France’s digital retraining trap

High-flown rhetoric on how to modernize France’s industrial sector hasn’t translated into a clear strategy on the ground.

BEAUVAIS, France — Northern France is one of many industrial regions in Western Europe that globalization forgot.

Factory automation and outsourcing are eating French jobs, leaving generations of workers ill-equipped and left behind.

“Before, we needed one engineer and five technicians or machine operators,” says Frederique Langlois, a mechanic who has worked for Nestlé for 20 years. “Now, it’s the opposite.”

Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron’s national plan to modernize his country’s industrial sector aims to usher the nation’s aging workforce into the digital economy, in part by retraining workers to wean them off reliance on low-skill, lifelong jobs that are vanishing fast.

Macron hopes France will lead European industry within three to five years but a year in, and despite the attention of the country’s most energetic reformer, there is little evidence in France’s industrial heartland to suggest that the plan has done much to narrow manufacturing’s skills gap.

Macron’s masterplan

Macron debuted his “Industrie du Futur” initiative last year to much applause. His promise of €4.6 billion in tax incentives and loans for companies looking to modernize and a new vision to help factories stay afloat was seen as a potential panacea to France’s lagging growth and its emphasis on reskilling workers was welcomed by a country uneasy about the march of globalization.

A year on, high-flown rhetoric hasn’t translated into a clear strategy on the ground. Lack of consensus about how best to retrain workers and bureaucracy that accompanies ad-hoc negotiations between companies, regional governments, business associations and labor unions, have slowed progress.

“There’s been a definite delay in certain branches of industry,” says Pascal Pavageau, the confederate secretary of French union Force Ouvrière. “We need to help professional branches identify their points of focus as industry changes.”

How best to retrain workers isn’t a new problem. For decades, local worker unions, business associations, companies and regional governments have met annually to draft training curricula and set budgets for the regional workforce through a bureaucratic, consensus-based system. In recent years, they’ve acknowledged the need for a digital shift in their thinking.

This is where Macron’s industrial plan wants to step in. A streamlined national vision to bring factories into the information age would, in theory, accelerate training programs, making it easier for local decision makers to push for change. But some argue that national leaders do not have enough industry know-how to dictate what new skills are needed.

“People on the floor will continue to have the competencies of drilling and welding,” says Gilles Lodolo, the head of communications for the metal and professional business association UIMM. “We think it is very important not to reinvent or create curricula that can be too general with no added value for companies.”

One organization at the forefront of the push to retrain northern France’s industrial workforce is a network of training centers called Promeo. Partly funded by regional government and partly by private sector business groups, Promeo have accelerated the push towards digital skills in the last few years.

“Macron didn’t invent the smart factory,” says Olivier Taboureux, the director of Promeo’s training center in the northern French city of Beauvais, where he is also the deputy mayor. “When you have a good idea, everyone else probably has it too.”

The Promeo training building looks like any decades-old public high school — grey bricks outside, yellowing walls indoors. There’s even a cafeteria with an assortment of liquified lunch options.

Apprentices in their late teens hang out in a large, poster-filled atrium between classes. Older students, in their mid-thirties and forties, congregate in classrooms upstairs ironing out their final projects. Welding stations, table saws and old fashioned assembly lines litter the “live factory” style classrooms. But that’s slowly changing as the center invests in 3D printers, computer labs and more advanced robots.

About €32 billion is allocated every year to training workers in France, according to Le Figaro. Almost €14 billion of that is contributions from private companies; the rest comes from public funds from local and national governments and fragmented public administrations.

Promeo, for example, receives around €50 million annually thanks to an apprenticeship tax paid by companies, cash injections from the UIMM organization and funds from the Haut-de-France regional government.

This year around €500,000 will fund new collaborative robots for their hands-on factory classroom. This investment will give students skills needed in the town’s main factory, owned by agricultural firm AGCO, which was awarded the “factory of the year” award for its modern infrastructure.

They’re also receiving money to help the unemployed transition into digital industry, though most of Promeo’s students are either straight out of high school or employees sent by their companies.

Some students, though, are abandoning manufacturing altogether, emerging from training programs not as pioneers driving French factories into the future but simply as managers.

“Project and human management are the most important skills now,” explains Antony Cartier, who works for agricultural equipment company, AGCO.

Celine Cordier, who like Cartier reached her mid-thirties and found she couldn’t progress any further up the career ladder, was a technical drawer in the town of Tergnier for French transport company SNCF for close to a decade. Now, her company will find her a new spot in their communications and continuous training department in Paris after she graduates.

“SNCF needs human skills now,” she says. “They can’t automate all of their services.”

German lifeboats

Critics say the lack of national support for industrial digitization is keeping France from competing with Europe’s leading industrial players.

Click Here: Cheap Chiefs Rugby Jersey 2019

Germany pioneered the concept of “digital industry,” so-called Industrie 4.0, in 2013. German manufacturing centers are much admired here in France.

One huge advantage is the German education system, says Thibaut Bidet-Mayer, the author of a report on the “Industrie du Futur” strategy by French think tank La Fabrique de l’Industrie.

Germans get put on apprenticeship tracks as early as middle or high school, while the theory-based French school system only requires specialization after high school.

One of the most anticipated elements of Macron’s plan is a partnership with the German government, designed to help the French learn how to implement Industry 4.0.

Germany’s industrial presence and influence is already strongly felt in northern France. “One third of our regional companies’ capital comes from Germany,” says Florent Roussel, a communications manager for Promeo.

Promeo’s leaders are optimistic the French will catch up, regardless of national plans or European competitors. Younger workers with a more intuitive understanding of the digital world might not even need additional training, making them appealing replacements for an aging workforce.

“[The French] are grumpy but I think we will be able to do a good job and evolve,” says director Taboureux.

This article was updated to correct the name of a French think tank on industry. The name is La Fabrique de l’Industrie.

Commission pledges cash to help refugees in Greece

Aid will be made available to ‘preserve the dignity’ of refugees.

The European Commission will provide €700 million in assistance over the next three years to help refugees in Greece and the rest of the Western Balkans, the commissioner in charge of humanitarian aid, Christos Stylianides, said Wednesday.

The aid will be available immediately and is aimed at providing “basic necessities” to the tens of thousands of people in need of shelter in countries such as Greece, where thousands more refugees are arriving every day, many fleeing the war in Syria.

“We must be prepared, and preserve the dignity of those in need,” said Stylianides.

“This fund will provide emergency assistance for refugees in Greece, in addition to existing funds for hotspots,” said the commissioner, referring to the processing centers for new arrivals.

In the European Parliament, lawmakers welcomed the new financial tool for responding to the crisis, but Guy Verhofstadt, who leads the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, said it was “far from being a solution” on its own.

Insisting on the need for a common European approach, rather than individual responses such as Austria’s decision to cap the number of migrants it accepts, and other countries’ closure of their borders, Verhofstadt said: “The closure of the borders in certain member states is turning frontline countries like Greece into permanent refugee camps.”

“This is not only unacceptable; it goes against the European spirit,” he said.

EU takes counter-terrorism campaign to the frontlines

The European External Action Service sends terrorism experts to countries with a history of radicalism.

The EU has deployed eight security and intelligence experts to its missions in the Middle East, North Africa and Nigeria to boost its counter-terrorism efforts and take the fight to countries where many radicals are recruited.

In the last four months, the European External Action Service has sent former intelligence, military and police officers with experience in conflict zones and “disarmament, demobilization and reintegration” processes — according to the job description — to serve as attachés in Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Turkey. One more is due to begin an assignment in Egypt.

“These are people who have a background in security and police, and can develop good contacts in the security world in the countries of the Mediterranean rim,” Gilles de Kerchove, the EU counter-terrorism coordinator, told POLITICO.

The European Union first decided to deploy its own counter-terrorism attachés after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in February, when 17 people died at the satirical magazine and a hostage-taking in a Jewish grocery. The initiative has gained in urgency since the November 13 attacks in Paris which killed 130 people, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.

“The attacks have certainly accelerated the cooperation process with these countries,” said an official from the EEAS.

Individual EU countries tend to have strong intelligence ties with specific partners in the Middle East and Africa — Kerchove cited Morocco’s record of cooperation in counter-terrorism with the United States, Spain and France, which security officials say helped the French to track down Abdelhamid Abaaoud, suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, who was killed in a shootout with police on November 18.

But the attacks in France, and the high threat level in many parts of Europe, has made it clear in Brussels that bilateral cooperation in the hands of member states is not enough and the problem requires multi-dimensional diplomacy at EU level.

In Nigeria, the EU counter-terrorism attaché oversees de-radicalization programs in prisons with former members of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram. In Jordan, there is an anti-radicalization program for mosques, as well as training for counter-terrorism agents.

“Our background helps us to interact with our local counterpart. As a soldier I have greater access to the military of the country I am operating in than a normal diplomat would have,” one of the security attachés, speaking on condition of anonymity, told POLITICO. “We speak the same language, we share a military education and code.”

The EU’s new counter-terrorism attachés, whose performance so far is likely to be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers Monday, are tasked with reporting back to the EU delegations and the EEAS on domestic policy in the fields of counter-terrorism, violent radicalization, organized crime, migration and corruption, and to help some of the host countries build up their own counter-terrorism capacity, using financial aid from the EU.

In Tunisia, for example — home to an estimated 3,000 “foreign fighters” who have joined the ranks of groups like ISIL in Iraq and Syria — the EU has signed a deal that would allocate more than €23 million to modernize the security services, including border management and counter-terrorism.

“In Tunisia, we will do aviation security, airports, borders with Libya, prevention of radicalization, restructuring of the interior ministry and intelligence services, appointment of a national security advisor,” said de Kerchove. The new attaché’s role will be to watch over these programs and “act as a go-between with Brussels.”

The EU launched a series of measures to cooperate with third countries on countering the foreign-fighter phenomenon since 2013, allocating $10 million for a program to combat this problem and Islamist radicalization in the Sahel-Maghreb region.

Click Here: All Blacks Rugby Jersey

Since February 2015, the EU has been working with the United Nations on national and regional counter-terrorism and foreign fighter workshops in the Middle East and North Africa, also providing technical assistance to help local criminal justice officials investigate and prosecute foreign fighters,

“Counter-terrorism is a rather new field for the EU,” said one European official. “When you look at the numbers of foreign fighters they have in these countries, there are a lot of reasons to work with them. These countries are very much like us, very much threatened by the foreign fighters, by Daesh (ISIL) and the other terrorist groups and the crisis in Syria.”

Discussions are also under way to explore cooperation with key EU agencies such as Europol, which coordinates information on terrorism and organized crime, Eurojust, which has established contact with officials — often local prosecutors — in Tunisia, Egypt and Lebanon to provide judicial assistance, and the European Police College (CEPOL), which is setting up a project to provide counter-terrorism training in the target countries.

The Eurojust project will “make it easy to exchange both police and intelligence data on terror suspects, prove the evidence gathered, and consider where to prosecute,” said an official from the European Commission.

At a moment when EU countries have faced criticism for failing to coordinate their intelligence efforts sufficiently to reduce the risk of attacks, officials were at pains to portray it as a two-way street in terms of expertise and learning, pointing to Morocco’s experience in combating radicalization and integrating former radicalized prisoners back into society.

“We are looking at building a partnership, because these countries have a lot of experience in fighting terrorism and we do as well, and it is important for us to work together because the threat is the same threat and people travel all over,” a second European official said.

Door still open for David Cameron’s benefit reforms

Next up on the British prime minister’s arm-twisting tour: Viktor Orbán.

David Cameron has found a more receptive audience in several European countries this week as he continues to push for a controversial ban on welfare benefits for EU migrants.

After getting encouraging signals from key German and Polish politicians that they would be willing to accept some restrictions on the benefits, the British prime minister will travel Thursday to Budapest, where he will discuss the issue with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

For the moment Cameron is sticking to his proposal for a four-year restriction on benefits, which he says will be crucial to convincing the British public to vote to stay in the EU in a referendum.

Click Here: NRL Telstra Premiership

But he has also been leaving some wiggle-room as he talks to EU leaders, saying that he is willing to entertain other proposals. And he has been spinning the benefits reform proposal as something that’s good for all governments, not just Britain’s. That will be central to his message to Orbán, according to officials.

“Cameron’s argument is that it’s in the self-interest of Eastern European member states to limit the high level of immigration of skilled workforce towards the U.K.,” said one source familiar with the discussions.

That message may resonate with Orbán, who has said he wants to stem the flow of migrants from Hungary to other EU countries.

Cameron has emphasized his openness to considering alternative ideas on the benefits issue in recent meetings with EU leaders, including at a summit in December in which he laid out his reform plans in detail. At the summit there was widespread opposition from other leaders to the benefits proposal on the grounds that it discriminated unfairly against EU citizens.

According to officials, Cameron has suggested that simply reducing the waiting period for migrant benefits to three years — a proposal tabled by leaders from Germany and France — is no less discriminatory than his original four-year ban.

Downing Street is still waiting for the European Commission to propose “alternative solutions” for reform on the issue of migrants “exporting” welfare benefits to children who remain in their home country. Among the proposals said to be under consideration is to create a sliding-scale for child-benefit payments based on the living standard of the home country of the children.

Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the negotiations are “an ongoing process. Work progresses in the hope of an agreement in February.”

None of the reform proposals have been put on paper yet, either by the Commission or the Council of Ministers, where the real negotiations will play out among member countries. But Cameron has said he’s hoping to strike a deal at the February EU summit. He has promised to hold a referendum on the U.K.’s membership of the EU before 2017.

Cameron will be riding high into his meeting with Orbán after senior leaders from the German Christian Social Union — the sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats — voiced their support this week for the benefits ban proposal.

Before sitting down with Cameron, Orbán was scheduled to have a meeting with leaders of the new Polish government on Wednesday to coordinate responses from the Visegrád group of Eastern European countries to the British reform proposals, among other foreign affairs issues.

The Poles originally took a hardline on Cameron’s benefit ban, calling it “discriminatory” against Polish workers who make up the bulk of the EU migrants in the U.K.

But the door for Cameron may still be open in Poland, whose stance appears to have softened after Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski suggested Warsaw would be willing to accept the benefits compromise in exchange for a greater NATO presence on the country’s Russian border.

Making the controversial EU-Turkey migration deal work was always going to be a huge logistical challenge. Now that the terror attacks in Brussels have stirred up fresh opposition, it’s a political one too.

Even before the attacks, EU leaders warned that major elements of the deal reached this month would be difficult to implement, from the mass mobilization of officials and resources needed in Greece to process arriving migrants to the ability and willingness of some countries to accept even the smallest number of asylum seekers.

Under the deal, Greek authorities detain newly arrived migrants and send them back to Turkey; in exchange, the EU agreed to resettle up to 72,000 Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and speed up financial aid to help Turkey care for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees it is hosting. Those who arrived before the deal came into force will either have to be sent back to their countries of origin, if they are illegal migrants, or have their asylum claims examined in Greece.

Already, there are signs that the deal is in trouble. Two EU officials said Turkey has been slow to enact certain terms: It has authorized no new returns of migrants under the readmission agreement with Athens and is not moving forward on providing full protection to non-Syrian refugees. Officials also said it is too early to measure how well Turkey is doing in preventing additional migrants from leaving on their way to Greece.

Here are five key issues that will determine whether the deal succeeds or fails:

1. Security concerns

After the terrorist attacks in Brussels, Poland shut its doors to refugees. “I say very clearly that I see no possibility at this time of immigrants coming to Poland,” Prime Minister Beata Szydło said Wednesday. Other countries could follow.

Diplomats fear that countries that never wanted to take part in the relocation of 160,000 refugees across Europe will use the terrorist threat as an excuse to pull out. They also say that countries could use security concerns to beef up their background checks on refugees, making the whole relocation process even slower that it is now. If any refugees are linked by investigators to the terrorist attacks it could be a further threat to the deal.

What to watch for, and when: Unless there is another terror attack, by the middle of April it should be clear if countries have grown even more reluctant to take in refugees.

2. Migrant flows

This is the major point for the EU. If migrant flows in the coming weeks continue to be high, then the deal is virtually dead.

There is a line in the joint declaration approved by EU and Turkish leaders that makes it clear: “Should the number of returns exceed the numbers provided for above, this mechanism will be discontinued.” Which means that if the number of Syrians returned to Turkey is above the 72,000 figure, the deal is breached. “It’s a way to keep pressure on the Turks to keep their borders shut,” said a diplomat.

What to watch for, and when: It will be clear by the end of April if the deal has had any impact on reducing migrant flows. Only monthly figures are reliable, officials say, and with better weather likely to make it easier for people to move, the comparison with data from spring last year will show if there had been any reduction.

Since the agreement took effect March 20, the flow of migrants has been uneven.

Last Thursday marked the first day since the crisis started that no migrants arrived in Greece, according to Greek government data, but officials say the drop was an exception mainly due to bad weather. On Friday, another 161 migrants arrived and despite warnings of forced removals, a few hundred arrivals came each day, with a peak last Monday of 1,162.

 3. Visa liberalization

This is the major point for the Turks. The deal says that visa liberalization for Turkish citizens traveling to the EU will take place at the latest in June, “provided that all benchmarks have been met.”

That’s easier said than done. Out of 72 benchmarks that Turkey must implement, Ankara has fulfilled 37. Of the remaining 35, 12 have not been fulfilled or only partially met, and work is progressing more smoothly on the remaining 23. 

It took Ankara years to implement the first 37 benchmarks, so “we don’t think that Turkey will manage to meet all the remaining benchmarks in a few weeks,” said Alexandra Stiglmayer, senior analyst at the European Stability Initiative, a think tank. “I am sure that if Turkey does not get visa liberalization the deal is off or delayed.”

What to watch for, and when: Here there’s a hard deadline. If by the end of May, Turkey hasn’t managed to meet the benchmarks, the deal is in trouble.

4. Greece’s ‘Herculean’ task

About 4,000 people are being mobilized to handle the logistics of the deal, some 2,500 of them from EU member countries, according to an estimate from the Commission.

Tribunals will have to process asylum claims and any resulting appeals quickly. Refugee identification centers, so-called hotspots, have been turned into detention centers for those migrants who are to be returned. Greece and Turkey have to swiftly enact legislative changes to make the deal fully legal.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wasn’t just making a Greek analogy when he described it as a “Herculean task.” The return of Syrians to Turkey and their resettlement is supposed to start April 4.

What to watch for, and when: The next few weeks will show whether Athens is managing or collapsing under the refugee burden. Small protests have already taken place in some detention centers. After April 4, it will be clear if the resettlement and return of Syrians is working.

 5. Legal challenges

Many legal aspects remain to be addressed, including the issue of Greece recognizing Turkey as a safe third country, a key point for sending migrants back there. A Commission spokesman said early last week that Greece would introduce legislation soon, and in the meantime asylum requests lodged as of March 20 would not receive a decision until the new legislation is adopted.

Some humanitarian organizations suspended some of their activities on the Greek islands, complaining that registration centers were being turned into detention centers.

What to watch for, and when: If Greece does not change its laws and Turkey is still foot-dragging on granting full protection for non-Syrians, experts say, it will be another sign the deal is in trouble.

EU officials say they hope that the message that migrants will be jailed and returned would be enough to significantly discourage new arrivals by the end of April.

politico interview

Varoufakis told you so

The former Greek finance minister unwinds — and rewinds.

ATHENS — Yanis Varoufakis lives in understated elegance. His apartment is spacious and pleasing to the eye. Shelves bulge with books on politics and economics, unsurprising for a university professor who was, until July, Greece’s finance minister.

Varoufakis is welcoming. He makes us coffee and puts a box of chocolates on the table, next to Joseph Stiglitz’s book on inequality, “The Great Divide.” He’s dressed in a dark red T-shirt and dark trousers, and pads around in his socks. When we arranged this meeting, he told me he didn’t want to talk about Greece’s election because he thought it a sad affair. After Sunday’s vote, though, he’s willing to speak.

Click Here: Golf special

I ask why he found it so depressing. After all, the voters didn’t punish his former government colleagues in Syriza or Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister. “I don’t want to reduce the significance of Alexis’ triumph,” he says, “but compared to the referendum, we had 1.6 million people who abstained. The party lost 363,000 votes since January. The democratic deficit has grown substantially. Even those who voted for [Tsipras], did so with sorrow and apprehension in their hearts. It was just a very sad election.”

“The great winners of this election,” he continues, “besides Alexis, were the Troika [the IMF, European Commission and ECB].”

*  *  *

What will come of all this? “A deepening of the crisis, which is a certainty, and Tsipras knows this. The question is: How is he going to position himself in relation to reality? Because there’s rhetoric and there’s the reality, when you ask small businesses to pay 100 percent of their future taxes in advance when they are impecunious and have no access to capital markets. Either they’ll have to move to Bulgaria or they’ll close down. It’s when you ask householders, who are also illiquid, to pay the property tax. So what are we doing? We already have €80 billion worth of tax evasion. This way you’re just going to create a lot more. And it’s not evasion when people can’t pay.”

So what are Tsipras’ options now? “Well, point number one is that his narrative is that the bailout [agreed this summer] or Memorandum of Understanding [MoU] has many holes in it and there are degrees of freedom for further negotiaton. Number two: He’s banking on debt relief sometime in November, which he’ll herald as success. Third: He’s going to make a big deal out of how uniquely positioned he is to take on the oligarchy and tax evaders because Syriza has no strings attached.”

Feet on his desk, flaunting socks with a spider pattern, he continues: “The problem is that the first paragraph of the MoU says the Greek government is committed to these conditions. You can’t have much of a negotiation when you’ve committed to agreeing with the other side. You can hope to petition them — Greek governments have been petitioning them for five years. What we did was try to negotiate and they decided to strangle us to teach us a lesson.”

“Debt relief is a lost cause. There will be a substantial haircut because a debt that’s unpayable will not be paid. But there are ways of effecting a haircut: One is therapeutic, which is to have it up front; the reason for heavy debt relief is to allow yourself to have lower primary surpluses as a signal to investors that Greece is on the mend. But they agreed on stupid primary surpluses of 3.5 percent — you have to be lobotomized to believe that this is reachable in Greece. The government is going to have to increase taxes or reduce spending again. So why would you do it? It’s not going to work.”

Varoufakis is exercised about the Greek “oligarchy.” The Troika, he believes, “is in cahoots with the oligarchs. Since 2010 the oligarchs have been the greatest supporters of the Troika and the Troika has been sheltering them.”

“Tsipras himself kept saying that he didn’t remember the Troika ever threatening the Greek government with a cessation of liquidity if the government didn’t find a way of attacking the rich. Never. They threatened a cessation of liquidity if they didn’t cut pensions or increase VAT on food.” Here he shows emotion: “During the five months I was minister, who was attacking my attempts to counter the Troika? The oligarchs. The oligarchs were the Troika of the interior.” The MoU, he says, “has given up all the instruments the state has to fight a war against them.”

*  *  *

Where does Varoufakis see Greece five years from now? “Further down the deep black hole if nothing changes. If we continue along the lines of this MoU [we’ll have] ‘Kosovization’: By which I mean we become more and more of a protectorate that has the euro — like Kosovo — but our only export will be people and tourism, with zero investment in productive activities, banks that operate only as vaults and not as credit institutions, and fire sales everywhere. Unless there’s a reaction.”

I ask him for his thoughts on Germany’s Angela Merkel and Wolfgang Schäuble. Once again, he barely pauses before answering. “Schäuble’s had a vision for decades about Europe. It’s the wrong vision but it’s a consistent one and an interesting one. Make no mistake, I reject his vision but I find it intellectually interesting to engage with. Merkel has no vision. She simply operates on the basis of whatever works to keep her in power and maintain the status quo under her watch. The clash between those two is remarkable. One has a vision, the other doesn’t, and this creates a chasm between them which is evident.”

And who will win? “It looks like Merkel, except that Schäuble is right in one respect: The current eurozone is not sustainable. But Merkel will probably manage to keep the thing going while she is chancellor for a few years because Europe’s rich; it can continue throwing good money after bad and waste its potential while falling behind the rest of the world in order to maintain this unsustainable architecture.”

“Where he’s wrong is in what he’s proposing to improve it. His fundamental error is that he has absolutely no concept of macroeconomics and is totally unabashed about his ignorance. That’s a terrible mindset for someone who’s in effect running the largest macroeconomy in the world.”

And what about Jean-Claude Juncker? “Let’s talk about something significant,” Varoufakis replies. “Juncker doesn’t exist, he’s just a figurehead of a Commission that has subsided so deeply in terms of significance. I don’t even believe he’s informed of decision-making processes, [though] at some point he’s informed of the decisions.”

*  *  *

Does Varoufakis have thoughts on Vladimir Putin? The Russian president “has been mightily strengthened by NATO’s inane approach to former Soviet republics, egging Georgia to take Putin on, bringing the Baltic states into NATO. And the Ukraine conflict — to me it’s catastrophic. Firstly because it’s conducted in a manner the West cannot win. But my main concern is for Russian democrats. I grew up under a dictatorship here, and I’m very sensitive to the needs of local democrats who are subjected to tyranny. I think we should always ask ourselves the question, whether we deal with Iraq, Libya, or North Korea: How will our actions impact democrats in those countries? By giving Putin the excuse to address Russia’s people and say the West is conniving against Russia, you’re pushing Russian democrats into a corner and that can never be good for us.”

How should Europe handle the refugees? “How about humanely?” he shoots back. “How about throwing our borders open to people drowning at sea and looking after them. In Greece we have a concept of filoxenia, ‘kindness to strangers.’ I named my daughter Xenia for this reason. I believe you should always consider yourself a foreigner in your own country because that’s the only way you can pass critical judgment on it. So open the bloody borders to those in need and stop bickering about who’s going to do less.”

But can Germany absorb 2 million? “Of course it can. Throughout history, from the Paleolithic period, the places that benefited were those that welcomed migrants and the ones that lost out were those that exported people. The U.S. would not exist today as a power if it had built fences in the 19th century.”

*  *  *

What will Varoufakis do next? He is clearly a man of genuine charisma and intellect with much still to offer. A professorship somewhere? He laughs. “I’m staying in politics. I don’t have to be in Parliament to be in politics. When I threw my hat in the ring in January, I said I’m not going to abandon Greece again. I will now live out my years in Greece, among the people who trusted me. I’m going to finish my book, then another book and then another. I’m going to lecture. But primarily I’m going to take the fight for democracy to the European level.”

“One lesson I learned during the negotiations was that nothing good can come from a member state fighting alone. Europeans at large are particularly worried — and Greece helped cement that worry — that democracy has become an empty word, and unless we find a way of networking across countries, along the lines of a very simple campaign of democratizing Europe, the continent is condemned to fragmentation. The only beneficiaries will be the racists, the bigots, the National Front, Golden Dawn, those forces that are pushing Europe toward to a postmodern 1930s.”

I circle back to Greece, and to his former partner Tsipras. “He has a great struggle on his hands against history and reality,” Varoufakis says. “He won government but he has to prove he can be in power. The two aren’t the same. There’s no doubt he’s aiming to become a François Mitterrand who made an amazing U-Turn to embrace austerity and managed to maintain command of the Socialist Party after turning against the principles that saw him elected. There’s no doubt that Tsipras would like that. I very much fear, however, that he’ll become, instead, a Ramsay Macdonald [the unpopular British prime minister during the Great Depression.]”

David Patrikarakos is a frequent contributor to POLITICO and author of “Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State.”

Click Here: cheap INTERNATIONAL jersey

Neither side have been at their best recently and we are backing this weekend’s El Clasico to produce another cagey low-scoring affair in Madrid

Real Madrid welcome Barcelona to the Bernabeu on Sunday evening for what could be a vital El Clasico in terms of the La Liga title race.

Quique Setien’s men go into the game two points clear of their rivals, with Madrid having suffered a wobble in the last couple of weeks.

Zinedine Zidane’s men were beaten last weekend at Levante, having been held to a 2-2 draw at home by Celta Vigo the weekend before, and will not be in high spirits following a home defeat to Manchester City in the Champions League. 

More teams

Real Madrid vs Barcelona Latest Odds

Los Blancos have not won a home league Clasico since 2014, but remain favourites for Sunday night’s clash at 6/5(2.20) with bet365.

Barca have won their last four La Liga games at the Bernabeu and are offered at 21/10 (3.10) with the draw at 13/5 (3.60).

Real Madrid vs Barcelona Team News

The hosts are without injured duo Eden Hazard and Marco Asensio, while Rodrygo Goes is suspended.

Barcelona remain without forwards Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele, while left-back Jordi Alba is still out. Gerard Pique picked up a knock in the Champions League tie with Napoli but could be available. 

Real Madrid vs Barcelona Preview

These two sides met just two months ago at Camp Nou where they played out an underwhelming 0-0 draw.

It was the first goalless league Clasico since 2002 and was perhaps symptomatic of that fact that neither team has been overly impressive this term.

Madrid have had notable problems in the final third, where their lack of a clinical edge has cost them vital points, whilst Barca have also been less prolific than in previous seasons with to the absence of Suarez having impacted the team’s all-round play.

Therefore, it might be shrewd to back another low scoring encounter, in a game in which both sides will be desperate to avoid defeat.

Real Madrid vs Barcelona Tips and Predictions

Under 1.5 goals in the first half and under 3.5 goals in the game is offered at 4/5 (1.80) using bet365’s Bet Builder, with this bet paying out in each of the last three Clasicos in all competitions. 

Odds correct at the time of writing. Please gamble responsibly.

Under 1.5 goals first half and under 3.5 goals in the match at 1.75 for a 2.5pt stake with Sportsbet

Commission agrees to boost revolving-door transparency

EU institution will publish names of senior officials who leave for private sector jobs.

The European Commission, under pressure to boost transparency about its relations with lobbyists, has agreed to reveal the names of senior officials who leave for new jobs in the private sector.

In a letter to European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly, who had called for the change, the Commission said it would publish a list of such job moves once a year, adding that it had balanced the officials’ right to privacy against their commitment under the European Union staff regulations to avoid conflicts of interest.

O’Reilly welcomed the decision, saying it showed “further progress” by the Commission on transparency, which had been highlighted as a priority by President Jean-Claude Juncker. O’Reilly said the move responded to the public’s right to know that “thorough conflict-of-interest tests have been carried out.”

But the ombudsman also expressed concern about the Commission’s decision to publish information only once a year, saying she would maintain “her recommendation to the Commission to publish the names more regularly.”

O’Reilly has spearheaded a push for greater transparency to address concerns from some campaign groups about “revolving door” appointments, in which former senior officials move swiftly into private sector roles, taking their insider knowledge and institutional understanding with them.

In September 2014, the ombudsman presented the draft recommendation following an inquiry into conflict of interest concerns put forward by a group of transparency NGOs. The ombudsman urged the Commission to review its revolving-door arrangements to make them consistent and more transparent.

Under Commission staff rules, former senior officials must request permission from the institution before taking up employment opportunities for two years after leaving the EU public service. They are also prohibited from lobbying the Commission for 12 months after leaving the service.

O’Reilly wrote to Commission Vice President Kristalina Georgieva in February, warning that by denying public access to its decision-making process in approving private sector work by its former officials it could create “misunderstandings, distrust and indeed skepticism” about those decision.

O’Reilly told the Commission that post-Commission appointments “come into the public domain regardless” and, without offering a proper context for how the decisions are made, it ran the risk of damaging “the reputation not only of the official concerned but of the Commission and, by extension, the [European] Union.”

In one case, Corporate Europe Observatory, an NGO, took issue with a private sector role of Hervé Jouanjean, a former Commission director general who took on an advisory position with prominent law firm FIDAL after leaving the public service.

Speaking to POLITICO in July, Jouanjean — whose work with FIDAL was revealed by the company itself — dismissed Corporate Europe Observatory’s concerns, describing the group as having a “radical left” agenda which lacked democratic legitimacy.

“I have a profound sense of ethical responsibility,” Jouanjean said, adding that it was “unfair from a human rights point of view” to deny him the right to work after leaving the Commission. “People cannot prevent me from earning a living,” he said.

Meanwhile, Corporate Europe Observatory said Monday’s announcement by the Commission was a “narrow interpretation” of staff regulations and fell “far short of what is needed.”

“The Commission’s report does not cover all exiting senior officials, only those deemed to have taken a new role which could be connected to lobbying or advocacy,” said Vicky Cann, who works as a researcher and campaigner for the NGO.

In the first release of information under the Commission’s new transparency measures, the Commission revealed it had approved nine appointments by former senior officials, including Jouanjean.

The approved post-Commission jobs include that of Peter Faross, the former director general of the energy department, who will work for German industry consultancy Kaesler & Kollegen. In granting approval, the Commission noted that the firm “had neither financial nor contractual relations with the European Commission.”

In all work requests approved by the Commission, the former officials are reminded that they are not to lobby the Commission within 12 months of leaving the public service — a lobbying ban which is extended to three years for the former officials’ Commission departments.

Click Here: cheap INTERNATIONAL jersey

Brendan Rodgers believes Leicester’s recent struggles are down to a lack of quality in the final third, that became apparent once more against Norwich.

Click Here: Germany Football Shop

Leicester’s winless run extended to five games due to Jamal Lewis’ well-taken volley across goal. However, the Foxes had a Kelechi Iheanacho goal chalked off by VAR, that Rodgers believed should have stood.

Leicester are still nine points clear of fifth-placed Manchester United, who have played a game less, as they look to hold onto their Champions League place.

However, their form has taken a turn for the worse in February, and Rodgers thinks he knows why – with the reasons cropping up again in the loss to Norwich.

“Disappointing to lose it. I thought we had done well,” he admitted to Sky Sports. “I thought we played OK, we had 18 shots on goal but I just felt we lacked the bit of quality in the final third and that is something that has come out of our game for a few weeks now.

“We are disappointed with our goal being ruled out. We felt it was very, very harsh. It was unintentional by their player but it hits his arm and drops on to Kelechi’s.

“The final quality in the final third was missing. We had enough of the ball. We arrived into the areas well enough but we just didn’t quite find our man tonight.

“If you don’t win it is important you don’t lose it and we didn’t track our runners. It was a fantastic strike, through bodies into the corner, but you shouldn’t lose a game like that.

“We are still in a great position with 10 games to go but we have to get back to that way we were for large parts of the season.”

Jamie Vardy was a notable absentee for Leicester, but Rodgers said that should not have affected their efficiency up front – and that Iheanacho had done well enough in his shoes.

“We have had Jamie out for a number of games. Of course he is excellent but Kelechi was excellent. He was a threat all night – I just felt we didn’t get him that service at times.

“It is disappointing. We have been inconsistent. We can’t dance around the truth, we need to be better but that is something I am confident we can do. We need to get that focus back in our game.”

West Ham manager David Moyes insists Saturday’s crunch clash with Southampton will not make or break their season.

The visit of Saints appears to be a must-win match for the Hammers amid a horror run of fixtures which has seen them lose to Liverpool twice and suffer defeat at Manchester City.

Nevertheless, West Ham would climb out of the bottom three with victory at the London Stadium on Saturday.

Moyes said: “Every game is the biggest – we’re always required to win. It’s a really big game but they’re all going to be very big.

“We need to show better quality with the ball, when we have the opportunities. The attitude has been spot on. In good spirits. We’re confident and have a good chance of winning.”

Some Hammers fans are planning more protests against the club’s owners, David Sullivan and David Gold, before the match.

 

 

But Moyes has once again urged them to get behind the team once the match has kicked off.

“I’m asked this question every week,” he added. “We all need to be together. We need it.

“My message to them is positive, be with the team, stick with them. The team needs you badly.”

Despite their perilous position Moyes is once again likely to resist the temptation to throw in deadline-day signing Jarrod Bowen from the start.

Bowen, the £20million capture from Hull, has looked lively in his two substitute appearances so far.

But former Everton boss Moyes said: “It took players like Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka six months to get into the team.

“Others, like Tim Cahill, did it quicker. I want Jarrod for the long-term. We need to bring him in as part of the squad and team. But he has really impressed me.”

Midfielder Jack Wilshere remains on the sidelines after a hernia operation but he has begun doing some outdoor training, and Moyes says he hopes the former England international will return before the end of the season.

Tomas Soucek and Ryan Fredericks will also be missing against Southampton through injury.

 

 

Click Here: Italy Football Shop