planned.
General dissatisfaction over slow economic growth, security threats posed by Islamist militants and a backlash against migration across open EU borders have boosted support for eurosceptic nationalists in many member states.
“There is a growing confidence of voters to go against the norm,” said Susi Dennison, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The ‘anti- forces’ are much more motivated right now than the pro-Europeans.”
Their gains and Britain’s planned departure from the EU will mean a shake-up of the pan-national groups created by parties in the EU parliament, whose main role is checking and amending EU laws drawn up by the executive European Commission.
Salvini’s anti-immigrant League is forecast to more than quadruple its representation in the EU assembly with 27 seats.
Along with the projected rise for Le Pen’s National Rally and Strache’s Freedom Party of Austria, which is in a coalition government with Strache as vice-chancellor, the Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF) group to which they belong could be boosted to 61 seats from 37.
Salvini, whose party co-rules Italy, wants to embrace other leaders whose parties are in rival groups such as Kaczynski.
The two held a meeting in Warsaw in January, and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed the prospect of them forming an alliance as one of the greatest developments of this year.
Forming one big political group can also unlock funds and opportunities for patronage.
“They’re going to get much more resources if they’re able to sit together,” said Cas Mudde, an expert on the far-right at the University of Georgia.
But policy differences make it likely that parties critical of the EU will remain divided into at least two groupings, one centered around Salvini and the other around Kaczynski.
Salvini admires Russian President Vladimir Putin – Kaczynski vilifies him. Both are anti-immigration but at odds over how to handle it. Italy is net giver to the EU budget, Poland is a net receiver. Their views on the economy do not align.
For right-wing parties in Denmark, Finland and Sweden which see Russia as a threat, Salvini and Le Pen’s pro-Kremlin sympathies are also a red line.
“It is a crucial aspect for many countries,” Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson told Reuters. “It will not succeed, there will be no such group.”
Many parties competing at the national level will also find it difficult to sit together.
Orban has chosen to remain with the parliament’s biggest political grouping despite being suspended from it last month. For all his praise of coalition-building among eurosceptics, being in a group with Europe’s power brokers confers a mainstream respectability that other populists lack.
Some hope that will change after the election.
“Leaving a strong group to join a weak group is a difficult political decision, but leaving to join a group that is also quite strong and growing is less so,” said Ryszard Legutko, a PiS lawmaker and co-chair of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group.
“It is the first time there’s a real chance things might change, that this political, even ideological monopoly can be somehow undermined,” Legutko said.
IN FROM THE COLD
Links among the far-right remain largely limited to personal relationships. When leaders who have long been isolated at home and lack influence abroad attend each other’s rallies, it is about showing they are not marginal.
“It is about validating one another,” said Duncan McDonnell, Professor of Politics in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University. But he said the far-right increasingly saw itself as “part of a new wave”.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) could win many more seats in the next European Parliament, opinion polls show, and might throw its hat in with Salvini’s ENF group. The polls show the Forum for Democracy (FvD) in the Netherlands, led by Thierry Baudet, could win four new seats in the EU assembly and it has said it will join Poland’s PiS in the ECR.
Spanish newcomer Vox has become the darling of eurosceptic groups following its success in a regional election last December in Spain, which until then had been resistant to the populist currents sweeping Europe.
Vox is now being courted by both by Poland’s PiS and Salvini’s League. But looking ahead to the next European Parliament – where polls suggest Vox will win about five seats, up from none today — Vox leader Santiago Abascal told Reuters: “It may be that we’ll be alone.”
Vox has capitalized on domestic tensions over Catalan separatism – it regards Catalonia as an integral part of Spain – but some other far-right parties do not share its view.
“Their support of the (separatists’) coup d’etat by Catalonia is an enormous barrier (to cooperation),” he said.
Even if parties are not the same group, Zanni of Salvini’s League says there will be greater cooperation to try to influence or thwart EU policy.
“The risk is longer-term paralysis,” Dennison said, “that over time will erode the idea of EU as an effective actor.”
But European Parliament strategists say younger right-wing political groups have shown far weaker party discipline.
“The eurosceptics are a wing of many feathers, and I’m not sure it will beat effectively,” said one senior official in the European People’s Party, the main centre-right group.
(Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Belén Carreño and Ingrid Melander in Madrid, Joanna Plucinska and Justyna Pawlak in Warsaw, Robert Muller in Prague, Simon Carraud in Paris and Crispian Balmer in Rome, Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: General view of the Danske Bank building in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The largest ever money laundering scandal in Europe is rippling through the region’s banks.
It began in the Baltics and has engulfed several Nordic lenders, notably Denmark’s Danske and Sweden’s Swedbank, who had large Baltic operations.
Here are some facts about Europe’s problems.
HOW DID THE CURRENT SCANDAL EMERGE?
The Baltics’ proximity to Russia has traditionally made them vulnerable to illegal financial flows from their neighbor.
U.S. investigators raised concerns about some of the region’s banks early last year, prompting domestic and European watchdogs to investigate.
WHICH BANKS HAVE BEEN AFFECTED SO FAR?
The first to be hit was Latvia’s ABLV, which was liquidated last year after U.S. accusations of money-laundering activities.
The scandal spread to the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest lender, which is now facing probes in several countries for handling 200 billion euros ($224 billion) in suspicious transactions of Russian money between 2007 and 2015.
Sweden’s Swedbank has recently been drawn into the scandal, after it was reported it handled some of the same payments that went through Danske, leading to the dismissal of its chief executive last week.
COULD IT SPREAD TO BANKS BEYOND THE BALTICS AND NORDICS?
Other lenders that helped process suspicious payments from the Baltics could also be in the frame. Deutsche Bank, which acted as a correspondent bank to Danske, is under investigation over its links to the money.
IS THE PROBLEM LIMITED TO FLOWS FROM RUSSIA TO THE BALTICS?
Money from Russia and former Soviet Union countries does not only go to the Baltics. Cyprus and Malta are among the EU states that are most welcoming of these flows, data show, with Pilatus Bank in Malta shut down last year following a U.S. probe on its owner and after allegations of suspicious transactions involving Azerbaijan’s ruling elite.
But the problem is not limited to Russian flows. EU-based criminal organizations, such as Italian mafias, launder most of their illegal proceeds in the largest EU states, estimates show.
ING, the Netherlands’ largest financial services provider, was forced by the Dutch regulator to pay a $915 million fine last year over money laundering. Its Italian business is also under investigation over similar allegations.
HOW MUCH COULD THIS COST BANKS?
A lot. EU banks payed over $16 billion in fines between 2012 and 2018 because of lax money-laundering checks, rating agency Moody’s said in a report on Tuesday, with U.S. regulators levying more than 75 percent of those fines.
Now the allegations have stepped up, so could the fines.
WHO SUPERVISES THIS AND WHY DID SO MUCH MONEY GET LAUNDERED?
Despite money-laundering being a cross-border crime, it is not tackled at EU level but almost exclusively by national authorities, who often lack the capabilities to counter it.
In some cases domestic supervisors have shown little interest in acting, as reputational damages could hit national economies. Malta’s financial supervisor has been found in breach of EU law over the Pilatus case, and the EU is investigating the Estonian regulator after the Danske scandal.
Many banks do not report all suspicious transactions as their due-diligence units are often understaffed.
Reports are not standardized, often producing irrelevant data and hampering cooperation among national supervisors.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFICULTIES IN DETECTING THESE FLOWS?
EU rules to fight money laundering have been overhauled, but some loopholes have never been closed. They are also applied differently and EU states are often late in executing them.
States, including Luxembourg and Germany, use loopholes in EU rules that allow them not to disclose fines on banks in breach of money-laundering rules. This vastly reduces the effectiveness of sanctions which are mostly feared by lenders for their reputational impact.
In the latest reforms, EU legislators added stricter transparency requirements on companies’ owners, but allowed them to remain hidden in some cases. Money-laundering is often conducted through shell firms whose owners are unknown.
Data that could raise alarm bells, such as the share of non-resident deposits or oversized cross-border flows, are collected at national level, often without details of final beneficiaries. No-one checks them at EU level.
The EU has also failed to agree an updated list of jurisdictions that pose money-laundering risks because of lax rules. This reduces banks’ ability to spot dodgy payments.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Source: OANN
FILE PHOTO: General view of the Danske Bank building in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/File Photo
April 4, 2019
By Francesco Guarascio
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The largest ever money laundering scandal in Europe is rippling through the region’s banks.
It began in the Baltics and has engulfed several Nordic lenders, notably Denmark’s Danske and Sweden’s Swedbank, who had large Baltic operations.
Here are some facts about Europe’s problems.
HOW DID THE CURRENT SCANDAL EMERGE?
The Baltics’ proximity to Russia has traditionally made them vulnerable to illegal financial flows from their neighbor.
U.S. investigators raised concerns about some of the region’s banks early last year, prompting domestic and European watchdogs to investigate.
WHICH BANKS HAVE BEEN AFFECTED SO FAR?
The first to be hit was Latvia’s ABLV, which was liquidated last year after U.S. accusations of money-laundering activities.
The scandal spread to the Estonian branch of Danske Bank, Denmark’s largest lender, which is now facing probes in several countries for handling 200 billion euros ($224 billion) in suspicious transactions of Russian money between 2007 and 2015.
Sweden’s Swedbank has recently been drawn into the scandal, after it was reported it handled some of the same payments that went through Danske, leading to the dismissal of its chief executive last week.
COULD IT SPREAD TO BANKS BEYOND THE BALTICS AND NORDICS?
Other lenders that helped process suspicious payments from the Baltics could also be in the frame. Deutsche Bank, which acted as a correspondent bank to Danske, is under investigation over its links to the money.
IS THE PROBLEM LIMITED TO FLOWS FROM RUSSIA TO THE BALTICS?
Money from Russia and former Soviet Union countries does not only go to the Baltics. Cyprus and Malta are among the EU states that are most welcoming of these flows, data show, with Pilatus Bank in Malta shut down last year following a U.S. probe on its owner and after allegations of suspicious transactions involving Azerbaijan’s ruling elite.
But the problem is not limited to Russian flows. EU-based criminal organizations, such as Italian mafias, launder most of their illegal proceeds in the largest EU states, estimates show.
ING, the Netherlands’ largest financial services provider, was forced by the Dutch regulator to pay a $915 million fine last year over money laundering. Its Italian business is also under investigation over similar allegations.
HOW MUCH COULD THIS COST BANKS?
A lot. EU banks payed over $16 billion in fines between 2012 and 2018 because of lax money-laundering checks, rating agency Moody’s said in a report on Tuesday, with U.S. regulators levying more than 75 percent of those fines.
Now the allegations have stepped up, so could the fines.
WHO SUPERVISES THIS AND WHY DID SO MUCH MONEY GET LAUNDERED?
Despite money-laundering being a cross-border crime, it is not tackled at EU level but almost exclusively by national authorities, who often lack the capabilities to counter it.
In some cases domestic supervisors have shown little interest in acting, as reputational damages could hit national economies. Malta’s financial supervisor has been found in breach of EU law over the Pilatus case, and the EU is investigating the Estonian regulator after the Danske scandal.
Many banks do not report all suspicious transactions as their due-diligence units are often understaffed.
Reports are not standardized, often producing irrelevant data and hampering cooperation among national supervisors.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFICULTIES IN DETECTING THESE FLOWS?
EU rules to fight money laundering have been overhauled, but some loopholes have never been closed. They are also applied differently and EU states are often late in executing them.
States, including Luxembourg and Germany, use loopholes in EU rules that allow them not to disclose fines on banks in breach of money-laundering rules. This vastly reduces the effectiveness of sanctions which are mostly feared by lenders for their reputational impact.
In the latest reforms, EU legislators added stricter transparency requirements on companies’ owners, but allowed them to remain hidden in some cases. Money-laundering is often conducted through shell firms whose owners are unknown.
Data that could raise alarm bells, such as the share of non-resident deposits or oversized cross-border flows, are collected at national level, often without details of final beneficiaries. No-one checks them at EU level.
The EU has also failed to agree an updated list of jurisdictions that pose money-laundering risks because of lax rules. This reduces banks’ ability to spot dodgy payments.
(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; additional reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)
Source: OANN
An anti-Brexit protester demonstrates outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, April 3, 2019. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
April 4, 2019
LONDON (Reuters) – The United Kingdom has lost 6.6 billion pounds ($8.7 billion) in economic activity every quarter since it voted to leave the European Union, according to S&P Global Ratings, the latest company to estimate the damage from Brexit.
In a report published on Thursday, the ratings agency’s senior economist, Boris Glass, said the world’s fifth-biggest economy would have been about 3 percent larger by the end of 2018 if the country had not voted in a June 2016 referendum to leave the EU.
Quarterly growth rates would have averaged about 0.7 percent, rather than 0.43 percent, he said.
“Immediately after the referendum, the pound fell by about 18 percent. This was the single most pertinent indicator of the impact of the vote and the drag it created, via inflation, has been spreading through the economy,” he said.
As imports became more expensive, inflation started to rise, curbing household spending. S&P estimated inflation was 1.8 percent higher than it would otherwise have been by the third quarter 2017.
The estimate is slightly lower than an assessment by Goldman Sachs earlier this week, which pegged the cost to the economy at about 600 million pounds per week. That equates to 7.8 billion pounds a quarter, according to Reuters calculations.
The S&P report was based on the Doppelganger approach, an econometric technique that used a synthetic UK economy based on the performance of other economies to estimate how the UK would have performed had it not decided to leave the EU.
The other countries included the United States, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal and Hungary.
(Reporting by Josephine Mason; editing by Gareth Jones, Larry King)
Source: OANN
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