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For the EU’s prosperity, we must empower the single market now

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For the EU’s prosperity, we must empower the single market now

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

The EU rests on its single market, its singular crowning achievement. To ensure the EU’s future competitiveness and prosperity, its leaders must act now to truly empower it, Jacques Pelkmans writes.

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When the EU marked 30 years of the single market in 2023, a report should have been written about it but was not even requested. 

The core of the unwritten report would have concluded that the union’s single market is far weaker than assumed and not nearly as “single” as the name suggests. 

It is full of shortcomings and contains hundreds of barriers and distortions that seriously and detrimentally impact the EU’s ability to stimulate and encourage investment.

This must be addressed by EU policymakers as a matter of urgency. We need immediate and sustained action to deepen and strengthen the single market at the highest political level.

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This is why the “other” report that should have been commissioned and written last year is so strategic — even though the term “strategic” is mightily overused in today’s EU. 

But for the health and dynamism of the EU’s economy over the long term, there is no action more important and more strategic than empowering the single market. It truly is the EU’s trump card in an increasingly unstable and uncertain global order.

Real ownership required

The EU could gain as much as 9% of its current GDP if concrete steps are taken now to empower the single market, tantamount to the current combined GDP of the Czech Republic, Belgium and Ireland. 

If the EU could induce a greater sense of dynamism via start-ups/scale-ups and a heavier emphasis on R&D and patents, the extra boost in GDP would be even higher.

To achieve this requires real ownership by the EU’s political leadership, however. There needs to be firm action by the European Council right after the start of the new European Commission’s mandate and the formation of the new European Parliament later this summer.

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The new CEPS In-Depth Analysis report “Empowering the Single Market” (arguably the unwritten report on the single market that should have been commissioned last year) calls for a medium-term programme that would be decided by the European Council but embraced and implemented by the European Commission, in partnership with the EP. The plan would include regular and rigorous oversight to ensure progress doesn’t stall.

At the European Council level, the troika of national presidencies ought to be as active and enterprising as during the early Delors period (late 1985-1988). 

There should be a dedicated Commissioner for the internal market, ideally a Vice-President to clearly signal that the single market is a political priority.

The rest of the report’s programme mostly outlines substance rather than institutional issues, with one key exception — enforcement. Infringements are often costly for the single market but hardly so for the relevant member states, even over a period of several years. 

Thus, in serious instances, a fast-track procedure or the suspension of a national law should be possible. Finally, the European Parliament’s IMCO committee should have annual single market enforcement sessions, with accompanying reports, and extensive hearings giving consumers, citizens and businesses a clear voice.

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No pain, no gain

The substance of the proposed medium-term programme ought to be ambitious. It must be accepted that, in the short run, some measures are bound to be painful for some, otherwise, genuine progress will never be more than piecemeal. 

The credibility and effectiveness of the programme hinges first of all on services, with two parallel action plans proposed.

The first is about removing barriers and distortions in services falling under the 2006 Services Directive, with an emphasis on professional services, retail (all the way down to the local level) and construction services.

The second is about services falling under dedicated sector regulation, such as rail freight, as well as effective progress in achieving competitive and larger European capital markets — crucial for ensuring EU businesses, including start-ups, can access risk capital. 

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The second plan also stresses the need for the full integration of banking services, the better facilitation of cross-border consumer (and other) finance and more investment in cross-border interconnectors.

The proposed programme’s credibility would also rest on ending “hard fragmentation”, namely consolidating the EU’s telecoms market, stricter rules to coordinate spectrum frequencies between member states, the fully-fledged Europe-wide operation of air traffic control, and shifting from a myriad of national copyright rules to a single EU copyright regime.

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Ambitious and far-reaching is the only way

Other significant moves include the European Commission abandoning its revised approach to harmonised European standards — this has no useful purpose. 

Regulating on issues that are better left to diplomacy, which has severe costs for European companies involved in global value chains, also needs to be stopped. 

And finally, support for EU start-ups must be improved to encourage and stimulate more dynamism in the EU economy.

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Make no mistake, all of the above is highly ambitious. Enacting such a far-reaching programme will require much political skill, resolve and capital. But the consequences of not doing it would be far worse.

The EU rests on its single market, its singular crowning achievement. To ensure the EU’s future competitiveness and prosperity, its leaders must act now to truly empower it.

Jacques Pelkmans is Associate Senior Research Fellow at CEPS and professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

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Likely Yemen Houthi rebel attack targets ship in Gulf of Aden as Eisenhower reportedly heads home

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A commercial ship traveling through the Gulf of Aden saw explosions near the vessel, authorities said Saturday, likely the latest attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attempting to target the shipping lane.

The apparent fire by the Houthis comes after the sinking this week of the ship Tutor, which marked what appears to be a new escalation by the Iranian-backed Houthis in their campaign of attacks on ships in the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials reportedly ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the aircraft carrier leading America’s response to the Houthi attacks, to return home.

The captain of the ship targeted late Friday saw “explosions in the vicinity of the vessel,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.

“The crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call,” the UKMTO said, without elaborating on whether the ship sustained any damage.

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The Houthis, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, did not immediately claim the attack. However, it can take the rebels hours or even days to acknowledge their assaults.

The Houthis on Friday released footage of one of their drone boats, the “Tufan,” or “Flood,” which they said targeted the Tutor.

The Houthis have launched more than 60 attacks targeting specific vessels and fired off other missiles and drones in their campaign that has killed a total of four sailors. They have seized one vessel and sunk two since November. A U.S.-led airstrike campaign has targeted the Houthis since January, with a series of strikes May 30 killing at least 16 people and wounding 42 others, the rebels say.

In March, the Belize-flagged Rubymar carrying fertilizer became the first to sink in the Red Sea after taking on water for days following a rebel attack.

The Houthis have maintained that their attacks target ships linked to Israel, the United States or Britain. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the Israel-Hamas war.

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Meanwhile, the U.S. Naval Institute’s news service reported, citing an anonymous official, that the Eisenhower would be returning home to Norfolk, Virginia, after an over eight-month deployment in combat that the Navy says is its most intense since World War II. The report said an aircraft carrier operating in the Pacific would be taking the Eisenhower’s place.

The closest American aircraft carrier known to be operating in Asia is the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The Roosevelt anchored Saturday in Busan, South Korea, amid Seoul’s ongoing tensions with North Korea.

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

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Hot tub death: Wife files wrongful death lawsuit, calls for 'accountability'

A Texas woman has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against two Mexican resort travel companies, seeking more than $1 million, after her husband tragically died after being electrocuted in a resort hot tub.

In the lawsuit, Lizzette Zambrano, from El Paso County, Texas, named vacation rental companies Casago LLC, Casago International LLC and High Desert Travel Inc., which operated Sonoran Sea Resort, where she was staying with her husband, Jorge Guillen.

Zambrano accused the companies of being “grossly negligent” and has called for the companies to “take accountability” for her 43-year-old husband’s death.

“I want somebody to take accountability for what happened to my husband and myself,” Zambrano told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

MEXICO HOT TUB DEATH: US TOURIST WHO WAS ELECTROCUTED REMEMBERED AS ‘BIG FAMILY MAN’ WHO HAD ‘HEART OF GOLD’

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Jorge Guillen and Lizzette Zambrano are from El Paso, Texas, according to media reports. (GoFundMe)

The lawsuit paints a picture of the couple’s last moments together before being electrocuted in a hot tub while vacationing.

As soon as Guillen entered the tub, he was “exposed to an electrical current in the water,” it said.

“Jorge immediately keeled over into the tub and was taken under the surface of the water,” the lawsuit said. “Witnessing her husband immediately collapse, Lizzette sprang forward from the pool deck to try and grab Jorge’s body.”

Zambrano attempted to rescue him, but was also shocked. 

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She was eventually rescued by a bystander and taken to a hospital.

“Patrons attempted to assist, grabbing a shepherd’s cross and other items to attempt to get Jorge’s body,” the lawsuit said. “However, the metal from the objects carried the electrical current and began shocking the rescuers.”

The lawsuit said it took “ten painstaking minutes” before staff members “availed themselves and began to assist in rescuing Jorge.”

MAN KILLED AFTER GETTING ELECTROCUTED IN SEASIDE RESORT JACUZZI 

“At no time prior to this, did Defendants seek to engage the emergency shutoff for the jacuzzi or attempt any rescue of either Jorge or Lizzette,” it said. “Jorge was being electrocuted and drowned under water for 10 minutes.”

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Puerto-Penasco-Mexico

A beachfront at the popular tourist resort of Puerto Peñasco in the state of Sonora, Mexico. (AP Photo/Annika Wolters/File)

Guillen was remembered in a GoFundMe for having a “heart of gold.”

 

“Our best friends have experienced a horrible accident. Jorge had a heart of gold and was always there for family and friends. The love they shared was one for ages,” reads a GoFundMe page set up for the couple. 

In a comment to the New York Post, Casago denied responsibility. 

“The Sonoran Sea is a condo resort and the homeowners’ association is responsible for all common areas, including the maintenance of the swimming pool, hot tubs, and grounds,” they said. “Casago, a vacation rental company, is not involved in any management or maintenance of the resort.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out to Sonoran Sea Resort for comment.

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

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Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says

Israel says it will soon ‘make the necessary decisions’ about confronting the Iran-allied Lebanese group.

Iran says Hezbollah is capable of defending itself and Lebanon, warning Israel that it would be the “ultimate loser” in an all-out war with the Lebanese armed group.

Tehran’s statement on Friday came as fears of a major Israeli offensive in Lebanon continued to mount.

“Any imprudent decision by the occupying Israeli regime to save itself could plunge the region into a new war, the consequence of which would be the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as that of the 1948 occupied territories,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a social media post.

“Undoubtedly, this war will have one ultimate loser, which is the Zionist regime. The Lebanese Resistance Movement, Hezbollah, has the capability to defend itself and Lebanon – perhaps the time for the self-annihilation of this illegitimate regime has come.”

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Israel also issued a threat to Iran-aligned Hezbollah on Friday with Foreign Minister Israel Katz saying “soon we will make the necessary decisions” about confronting the Lebanese group.

“The free world must unconditionally stand with Israel in its war against the axis of evil led by Iran and extremist Islam. Our war is also your war,” Katz said.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said this week that if the Israeli military goes to war in Lebanon, his group will use its rockets and drones to hit targets across the entire territory of Israel. He warned Hezbollah would wage a war with “no restraint and no rules and no ceilings”.

Nasrallah also issued a threat to Cyprus, a European Union member that sits in the eastern Mediterranean west of the Lebanese and Israeli coasts. He said the group has information that Israel is conducting military exercises in Cyprus in terrain similar to southern Lebanon.

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Nasrallah added that Israel plans to use airports and bases in Cyprus for military purposes if its own infrastructure is targeted during a serious war.

“Opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means the Cypriot government has become part of the war, and the resistance will deal with it as part of the war,” he said without elaborating.

Cyprus said Nasrallah’s threat is not grounded in reality, stressing the country enjoys great relations with Lebanon.

Still, the Hezbollah statement exacerbated concerns about an even larger regional war that could spill beyond Lebanon’s borders and pull Iran-allied groups – if not Tehran itself – as well as the United States into the conflict.

Hezbollah started attacking military bases in northern Israel the day after the outbreak of the war on Gaza on October 7 in what it says is a “support front” to back Palestinian groups. Israel responded by bombing southern Lebanese villages and Hezbollah positions.

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While the near-daily clashes have displaced tens of thousands of people in Lebanon and Israel, they have been largely contained to the border areas.

But the violence has escalated in recent weeks, especially after an Israeli air raid killed a top Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon last week.

On Friday, Hezbollah claimed several military operations against Israel, including a drone attack it said targeted Israeli forces at a coastal base on the western side of the border.

The US has pushed for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis while expressing concern about Hezbollah’s attacks. “We have made quite clear we do not want to see escalation of this conflict,” Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Thursday.

For its part, Hezbollah has said it will continue operations against the Israeli military until Israel ends its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians.

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Members of Hezbollah attend the funeral of a senior field commander [File: Mohamed Azakir/Reuters]

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