The European Commission Reminds EU Rules To Be Respected

Jakarta – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that EU rules must be respected to maintain unity between countries.

As for Brexit, Juncker revealed, the United Kingdom and the EU were getting closer to reaching an agreement. He stated, the agreement could be concluded in the next few weeks.

“Brexit is a tragedy for Europe, we should not add drama by going out without agreement,” he said in an interview with France 24, as quoted by Bloomberg on Monday (11/12/2018).

As for last week, British Prime Minister Theresa May again lost one minister in his cabinet.

Pro-European Minister of Transport Jo Johnson resigned from his post because he did not agree with the Brexit agreement prepared by May and requested a re-referendum.

So far, what has not been resolved from the efforts to get Britain out of the European Union is related to the border with Ireland. Although the EU and Britain both expressed a desire to reach an agreement and May had tried to persuade his cabinet to accept his proposal, there were still many Conservative Party members who did not agree with the proposal.

Steve Baker, a former Conservative Party minister, stressed that some parties did not want to see “no agreement” with EU partners and had the same ambitions as the PM for a free trade agreement with the EU. However, according to him, this cannot be achieved at any price including the Brexit price.

“If the government wants to make a historical mistake by prioritizing staying in touch with the EU rather than standing independently, it’s a shame, we will reject it,” wrote Sammy Wilson, Brexit Spokesperson from the Democratic Unionist Party.

In addition to Brexit, Juncker also reminded that Italy does not underestimate the EU’s rules in drafting the revised government budget that must be submitted to the European Commission this week.

“We must emphasize that rules must be respected, especially by Italy, which has benefited in the past few years from the flexibility we have,” he said.

The Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini previously said that the Italian government could ignore the budgetary rules of the EU and other policies because it only brought losses to the country.

Italy, which has a deadline until Tuesday (11/13/2018) to revise the budget which was rejected by the European Commission last month, insisted on maintaining a budget proposal with a target of a deficit of 2.4% of GDP.

An Italian official who declined to be identified said that executives in Brussels would not have many choices in assessing proposals that would raise spending levels, reduce taxes, and cut the retirement age in Italy.

The scale of the Italian budget is indeed far from the level acceptable to the EU. Several other EU officials even assessed the proposal as a form of provocation. Because, in recent years, the EU has been under a lot of pressure from other countries regarding government budget rules.