Tag Archives: Europe

British PM May calls for early election to strengthen Brexit hand

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media outside 10 Downing Street, in central London, Britain April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Toby Melville

By Elizabeth Piper, Kylie MacLellan and William James

LONDON (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Theresa May called on Tuesday for an early election on June 8, saying she needed to strengthen her hand in divorce talks with the European Union by shoring up support for her Brexit plan.

Standing outside her Downing Street office, May said she had been reluctant about asking parliament to back her move to bring forward the election from 2020, but decided it was necessary to win support for her ruling Conservative Party’s efforts to press ahead with Britain’s departure from the EU.

Some were surprised by her move – she has repeatedly said she does not want to be distracted by time-consuming campaigning – but opinion polls give her a strong lead, the economy is weathering the Brexit vote and she has faced opposition from her own party for some of her domestic reforms.

The pound rose to a two-and-a-half-month high against the U.S. dollar after the announcement, but Britain’s main share index fell to its lowest point in more than seven weeks.

“It was with reluctance that I decided the country needs this election, but it is with strong conviction that I say it is necessary to secure the strong and stable leadership the country needs to see us through Brexit and beyond,” May said.

“Every vote for the Conservatives will make it harder for opposition politicians who want to stop me from getting the job done.”

Britain joins a list of western European countries scheduled to hold elections this year. Votes in France in April and May and in Germany in September have the potential to reshape the political landscape around the two years of Brexit talks with the EU expected to start sometime in June.

May is capitalising on her runaway lead in the opinion polls. The Conservative Party is around 20 points ahead of the main opposition Labour Party, a large lead for an incumbent party two years after the last parliamentary election.

The prime minister’s own personal ratings also dwarf those of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, with 50 percent of those asked saying she would make the best prime minister. Corbyn wins only 14 percent, according to pollster YouGov.

CHALLENGE

Before holding the election, May must first win the support of two-thirds of the parliament in a vote on Wednesday. Labour said it will vote in favour of a new election, meaning she should be able to get it through.

“I welcome the prime minister’s decision to give the British people the chance to vote for a government that will put the interests of the majority first,” Corbyn said in an emailed statement.

Other members of his party were less enthusiastic and other parties criticised her decision. Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of the Scottish government, described it as “huge political miscalculation” that could help her efforts to hold a new independence referendum.

May, a former interior minister, was appointed prime minister after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 forced the resignation of her predecessor David Cameron. A new election will be a vote on her performance so far.

Her spokesman said she had the backing of her top team of ministers and had informed Queen Elizabeth of her plans.

If the opinion polls are right, she will win a new mandate for a series of reforms she wants to introduce in Britain and also a vote of confidence in a vision for Brexit which sees the country outside the EU’s single market.

“The decision facing the country will be all about leadership,” May said.

“It will be a choice between strong and stable leadership in the national interest with me as your prime minister, or weak and unstable coalition government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, propped up by the Liberal Democrats who want to reopen the division of the referendum.”

(Additional reporting by William James, Kate Holton and Andy Bruce, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Let’s minimize the damage of Brexit, Eurogroup chief says

BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain and the remaining 27 members of the European Union should stay away from the cliff edge of Britain falling back on World Trade Organization terms at the end of Brexit negotiations, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said. "Let's try to minimize the damage," he said of Brexit, speaking at a banking conference in Berlin on Thursday. Dijsselbloem, who said he would discuss Greece with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble while in Berlin, said the more he thought about Brexit, the more worried he became. He singled out financial stability as one area of particular risk. Asked about "passporting" rights for Britain-based institutions to sell financial services in the EU single market after Brexit, Dijsselbloem replied: "I think, also talking to financial players from the City, that passporting won't be the answer. There will be different regimes for different sub-sectors of the financial sector." "Equivalence will be part of the solution," he added of a system whereby Brussels grants access to non-EU firms that comply with rules similar to those in the bloc. "But here again, declaring the rules and regulations and the supervision of the UK equivalent to that of the EU at the outset is quite easy, but over time our standards and the way of supervision will start to diverge," Dijsselbloem said. "So if you want to maintain equivalence over time you will have to commit, also in the long-run, to staying close to the European standards," he added. "Looking to the future, we will have to find to ways to regularly assess whether we are still equivalent." (Writing by Paul Carrel Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

BERLIN (Reuters) – Britain and the remaining 27 members of the European Union should stay away from the cliff edge of Britain falling back on World Trade Organization terms at the end of Brexit negotiations, Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said.

“Let’s try to minimize the damage,” he said of Brexit, speaking at a banking conference in Berlin on Thursday.

Dijsselbloem, who said he would discuss Greece with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble while in Berlin, said the more he thought about Brexit, the more worried he became. He singled out financial stability as one area of particular risk.

Asked about “passporting” rights for Britain-based institutions to sell financial services in the EU single market after Brexit, Dijsselbloem replied: “I think, also talking to financial players from the City, that passporting won’t be the answer. There will be different regimes for different sub-sectors of the financial sector.”

“Equivalence will be part of the solution,” he added of a system whereby Brussels grants access to non-EU firms that comply with rules similar to those in the bloc.

“But here again, declaring the rules and regulations and the supervision of the UK equivalent to that of the EU at the outset is quite easy, but over time our standards and the way of supervision will start to diverge,” Dijsselbloem said.

“So if you want to maintain equivalence over time you will have to commit, also in the long-run, to staying close to the European standards,” he added. “Looking to the future, we will have to find to ways to regularly assess whether we are still equivalent.”

(Writing by Paul Carrel Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

EU lawmakers adopt Brexit resolution, reject pro-Gibraltar hint

The Union Jack (L), the Gibraltarian flag (C) and the European Union flag are seen flying, at the border of Gibraltar with Spain, in front of the Rock in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, historically claimed by Spain April 3, 2017. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

By Francesco Guarascio

STRASBOURG (Reuters) – European Union lawmakers adopted a resolution on Wednesday setting their red lines for the two-year divorce talks with Britain and rejected attempts by British MEPs to recognize Gibraltar’s pro-EU stance in the Brexit referendum.

In a display of EU unity, the legislature’ text repeated the same priorities set by the EU summits’ chair Donald Tusk in his draft negotiating guidelines released last week.

The European Parliament wants talks on Britain’s future relations with the EU to start only after “substantial progress” is made on the bill for Brexit bill, on the Irish border, and on the rights of the 3 million EU citizens in Britain and the one million British residents in EU countries.

The text was backed by more than two-thirds of the deputies in the parliament, which will have to approve any deal with the United Kingdom.

Britain’s Under Secretary for Brexit Robin Walker said this was “a positive move” although Britain would prefer to start trade talks as soon as possible. He told reporters at the session in Strasbourg that Britain will also put citizens’ rights first in the Brexit process.

In a minor departure from Tusk’s text, the parliament’s resolution hinted at the possibility for Britain to reverse the Brexit process, stressing however that this would be possible only with the approval of all the remaining 27 member states.

“The door is open if Britain changes its mind,” Gianni Pittella, head of the center-left grouping, the second largest in the parliament, told reporters. The Greens expressed a similar wish.

The move was aimed at strengthening the hand of the 48 percent of Britons who voted against Brexit in last year’s referendum, but was opposed by the EU chief negotiator on Brexit, Michel Barnier, parliament officials said.

The conservative grouping, the largest in the legislature, tried to distance itself from such a statement, although they backed the resolution. “Leave means leave,” the conservatives’ leader Manfred Weber said.

The resolution also allowed transitional arrangements to smooth the UK’s departure, but they should not last more than three years. MEPs also insisted that at the end of the process Britain cannot expect better conditions than when it was an EU member.

GIBRALTAR

Lawmakers rejected two nearly identical amendments that would have added to the text a reference to Gibraltar’s pro-EU vote in last year’s Brexit referendum, a move meant to recall its residents back the EU but also prefer to remain in Britain.

The rocky British enclave on the southern Spain coast caused a harsh controversy after Tusk’s guidelines gave Madrid a say in the future relationship between Gibraltar and the EU after Britain leaves the bloc.

Gibraltar rejected the idea of Britain sharing sovereignty with Spain by 99 percent to 1 percent in a 2002 referendum, but voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the EU in last June’s Brexit vote.

The changes proposed by British Conservative lawmakers in the EU parliament and by a cross-party group of MEPs wanted to highlight that Gibraltar voted against Brexit.

They also wanted to add a reference to the enclave in a paragraph saying that a majority of electors in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU.

The main groupings in the parliament opposed this change because “we do not agree to give to the Gibraltar issue the same importance as Scotland’s and Northern Ireland’s”, a parliament official said.

Other amendments proposed by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) euroskeptic grouping, deploring Tusk’s guidelines on Gibraltar, were also widely rejected.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

UK and Swedish watchdogs warn of international cyber attack

A magnifying glass is held in front of a computer screen in this picture illustration taken in Berlin May 21, 2013. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A large-scale cyber attack from a group targeting organizations in Japan, the United States, Sweden and many other European countries through IT services providers has been uncovered, the Swedish computer security watchdog said on Wednesday.

The cyber attack, uncovered through a collaboration by Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre, PwC and cyber security firm BAE Systems, targeted managed service providers to gain access to their customers’ internal networks since at least May 2016 and potentially as early as 2014.

The exact scale of the attack, named Cloud Hopper from an organization called APT10, is not known but is believed to involve huge amounts of data, Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency said in a statement. The agency did not say whether the cyber attacks were still happening.

“The high level of digitalization in Sweden, along with the amount of services outsourced to managed service providers, means that there is great risk that several Swedish organizations are affected by the attacks,” the watchdog said.

The agency said those behind the attacks had used significant resources to identify their targets and sent sophisticated phishing e-mails to infect computers.

It also said Swedish IP addresses had been used to coordinate the incursions and retrieve stolen data and that APT10 specifically targeted IT, communications, healthcare, energy and research sectors.

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Editing by Niklas Pollard and Stephen Powell)

Germany balks at Tillerson demand for more European NATO spending

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. REUTERS/Yves Herman

By Lesley Wroughton and Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany said on Friday that NATO’s agreed target spend of two percent of members’ yearly economic output was neither “reachable nor desirable”, countering Washington’s demands that European partners comply and quickly.

The United States provides nearly 70 percent of NATO’s budget and is demanding that all allies make clear progress toward the agreed target this year. Only four European NATO members – Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain – have done so.

“Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don’t know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the first NATO meeting attended by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Tillerson, however, reiterated Washington’s demands and said the U.S. will push that agenda when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance. U.S. President Donald Trump will attend that meeting.

“Our goal should be to agree at the May Leaders meeting that by the end of the year all Allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how…the pledge will be fulfilled,” Tillerson said.

“Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. governments commitment.”

In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so “because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces”.

Members have until 2024 to comply with the spending target.

Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington’s commitment to NATO, softening Trump’s stance.

Trump has criticized NATO as “obsolete” and suggested Washington’s security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism.

“The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense,” Tillerson said at the meeting in Brussels. “We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were “rock solid”.

He said the ministers would discuss “fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong” and “stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism”.

Stoltenberg confirmed ministers would discuss national defense spending plans on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic, which has galvanized European NATO allies.

Though Washington has also offered reassurances, Tillerson’s initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers reopened questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to the alliance.

The meeting was later rescheduled and Tillerson was attending on Friday, though has not scheduled meetings with individual countries as is customary by the secretary of state during such a meeting.

(Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)

‘No turning back’: PM May triggers ‘historic’ Brexit

The Big Ben clock tower is seen in London, Britain March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

By Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Piper

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May formally began Britain’s divorce from the European Union on Wednesday, saying there was “no turning back” from a decision pitching her country into the unknown and triggering years of fraught negotiations.

Nine months after Britons voted to leave, May notified EU Council President Donald Tusk in a letter that Britain was quitting the bloc it joined in 1973.

“The United Kingdom is leaving the European Union,” May later told parliament in London. “This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back.”

The prime minister, an initial opponent of Brexit who won the top job in the political turmoil that followed the referendum vote, now has two years to settle the terms of the divorce before it comes into effect in late March 2019.

May, 60, has one of the toughest jobs of any recent British prime minister: holding Britain together in the face of renewed Scottish independence demands, while conducting arduous talks with 27 other EU states on finance, trade, security and other complex issues.

The outcome of the negotiations will shape the future of Britain’s $2.6 trillion economy, the world’s fifth biggest, and determine whether London can keep its place as one of the top two global financial centers.

For the EU, already reeling from successive crises over debt and refugees, the loss of Britain is the biggest blow yet to 60 years of efforts to forge European unity in the wake of two world wars.

Its leaders say they do not want to punish Britain. But with nationalist, anti-EU parties on the rise across Europe, they cannot afford to give London generous terms that might encourage other member states to break away.

BREXIT DIVORCE

May’s notice of the UK’s intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty was hand-delivered to Tusk in Brussels by Tim Barrow, Britain’s permanent representative to the EU.

Barrow gave the letter to Tusk, the EU summit chair and former Polish prime minister, in the Council President’s offices on the top floor of the new Europa Building, according to a Reuters photographer in the room.

That moment formally set the clock ticking on Britain’s two-year exit process. Sterling, which has lost 25 cents against the dollar since the June 23 referendum, jumped to $1.25.

May signed the Brexit letter on Tuesday, pictured alone at the cabinet table beneath a clock, a British flag and an oil-painting of Britain’s first prime minister, Robert Walpole.

BREXIT DEAL?

The 6-page letter set a positive tone for the talks though it admitted that the task of extracting the UK from the EU was momentous and that reaching comprehensive agreements within two years would be a challenge.

May wants to negotiate Britain’s divorce and the future trading relationship with the EU within the two-year period, though EU officials say that will be hard given the depth of the relationship.

“We believe it is necessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside those of our withdrawal from the EU,” May told Tusk in her letter, adding that London wanted an ambitious free trade agreement with the EU.

“If, however, we leave the European Union without an agreement the default position is that we would have to trade on World Trade Organization terms,” she said.

May has promised to seek the greatest possible access to European markets but said Britain was not seeking membership of the ‘single market’ of 500 million people as she understood there could be no “cherry picking” of a free trade area based on unfettered movement of goods, services, capital and people.

Britain will aim to establish its own free trade deals with countries beyond Europe, and impose limits on immigration from the continent, May has said.

In an attempt to start Brexit talks on a conciliatory note, May said she wanted a special partnership with the EU though she laced that ambition with an a clear linkage of the economic and security relationship.

EU leaders will welcome assurances of a constructive approach and appreciate a commitment to remain a close partner for the EU and to encourage its development, as well as an explicit recognition that Britain cannot retain the best bits of membership after leaving.

They may be less warm to an implication that Britain could live with a breakdown of talks on trade coupled with what might be seen as a threat to disrupt the security and counter-terrorism cooperation for which Britain, as a member of the U.S.-backed Anglophone Five Eyes system, is highly valued.

“We should work together to minimize disruption and give as much certainty as possible,” May said. “Weakening our cooperation for the prosperity and protection of our citizens would be a costly mistake.”

Tusk said the EU would seek to minimize the cost of Brexit to EU citizens and businesses and that Brussels wanted an orderly withdrawal for Britain.

“We already miss you,” Tusk said. “Thank you and goodbye.”

Within 48 hours, Tusk will send the 27 other states draft negotiating guidelines. He will outline his views in Malta, where he will be attending a congress of center-right leaders. Ambassadors of the 27 will then meet in Brussels to discuss Tusk’s draft.

“DAMN NARROW TIME-FRAME”

But the course of the Brexit talks – and even their scope – is uncertain.

“The time-frame is damn narrow,” said Martin Schaefer, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry.

A huge number of questions remain, including whether exporters will keep tariff-free access to the single market and whether British-based banks will still be able to serve continental clients, not to mention immigration and the future rights of EU citizens in the UK and Britons living in Europe.

One major uncertainty for May is who will be leading France and Germany, which both face elections this year.

“It’s bad news for everybody. It’s a wedge pushed into the European project,” said French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron, who has made clear he would ensure Britain gains no undue advantages outside the Union.

UNITED KINGDOM?

At home, a divided Britain faces strains that could lead to its break-up. In the Brexit referendum, England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

Scottish nationalists have demanded an independence referendum that May has refused. In Northern Ireland, rival parties are embroiled in a major political crisis and Sinn Fein nationalists are demanding a vote on leaving the UK and uniting with the Republic of Ireland.

May said she knew that triggering Brexit would be a day of celebration for some and disappointment for others.

“Now that the decision to leave has been made and the process is under way, it is time to come together,” she said.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald, Jan Strupczewski and Yves Herman in Brussels, Michel Rose in Paris and Kylie MacLellan, William James, Estelle Shirbon, Kate Holton, Paul Sandle and Anjuli Davies in London; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Peter Millership and Giles Elgood)

Wary of Trump, China launches EU charm offensive: diplomats

FILE PHOTO: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, left and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands before a meeting held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Tuesday, July 12, 2016. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool/File Photo

By Robin Emmott and Ben Blanchard

BRUSSELS/BEIJING (Reuters) – China has launched a charm offensive with the European Union since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, shifting its stance on trade negotiations and signaling closer cooperation on a range of other issues, European diplomats say.

European envoys in Brussels and Beijing sense a greater urgency from China to find allies willing to stand up for globalization amid fears Trump could undermine it with his protectionist “America First” policies.

“Trump is pushing China and Europe together,” said one Beijing-based diplomat, citing Chinese support for trade, combating climate change and the United Nations, all areas where the new U.S. president is seeking a change of tack.

Four senior EU diplomats and officials in close contact with the Chinese told Reuters they also see a chance for a breakthrough on business issues that have been moving slowly for years, including a special treaty to increase investment flows.

EU business groups are more skeptical, expressing growing dissatisfaction, like their U.S. counterparts, with limited market access in China and pressing for a firmer response.

Diplomats say one of the clearest outward signs of a change in tone in private diplomatic meetings has been China’s decision to drop its public campaign to be recognized by the European Union as an economy directed by the market, not the state.

The case is now being dealt with out of the limelight at the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, in what the diplomats said was a recognition by Beijing that too much pressure could provoke a protectionist backlash in Europe.

Market economy status would make it harder for the European Union to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese imports that Brussels judges as unfairly cheap.

“The market economy status issue, if it is raised at all now, is being discussed at a very low working level,” the diplomat said. “That is part of the charm offensive.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the issue was still a priority for Beijing, while also noting China’s interest in having the EU as a strong partner.

“We hope that the EU can genuinely place an importance on China’s reasonable concerns and interests,” Hua said.

China has told European officials it wants to bring forward its annual summit with the European Union from its usual July date, Reuters reported in February. The diplomats said efforts to find a suitable early date were continuing.

The summit is a way, they said, for China to press home President Xi Jinping’s message at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, a vigorous defense of open trade and global ties.

INVESTMENT TEST

European companies doing business in China say they have yet to see the change of style translating into less protectionism from Beijing.

But it contrasts sharply with a tense 2016 in which an EU-China summit, overshadowed by an international court ruling that China’s claims to the South China Sea were unlawful, ended without the usual joint statement.

Trump has changed China’s calculations, diplomats said.

During his presidential campaign, Trump frequently accused China of keeping its currency artificially low against the dollar to make Chinese exports cheaper, “stealing” American manufacturing jobs.

He also aims to reverse former President Barack Obama’s anti-fossil fuel strategy that China backed as it seeks to deal with a devastating smog crisis at home.

The Trump administration has said Xi is expected to meet Trump on April 6-7 at the U.S. leader’s Mar-a-Lago resort in the United States, although Beijing has not confirmed the talks. A Chinese diplomat said Beijing was looking for “predictability” from Trump.

The European Union remains cautious about the direction of its second-largest trading partner, concerned by China’s massive steel exports, its militarization of islands in the South China Sea and a turn toward greater authoritarianism under Xi.

But it is looking to a bilateral investment treaty to make it easier for European companies to do business in China and remove onerous rules forcing them to share know-how.

Chinese direct investment in the European Union jumped by 77 percent last year to more than 35 billion euros ($38 billion), compared to 2015, while EU acquisitions in China fell for the second consecutive year, according to the Rhodium Group.

That illustrates the imbalance in investment between the world’s two largest markets, including, on the EU side, Britain, where the government is pinning its hopes on a free trade deal with China as it splits from the rest of the bloc.

An investment treaty would go some way to quiet criticism in Europe of such unequal ties but the talks, which started in 2013, require Beijing to open sensitive sectors like technology and financial services to private firms free of the state.

China’s central bank governor Zhou Xiochuan indicated on Sunday a substantial number of sectors would be opened up while adding “we want China to get fair treatment overseas”.

One Chinese diplomat said the European Union was being “too ambitious”. Formal mention of the proposed China-EU treaty has been struck from Premier Li Keqiang’s work report this year, which diplomats said risked confusing Beijing’s message.

“We had hoped President Xi’s speech in Davos would elevate us from rhetoric about equal treatment toward a tangible commitment to walk the talk,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China.

Duncan Freeman, a China expert at the College of Europe university in Belgium, said the treaty touched on the fundamentals of how the economy worked. “That makes it very, very difficult for the Chinese side to discuss,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in Beijing; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Germany tells Turkey not to spy on Turks living on its soil

Turkish voters living in Germany wait to cast their ballots on the constitutional referendum at the Turkish consulate in Berlin, Germany, March 27, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Madeline Chambers

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany will not tolerate foreign espionage on its territory, the interior minister said on Tuesday, in a robust response to media reports that Turkish secret services were spying on supporters of the Gulen movement in Germany.

Fethullah Gulen, a U.S-based Muslim cleric with a large following in Turkey, is accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed military coup last July. Ankara has purged state institutions, schools and universities and the media of tens of thousands of suspected supporters of the cleric.

The media reports of Turkish espionage in Germany have deepened a rift between the NATO allies in the run-up to a referendum next month in Turkey that proposes to significantly expand the powers of President Tayyip Erdogan.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency had given Germany’s foreign intelligence service a list of names of hundreds of supposed Gulen supporters living in Germany.

Interior Minster Thomas de Maiziere, speaking in Passau in southern Germany, said he was not surprised by the report and added that the lists would be looked at individually.

“We have told Turkey several times that such (activity) is not acceptable,” he said. “Regardless of what you think of the Gulen movement, German law applies here and citizens who live here won’t be spied on by foreign states,” he said.

The reports said the list included the names of more than 300 people and more than 200 associations, schools and other institutions and a German investigation indicated some of the photos may have been taken secretly.

WARNING

The northern state of Lower Saxony even said it was warning suspected Gulen movement supporters about possible reprisals if they traveled to their homeland.

“I think that is a justified and necessary measure to be able to warn people,” said state interior minister Boris Pistorius. “The intensity and ruthlessness being (used) on people living on foreign soil is remarkable.”

Concerns about Turkish spying are not confined to Germany.

Swedish public service radio broadcaster SR reported that Turkey’s ruling AK Party was putting pressure, via the Union of European Turkish Democrats, on Swedish Gulen supporters to supply information about fellow Gulen supporters in the country.

Germany is already investigating possible spying by Turkish imams in Germany.. A spokesman for the chief federal prosecutor’s office said that probe continued.

German politicians, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, are angry about Erdogan’s repeated comparisons of their country to Nazi Germany in response to cancellations of planned campaign events targeting the Turkish diaspora in Germany. Germany says the cancellations were prompted by security concerns.

The speaker of the Bundestag lower house of parliament said in a speech late on Monday that Turkey was turning into an authoritarian system and that its president was effectively staging a coup against his own country.

Norbert Lammert, a member of Merkel’s conservatives, said the referendum was about “transforming an undoubtedly fragile but democratic system into an authoritarian system – and this second coup attempt may well be successful”.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, Reuters TV, Andrea Shalal, Hans-Edzard Busemann and Daniel Dixon in Stockholm; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Austria says wants exemption from EU migrant relocation system

Migrants wait to cross the border from Slovenia into Spielfeld in Austria, February 16, 2016. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger

VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers under an EU relocation system, it said on Tuesday, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe’s migration crisis.

The move is a new blow to the system that would cover only a fraction of migrant arrivals to the European Union and that has barely been implemented because of opposition led by Eastern European countries including Poland and Hungary.

It also coincides with a tightening of security and immigration rules by the centrist coalition government in Austria, where a wave of arrivals that began in 2015 helped fuel a rise in support for the far-right Freedom Party, which still leads in opinion polls.

“We believe an exception is necessary for Austria for having already fulfilled its obligation. We will discuss that with the European Commission,” Chancellor Christian Kern told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. “We will send a letter as quickly as possible and then begin discussions.”

Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers have been relocated from Greece and Italy, the first EU countries that many refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa set foot in, under the two-year EU plan that was supposed to cover 160,000 people and which expires in September.

“We are of the opinion … that the people in question here already sought an asylum application or arrived in Italy or Greece,” Kern said. “We must check whether we have already fulfilled our quota and discharged our obligation.”

Austria took in roughly 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more than 1 percent of its population. More than a million migrants arrived in Germany that year, most of them having passed through Austria after crossing the Balkans from Greece.

Austria has repeatedly called on other EU countries to take their fair share, and has even backed the idea of financial penalties for those that do not.

The Commission granted Austria a temporary exception because of the large number of people it had taken in, but that has since expired.

“Austria is now expected to fulfill its legal obligation … to start relocating,” Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said.

The government has been seeking to erode support for the Freedom Party with a series of law-and-order measures and stricter immigration rules.

An “integration bill” agreed in cabinet on Tuesday would ban face-veils in public places and oblige unemployed refugees to perform jobs “of public utility” for no pay beyond their normal benefit payments.

(Reporting by Francois Murphy; additional reporting by Waverly Colville in Brussels; Editing by Catherine Evans and Robin Pomeroy)

Erdogan says Turkey will review EU ties after April referendum

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets his supporters during a ceremony in Eskisehir, Turkey, March 17, 2017. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Palace/Handout via REUTERS

By Ece Toksabay and Nick Tattersall

ANKARA/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will review all political and administrative ties with the European Union after an April referendum, including a deal to curb illegal migration, but will maintain economic relations with the bloc, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

In an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk, Erdogan said everything “from A to Z” in Turkey’s relations with Europe would be reviewed after the April 16 referendum on constitutional changes that would extend his powers.

He also said he would meet “face to face” with the new U.S. administration in May. The relationship between Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump, both populist leaders, will be closely watched, with ties between the NATO allies deeply strained.

Turkey has been incensed by U.S. support for a Kurdish militia in Syria it sees as a terrorist group, and by the continued presence in the United States of Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric Ankara blames for a failed coup last July and wants extradited.

Turkey’s relations with the European Union have meanwhile become particularly acrimonious after Germany and the Netherlands canceled planned campaign rallies on their territory by Turkish officials seeking to drum up support for a “yes” vote in the April referendum.

Both cited security concerns for their decision, but Erdogan has accused them of using “Nazi methods” and trampling on free speech. He made no apology on Thursday for the comparison.

“You get disturbed when we say it is fascism, it’s Nazism, but what you are doing fits in that definition,” he said.

Erdogan said European countries were allowing events for the “no” campaign while banning Turkish officials from rallying his supporters. He accused Germany of supporting terrorism and said he had no plans to visit the country before the referendum, contrary to some recent media reports.

The European Commission earlier said it had summoned the Turkish ambassador to explain comments by Erdogan that Europeans would not be able to “walk safely on the streets” if they kept up their current attitude toward Turkey.

Despite the row, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said during a trip to Athens on Thursday that communication channels between the EU and Turkey must remain open.

The row has placed Europe in an awkward position with Ankara, which has seen its decades-old bid to join the bloc move at snail’s pace due to concerns over its human rights record, ethnically-split Cyprus, and reluctance among some European countries to admit a largely Muslim nation.

Turkey is an integral part of a deal to keep hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing the Middle East and beyond from moving to Europe, in return for 3 billion euros ($3.23 billion) in EU financial aid to Ankara.

Erdogan also said a U.S. and British ban on devices bigger than a cellphone in the cabin on flights from several countries including Turkey had damaged mutual confidence and said he hoped the mistake would be corrected soon.

Turkish Airlines, which is 49 percent state-owned, could be particularly hit by the restrictions. More than half of its international passengers are transit customers who could instead travel through Europe or other hubs.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)