Friday, June 08, 2018

A ‘VERY, VERY GOOD THOUGHT’: U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson praised Donald Trump and appeared to be much inspired by the U.S. president’s style of doing politics. “Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Johnson told fellow guests at the Conservative Way Forward dinner on Wednesday night. “He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.” And that’s not all Johnson revealed, according to a leaked recording obtained by BuzzFeed. Bon, now you know.

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING. After months of infighting over how to honor a political commitment to the EU without losing the DUP’s backing or splitting the Conservative Party, the British government has looked up again to see if the EU’s still there. It is, and was so happy to hear from London again that it wasn’t even harsh (with the exception of Guy Verhofstadt.) More on Brexit below.

MEANWHILE, IN CANADA: As leaders began flying in on Thursday for the G7 summit, it was clear this year’s meeting could be renamed the G6 vs. 1. French President Emmanuel Macron, who stopped off in Ottawa to visit Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday ahead of the summit, spent much of a press conference answering questions about Trump. Macron said the G7 were stronger together, and that Trump risked damaging the reputation of the U.S., but he also said the six were willing to stand apart. “Maybe the American president does not mind being isolated,” Macron said. “We do not mind being six if need be.” David Herszenhorn reports from Quebec.

And in the US: Trump fired shots at Trudeau and Macron on Twitter, accusing them of “charging the U.S. massive tariffs.” He added that he looked forward to seeing them at the G7 summit. Later, the White House announced Trump would be leaving the G7 meeting early and heading directly to Singapore, the site of his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

STICKS AND CARROTS

POLAND VISIT: Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans will visit Poland next week, hoping to make progress in the dispute over the country’s judicial laws, he told the College of Commissioners earlier this week, participants told Playbook. He’s got a stick in his bag — the Commission urged EU countries to press forward with disciplinary action — but there’s a carrot, too.

Infringement to be called off: The decision to ask EU ambassadors to push for a hearing seemed to reflect a consensus that Poland has simply not made sufficient concessions to end the Article 7 procedure. But the Commission might let Poland off the hook in a related issue and close a pending case before the European Court of Justice. That case focuses on the retirement age for judges and the justice minister’s discretion over the removal or nomination of court presidents. On both issues, Timmermans may be satisfied with legislative action taken in Poland since Mateusz Morawiecki took over as prime minister. Timmermans will report back to the Commission, which stands ready to end that infringement procedure.

Détente: The Commission “would take a decision concerning the possibility to close the infringement procedure (withdrawal from the court) opened against Poland,” according to the conclusions circulated to participants after a meeting of heads of Cabinets on Monday, which Playbook has seen. That foreshadows a part-détente — foreseen for later in June — in a procedure where the political stakes are lower, and may pave the way for a face-saving solution (for both the Commission vs. Poland and Juncker vs. Timmermans).

US RETURNS STOLEN COLUMBUS LETTER TO SPAIN.

THE YOUNG LIONS ROAR (AND BITE)

KURZ TALKS BORDER PROTECTION: Over the past two days, both Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel fell into Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s more radical line on migration. So Kurz went even further at the EPP group’s meeting in Munich on Thursday. He called for a stronger, “proper political mandate” for the EU’s coast and border guard agency (aka Frontex) that allows for operations way outside the EU’s territory and waters.

“Frontex has to be allowed to engage in cooperation with third countries,” Kurz said. “It must be possible to prevent boats from leaving. it must be possible to take care of people at the external border.” He added that “if we don’t provide Frontex with another mandate, all the money and personnel is of no use.”

Kurz also called for a faster rollout of the Commission’s plans to increase staff at the coast guard to 10,000. “Please, let’s not do this by 2027, let’s do it faster,” he said, as voters aren’t willing to wait. “Unregulated immigration, no protection of the external border — that is the beginning of the end of a Europe without internal borders. I do not want to experience that,” he told MEPs.

Imagine for a moment you’re Sebastian Kurz. At 31, you’ve turned your party upside down and become chancellor of your country. You must be puzzled that, within two years, you’ve become mainstream within the Christian Democratic party family. Still, the establishment sees you as the enfant prodige, on your way to finding your place and your role. Would you accept advice on how to move, or not to, in European affairs?

PRESIDENCY CLASH: Participants of a meeting between the (full) Austrian government and the College of Commissioners on Wednesday were baffled about the tense atmosphere of the tête-à-tête, organized ahead of Austria taking the rotating EU Council presidency. One participant told me the discussion was “constructive” and “honest” — a euphemistic phrase for trouble brewing between the Commission and the incoming Council presidency. Another called the meeting “lively” — certainly not a word you’d use to describe the usual courtesy visit for political smalltalk, but rather for a proper clash. Case in point: There was no tweet by Kurz to declare the success of the visit (which is now expected after such summits).

Show me the money: Jean-Claude Juncker had, according to participants’ accounts, a ras-le-bol moment when the Austrian side criticized Brussels’ administrative spending. In response, Juncker pointed to his pay slips as Luxembourg’s prime minister, when he made more money than he does as Commission president. He also gave an unsolicited lesson on how not to conduct budget negotiations, especially if you’re about to take on the Council presidency: avoid doing it like this (by describing Brussels’ plans as an “attack” on a particular national interest). The Austrians, in return, offered Juncker a lesson on how not to convince disruptors to fall into line with the old-school political establishment.

Let’s see who will adapt to whom. Show’s on from July 1. Order the popcorn now, and don’t be surprised if the young lions — and make no mistake, Kurz isn’t the only one — want the next Commission president to be one of their own.

JOBS JOBS JOBS — FOR KURZ: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new ambition to wrap up the multiannual financial framework by mid-2019 has a crucial implication: If it gets on board, the Austrian presidency — from its team on the ground in Brussels to the chancellor himself — would have to work like mad in the next six months to make it happen.

BUT BACK TO THE YOUTHQUAKE: The recent wave of younger leaders — Ireland’s Leo Varadkar, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Austria’s Kurz, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Italy’s Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini — has brought the average age of Europe’s national leaders under 50 for the first time in memory. Ryan Heath maps the new crop and the crumbling center for POLITICO’s latest power matrix.

YOUTHQUAKE ANTIDOTE: Not quite a spring chicken, 51-year-old Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has emerged as the most prominent liberal voice on the European Council — and a top contender to replace Donald Tusk as its president in 2019. Naomi O’Leary profiles him.

OVER TO YOU, BRUSSELS

BREXIT BREAKTHROUGH: It took a few months and David Davis threatening to resign (though he won’t) for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May to get a compromise over her government’s offer to Brussels on the pressing Northern Ireland question. A deal has been reached, and here it is: The U.K. government’s alternative “backstop” proposal to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit is a 6-page “technical note” on the temporary customs arrangement.

“She got there in the end — and just about held the line,” POLITICO’s Tom McTague and Charlie Cooper write. After a tortuous 24 hours of back and forth with her Brexit secretary, “May emerged Thursday lunchtime with an Irish ‘backstop’ plan for Brussels which Downing Street hopes will form the beginning of a breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations. And she got there without any Cabinet resignations. Yet.”

The British proposal says the backstop “should be time-limited” and only in place until the deep, special, far-reaching and wonderful future customs relationship the U.K. hopes to negotiate with the EU is in place. It says the U.K. “expects” that this “future arrangement” will be in place “by the end of December 2021 at the latest,” one year after the end of the transition period. Bottom line is that May more or less got what she wanted: an offer that she feels stands at least a chance of a hearing in Brussels.

Will that be good enough for the EU, where they don’t feel like giving the British leverage in the negotiations about the future? Wait for a Barnier press conference today in Brussels for the answer.

LE MAIRE RESPONDS TO MERKEL

French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire will today deliver a speech in Berlin and respond to Angela Merkel’s FAZ interview from Sunday. We got a preview of some of the key elements of the speech …

On why the eurozone needs a budget: “Because monetary policy cannot do everything,” Le Maire will say. “Member states must start by cleaning their own houses.”

On populism: “Anyone who thinks that European integration is an unalterable and definitive achievement is mistaken. No political construction remains unchanged. No political construction survives without fully measuring the determination of its adversaries, both external and internal. These adversaries now have a face: nationalism. They have strengths: the populist parties. They have one ambition: the destruction of the European dream.”

On eurozone solidarity: “Solidarity does not mean laxity. Building European solidarity does not mean accepting stowaways within the eurozone. Solidarity means the ability to pull towards economic performance all the states that have decided to link their monetary destinies and therefore to renounce the facility of competitiveness through devaluation.”

On trade solidarity: “European states have a historic choice to make: react or suffer. Defend their economic interests collectively or negotiate them separately, with the certainty of weakening them. Build a fairer and more efficient economic order, based on multilateral regulation, or let China and the United States crush them. You can count on Europe’s total solidarity, which will continue to defend a united position.”

LATEST GLOBAL POLICY LAB: Pierre Briançon analyzes Merkel’s interview and the challenges facing the EU’s monetary union in his latest Global Policy Lab newsletter.

QUOTABLE

“I don’t think I have to prepare very much. It’s about attitude, it’s about willingness to get things done. So this isn’t a question of preparation, it’s a question of whether or not people want it to happen, and we’ll know that very quickly.” — Donald Trump speaking about his June 12 meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.