Le Big Mac: Emmanuel Macron’s rise and rise By Lara Marlowe

Photo Credit: French President Emmanuel Macron
www.liberation.fr

President Emmanuel Macron likes to convince people. In manner and method, he is unlike his predecessors. Nicolas Sarkozy cajoled and bullied. François Hollande just gave up. Macron fixes interlocutors with his intense blue stare and builds a Cartesian argument. If that doesn’t work, he starts over, patiently, but with determination. The past week has tested the young president’s powers of persuasion. Early in the hours of April 14th, Macron used his constitutional power as commander in chief for the first time, joining the US and Britain in launching cruise missiles against three chemical weapons installations in Syria. The goal, Macron said later, was to convince Bashar al Assad and Vladimir Putin that the international community was more than a “nice” and “weak” body they could push around. In a further exercise in persuasion, Macron volunteered for a combative, 2½ hour live television interview on Sunday night, during which he made the surprising claim that, “Ten days ago, President Trump said the US would pull out of Syria. We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the duration.” The White House later issued a statement saying Trump’s view had not changed, and the French president made an embarrassing climbdown on Monday, claiming he “never said” the US or France would remain militarily engaged in Syria for the long term. Perhaps Macron, whose nickname is “Jupiter”, is threatened by hubris, the sin of pride that afflicted Greek gods. The rest of the week was one long attempt to convince Europeans and the French of the rightness of his positions. Macron – who has become the de facto leader of Europe – received the heads of the three Baltic states who have teamed up with five other northern EU countries, including the Netherlands and Ireland, to thwart his efforts to further integrate the euro zone. Then, before a more sympathetic audience at the EU parliament in Strasbourg, Macron pleaded with proponents of liberal democracy to wake up and oppose the populist authoritarians who deny European values. Macron then travelled to Berlin in yet another effort to enlist German chancellor Angela Merkel’s support for his European reform agenda. On Monday, Macron will go to Washington for a three-day state visit, the first of Trump’s presidential term. Although the two men have clashed on climate change, the Iran nuclear accord, trade protectionism and the rise of Eurosceptical populism, Trump appears to have been charmed by the young president, who says Franco-American co-operation is crucial in the fight against terrorism. The Irish Times

Irish port to be European shipping hub after Brexit By Philip Ryan

The Port of Foynes is to become Europe's gateway to the US under a radical new Government initiative aimed at capitalising on Britain's decision to leave the EU. The move would see the port in Limerick developed into a shipping hub to rival Rotterdam Port in Holland, the central destination for European freight companies shipping goods to the US. Central to the plan is a proposal to base US custom officials in Foynes who could give pre-clearance to cargo ships. It is hoped the redeveloped port would also reduce costs for Irish manufacturers shipping produce to America and Continental Europe, and create thousands of new jobs. The project is being proposed by Denis Naughten, Minister for Communications, Climate Change and Natural Resources, who said there is a "huge opportunity" to develop the port into a hub for shipping in Europe and attract investment for Limerick. "Rotterdam is becoming hugely congested as the main port of Europe and there is potential to develop on the western seaboard a major port at Foynes that would act as a transit point for freight to and from North America," Mr Naughten told the Sunday Independent. "My suggestion is to do what we have done for passengers and have pre-clearance for large freight out of Foynes into the United States. "Freight would come into Foynes, get scanned there, get certified and can land in New York and it is the same as an internal shipment," he added. The Minister said a so-called 'hard Brexit' - as is being proposed by UK Prime Minister Theresa May - will result in EU border checks which will drive up costs for freight companies shipping out of Britain into Europe. Ireland could become a more attractive destination for companies shipping from outside the EU into Central Europe through Britain. However, Mr Naughten believes the redeveloped port would also attract business from within Europe. "It's not just from a Brexit point of view, this is an opportunity of attracting industry in from right across Europe that are exporting into the US," he said. "Our second biggest export destination is the US. The reality is post-Brexit exports into the UK are going to be put under pressure so this is an opportunity to make a new market and make it far more efficient for the export of goods." The Irish Independent

Belarus elected to host 2019 European Games

MINSK, 21 October (BelTA) – Belarus was given the right to host the Second European Games in 2019 after a vote at the 45th General Assembly of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) in Minsk on 21 October, BelTA has learned. Belarus received a majority of vote. Now, Belarus needs to set up an organizing committee and compile a plan for the sport forum in close cooperation with the corresponding EOC commissions. The First European Games were held in Azerbaijan on 12-28 June 2015. Belarus won 43 (10 gold, 11 silver and 22 bronze) medals to place seventh in the medal table. Belarus News European Games

US support for Caspian gas to Europe project crucial – Azerbaijan

The Southern Gas Corridor project aimed at delivering Azerbaijan’s natural gas to Europe wouldn’t have advanced without strong US backing, according to Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. “We are very grateful to the government of United States for its strong support in implementing this project,” said Aliyev during a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry at the White House. Aliyev added that it would have needed more time and effort to get the project going without US support. Azerbaijan is rich in natural gas and is seen as an alternative European supplier in an energy sector dominated by Russia. It could boost energy efficiency and security. Several arteries dubbed the Southern Gas Corridor aim to deliver Azeri natural gas from the Shah Deniz basin in the Caspian Sea. Last month US Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein discussed the project with regional energy ministers and representatives from the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan during a visit to Baku. Hochstein stressed that the project is a “long-standing” priority for the US government. “This is a very important step with respect to Europe's long-term strategic interests, and frankly, to try to diversify the sourcing of energy, which is important,” confirmed the US Secretary of State. The Southern Gas Corridor to enable Central Asian countries to export gas to Europe was proposed in 2008. The pipelines intend to connect southeastern Europe with the Caspian region and potentially the Middle East. The cost of the project is estimated at $45 billion with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Egypt, Uzbekistan and Iran attracted as partners. The first gas supplies are expected to reach Turkey next year with gas delivered to Europe in 2019. Europe renewed its interest in the project to reduce dependence on Russia as its key gas supplier and Ukraine as the main transit country after Russia suspended the $50 billion South Stream gas pipeline. RT Photo

8,500 kilos of Dutch cheese was stolen from dairy farms last year

The weight of cheese stolen from dairy farms in the Netherlands last year was around 8,500 kilos, with a value of €90,000, the NRC says on Friday. At the end of last year it emerged cheese had been stolen from three dairy farms in Brabant. However, the NRC has identified a further six cheese heists, including the theft of 200 cheeses from a farm in Gelderland, with a value of €25,000. Cheese has to ripen for at least 10 months before it can be categorised as ‘old’, when it is most valuable. The loss of the cheese has had a serious impact on the farms, which have their own pool of dedicated customers, the paper says.
Eastern Europe
The farmers themselves suspect the cheese has ended up in eastern Europe, although there is only anecdotal evidence of this. Cheese traders have been alerted to be on the look out for the stolen dairy product. Each wheel is stamped with a serial number. ‘It’s speculation, but I think they have gone to the Russian market,’ Irene van de Voort, chairman of the farm dairy board, told the paper. ‘Not much cheese is being sent there because of the boycott. It’s a rare product and that drives prices up, so would explain the current spate of thefts.’ DutchNews Photo

A toast to Europe and its ideals By Jonathan Eyal

LONDON • The Romans had a word for it: "annus horribilis", a horrible year. And that certainly has been Europe's fate this year, as the continent was hit by one crisis after another. Potential bankruptcy for some of the European Union's member states, millions of refugees pouring in through borders that nobody seems able to enforce, squabbles between EU countries, deadly terrorist attacks perpetrated by Europeans against their own countrymen and racist politicians on the march - Europe experienced just about every disaster this year. The latest edition of Foreign Affairs, the magazine that serves as a bible to armchair strategists, decries the "European disunion", while a lengthy recent article in The New York Times, another point of reference for global analysts, wonders whether Europe's political system is now so dysfunctional that the continent has "reached a breaking point", the sort of question which, of course, The New York Times seldom asks about the United States. First, a few statistics to serve as a reminder of the place that Europe actually occupies on the global stage. It is still the world's wealthiest continent. Four of the world's top 10 economies are European, compared with three in the same category for Asia. And although its share of both world trade and wealth has declined over the past few decades - not because the EU's overall economy has shrunk, but because other economies have grown faster - Europe is still the world's largest trader, accounting for around 15 per cent of global trade. One would be tempted to assume that much of the trade is in old wines, smelly cheeses and expensive handbags, the sort of stereotype goods for which Europe is known. But one would be dead wrong: Around 40 per cent of European exports are composed of top-notch machinery items, precision instruments and transportation equipment. If this is a continent on its death knell, then one would wish others no worse fate. The EU remains a good "global citizen" in many other respects. It provides more than half of all the world's official development assistance. Only five countries in the world have actually met the pledge that countries gave to the United Nations to devote 0.7 per cent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to aid, and all these five are European nations. In the throes of its worst recession since World War II, Britain zoomed up to the top of the development aid donors' list, worldwide; that's not an indication of either a nation with an "insular" outlook, or an isolationist continent. It could be argued that trade is more effective than aid in alleviating global poverty. But here again, Europe trumps. If trade in fuels is excluded, the EU imports more from developing countries than the US, Canada, Japan and China put together - another fact that Europe's detractors routinely ignore. The enduring problems surrounding the operation of the euro, the continent's single currency, are clearly a matter of global concern, if only because the euro is the second-largest reserve currency in the world and now surpasses the US dollar in the combined value of cash in circulation. So, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde was undoubtedly right when she recently pointed out that many of the problems which contributed to the euro crisis have yet to be addressed, and that the slowing world economy raises the possibility of further pressures on the euro next year. The Straits Times Photo

Percent of Youth Without Jobs in Europe

A reason why international students are learning German in Germany with the hopes to land a job in Germany.