German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said on national TV Friday he supports a ban on the burqa "in places where it is necessary for our society's coexistence - when driving, in public offices, at the registry office, in schools and universities, in the civil service, in courts". "[The burqa] has no place in our country and it doesn’t comply with our understanding of the role of women", he added.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview published Friday by German media group RedaktionsNetzwerks Deutschland that the EU should uphold sanctions on Russia because it had not fulfilled the Minsk ceasefire accord in Ukraine. "This [the accord] is and remains the yardstick for the future of the sanctions," she said. The EU measures expire at the end of January unless they are extended by a consensus of 28 states.
The minutes, published on Thursday, of an ECB meeting held in July shortly after the Brexit vote said it wanted to show it was ready to stop any financial crisis "using all instruments available", such as bond buying or interest rate adjustments, but without "fostering undue expectations" on the markets. The minutes said EU leaders should "contain political uncertainty" by giving "a clear vision" for the future of the EU.
The EU's 1 June "opinion" on the problems, which had been kept secret, is to be made public on Friday through a freedom of information request.
Turkey's ambassador to the EU, Selim Yenel, has told German newspaper Die Welt that Turkey is aiming to join the EU in 2023, the 100-year anniversary of the creation of the Turkish republic. "It would be an achievement for my country to become a member at that time", he said. Ankara's post-coup crackdown and its talk of reinstating the death penalty have raised fresh doubts on future EU relations.
Norwegian PM Erna Solberg has told the Reuters news agency that the UK could be welcomed to join the European Free Trade Association together with Switzerland, Iceland and Liechtenstein. "It's easy to see some advantages of British membership. It's a big country with a big economy," she said. She had earlier said that British membership would negatively alter the balance of power in the trade club of smaller states.
A taskforce of City of London business leaders is preparing to say Britain should have a Swiss-type deal on access to certain parts of the single market after Brexit, the Financial Times newspaper reports. The envisaged deal would see British firms given full "passporting" rights to operate in the EU in some sectors only, such as life insurance. The taskforce is to present findings to the government in early September.
Italy's EU affairs minister Sandro Gozi has told the Bloomberg news agency the EU needs a more ambitious economic and security policy in the wake of Brexit. "We seek a different, more expansionary economic policy at the European level,” he said ahead of a Franco-German-Italian summit Monday. "We need to increase ... EU action on security and defence, including rapidly launching the European policing of its external borders," he added.
The government will study restrictions currently in place in the other Nordic countries.
Francois Hollande said he would only consider running in the presidential elections of 2017 if there is a possibility to win. The Socialist president has had some of the lowest rankings in French history. He broke a new record in June, when a TNS Sofres poll for Le Figaro Magazine put his rating at 12 percent, the lowest ever for a French president. His rating in July was 17 percent.
The foreign ministry of Romania has denied that US nuclear weapons were being moved from Turkey to Romania as ties between Washington and Ankara soured after the failed coup of 15 July. Bucharest issued a press release firmly rejecting the information, first reported by the Euractiv news agency in Brussels. Defence minister Mihnea Motoc said “so far there have not been any plans or discussions [in Nato] on this topic”.