Juncker proposes doubling EU investment plan
Brexit must start ‘as quickly as possible’
Strasbourg - European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday proposed to double his flagship EU investment plan to 630 billion euros by 2022 in a bid to boost the economy.
“Investment means jobs. Today I am proposing to double the duration and firepower of the our investment fund,” Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg as part of his annual State of the Union speech.
The original Juncker investment plan, launched in 2015, had a target to stimulate the European economy by 315 billion euros (US$350 billion) over three years.
The future of the EU is not “at risk” from Britain’s decision to quit the bloc, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker said, urging London to start the exit process as “quickly as possible.”
“We respect and at the same time regret the UK decision, but the European Union as such is not at risk,” Juncker said.
Speaking first in German, Juncker said he wanted Brexit to happen “as quickly as possible so we can take the specific steps which need to be taken so that our relations with the UK, which must remain on a friendly basis, can take a new shape.”
He said again that if Britain wanted to retain access to the bloc’s single market of 500 million consumers, then it would also have to accept the EU’s core principle of freedom of movement of people.
“There can be no a la carte access to the single market,” he said, stressing the line taken both before and after Britain’s shock June vote to quit up-ended assumptions about the future of the 28-nation bloc.
Migration was the key issue in the referendum, with eurosceptic and populist parties capitalising- on widespread disenchantment with the EU after more than a million migrants, mostly Syrians, arrived in the bloc last year.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not be rushed into starting the Brexit negotiations, suggesting they could begin early next year once London is ready.
Once the talks begin, Britain has two years to thrash out a deal.
- Nampa/AFP
“Investment means jobs. Today I am proposing to double the duration and firepower of the our investment fund,” Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg as part of his annual State of the Union speech.
The original Juncker investment plan, launched in 2015, had a target to stimulate the European economy by 315 billion euros (US$350 billion) over three years.
The future of the EU is not “at risk” from Britain’s decision to quit the bloc, European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker said, urging London to start the exit process as “quickly as possible.”
“We respect and at the same time regret the UK decision, but the European Union as such is not at risk,” Juncker said.
Speaking first in German, Juncker said he wanted Brexit to happen “as quickly as possible so we can take the specific steps which need to be taken so that our relations with the UK, which must remain on a friendly basis, can take a new shape.”
He said again that if Britain wanted to retain access to the bloc’s single market of 500 million consumers, then it would also have to accept the EU’s core principle of freedom of movement of people.
“There can be no a la carte access to the single market,” he said, stressing the line taken both before and after Britain’s shock June vote to quit up-ended assumptions about the future of the 28-nation bloc.
Migration was the key issue in the referendum, with eurosceptic and populist parties capitalising- on widespread disenchantment with the EU after more than a million migrants, mostly Syrians, arrived in the bloc last year.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not be rushed into starting the Brexit negotiations, suggesting they could begin early next year once London is ready.
Once the talks begin, Britain has two years to thrash out a deal.
- Nampa/AFP
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