Services account for around 70% of the EU’s gross domestic product, but only 20% of them are provided across borders

International News via Reuters:

The European Commission is not doing enough to remove internal EU barriers to cross-border services, a major source of economic growth for the 27-country European Union, the European Court of Auditors said on Wednesday.

Services account for around 70% of the EU’s gross domestic product, but only 20% of them are provided across borders because of big differences in authorisation and certification requirements for service companies between countries.

The ECA, an independent external auditing institution of the EU, said 60% of all the obstacles to cross-border services identified in 2002 were still there in 2023, showing their removal had not been a priority.

“Businesses in the EU continue to face an uphill struggle in providing services in a cross-border capacity,” said Hans Lindblad, the ECA member leading the audit. “The Commission’s efforts to do away with barriers are still insufficient.”

GROWTH COULD BE 2.5% HIGHER WITHOUT BARRIERS, ECA SAYS

The International Monetary Fund said its research showed internal legal and administrative obstacles between EU countries were equal to 110% tariffs on services offered across borders. 

According to the ECA, the European Commission’s own research showed that if existing barriers to cross-border services were removed, the bloc’s economic growth could be 2.5% higher within a few years. 

The Commission said last year the issue was one of the main barriers to making the EU’s single market of 450 million consumers work better at a time of increased economic competition with the U.S. and China.

EU governments are often not keen to promote cross-border services due to pressure to protect their labour markets and vested interests, especially in the bloc’s 5,700 regulated professions, from lawyers and engineers to carpenters or beauticians.

The Commission is not keen to make proposals that would be shot down by national capitals. 

The ECA said the Commission should identify the economically most significant barriers to cross-border services and push EU countries to address them by linking their removal to access to EU money – the strongest leverage it has.

The Commission should also review EU laws on cross-border services to make them less ambiguous, crack down on enforcement, and speed up the processing of complaints by service companies denied business in other EU countries, the ECA said.

Reporting by Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Jan Harvey

Adorni said investments in oil, mining and agriculture require large terrain

International News via Reuters:

Argentina’s government will send a bill to Congress that seeks to change the limits on foreign ownership of rural land, Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni said at a news conference on Wednesday, the latest step by the Milei administration to boost foreign investment in the country.

Adorni said investments in oil, mining and agriculture require large terrain. 

President Javier Milei’s administration has pursued a sweeping pro-market reform agenda aimed at attracting foreign capital, rolling back interventionist policies and deregulating key sectors.

“Today, the most important businessmen of the world look at Argentina as a historic investment opportunity,” Adorni said.

Adorni also referred to a federal judicial investigation that has been opened into a trip he made last February to Punta del Este, Uruguay, on a private airplane. The investigation is looking into whether the trip was made as part of government business, according to local newspaper La Nacion.

Adorni, who has characterized the trip as a vacation for which he used private funds, said he had “nothing to hide.”

Reporting by Nicolas Misculin and Lucila Sigal, writing by Leila Miller, editing by Cassandra Garrison and Nia Williams

Guterres told reporters he had been in close contact with many in the region and around the world and that a number of initiatives for dialogue and peace were underway

International News via Reuters:

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday named veteran French diplomat Jean Arnault to be his personal envoy on the conflict in the Middle East, saying it was “out of control” and the “world is staring down the barrel of a wider war.”

Guterres told reporters he had been in close contact with many in the region and around the world and that a number of initiatives for dialogue and peace were underway.

He said these must succeed and warned that prolonged closure of the Strait or Hormuz was choking movement of oil, gas, and fertilizer at a critical moment in the global planting season.

“It is time to stop climbing the escalation ladder – and start climbing the diplomatic ladder,” he said at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

“My message to the United States and Israel is that it is high time to end the war – as human suffering deepens, civilian casualties mount, and the global economic impact is increasingly

devastating,” Guterres said.

“My message to Iran is to stop attacking their neighbors,” he added.

Guterres said Hezbollah must stop launching attacks into Israel and Israel must stop its military operations and strikes in Lebanon, which were hitting civilians the hardest.

“The Gaza model must not be replicated in Lebanon,” he said.”

Disrupted fertilizer shipments and soaring energy prices from the war in Iran have threatening to unleash a fresh food-price surge across vulnerable nations, risking a years-long setback just as many were recovering from successive global shocks, U.N. and other experts warn.

The U.N. says Arnault has more than 30 years of experience in international diplomacy focusing on peace settlements and mediation, with a background in United Nations missions in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

His most recent assignment was in 2021 as Guterres’ personal envoy on Afghanistan and regional issues.

Reporting by David Brunnstrom and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama