{"id":10872,"date":"2017-03-10T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/eu-summit-poland-warns-against-multi-speed-bloc\/"},"modified":"2017-03-10T15:58:00","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T15:58:00","slug":"eu-summit-poland-warns-against-multi-speed-bloc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/eu-summit-poland-warns-against-multi-speed-bloc\/","title":{"rendered":"EU summit: Poland warns against multi-speed bloc"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, speaks to European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, centre, during a round-table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, 10 March\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/12F80\/production\/_95069677_038399873-1.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  AP<figcaption>Image caption                                      Polish domestic politics have clouded the summit. Donald Tusk is seen here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">The Polish government has warned EU partners it will not accept a multi-speed Europe - threatening to deepen tensions at a Brussels summit.<\/p>\n<p>PM Beata Szydlo accused French President Francois Hollande of trying to &quot;blackmail&quot; Poland, in a bitter row over EU leader Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;If someone says &#039;you&#039;re not behaving properly so you won&#039;t get the money&#039;, that&#039;s unacceptable,&quot; she told media.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#039;s talks, without the UK, focused on a joint declaration.<\/p>\n<p>The 25 March declaration in Rome should stress EU unity.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  EPA<figcaption>Image caption                                      Poland fears being left behind in a multi-speed Europe                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But there is new momentum behind the idea of EU members moving at different speeds. France, Germany and Italy back it - but Poland is adamantly against.<\/p>\n<p>Poland and its former communist neighbours fear being left behind if their stronger partners integrate in more areas, especially the eurozone.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tusk row leaves Poland isolated in EU<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Britons &#039;should keep EU rights&#039; post-Brexit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Poland is the biggest net recipient of EU funds - in 2015 it got \u20ac13.4bn (\u00a311.7bn; $14.2bn) from the EU.<\/p>\n<p>The budget will come under huge strain when the UK - one of the biggest net contributors - leaves.<\/p>\n<p>When the 27 EU leaders meet in Rome they will mark 60 years since the launch of the European Economic Community with the Treaty of Rome.<\/p>\n<p>But soon the UK plans to trigger Brexit, the first withdrawal of a member state, a process fraught with risk and uncertainty.<\/p>\n<p>European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: &quot;I don&#039;t like Brexit because I would like to be in the same boat as the British. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;The day will come when the British will re-enter the boat, I hope. But Brexit is not the end of the European Union, nor the end of all our developments, nor the end of our continental ambitions.&quot; <\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Getty Images<figcaption>Image caption                                      Theresa May was at the summit on the first day                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>When the idea of an EU celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding Treaty of Rome in the Italian capital was first mooted it must have seemed like a good idea. <\/p>\n<p>Now Brexit casts a long, dark shadow over those proceedings - an organisation that has known nothing but steady expansion is about to lose a member state for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>That is a confidence-sapping thought for an institution which has no firm timetable for planned future expansion in the Balkans.<\/p>\n<p>There is no big idea on offer from the European Commission - just a palette of five vague outlines of how the EU will work in the future. The moment does not feel right for grand visions. <\/p>\n<p>Then there is the Polish government&#039;s anger at the re-election of their fellow-countryman Donald Tusk to a top job at the European Council. Poland - a huge beneficiary of EU funding - suddenly feels as though it might take the place in the European awkward squad that the UK is vacating.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Britons &#039;should keep EU rights&#039; post-Brexit<\/li>\n<li>Tusk row leaves Poland isolated in EU<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The nationalist Polish government  failed to block the reappointment of Donald Tusk as European Council president - a key strategic role in the EU.<\/p>\n<p>It meant there was no consensus. Controversially, the conclusions - normally an expression of EU unity - came instead from Mr Tusk personally.<\/p>\n<p>A long-running feud between him and Jaroslaw Kaczynski - the nationalist guiding the Polish government - caused the debacle.<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, the UK&#039;s distance from the EU on many key issues - including the euro, the Schengen passport-free zone and budget spending - has contributed to a de facto multi-speed Europe.<\/p>\n<p>There is a legal mechanism for a smaller group of countries to forge ahead with a common policy.<\/p>\n<p>That was demonstrated again at this summit with agreement that 17 member states could set up a European Public Prosecutor&#039;s Office - seen as a way to combat VAT fraud.<\/p>\n<p> Mr Juncker spoke of a multi-speed future as one of the EU&#039;s strategic options.<\/p>\n<p>And other centrifugal forces are at work in the EU - how to handle the migrant crisis, resurgent Russian power and the challenge posed by nationalists in many countries.<\/p>\n<p>Euroscepticism is part of wider criticism of the liberal economic order, amid deep inequalities and chronic unemployment in much of Europe.<\/p>\n<p><a rel='nofollow' href=http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-europe-39232136 target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright APImage caption Polish domestic politics have clouded the summit. Donald Tusk is seen here with German Chancellor Angela Merkel The Polish government has warned EU partners it will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}