If your business or job is in a sector increasingly hit by the twin biodiversity and climate crises, do you demand deeper, more rapid climate measures or do you demand environmental measures are weakened or binned? If you’re an EU farmer, the answer, it seems, is the second.
As 2024 begins, the EU’s leaders are not short of key challenges to tackle – including the urgent foreign policy issues of Gaza and Ukraine, climate change, migration, new debt rules and more. But it is the upcoming European Parliament elections in early June that are worrying many.
For the first time since 2004, the European Union is heading towards another “big bang” enlargement. On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed opening accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova. It also suggested Georgia be given candidate country status and outlined tough political conditions that would let talks open with Bosnia and Herzegovina too.
Urgent and rapid action on climate change is needed now.
WITH all the challenges facing the Scottish Government, first minister Humza Yousaf might have been forgiven if he put questions around joining the European Union on the back burner for a while. Yet Mr Yousaf chose to visit Brussels at the end of June and, in various recent speeches, has made sure to emphasise the SNP goal is independence in the EU, not just independence.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is getting known for rapid policy U-turns. Most notably, Labour’s flagship policy of spending £28 billion a year on green investment has been postponed to the middle of the next parliament. Rachel Reeves, shadow Chancellor, is prioritising fiscal rectitude, with an apparently deep-seated, if bizarre, fear that the markets might take her for the calamitous, economy-wrecking Liz Truss.
With Labour heading for victory at the next general election, better EU-UK relations are one expected result.
Has rewilding’s moment come? The word itself increasingly resonates with many.
The evidence of the damaging economic impact of Brexit mounted rapidly in 2022. At the same time, public opinion swung increasingly against it too. It was much more than just a “we told you so” moment for Scotland. The damage is real and has hit Scotland as much as England and Wales.
Divorce isn’t easy, especially if you’re condemned to live next door to each other for ever more. For now, the current state of EU-UK relations might best be described as an uneasy truce. But could it get better than that or might 2023 see a renewed falling out between the neighbours?
