Après deux ans d’absence sur scène, Johnny Hallyday renoue enfin avec son public. Lundi soir, il donne à Montpellier le premier concert en France de sa 181e tournée.
Le super héros du rock’n’roll. Il pourrait s’agir du sous-titre de la tournée évènement de Johnny Hallyday qui débute ce soir. A y regarder de près, le destin du plus célèbre rockeur français ressemble bien à celui d’un personnage de fiction. Après une lente descente aux enfers, entre maladie et ennuis économiques, l’idole des jeunes et des autres parvient encore à renaître de ses cendres. Un exploit à 68 ans.
Pour donner le coup d’envoi français de cette énième tournée, Johnny a choisi Montpellier. Quatre dates pour roder ce spectacle de très grande envergure. Son arrivée sur scène devrait se faire dans une immense boule de plexiglas ajourée et au son de son titre Allumer le feu. Un début de show à l’américaine et particulièrement physique pour la star. Dans les colonnes du Parisien, Johnny Hallyday confie avoir le trac mais se sentir « très bien ». Il s’agit là pour lui d’une toute nouvelle façon d’aborder la scène et il tient donc à assurer. Pas question de décevoir ses fans.
Johnny Hallyday s’est même séparé de son entourage historique pour faire confiance à une nouvelle équipe. Gilbert Coullier, son nouveau producteur, devra faire oublier son prédécesseur Jean-Claude Camus. Nouveau manager aussi pour le chanteur a sollicité l’ancien homme de l’ombre de NTM, le manager Sébastien Farran. L’interprète de Toute la musique que j’aime renoue également avec le rock, le vrai, en confiant à Yarol Poupaud la direction des musiciens et à Louis Bertignac sa première partie.
En guise de mise en bouche de cette 181e tournée, Johnny Hallyday s’est offert samedi un duo avec un candidat de l’émission de The Voice, Stephan Rizon. Signe du destin, ce chanteur amateur a remporté la grande finale quelques heures seulement après avoir partagé ce moment avec la légende du rock…
Rihanna en a marre de répondre à des questions sur sa vie sentimentale. Il y a deux mois, la chanteuse s’était plusieurs fois énervée contre des journalistes qui voulaient en savoir plus sur sa pseudo idylle avec Ashton Kutcher, cette fois c’est une question sur son ex Chris Brown qui l’a fait sortir de ses gonds.
Riri ne rigole plus! Dans une interview accordée au magazine Esquire, la star du R’n’B a mis les choses au clair quand elle a été questionnée sur son ex Chris Brown.
« Je pensais que les gens seraient surpris que nous ayons enfin fait une chanson ensemble (Turn Up The Music), mais je ne voyais pas comment ils auraient pu en penser du mal, explique la chanteuse originaire de la Barbade. Pour moi, ce n’était que de la musique. C’est dans un contexte professionnel que nous nous sommes rapprochés. Il faut faire la différence avec ma vie privée. (…) Ça montre à quel point la société est pourrie. Il y a beaucoup de conneries que vous n’arrivez pas à laisser derrière vous. Cette interview devient vraiment pénible… Ce qui m’énerve, c’est que vous n’arrêtez pas de poser les mêmes questions sur des sujets futiles. Qu’y a-t-il à dire à ce sujet? Toutes vos questions sont de cet ordre? On passe à la suivante… » Voilà le prochain journaliste qui voudra s’aventurer sur le sujet prévenu…
The eurozone is readying itself for the admission of Lithuania, which on 1 January will become the 19th member to adopt the single currency.
The enlargement of the eurozone has been a continuous process since it was launched on 1 January 1999, the date when the euro became the official currency of 11 European Union member states – Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
It replaced the existing national currencies in two stages: first, in January 1999, as an accounting currency for non-cash payments, while the old currencies were still used for cash payments. Then, on 1 January 2002 the euro coins and banknotes were physically introduced in what by then were the 12 countries of the eurozone. Greece had been admitted on 1 January 2001.
The 12 countries that joined the EU in May 2004 were admitted on condition that they would join the eurozone in due course. It took until 2007 before the first of them did so: Slovenia blazed the trail. A year later, both Malta and Cyprus joined, followed by Slovakia in 2009. The Baltic states have been the most recent countries to join, with Estonia leading the way in 2011, followed by Latvia in 2014 and Lithuania now poised on the brink.
Of the countries that joined the EU in 2004, it is the biggest that now remain on the outside: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
The obligation to adopt the euro has been a feature of all EU accession treaties since 1992. The three countries that are allowed separate euro adoption referendums on eurozone membership are those whose EU membership precedes that date: the United Kingdom and Denmark. Sweden joined the EU in 1995 and is therefore theoretically obliged to join the eurozone, but it maintains that it has a choice over whether to join the exchange-rate mechanism (ERM II), which is a precondition of eurozone membership.
In the case of Denmark, a referendum on opt-outs of EU legislation is expected to be held in the next parliamentary mandate in the period 2015-19. If Denmark does decide to discuss the membership of the eurozone, and the citizens vote in favour, the country’s admission could proceed rapidly. Denmark is already part of the ERM, which aims at ensuring financial stability between the euro and other EU currencies.
Member states are not permitted to join the eurozone before their public finances comply with debt and deficit criteria outlined by the Stability and Growth Pact, which aim to keep inflation and long-term interest rates below certain values. They must also ensure that their national laws comply with the rules of the European Central Bank.
There are seven states under this obligation to join the euro, which are therefore labouring to meet the eurozone’s criteria. albeit with varying degrees of enthusiasm: in addition to Sweden, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, there are the two countries admitted to the EU in 2007, Romania and Bulgaria, and the country admitted in 2013, Croatia.
A timeline of the eurozone's expansion
1 January 1999: euro launched in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain.
1 January 2001 in Greece.
1 January 2007 in Slovenia.
1 January 2008 in Cyprus and Malta.
1 January 2009 in Slovakia.
1 January 2011 in Estonia.
1 January 2014 in Latvia.
1 January 2015 in Lithuania.
In June 2014 the European Commission and the European Central Bank published convergence reports on the progress made by these countries in fulfilling the criteria.
The reports show that in most of the countries the laws do not, either partially or entirely, comply with all the requirements for central bank independence, the monetary financing prohibition, and legal integration into the eurozone.
National political developments make implementation more difficulty. Hungary, for example, declared in 2003 that it wanted to replace the forint with the euro from 2014. But now, the country is outside ERM II and the current government has said it does not want to adopt the euro before 2020.
Tax committee takes shape
The European Parliament’s special committee on tax evasion, set up in the wake of the ‘Lux Leaks’ scandal, has begun to mark out its line of inquiry. At a meeting on Monday (9 March), the committee discussed the path to follow between now and August, when its mandate ends, but no firm decisions were taken. The co-ordinators of the political groups have, however, agreed on a timeframe and said that there will be 11 meetings. As part of their investigation, committee members will visit member states in an effort to understand their tax systems. (It was suggested that, to save time, representatives of national parliaments should visit the Parliament instead.) The committee discussed setting up a website to which any member of the public who has information on tax rulings could contribute.
King asks EU to fight Islamophobia
King Abdullah II of Jordan is no stranger to the European Parliament. On Tuesday, he paid his fourth visit to the Parliament since he came to the throne in 1999. He called on the EU to continue its fight against Islamophobia, saying that “Europe is an important partner in helping to stop the global rise of Islamophobia”. The king added that the “future lies in unity and
respect” and that “attacking others is no way forward”. King Abdullah also touched on the issue of migration. The conflict in Syria has resulted in neighbouring Jordan having the third largest number of refugees in the world. While thanking Europe for its support, he said Jordan’s burden was “like France hosting the whole population of Belgium”.
Slow progress on gender equality
MEPs on Monday held a debate on gender equality. They voted on a resolution put forward by the women’s rights and gender equality committee, which says that despite progress on some issues, pay gaps need to be reduced, glass ceilings still exist in the business world, and there is inequality in parental leave. It was backed by 441 MEPs, with 205 voting against and 52 abstentions. Marc Tarabella, a centre-left Belgian MEP, said that “change is too slow and women’s rights are suffering the
effects of this”. The resolution calls on the member states to unblock draft legislation to get more women on company boards,
and to promote educational policies that will encourage women to take up careers in science and ICT. MEPs urged the European Commission, represented by Ve˘ra Jourová, the European commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, to offer EU member states more financial support to set up affordable childcare systems.
Dutch MEP’s mistaken allegiance
Anne-Marie Mineur, a far-left Dutch MEP who joined the Parliament after the May 2014 elections, is a candidate in provincial elections in the Netherlands being held next week (18 March). She said she does not intend to leave Brussels even if elected in Utrecht. However, thanks to a printing mistake she is listed as being a candidate for the Reformed Political Party (SGP), a conservative, Christian party that refuses on religious grounds to field any female candidates. Mineur said she found the mistake amusing, but worried that her candidacy might go unnoticed because the SGP attracts so few voters. The printers in Utrecht are said to be printing new lists, which they hope will be ready in time.
Oettinger’s criticism of France causes unease for Commission
Commission spokesperson refuses to clarify if Juncker approved controversial article written by Oettinger.
Jean-Claude Juncker’s European Commission has been forced on to the defensive by an article by GüntherOettinger, the European commissioner for digital economy and society, about French economic reforms.
Margaritis Schinas, Juncker’s spokesman, was today asked if Juncker knew about the article, published in several European newspapers, including Les Echos and the Financial Times. Schinas said Juncker was “aware” of the article, but admitted that he did not know if Juncker had been told of its exact content before publication.
In the article, Oettinger, Germany’s member of the college of European commissioners, described France’s reforms as “too few and not sufficiently ambitious” and called France a “serial offender” on budget matters.
Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, described Oettinger’s intervention as “unhelpful”. The French Socialist Party went further, calling for Oettinger to resign.
The timing is unfortunate for the Commission, which was supposed to adopt its draft opinions on member states’ draft 2015 budgets on Monday (24 November). That has now been delayed until Tuesday (25 November). The opinions on the budget are the responsibility of Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, and France’s member of the European Commission. Moscovici is a former French finance minister and a member of the Socialist Party. Oettinger is a member of the Christian Democratic Union of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Schinas insisted that the remarks would not prejudice the Commission’s discussion of France’s budget.
“Commissioners are politicians and there is no rule that they should only express a view on their [Commission portfolio],” Schinas told reporters. “You must recall that it is the college as a college…that decides on the specific issues.”
Negotiators are trying hard to maintain momentum, but can they make a truly ambitious and comprehensive agreement?
Negotiators from the European Commission and the United States on Friday (18 July) completed another gruelling round of negotiations on Click Here: Newcastle United Shop
the transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP), the sixth so far.
Inside the European Commission’s meeting rooms and in a spillover facility, a specially hired conference hall near Châtelain, the two teams of 100-plus officials sat in opposing lines, poring over technical documents. It was granular stuff, what “some might consider mind-numbingly boring work”, as one official said. But for the US’s chief negotiator, Dan Mullaney, these are the “hard, detailed, fact-based negotiations” needed “[to lay] the foundations for a successful and job-creating agreement”.
That is just the start of each round’s work. On the EU side, the Commission within days draws up a report, of around 60 pages, for the EU’s member states and the European Parliament. The member states then pore over issues, topic by topic, twice a week; and the Parliament’s committees inject their comments. This is the grinding technical work that cumulatively helps to give trade talks an ingredient that officials say is always vital: momentum.
Momentum is particularly crucial now, 12 months into negotiations, as there is concern that institutional changes in the EU – a newly installed European Parliament and a new European Commission pending – plus the prospect of mid-term elections in the US, could sap energy.
Negotiators, though, have more to worry about than momentum: they need to maintain the original ambition. At the start, both the EU and the US stressed the economic and geopolitical importance of a deal. They attached big figures (the benefits for the EU could amount to €119 billion per year) and suggested the deal could set the benchmark for other trade deals. It was crucial, negotiators said, that nothing had been taken off the table (and they struggled hard to ensure that a French concern – about an audio-visual chapter – remained nominally up for debate at a later stage).
It has proved difficult to manage the expectations created by such ambitions. Negotiators say they never liked the notion of the TTIP as an ‘economic NATO’. The Commission has spent months on the back foot, dealing with many specific ‘myths’ about the TTIP, organising an additional consultation (on how to settle disputes between corporations and governments), and countering perceptions that the whole system of EU regulation is under debate. The notion that nothing should be ‘off the table’ has not eased that challenge. In any case, it swiftly became apparent that important areas of business were
indeed off the table, such as financial-services regulation and US rules on services in ports.
The declarations that TTIP could set the agenda for future trade deals worldwide also encouraged a view that these would be trade talks like no other. European diplomats suggested that friendly talks between similar economies anxious to inject momentum into a deal of unprecedented scale could translate into an “early harvest” of agreements. In reality, the TTIP talks have become much like any other negotiation, abiding by the traditional mantra that ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’.
The belief that a template for future deals might emerge has been undermined by US resistance to including separate chapters on sectors of systemic importance, such as financial services and energy, and the European public’s concern about how to resolve challenges to European states by corporations from the US, a traditionally more litigious culture.
If TTIP has become rather like any other trade negotiation, that is perhaps because it is vying for US attention with the 12-country Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement that has long seemed close to conclusion. The chief of US trade, Michael Froman, acknowledges that TPP is his current focus. If you have two children who want to go to college, you focus on the older child. The same logic suggests TTIP may get more attention in the future, as the TTIP talks moves into their second half. But will that extra attention make the deal more or less ambitious and comprehensive than it is now?
The stakeholders
Business and workers
European trade unions have traditionally supported trade deals. Trade liberalisation was seen as a way to import growth, and therefore create jobs – but also as a way to export labour standards to poorer countries. The United States, though, is a very different partner: as Markus Beyrer, director-general of the business lobby BusinessEurope, puts it, TTIP is an agreement between “equals who are normally able to impose their wills”. While business is almost unequivocally for the deal (if not always vocal), trade unions have been guarded.
The European Trade Union Confederation has struck a positive note, arguing that TTIP could have “positive impacts on jobs and investment flows”, provided some of its demands are met.
Concern about the impact on public services has, however, animated trade unions in some countries, with the result that the European Commission has had to try to douse German fears that water utilities could be privatised and British trade unionists’ concerns about the impact on the health service. For the most part, though, national trade unions have refrained from campaigning in either direction. TTIP’s negotiators will hope that more will follow the example of Denmark’s unions, which have united with business to voice their support.
Consumers
A two-year-old ghost stalks the TTIP talks. In 2012, online campaigners persuaded the European Parliament to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that had already been partially approved by the EU’s member states; the fear now is that campaigning groups, however small, could scupper TTIP. The European Commission’s response has been to push member states to accept more transparency, arguing that its negotiating mandate should be made public. But member states are worried that this might set an unwelcome precedent. There are also doubts about transparency as a medicine. As one diplomat says: “During ACTA, the Commission thought that publication would help, but it didn’t.”
Nonetheless, Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, sees TTIP as an “opportunity to set new standards in trade negotiations’ transparency”. The Commission has broken new ground by starting an additional public consultation on investor-state disputes in response to its prominence in early public debate. This will soak up institutional resources – the Commission is now wading through more than 100,000 responses – but may ease political battles later, it hopes. The same hope applies to the stakeholder meetings held during each round, which are growing to the point that negotiators joke they may eventually need to rent a stadium.
Questions for negotiators
What markets to create?
Trade deals normally lower or remove tariffs and quotas – and TTIP will be no exception. Already, negotiators have exchanged offers. This will not be an easy area. To the European Commission’s dismay, echoes of old transatlantic trade battles – about American chlorinated chicken and hormone-enhanced beef – are echoing around the public arena, despite the Commission’s endless assurances that EU legislation will not be changed. The disputes over tariffs and quotas – plus the EU’s usual battle to secure the rights to the names of geographically specific agricultural products (such as Parmesan cheese) – are, however, of relatively minor financial importance, since virtually all residual tariffs and quotas have already been removed. The real benefits lie in
creating or extending markets by lowering ‘behind-the-border’ – regulatory – barriers in the areas of services and public contracts. Ignacio Garcia Bercero, the EU’s chief negotiator, says that, on public procurement, the EU is aiming “for a level of ambition that is at the level of tariffs”. That is a tough challenge – it would require changes to regulations by US states and the federal government (including ‘Buy American’ rules) – but it is an area where the EU is likely to fight particularly strongly.
What to risk?
For businesses, regulation can easily seem to be red tape. For consumers, regulation is often seen as a protection against the risks posed by untrammelled business. Part of the difficulty for TTIP negotiators is that their efforts to cut red tape are being interpreted as willingness to expose consumers to more risk.
Despite assurances that EU law – on, for example, food safety or genetically modified foods – cannot be changed and that EU law’s precautionary principle (when the science is uncertain, err on the side of caution) cannot be undermined, risk has become one of the defining issues in European public debate about TTIP. The objective definition of risk is simple: risk is the probability times the consequences. But the subjective perception of risk is very different. “People focus on the consequences, not on the probability,” as Charles Yoe of Notre Dame of Maryland University says. The public-relations challenge for negotiators is to prevent public debate becoming dominated by emotive appeals and old clashes – such as over GMs – that are not being discussed. In the negotiating rooms, the principal initial challenge is to satisfy the regulators in the negotiating teams that both sides are, through the different processes, seeking and achieving the same level of risk control. Where they feel they can rely on each other’s control of risks, ‘mutual recognition’ – acceptance – is becoming the main means of addressing regulatory differences.
What to streamline?
What happens when differences either in risk assessment or in risk-management processes are so great that the sides cannot recognise each others’ systems or outcomes? In areas such as chemicals, when levels of protection are not seen as basically the same, producers will not find that TTIP creates a (near-)single market. EU approval will not be a passport to approval in the US. In such areas, negotiators’ focus is not on the regulatory process but on ways to make the bureaucratic process faster – and, therefore, cheaper. Differences in other areas are smaller, but, in sector after sector, there is a belief that efforts to streamline bureau-cratic processes will produce big gains. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) could in particular benefit, negotiators believe. Sietske de Groot of the UK’s Federation of Small Businesses goes so far as to say that this is the “the first time in history that we have a trade agreement that is about small businesses”. The importance that negotiators attach to small businesses has led them to devote a special ‘chapter’ in TTIP’s emerging draft text to SMEs.
What to add?
While TTIP’s negotiators have given SMEs their own chapter, they have struggled to agree on adding other chapters. In particular, the US has so far rejected EU calls to include financial services in the talks or to create a specific chapter dedicated to energy. The EU argues that TTIP needs to create a means for a structured debate between regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. On energy, Anthony Luzzatto Gardner, the US’s ambassador to the EU, says that “we are not exactly sure what the EU ask in this area is”, arguing that, whenever the US signs a free-trade agreement, the other side – the EU in this case – gains “quasi-automatic approval” for the import of US liquefied natural gas (LNG). But while the crisis in Ukraine has ensured that access to LNG has dominated headlines about TTIP and energy, the EU’s desire for a chapter stretches well beyond LNG. The deal will touch on other energy issues – both sides say that – but the EU believes there are issues (such as transport) that are specific to energy and therefore demand a dedicated energy chapter. There is, though, also a trade-strategy question: if TTIP is to set a standard and benchmark for trade deals globally, can it really view energy as a second-order issue? In the energy area at least, TTIP is currently less ambitious and comprehensive than the ‘deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement’ that the EU and Ukraine signed in June.
Alexis Tsipras and Angela Merkel at the EU-CELAC meeting in Brussels | Olivier Hoslet/EPA
Europe to Greece: Get real
Greek officials find little sympathy from European leaders as the bailout talks grind on.
It was mid-afternoon on Tuesday and a senior member of the Greek government had just awoken from an afternoon nap and come down to the lobby of his Brussels hotel. “I had to get some sleep because I’m pretty wrecked,” the official said.
He’s not the only one who’s tired — as the latest chapter in the seemingly endless Greek economic saga finds governments across the continent increasingly exhausted by Athens’ intransigence.
Earlier that day, the Greek government had submitted a revised list of economic reforms to its European creditors — the second such submission in as many weeks. The European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank were reviewing the document, but there was an ominous silence.
The Greek government, the institutions say, hasn’t committed to paper the concessions it has promised. Its new proposal was not serious enough and “underestimates the complexity of what is being required from them,” said Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who took notes at the meeting where Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker exchanged their competing proposals to end the deadlock.
Even now, going into the fourth month of negotiations over a final €7.2 billion tranche from Greece’s second bailout program, it often sounds like the two sides haven’t been part of the same conversation. “There are a few finance ministers whose patience is running out,” said Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb.
To start the month, Greece exercised a rarely-used IMF facility to buy itself breathing room, bundling its €1.6 billion in June payments to the Fund at the end of the month.
“One just has to compare [Portugal] with another country in Europe unfortunately close to us that instead of making IMF payments early is postponing them,” sneered Portuguese Finance Minister Maria Luís Albuquerque. Her country repaid €6.6 billion of an IMF loan early and is set to repay a further €2.2 billion. “The EU rules apply to everyone. The Greeks have to agree to abide by them,” Albuquerque said.
After many calls between Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as a late-night meeting that included French President François Hollande during a summit last month in Riga, Greek officials are clinging to the idea that the chancellor will eventually rescue Greece. Athens appears to be betting on Merkel calculating that a few tenths of a percentage point of primary surplus targets in Greek economic reforms aren’t worth risking the first exit of a member of the single currency.
“Merkel wants a solution, she wants a solution, I’m so convinced,” said a Greek negotiator. “I believe she’s powerful enough and she will impose a deal.”
The Greek side, the official said, has made concessions on primary surplus targets, which are the main sticking point of the negotiations, especially for the IMF.
“We have covered half of the distance, and we expect the others to do their part,” the Greek negotiator said. “But again, I repeat, I do not believe that by any chance we will break [the euro area] up for that kind of distance.”
The rest of Europe takes a different view of Greece’s negotiating tactics.
One eurozone prime minister told POLITICO that Tsipras is negotiating too narrowly. “Tsipras thinks he only needs to convince France and Germany, but 18 countries will have to pick up the bill for Greece,” the prime minister said. The eurozone’s liability in Greece is €242 billion.
Greece’s creditors are terrified that the government still hasn’t woken up to the reality of their negotiations.
“The ball is clearly in the court of the Greek government,” said the Commission’s chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas in a briefing this week.
Asked if there would be a response from the creditors on the latest Greek proposal, one euro area official said, “No! No! There is a proposal and they can provide some idea of how to change that proposal, but not with papers that do not reflect the state of the talks.”
The problem is no longer attributable to personality differences, personified by the bombastic Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Tsipras long ago placed the negotiating emphasis on his mild-mannered, Oxford-educated economist Euclides Tsakalotos, who himself has been camped out in Brussels waiting on a response to Greece’s latest proposals.
Asked what happens now — if Greece will come back with a new proposal or if the European creditors will bring and make a counter-offer — Tsakalotos himself is waiting on news.
“That’s being discussed. I genuinely don’t know,” he said. Reached on his cellphone just as the EU-CELAC summit was beginning on Wednesday afternoon, he added that “I think they’re discussing when and if inside the summit.”
Merkel and Tsipras had just arrived there, and it was clear one was waiting for the other to flinch. They would only meet if the Greeks asked the Germans.
Back in the hotel lobby, the Greek government official is yawning and waiting on a coffee.“Now is the time for politics,” the official said. “The technocrats have done their part. We understand where we agree and where we don’t agree, and now is the time for the politicians to do the final give-and-take.”
The draw for the second edition of the tournament has been made in Amsterdam, with inaugural winners Portugal looking to defend their crown
Holders Portugal will play World Cup winners France after the draw for the UEFA Nations League group stage was made in Amsterdam.
The same group also contains Croatia, meaning a repeat of the 2018 World Cup final is set to be played.
Meanwhile, England will face Belgium, Denmark and Euro 2016 giantkillers Iceland in the second edition of the Nations League.
More teams
Spain will face Germany in Group A4, while the Netherlands will play Italy in Group A1, with some bumper ties set to be played out.
Wales were drawn in Group B4 alongside the Republic of Ireland, in the only group pitting two of the home nations against each other.
The first competition was won by Portugal, who hosted the finals in 2019. They beat the Netherlands 1-0 in the final thanks to a goal from Goncalo Guedes, while England finished third after beating Switzerland on penalties in the third-place play-off.
The group phase will be played from September to November 2020, with the four group winners from League A qualifying for the finals tournament in the summer of 2021.
UEFA Nations League 2020-21: The draw in full
League A
Group A1
Netherlands, Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Poland
Group A2
England, Belgium, Denmark, Iceland
Group A3
Portugal, France, Sweden, Croatia
Group A4
Switzerland, Spain, Ukraine, Germany
League B
Group B1
Austria, Norway, Northern Ireland, Romania
Group B2
Czech Republic, Scotland, Slovakia, Israel
Group B3
Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Hungary
Group B4
Wales, Finland, Republic of Ireland, Bulgaria
League C
Group C1
Montenegro, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan
Group C2
Georgia, North Macedonia, Estonia, Armenia
Group C3
Greece, Kosovo, Slovenia, Moldova
Group C4
Albania, Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan
League D
Group D1
Faroe Islands, Latvia, Andorra, Malta
Group D2
Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, San Marino
UEFA Nations League 2020-21 – format and changes
A number of changes have been made to the 2020-21 edition of the Nations League, both in structure and the ramifications of results.
Each group in the top three divisions has been expanded to four teams each, meaning each division now comprises 16 teams.
This means these teams will no longer have to play international friendlies on Nations League dates, as had previously been the case with an odd number of teams in each group.
Eliminating ‘meaningless’ international friendlies was one of the key driving forces behind the creation of the tournament.
However, the bottom tier will contain seven teams, meaning some friendlies will still be played.
The Nations League also won’t guarantee any places for the 2022 World Cup. In the first edition, four teams qualified directly for Euro 2020.
Now, two of 12 World Cup qualifying play-off places for three spots at the finals in Qatar will be earned through the Nations League.
The best two Nations League group winners who don’t qualify for either the World Cup finals or qualifying play-offs will then go into the play-offs – due to be played in March 2022.
Miguel Arias Cañete, the European commissioner for climate action and energy | Olivier Hoslet/EPA | EPA
MEPs withhold confirmation from five nominees
The S&D group is split over whether to play nice with the EPP or to hold further hearings and claim a scalp.
Five of the nominees for the next European Commission have been told to provide further written answers before any committee decision can be made on their confirmation.
Following unsatisfactory performances in their confirmation hearings this week, Vera Jourovà from the Czech Republic, Tibor Navracsics from Hungary, Miguel Arias Cañete from Spain and Pierre Moscovici from France, have been given until Sunday night to respond to new written questions.
The UK’s Jonathan Hill has been asked both for new written responses and to return to the Parliament on Tuesday (7 October) at 1pm for a second hearing. At the moment, the plan is to hold this ‘mini-hearing’ in private with only the group co-ordinators.
The hearings were going smoothly this week until Wednesday afternoon, when Hill and Jourovà held hearings at the same time (they were jointly number 13 on the list). Hill gave a weak performance and did not demonstrate a firm grasp of European Union policy, and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEPs said they would need him to do a bit more homework. This in itself would not have harmed the S&D’s ‘grand coalition’ alliance with the EPP, given that Hill is not a member. But on Wednesday night the Socialists went after Cañete, who is part of the EPP.
The EPP retaliated the next morning against Moscovici, who is a member of the S&D.
Jourovà, who gave a weak performance but no worse than some other nominees earlier in the week, has been caught in the crossfire. She is from the Liberal ALDE group and she has been pulled into the fray in order for the Parliament to have a hostage from all four main political groups.
Navracsics’s performance at his hearing was seen by many MEPs as arrogant and unapologetic so they had no choice but to make him sweat. He has few defenders even within his own EPP group.
The number of written questions given to the nominees varies widely. Jourovà has been sent 32 questions to answer, and Hill has been sent 23. Navracsics has been sent only six. The questions for Cañete and Moscovici have not yet emerged. The Parliament’s legal affairs committee is evaluating some last-minute changes that Cañete made on his financial declaration form and will meet to take a decision on whether the changes pose a conflict of interest on Monday at 7pm.
The questions are on specific policies that the MEPs felt they did not get sufficient answers on. Jourovà has been asked about data protection, the European public prosecutors office and the European arrest warrant. Hill has been asked about the single EU deposit guarantee scheme, capital markets union, bank stress-tests, eurobonds and benchmarks.
The questions are largely just a method to justify withholding confirmation from the nominees until next week. The committees are charged with taking a decision on nominees within a day of their hearing, but they can extend this time by asking for more written responses or a second hearing. The political groups want to keep hostages from the opposing side, and they also want to hear from next week’s vice-president nominees before they take decisions on these vulnerable nominees.
A wild card next week will be Alenka Bratušek, the nominee from Slovenia, who is accused of suppressing an ethics investigation into the way she nominated herself to be commissioner. She is from the liberal ALDE group and could become a new focus for EPP and S&D joint criticism after her hearing on Monday afternoon.
The political group leaders are scheduled to meet next Thursday (9 October) to try to reach an agreement. It is understood that if the S&D backs off on Cañete, the EPP will back off on Moscovici. But this would still leave the fate of the three other nominees up in the air.
According to Parliament sources, the S&D group is split about what to do. Group leader Gianni Pittella wants to keep the peace with the EPP and wants to stick to the scheduled final confirmation vote date of 22 October. But there is another faction within the group that wants to claim a scalp, or at least hold further hearings, even if this means delaying the final confirmation vote. This faction is led by Roberto Gualtieri, who had challenged Pittella for the group leadership, according to the sources. However Gualtieri said he is on Pitella’s side of the discussion.