Thursday
21st Sep 2017
By EUOBSERVER
Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi told Rai television on Thursday that his cabinet will, on 26 September, set the date for a referendum on his government's constitutional reform, limiting the powers of the Senate and making it easier to pass legislation. Renzi has earlier threatened that he would resign as prime minister if he loses the referendum, prompting elections that could see the anti-euro Five Star party take power.
A day before UK PM Theresa May sets out her Brexit strategy in Florence, top EU negotiator Michel Barnier told lawmakers in Rome: there can be no transitional deal for the UK without a withdrawal agreement.
Faced with the growing tension between the Spanish and Catalan governments, the member states and EU institutions would prefer not to get involved.
In the year 2015 alone, the EU spent a total €1.2 billion in grants in order to support European NGOs, which lobby the EU institutions.
The EU commission published a paper that outlined several options on how to increase tax income from internet companies' activities, but fell short of proposing legislation.
Industry commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska often finds herself on opposite sides to the car industry, referring to diesel engines as the "technology of the past".
The number of asylum seekers "in limbo" in the EU is likely to be greater than the combined populations of Cyprus and Malta, estimates indicate.
