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AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France Total's chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said on Friday he had not given up on the idea of keeping Britain in the European Union.

The French oil major, Europe's second-largest, is a major oil producer in the British North Sea.

"I still hope that Britain remains in the European Union," Pouyanne said on the sidelines of a business conference in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence.

"Maybe what will happen under the initiative of Emmanuel Macron and (Angela) Merkel will pave the way for a new future for Britain," Pouyanne said, referring to the new French president and the German chancellor, without elaborating.

The current period of economic uncertainty triggered a year ago by the British vote to leave the EU needs to end as soon as possible, Pouyanne added.

"What's not good for Britain is that we're in a period of uncertainty," Total's boss said. "Investors don't like uncertainty."

"Britain's interest is to clarify things quickly. It's also in the interest of Europe," he added.

(Reporting by Michel Rose, Mathieu Rosemain and Gwenaelle Barzic)

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Total CEO Hopes Britain Will Remain in the European Union - New York Times

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Japan, European Union Strike New Trade Deal Wall Street Journal (subscription) Much of the focus at the G-20 summit this week will be on whether the U.S. retains its role as a global economic leader amid President Trump's America First policies. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib previews what to watch out for on North Korea, trade, and ... EU And Japan Strike Trade Deal, Call It 'Strong Message To The World'NPR EU, Japan seal free trade in signal to TrumpReuters Japan and Europe's huge new trade agreement shows that US leadership is already fadingVox Salt Lake Tribune -Omaha World-Herald all 380 news articles »

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The FINANCIAL -- The European Union (EU) has made a 19 million contribution to the Nuclear Safety Account (NSA), one of the nuclear safety funds managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

The NSA was established at the EBRD at the request of the G7 in 1993 to fund operations to ensure the safety and security of Soviet-designed nuclear power plants. It currently finances the Interim Storage Facility 2 and the Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant of the decommissioned Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

The EUs contribution is vital for the support of the Chernobyl spent nuclear fuel facility project, known as ISF-2. The facility has been built and is currently being tested, with an ambitious schedule to start retrieving spent fuel from the old dilapidated storage pond by the end of this year.

The operation of retrieving, processing and ensuring the safe storage of more than 20,000 spent fuel assemblies accumulated during the activity of three nuclear reactors at Chernobyl will take approximately seven years. The facility will be handed over to the Chernobyl operators in 2018, according to EBRD.

The EUs contribution to the NSA was signed today during the Assembly of the NSA donors held in London at the Banks Headquarters.

Vince Novak, EBRD Director of the Nuclear Safety Department, said: In terms of nuclear safety, the completion of this 400 million facility will be a major achievement and a huge step forward in the reduction of radiological hazards. We are very pleased to be able to continue this work to increase nuclear safety and security in eastern Europe.

The EBRD work on nuclear safety has contributed to the success of one of the most ambitious projects in the history of engineering: securing the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident with the giant arch known as the New Safe Confinement the largest moveable land-based structure ever built.

Recently, with EBRD and donor support, the first shipment of spent nuclear fuel left the base in Andreeva Bay in north-west Russia to begin the journey to its final destination, the nuclear reprocessing plant Mayak. This is a crucial milestone in overcoming the legacy of the former Soviet Northern Fleet and its nuclear-powered submarines. Accidents and a lack of funding saw the storage sites contaminated and fall into dereliction presenting a real risk of radioactive material entering the Barents Sea and the food chain.

The EU has been by far the largest donor to the EBRD-managed nuclear safety funds. The latest contribution brings the total EU donor funding for all nuclear safety funds to 2.437 billion.

The NSA has received some 385 million from donors including: Azerbaijan, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States. In addition, the EBRD has contributed 217 million from its net income for the completion of ISF-2.

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EBRD nuclear safety work gets boost from European Union - The FINANCIAL

HAMBURG The European Union will respond if the United States imposes punitive tariffs on steel, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

"Should the U.S. introduce tariffs on European steel imports, Europe is ready to react immediately and adequately," Juncker told reporters.

In a dig at U.S. President Donald Trump, he said that a new EU-Japan trade deal signed on Thursday showed that Europeans were not putting up "protectionist walls".

Juncker and Commission officials declined to give details on how the EU executive would respond if Washington imposed new quotas or tariffs on steel - measures that European leaders say would be unjustified and penalize U.S. allies in response to oversupply in world steel markets that is largely created in China.

A Commission spokeswoman said: "We should rather have a talk about the overcapacity in steel than about protectionist measures against steel imports from other parts of the world."

(Reporting by Noah Barkin in Hamburg and Elizabeth Miles and Robert-Jan Bartunek in Brussels; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; editing by David Stamp)

WASHINGTON During his campaign and first months in office, President Donald Trump set a number of explicit economic goals like boosting annual growth in gross domestic product to 3 percent, and promised to expand manufacturing employment and bring sidelined workers back into the labor force.

SAN FRANCISCO The U.S. economy is now a decade on from the start of the global financial crisis and at what most economists view as full employment, yet when it comes to wage rises, the answer seems to be forget about it.

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EU says it will respond if US imposes punitive steel measures - Reuters

Kit Malthouse accused the Confederation of British Industry of wanting to cling on to the single market, which he said favoured big business.

The CBI and top firms are meeting Brexit secretary David Davis on Friday to push their desire to stay in the single market and customs union.

Appearing on Daily Politics on the BBC, the MP for North West Hampshire said: The CBI represents large businesses generally and it doesnt surprise me that they would want to cling on to this kind of corporatist racket that has suited them for so long.

Small business I think would have a much more different view.

GETTYBBC

The EU is generally accepted to be a bit of a corporatist racket

Tory MP Kit Malthouse

Host Jo Coburn picked the former deputy mayor of London for business and enterprise up on the point.

She said: Is that how you regard the CBI, that their voice is clinging to a corporatist racket?

Mr Malthouse replied the European Union favoured enormous businesses who were not forward facing.

Yeah, I mean the EU is generally accepted to be a bit of a corporatist racket, he said. It favours enormous businesses who are not as agile, not as forward facing, not as globally facing and they like the protectionist approach of the EU.

So it doesnt surprise me that they want to hold on to it.

Britain's top business leaders are co-ordinating a plot to derail Brexit by demanding the country stay in the single market and customs union.

The CBI and the leaders of other top firms, are meeting Brexit secretary David Davis in Chevening, Kent, to push their case for a softerBrexit.

In a sign of whats to come, the CBI last night called on the Government to reach a deal with theEuropean Unionthat protects businesses and delays the UK's exit.

However, the Brexit team has said it wants the UK to leave the single market at the end of formal EU exit negotiations in March 2019.

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David Davis and Michel Barnier give a press conference at the end of a meeting at EU Commission in Brussels

Director General of the CBI,Carolyn Fairbairn warned that the likelihood that Britain would get this done on time was impossible.

Ms Fairbairn said: Instead of a cliff edge, the UK needs a bridge to the new EU deal.

Even with the greatest possible goodwill on both sides, its impossible to imagine the detail will be clear by the end of March 2019. This is a time to be realistic."

Her proposals would force Britain to accept free movement of EU citizens and still be governed by the European Court of Justice.

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'It's a corporatist racket!' Tory MP bashes big businesses for EU single market whining - Express.co.uk