Discussions between UK & EU in relation to Gibraltar have taken place

Discussions on the negotiation of the proposed Treaty between the United Kingdom and the European Union in relation to Gibraltar have taken place in Madrid on Friday 7 May.

The Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister were accompanied by the Attorney General, Michael Llamas.

In answer to GBC questions, the Chief Minister said he was as always, very pleased to be back on the Rock. He said this is an ongoing process with the Gibraltar Government in very close contact with the UK and Spanish negotiating teams as they prepare for the next stage.

Fabian Picardo added they were optimistic this will lead to the treaty negotiations that will be of benefit to everyone in this region.

Source: gbc

Brexit was just the start! Finnish MEP says her country needs to quit "imperial" EU

Laura Huhtasaari was speaking the day after Brussels was accused of trying to "bully" Finland into ratifying its £650billion coronavirus recovery fund amid suggestions the Scandinavian country's legislature might refuse to do so. With a two-thirds majority required, Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin remains confident she will secure an agreement - but nevertheless sought advice from European Council's legal team this week about what happens if it gets blocked. Ms Huhtasaari, a member of the right-wing Finns party, is a staunch critic of the EU who believes her country should follow the UK's example - and said the events of this week had reinforced her views still further. She told Express.co.uk: "It is important to understand that the EU is an imperial project, which aims to impose centrally made decisions on all its member states. However, the project about the creation of a real sovereign EU state is still incomplete." She explained: "On the one hand, the EU member states still have legal independence to turn down federalist initiatives, on the other hand, that would cause economic and political crises, as is the case with the EU Recovery Fund. As a result, the EU routinely puts pressure on the member states to stick to the one and only centrally determined EU policy line", Ms Huhtasaari said. She added: "In this case it is Finland, which has to experience that its sovereignty has been restricted, de facto." Ms Huhtasaari warned: "Finnish people should understand that the EU membership is incompatible with Finland's real independence and sovereignty, and therefore even with a real democracy. The UK citizens, who voted for Brexit, had recognised this profoundly. In my view, we should follow the path chosen by them prepare to withdraw from the EU." Some Finnish politicians have voiced concerns about the package of measures, which critics fear will trigger runaway public spending in countries in the south of the bloc, especially Spain and Italy, with members of the EU27 jointly responsible for the resulting debts. EU lawyers yesterday said failure to ratify the agreement would simply lead to "unprecedented reputation damage and political pressure on that member state", with no plan B in place, Finnish broadcaster YLE reported. However, Wolfgang Munchau, of Euro Intelligence, suggested Brussels' hardline approach could backfire. The move by EU lawyers could prompt a no vote in Finland. He said: "The EU is trying to bully a reluctant Finland into ratifying the recovery fund, for which a two-thirds majority is needed in the parliament. I think this is counter-productive - possibility in the short-run, certainly in the long-run." The £650billion funds will be distributed in the form of non-repayable grants and low-cost loans to the areas and industries which have been most heavily impacted by the pandemic. The European Commission has been granted massive borrowing, taxation and spending powers enabling it to run up £351billion in joint debt. The money will be paid out as part of an overall package totalling £1.6trillion which includes the bloc's next seven-year budget. France's President Emmanuel Macron is a driving force behind the recovery plan, having welcomed it as the biggest boost to EU integration since the introduction of the euro in 1999.

Laura Huhtasaari

Daily Express

Coronavirus: The world can’t afford to let India face crisis alone

INDIA’S deadly second wave is continuing to worsen, with daily new cases consistently exceeding 300,000 and deaths now having surpassed 3,000 a day.

Hospitals are running out of intensive care beds and many are critically short of oxygen for treating patients.

Alarmingly, a lack of high-quality real-time data means that we don’t actually have a clear picture of just how bad the situation currently is, writes Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health at the University of Southampton. The proportion of people in India returning a positive result when tested is 18 per cent – nearly double the World Health Organisation’s target threshold of 10%. This suggests a large number of positive cases are going unrecorded, meaning the outbreak is actually larger than the numbers suggest. It’s also highly worrying for the rest of the world. This surge in cases could well stand in the way of ramping up protection using vaccines. India is the world’s largest vaccine producer, creating doses not just for itself but for other countries too – including the UK. It also provides doses for Covax, the initiative set up to distribute vaccines equitably around the world. But when domestic infections started to surge last month, India blocked most of its vaccine exports – and there’s no indication of when these might resume. Rapidly rising case numbers have also given the B1617 variant – which was first discovered in India – the chance to spread. It’s now been found in 17 countries. Although yet to be confirmed, there are concerns that the mutations it carries may make it less susceptible to the effect of vaccines. The sheer volume of new cases in India also raises the risk that other, troublesome variants might emerge down the line, as mutations are generated by chance when the virus replicates. As India faces this crisis, countries around the world are donating supplies and money. However, donations of vaccines to India have been less forthcoming, despite calls for countries with high vaccination rates to share their supplies. Foreign Office minister Nigel Adams has said the UK will only do so when it has a surplus of vaccines. The US has pledged to send 60 million AstraZeneca doses overseas, but in the future, “as they become available”. India is far from the only country that would benefit from this sort of sharing. After a great start, Ghana’s vaccine programme has fallen off the pace, writes Nana Kofi Quakyi, Research Fellow at New York University. To a large extent, this is a direct effect of India’s second wave. The African Union and Covax are two of Ghana’s main vaccine suppliers, and both receive their doses from the Serum Institute of India. Restriction of its exports has caused Ghana’s supplies to dwindle.

Coronavirus: The world can’t afford to let India face crisis alone

South Africa’s Covid-19 vaccine programme also looks bleak, says Veronica Ueckermann, Adjunct Professor at the University of Pretoria. At its current vaccination pace, it will take over a decade to reach herd immunity. Again, this is largely down to access – South Africa has struggled to get doses – though there have been problems with the vaccines it has procured, too. Use of the AstraZeneca vaccine was halted when data suggested it was less effective against the dominant variant in the South Africa, B1351. Rollout of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was also paused while blood clot risks were investigated, though with the US clearing the vaccine for use, South Africa has now restarted the rollout by giving it to health workers. But even with restrictions lifted and India’s exports potentially flowing again in the future, developing countries will still be left short of what they need. One solution, suggest Etienne Billette de Villemeur, Bruno Versaevel and Vianney Dequiedt, would be to get vaccine manufacturers to offer “voluntary licences” for key parts of their products, so that developing countries can make their own vaccines for a low price. However, so far the pool of Covid-19 technologies licensed in this way remains empty.

Source: The Herald