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Lloyds ​Banking Group has chosen Germany as its European base after Brexit and aims to apply for a licence in the country in a matter of months. It is understood that Lloyds has made a final decision to turn its Berlin branch into a subsidiary, to ensure it has a hub inside the European Union once the UK leaves.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson asked European diplomats during a Tuesday meeting why American taxpayers should care about Ukraine, according to a Bloomberg Politics report. “Why should U.S. taxpayers be interested in Ukraine?” Tillerson asked the foreign ministers, known as the “Group of Seven," during what Bloomberg said was an offhand remark at meetings in Lucca, Italy.

A new report by the OECD reveals that Germany is second only to Belgium when it comes to high tax rates in developed countries worldwide. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported on Tuesday that Germany has the second highest tax rate after Belgium, when comparing 35 developed countries around the world. The OECD calculated each country’s tax wedge — the gap between what employers take home in pay and what it costs to employ them, including personal income tax and social security contributions. Germany had a tax wedge for single, childless workers of 49.4 percent, behind Belgium...

A group of 50 politicians from across Europe have signed a letter stating that an independent Scotland would be “most welcome” as a full member of the European Union. In the letter to Holyrood’s Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh and MSPs, the signatories pledge their support in ensuring the transition to membership is “as swift, smooth, and orderly as possible”. The cross-party group includes parliamentarians from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Greece, Hungary and Malta.

Spain said today it had stepped up border controls with Gibraltar under a scheduled move by the EU’s Schengen zone. The announcement comes amid rising friction over the British territory caused by Brexit. The interior ministry said it had intensified controls at the crossing point to Gibraltar, a rocky outcrop in Spain’s southern tip, in line with rules introduced on Friday for boosting security on the Schengen perimeter. […] The new rules coincide with a flare-up of tensions surrounding the rocky outcrop, which Spain ceded to Britain in 1713 but wants back. The European Union, reacting to Britain’s decision to...

The 28 Ambassadors--carrying their demarche between their tails - should be sent packing to Europe for a period of reflection and introspection Ambassadors to Israel representing 28 European Union States (EU) behaved most undiplomatically in ambushing the recently appointed Director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry and former Ambassador to Australia - Yuval Rotem - at a meet and greet function Rotem had organised at the Dan Hotel in Tel Aviv last week.

Israel and several EU nations have pledged to move forward with a Mediterranean gas project, aiming to pump natural gas from Israel to Europe through the longest undersea pipeline ever built.

Pro-European Union parties won the Dutch elections, despite concerns that the far-right Freedom Party might ride a Europe-wide tide of populism to victory. For now, the threat of the EU's demise has been postponed, but not eliminated. American conservatives do not seem particularly bothered by the possible demise of the EU. President Trump, for his part, has expressed ambivalence over the EU, embracing Euro-skeptics such as the U.K. Independence Party, even saying the EU's future does not matter to the United States. The truth is, it matters tremendously — not least for American trade, foreign policy and national security.

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić has won Serbia’s presidential election in the first round, nearly complete official results showed yesterday (3 April). The EU said his election was “a vote of confidence” showing that the people of Serbia fully endorse the EU path. Vučić won about 55% of Sunday’s vote, clearing the 50% threshold required to win in the first round, according to results released by the electoral commission based on more than 90% of polling stations. Two obstacles for EU membership talks, started in 2014, seem to have been removed. Vučić’s predecessor Tomislav Nikolić, a pro-Russian member of Vučić’s own...

Spain has said it would not veto an attempt by an independent Scotland to join the EU, in a boost to Nicola Sturgeon’s campaign for a second independence referendum and the clearest sign yet that Brexit has softened Madrid’s longstanding opposition.

In the week Britain began the formal process of leaving the European Union with the triggering of Article 50, the Home Office put a contract out to tender for the “design, production and personalisation of the UK passport” post-2019. High-level discussions have already taken place with potential bidders to reintroduce the traditional navy design, below, as a backdrop to the iconic gold lion and unicorn royal coat of arms.

David Cameron has reinvented himself as a Brexiteer — saying he never “liked” the EU and is glad he called the referendum. The former Prime Minister, whose political career was brought to a shuddering close when he lost the historic vote last year, made the comments as he addressed an event in Ukraine. It is not known whether he was paid for the speech at the National University in Kiev — although he has racked up hundreds of thousands of pounds in earnings since leaving Downing Street last July. […] Despite masterminding the desperate Project Fear campaign with George Osborne...

The government is due to set out how it plans to remove EU law from the statute book when it publishes details of its Great Repeal Bill later. Having formally triggered Brexit, ministers are promising a "smooth and stable transition" with legislation ending the supremacy of EU judges. It will also incorporate thousands of pieces of EU law into UK legislation. The publication comes the day after the UK started two years of talks using Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

Minister of Finance Kristian Jensen says he is determined that Britain’s imminent exit from the EU will not mean more expensive membership for Denmark. The Scandinavian country currently benefits from a membership discount due to the contribution made by the UK for its membership. Sweden’s prime minister Stefan Löfven said Monday that the EU would have to adjust its budget for the multi-billion euro hole left in its finances by Britain’s exit. But Jensen said that Denmark would rather focus on the total amount it pays into the European Union. Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Germany and the Netherlands currently benefit from...

The world "cries out for American and European leadership" through the EU and Nato, US senator John McCain said on Friday (24 March). In a "new world order under enormous strain" and in "the titanic struggle with forces of radicalism … we can't stand by and lament, we've got to be involved," said McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate who is now chairman of the armed services committee in the US Senate. Speaking at the Brussels Forum, a conference organised by the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic think tank, he said that the EU and the US needed to develop...

Ministers are braced for a battle over plans to ditch a swathe of EU laws using “Henry VIII” powers. The government is set to unveil details of the “Great Repeal Bill” this week, part of the formal process of cutting ties with Brussels. The legislation will convert all EU law on to the UK statute books. But ministers also want to be able to adapt the laws as they are repatriated without full scrutiny by parliament. Jeremy Corbyn indicated that Labour will oppose the plans today, saying government should not be extending executive powers used by a “dictatorial and anti-democratic”...

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker warned US Vice President Mike Pence of another war in the Western Balkans if the EU collapses, including as a result of Donald Trump encouraging member states to leave after Brexit. Mike Pence was in Brussels on 20 February, but details of what was discussed were only disclosed by Juncker, who spoke to the Financial Times in an exclusive interview published today (24 March). “I told the vice-president, ‘Do not say that. Do not invite others to leave, because if the European Union collapses, you will have a new war in the Western Balkans’,” Juncker said....

Romanian people, who had suffered so much and had fought so hard for their independence, replaced one dictator, the communist party and its supreme dear leader Ceausescu, with a global elitist technocracy, run by the EU and multinational corporatists “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” 
― Winston S. Churchill A total stranger asked me recently to name the one person who has done more damage to the U.S. by stoking the global communism fire. The answer is rather complex but I gave him a simplistic one - the education system with its hundreds...

The British government has said it will trigger Article 50, formally starting the process of leaving the European Union, on March 29. The move will start the clock ticking on a two-year countdown to Brexit and allow negotiations to start between London and Brussels in the coming weeks.

FULL TITLE: Construction of German mosque is halted after right-wing activists hammer ten giant crosses into building site Right-wing extremists in Germany have hampered the construction of a mosque by erecting ten large crosses at the site. The group, planted the wooden structures in the small village of Marbach, near Erfurt, in the central eastern state of Thuringia, in early March. The owner of the site has said he plans to take legal action against the activists, named as 'Citizens for Erfurt'.