European Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan insisted there would be no deal with Mercosur unless negotiators are fully satisfied strong standards will apply to all produce. It comes as another round of the negotiations on Mercosur got under way in Brussels this week.
The Democratic Unionist Party has warned UK Prime Minister Theresa May it will bring down her government if Northern Ireland is forced to stay inside the EU customs union and single market after Brexit. The renewed threat comes ahead of a vote by British MPs, pushed for by pro-EU parliamentarians, seeking to keep UK customs union membership.
The UK might have to set up its own satellite navigation system if it is thrown out of the Galileo project after Brexit, according to British officials. Galileo is a €10 billion program that was launched by the EU to rival the US global positioning system.
Brexit Secretary David Davis has suggested the UK government could consider asking for Brexit negotiations to be extended if Parliament votes down the withdrawal deal later this year. Speaking to the Exiting the EU Committee on Wednesday, Davis conceded that it would not be impossible to prolong Article 50 negotiations, having previously said that the deal would fall if MPs vote it down.
Popular messaging service Whatsapp is banning under-16s from using its platform in the European Union. Users must currently be at least 13, but the firm is changing the rules ahead of the introduction of new EU data privacy regulations in May.
Britain will not get a Brexit deal better than the current single market, Japan’s ambassador to the UK has said. Koji Tsuruoka, who took up the role just over a fortnight before the referendum in June 2016, said Japanese firms are watching negotiations and will want to continue to be located in the single market after next March.
The European Union and Mexico reached an agreement on Saturday on a new free trade deal, a coup for both parties in the face of increased protectionism from the United States under President Donald Trump. Since its plans for a trade alliance with the United States were frozen after Trump's election victory, the EU has focused instead on trying to champion open markets and seal accords with other like-minded countries.
Fresh doubts have been raised over Theresa May’s hopes for a deal on future relations with Europe, after reports that her proposals for the Irish border have been comprehensively rejected in Brussels. One report of a meeting this week between Britain’s lead negotiator Olly Robbins and senior EU officials suggested that the Prime Minister’s plans for avoiding a hard border with the Republic were subjected to “a systematic and forensic annihilation”.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that airlines must compensate their passengers for flight delays and cancellations, even though the reason for this was a strike by airline staff. The airlines are now facing a wave claims, because this ruling applies to all previous airline strikes and new ones.
Facebook has changed its terms of service, meaning 1.5 billion members will not be protected under tough new privacy protections coming to Europe. The move comes as the firm faces a series of questions from lawmakers and regulators around the world over its handling of personal data.