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During her visit to Beirut today, European Commission President Ursulavon der Leyen, accompanied by the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, discussed the significant domestic and regional challenges faced by Lebanon, and how best the EU could support the country and its people.

She announced that the EU will provide afinancial assistance package for Lebanon worth 1 billion for 2024 to 2027.

This continued EU support will strengthen basic services such as education, social protection and health for the people in Lebanon. It will accompany urgent economic, financial and banking reforms. Furthermore, support will be provided to the Lebanese Armed Forces and other security forces with equipment and training for border management and to fight against smuggling.

Presidentvon der Leyensaid: My visit today is a strong testimony of the EU's continued support to Lebanon and its people. This was also the clear message of European leaders at our last summit, and are committed to provide strong financial support to the country in view of the significant challenges it faces. The 1 billion until 2027 will provide much needed assistance to the people in Lebanon and contribute to its security and stability.

Background

The visit of President von der Leyen to Lebanon follows the special meeting of the European Council on 17-18 April, where the Council confirmed the EU's determination to support the most vulnerable people in Lebanon, including refugees, internally displaced persons and host communities, as well as strengthening support to Lebanese Armed Forces, combating human trafficking and smuggling. The European Council also reaffirmed the need to achieve conditions for safe, voluntary, and dignified returns of Syrian refugees, as defined by UNHCR.

The EU's support will focus on:

Since 2011, the EU support to Lebanon amounts to more than 3 billion, including 2.6 billion to support Syrian refugees as well as host communities in Lebanon.

For more information

European Council Conclusionsof 17-18 April 2024

Factsheet_EU-Lebanon cooperation

EU-Lebanon cooperation

My visit today is a strong testimony of the EUs continued support to Lebanon and its people. This was also the clear message of European leaders at our last summit, and are committed to provide strong financial support to the country in view of the significant challenges it faces. The 1 billion until 2027 will provide much needed assistance to the people in Lebanon and contribute to its security and stability.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission

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President von der Leyen reaffirms EU's strong support for Lebanon and its people and announces a 1 billion package ... - European Union

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In the first quarter of 2024, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.3% in both the euro area and the EU, compared with the previous quarter, according to a preliminary flash estimate published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. In the fourth quarter of 2023, GDP had declined by 0.1% in the euro area and had remained stable in the EU.

These preliminary GDP flash estimates are based on data sources that are incomplete and subject to further revisions.

Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, seasonally adjusted GDP increased by 0.4% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU in the first quarter of 2024, after +0.1% in the euro area and +0.2% in the EU in the previous quarter.

Among the Member States for which data are available for the first quarter of 2024, Ireland (+1.1%) recorded the highest increase compared to the previous quarter, followed by Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary (all +0.8%). Sweden (-0.1%) was the only Member State that recorded a decrease compared to the previous quarter. The year on year growth rates were positive for nine countries and negative for four.

The next estimates for the first quarter of 2024 will be released on 15 May 2024.

The reliability of GDP flash estimates was tested by dedicated working groups and revisions of subsequent estimates are continuously monitored. Further information can be found on Eurostat website.

With this preliminary flash estimate, euro area and EU GDP figures for earlier quarters are not revised.

All figures presented in this release may be revised with the GDP t+45 flash estimate scheduled for 15 May 2024 and subsequently by Eurostats regular estimates of GDP and main aggregates (including employment) scheduled for 7 June 2024 and 19 July 2024.

The preliminary flash estimate of the first quarter of 2024 GDP growth presented in this release is based on the data of 18 Member States, covering 95% of euro area GDP and 94% of EU GDP.

Comprehensive estimates of European main aggregates (including GDP and employment) are based on countries regular transmissions and published around 65 and 110 days after the end of each quarter. To improve the timeliness of key indicators, Eurostat also publishes flash estimates for GDP (after around 30 and 45 days) and employment (after around 45 days). Their compilation is based on estimates provided by EU Member States on a voluntary basis.

This news release presents preliminary flash estimates for euro area and EU after around 30 days.

European quarterly national accounts are compiled in accordance with the European System of Accounts 2010 (ESA 2010).

Gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices measures the production activity of resident production units. Growth rates are based on chain-linked volumes.

Two statistical working papers present the preliminary GDP flash methodology for the European estimates and Member States estimates.

The method used for compilation of European GDP is the same as for previous releases.

Euro area (EA20): Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.

European Union (EU27): Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland and Sweden.

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GDP up by 0.3% in both the euro area and the EU - European Commission

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Contrary to the current European Union reform debate, it is possible to have the enlargement process and deeper EU integration run parallel, former European Commission president Jos Manuel Barroso told Euractiv.

A very important lesson learned from then is that its possible to enlarge and deepen [the EU] at the same time, Barroso said. There were always those who said, more enlargement means less deepening this is completely false.

Under Barrosos two Commissions, the EU first increased from 15 to 25 members when ten countriesCyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Sloveniajoined in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania followed in 2008, and Croatia in 2013.

It was a historic, unprecedented success of the EU, showing also the transformative capacity of the bloc, Barroso said, adding Europe should not lose the perspective of what happened back then.

Over the years, Barroso said the EU has made more progress in deeper integration, especially with debt mutualisation under the NextGenerationEU fund and a higher level of convergence between 27 member states in UN votes than at 12 members.

When asked about lessons learned from two decades of enlargement, Barroso said they would be to avoid grey zones of instability in the EUs neighbourhood and not to lose the standards of the EU.

Despite issues with the rule of law in some of the newer EU member states, Barroso said, They are now much better off than before joining the European Union, namely when they were under Communist rule.

I thought it was a huge mistake when, after my second Commission term in 2014, it was said there would be no more enlargement in the next five years, Barroso said.

It was creating disappointment, frustration and even resentment and it was ignoring the sensitivity of those countries and those people, he said.

Asked about European Council President Charles Michels 2030 target, Barroso does not favour definitive dates as it could create disappointment.

But its especially important now, namely because of Ukraine, how to deal with time because the reality is that its not realistic to have a country in the EU that is in a state of war, Barroso said.

Barroso echoed calls from the current European Commission and some EU member states for the gradual integration of candidate countries by letting them participate in some of the blocs meetings, programmes and institutional structures.

Precisely because its going to be difficult and probably long, we need to start earlier [to integrate them] as weve done before, he added.

In Brussels, the question of when the bloc is ready for new members goes hand in hand with how it will function when it expands from 27 to potentially over 30 members.

Asked whether the blocs treaties can handle 36 members or if it would require another treaty change, Barroso said it would be a huge mistake if now Europeans would start a fundamental revision of the [EU] institutions because of the enlargement.

Im not saying this to defend the Lisbon Treaty, which I negotiated, but because it requires unanimity to change a treaty, and if we start introducing other issues [like enlargement] in the process, the pretexts for opposing it are going to increase, Barroso said.

There will be people who want to block enlargement, so they will use institutional arguments, and there will be people who want to block institutional reform, so they will use enlargementwe should not mix the problems, he added.

Instead, the bloc should avoid too ambitious reforms and only make those strictly necessary for enlargement.

I was president of a Commission with 28 members and all studies, all opinions, showed that our Commission was taking decisions more effectively and quicker than the previous smaller Commissions, Barroso said.

Asked about the current debate on the potential cost of enlargement as an argument against it, Barroso said, The alternative will certainly cost more than to invest in enlargement.

Are we ready to pay for the instability of tomorrow, encouraged by the possible success of Russia in Ukraine? Does it cost less?

The issue of costs has to be seen strategically and not just in the short-term accounting manner, Barroso said, adding: Our conclusion [in 2004] was the advantages, not only political but also in economic terms, were higher than the costs.

He also called for reform of the EUs system of own resources. Instead of the current net payers and receivers system, the EU could have some own resources linked, for instance, to the VAT or member states paying according to benefits [they have] from the internal market.

According to him, the EU should really invest in the enlargement from all points of view.

Sometimes its not just about money its about attention, its about being present [in those countries], and its about giving advice and that requires something bigger and larger than what we have seen so far, Barroso said.

It cannot only be done by the DG and the respective Commissioner, with all due respect. It needs to involve the [European] societies as a whole.

In a reference to the current pro-EU protest in Georgia, where demonstrators rally against a foreign influence bill which could jeopardise the countrys path into the bloc, Barroso said:

We see people waving EU flags, [like they have done on the Maidan when I was in Ukraine]. What do we want more? How many people in current EU member states would do this at the moment?

This is why we need to deal with these aspirations in a way that is not just political or administrative and technical, he added.

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Possible to enlarge and deepen EU at the same time, Barroso says - EURACTIV

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The European Union is getting ready to launch a new investigation into Meta over its handling of election-related content, according to a new report in The Guardian. Details of the investigation could be announced later this week, but European officials are reportedly concerned about deceptive advertising and political content.

According to the Financial Times, the EU has also raised concerns about Russias efforts to undermine upcoming European elections and other foreign interference campaigns. The EU is set to hold parliamentary elections in June. If the company is found to have run afoul of the Europes Digital Services Act, it could be hit with large fines.

EU officials are also particularly concerned about Metas plan to shut down CrowdTangle in August. The tool has been widely used by researchers and fact checkers for years to study how content spreads across Facebook and Instagram. Dozens of researchers and fact-checking groups signed an open letter to the company last month saying that shutting down the tool ahead of dozens of global elections would be a direct threat to election integrity efforts around the world.

We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms, a Meta spokesperson told Engadget in a statement. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.

Elsewhere, the EU is also investigating Meta over its ad-free subscription plan available to European users. That investigation, which could last up to a year, will look into whether the social media company has violated Europes Digital Markets Act, by not offering users a real alternative to opt out of data collection.

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The European Union will reportedly open a new investigation into Meta over election policies - Engadget

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This article was originally published inFrench

Will voters really have the EU itself in mind when they cast their ballot at the European elections in June?

The countdown to this year's EU parliament elections is well underway, but in many countries, the battle for votes seems to be being fought along national, not continental, lines.

The dynamic is especially strong in France, where the EU elections are being framed by some parties as a forerunner to the 2027 presidential race or"first and foremost mid-term elections", in the words of Jordan Bardella, head of list for the far-right Rassemblement National party, who is calling to "sanction Macron's Europe".

"If I'm in the lead, I'll obviously ask for the National Assembly to be dissolved that very evening," Bardella said in an interview with French broadcaster RTL. (Under the French Constitution, only the President of the Republic can take such a decision.)

"The attempt and temptation (...) to use the European elections as 'mid-term elections', as they say in the United States, is strong,"says Pascal Perrineau, professor emeritus at Sciences Po Paris and author of A Taste for Politics.

"People use them to vent their anger against those in power. Of course, the European far right plays this game a lot when it's not in power."

In France, this is the only major election before the next presidential election in 2027," points out ric Maurice, political analyst at the European Policy Centre. "It is a national list election, so there is a strong temptation to nationalise the ballot."

And based on studies of EU politics going back decades, this "nationalisation" of bloc-wide elections is hardly a new phenomenon.

A year after the first European elections in 1979, researchers Karlheinz Reif and Hermann Schmitt described the ballot as a "second-order national election".

Perceived as being of little importance, the elections were being used by political forces to gauge their popularity at national level, especially where the elections fell in the middle of a president or government's term.

Researchers also described the European elections as "national" because they are organised at national level, according to national rules, and pit national candidates against national candidates on national issues. The voting method, voting day and the legal age for voting or standing also differ between member states.

"For the moment, there are only slight trends towards the 'Europeanisation' of voting trends,"says Perrineau. "It's not massively obvious. They were somewhat visible during the last European elections in 2019, when there was a surge in voter turnout. We had the impression that more Europeans were interested in the European elections and in the power of the European Parliament."

Recent crises involving the European Union, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the knock-on effects from Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, have put European action at the forefront of voters' minds.

But will this be enough to bring European issues front and centre come 9 June? According to ric Maurice, the work of the European institutions still remains too little-known to the general public and many electorates' attention is focused on elections of their own.

Around ten national elections are being organised across the European Union in 2024. Several have already taken place, but in Belgium, federal and regional elections will be held on the same day as the European elections, on 9 June.

Presidential elections are due in Lithuania and Romania, while voters in Austria are expected to be called to the polls for legislative elections.

The European elections could also be an opportunity for parties in power or in opposition to gauge their popularity ahead of future elections, whether to see if they can cling on at their next national polls or to try and identify their best way back.

Ultimately, says Pascal, "Voters are more likely to vote for national, economic and social reasons at the moment the rise in energy costs, the problems of inflation than for European issues, be they European institutions, European policies or even the war in Ukraine."

In France, national issues take precedence over European issues for half of those polled, according to an Ipsos survey conducted for Le Monde, Cevipof, the Jean Jaurs Foundation and the Institut Montaigne.

53% of the French sample said that they would take account "above all of the parties' proposals on national issues" to determine their choice of vote, while only 47% named European issues as their top concern.

What's more, 52% of those polled said that they would "vote first and foremost to show their support for or opposition to the President of the Republic or his government".

According to the study, the Europeanisation of concerns is socially divided.

"In certain circles, I'm thinking in particular of white-collar workers, executives and working people under 50, there is an awareness that Europe is more than something far away in Brussels or Strasbourg," explains Perrineau, who contributed to the study.

"On the other hand, in certain circles that are further removed from Europe - I'm thinking of blue-collar workers, white-collar employees, the unemployed (...) national concerns often take precedence over European concerns," he explains.

And at the end of the day, European issues such as immigration, the Common Agricultural Policy and support for Ukraine also feature in national elections proving thatnational and European issues are so intertwined that it is sometimes difficult to disentangle them.

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European elections: are national issues overshadowing European ones? - Euronews

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