Europe
Royal College of Surgeons: EU rules limiting working hours for junior doctors to 48 hours "insane";
Patients Association: The rules threaten to put patient's safety at risk
The Telegraph reports that limiting the working hours of junior doctors to 48 per week, down from 56 under the EU's Working Time Directive, would result in the loss of thousands of doctors shifts, the Royal College of Surgeons has warned. The extension of the WTD will come into force on 1 August this year. According to the article, doctors warned that, by cutting doctors' hours, an average hospital trust outside London would lose the equivalent of three trainee surgeons.
The Royal College of Surgeons also said trainee surgeons should work a 65-hour week in order to produce safe, properly-trained doctors and cover the workload. The College President, John Black said: "If the 48-hour limit is enforced, surgeons will have to make a hard choice between caring for emergency cases and dealing with elective cases as there will not be the time available to do both. Surgeons will put patient safety first and focus on looking after emergency patients. All the progress on reducing waiting lists will go out of the window. Forty eight hours for surgeons is currently insane if we want to maintain surgery in the NHS".
Vanessa Bourne, of the Patients Association, said: "How can this be happening in a supposedly patient-centred service? Access to high-quality, safe care is the paramount requisite for patient and clinician alike and this muddle needs sorting out before patients are put at risk."
Remedy UK, the junior doctors' pressure group, said limiting junior doctors to a 48-hour week was the equivalent of losing one working day per doctor per week, or up to 70,000 doctor days per week. Dr Matt Jameson Evans, co-founder of Remedy UK, said: "Just imagine the impact of a blanket reduction in doctors' hours by one full day a week. A creaking system will collapse. And yet most doctors want the freedom to choose to opt-out of 48 hours. We're begging for some common sense - an official endorsement by government of the individual opt-out for trainee doctors would go a long way."
Telegraph Labour List: Corbett
Conservatives confirm they will form a new group in the European Parliament
The Conservatives have confirmed they will create a new grouping in the European Parliament after the elections in June. According to PA, Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois said he, Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Timothy Kirkhope, the party's leader in the EP, had met EPP chairman Joseph Daul in Strasbourg yesterday. "The meeting was amicable and during the course of it, we confirmed to M. Daul our long-standing intention to leave the EPP and establish a new grouping in the European Parliament after the 2009 elections," Francois is quoted as saying.
It is still unclear who exactly will join the Conservatives in the new grouping. Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden yesterday told the BBC that negotiations are ongoing with "mainstream parties of government and serious politicians who are not happy with where they're sitting in the parliament at the moment". The group, it is believed, would be called the European Conservatives and, according to PA, is likely to include representatives from countries including the Czech Republic and Poland.
Euractiv notes that the new group formation could leave the Socialists in the EP with a majority following the elections in June.
FT Mail EurActiv BBC FT: Brussels blog Guido Fawkes blog Telegraph: Hannan blog European Voice Guardian Conservative Home Reuters The Parliament
Deutsche Bank Chief Economist: Europe is "in denial" on economic crisis
The IHT reports that the Obama administration appeared to turn up the heat on European governments ahead of April's G20 summit in London, quoting President Obama saying, "I think it's very important for the American people to understand that as aggressive as the actions we are taking have been so far, it's very important to make sure that other countries are moving in the same direction, because the global economy is all tied together".
Thomas Mayer, Chief European Economist for Deutsche Bank, is quoted in the IHT arguing that Europe is acting too slowly: "They are in denial, and hoping that something from the US will come along to help them out. The European system isn't designed for taking the unconventional policy measures that are now needed."
The article notes that German leaders are wary of sparking a long-term bout of inflation if they borrow and spend too much, while Germany and other countries in Europe do not want to shoulder the burden for more troubled economies.
The Express reports that this week Chancellor Alistair Darling pressed other EU finance ministers to agree more funds to bail out eastern Europe through the IMF and the EU. Open Europe's Stephen Booth is quoted saying, "While Mr Darling's desire to bail out struggling member states is noble, taxpayers will be outraged to hear that the Government is planning to spend even more of their money at a time when everyone is struggling to cope with the recession."
Philip Lane, Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin, is quoted in the IHT saying, "If a country were to need help, it's not clear if they should go to the European Union, the IMF or the ECB [European Central Bank]. The answer seems to change day to day."
WSJ Times Times: Kaletsky WSJ 2 IHT Express WSJ: Ortner
MEPs agree "top-secret" category for EU documents
EUobserver reports that MEPs have introduced an 'EU classifed' category, "for documents whose unauthorised disclosure could harm the interests of the European Union or its member states", protecting top secret documents for up to 30 years, in a series of amendments to the EU law governing citizens' access to documents in a vote in the European Parliament yesterday.
Bruno Waterfield's Telegraph blog reports that MEPs have also voted to keep their expenses secret, in an amendment to the vote yesterday. Both the conservative EEP-ED group and the Socialists' group in the European Parliament supported an amendment to ensure MEPs' expenses remained secret, while the liberal ALDE group voted against it.
Telegraph: Waterfield blog EUobserver
French divided over Nato reintegration
In his speech at the College Millitaire yesterday, French President Sarkozy officially announced that France would be rejoining Nato's command structures, and said "there is nothing to suggest that European defence will indeed grow after France's full return, notably because EU member states are loath to increase their defence budgets," reports the Telegraph. France is already a "95% member", said Allain Juppe, a former French Prime Minister, and it should maintain its specificity as a free and independent actor." The French Socialist leader Martine Aubry concluded that "nothing today justifies returning to NATO military command."
Le Monde Le Point Telegraph FT Mail BBC Liberation Times Guardian Independent
Rapporteur says Croatian accession this year "impossible"
According to Wiener Zeitung, a conclusion of Croatia's accession agreement this year and an accession in the beginning of 2011 has become increasingly unlikely. MEP and rapporteur for Croatia in the European Parliament, Hans Swoboda (SPÖ), regards it as "impossible" in light of the border dispute with Slovenia.
Wiener Zeitung Der Standard dpa
The Irish Times reports that the European Parliament yesterday supported the Commission's plans to increase road tolls in Europe to control pollution and congestion.
Irish Times
Jaguar Land Rover yesterday became the first UK motor group to receive a multi-million-pound Government grant to build a new generation of 'green' cars. £27million of Government money will go towards developing and producing the 'baby' Range Rover LRX, subject to EU approval of the grant, according to the Mail.
Mail
The Mail reports that there are plans to waive the smoking ban to allow 'smoking rooms' at the G20 summit in April in London.
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Ministers have ordered a review of NHS organ transplant arrangements for EU residents, according to PA.
No link
Dpa reports that low VAT on nappies in five EU member states, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Portugal, could be declared illegal by the ECJ.
dpa
The UK's Chief Scientist. Professor John Beddington, has said that European Commissioners and MEPs need better, more "brutal" scientific advice, describing existing advice as "deficient".
BBC
The leader of UK Labour MEPs in the European Parliament, Glenis Wilmott, has said that female politicians from the UK do well with in politics of the European Parliament, because they are not like the "'ya-boo' boy politics of Westminster".
EurActiv
Investigators from the European Commission yesterday raided the offices of French energy company EDF, seeking evidence of price-fixing in the French electricity market.
Le Monde Liberation Times
UK
Businesses unaware of looming emissions bill
The FT reports that a group of 5,000 businesses are "largely unaware" that they will soon have to pay £660 million a year for their greenhouse gas emissions. All companies with an energy bill over £1 million a year will be forced from next April to report their energy usage and to buy carbon credits to cover emissions under a new regulation called the Carbon Reduction Commitment.
FT
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