World
The EPP party says migration and the economy are its goals for 2025
During discussions on Saturday, EPP leaders said the EU’s economy must become more competitive and both security and migration must be tackled.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) met in Berlin on Saturday to outline its priorities for 2025 with leaders focussing on stopping the rise of the hard-right, promoting competitiveness, clamping down on illegal migration.
“This year, the EPP will ensure that competitiveness and securing prosperity are number one on the agenda,” the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz told his fellow EPP members.
“The second major issue is, we must now stop illegal migration, not just talk about it, but act. And the third: We must ensure that we secure peace. And we can only do that by taking a strong military stance.”
“We need tougher rules to limit irregular migration to Europe,” he added.
Merz is currently the favourite to win Germany’s federal election in February and be elected as its new chancellor.
“Lower productivity in the EU”
The EPP highlighted that European industry is getting less competitive as growth in Europe lags behind other regions. There is a growing GDP gap with the US, from 17% in 2002 to 30% in 2023.
“The main reason for the worsening situation is lower productivity in the EU, which leads to slower income growth and weaker domestic demand in Europe. Recently, international trade has come under pressure – putting additional strain on many export-oriented sectors of our economies,” the party stated.
It added that “the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the subsequent increase in energy prices have additionally worsened the economic outlook in Europe.”
The EPP proposes simplifying existing laws, cutting unnecessary rules, and adopting a “one in, two out” rule for new regulations.
And it’s also suggests delaying and reducing the scope of corporate sustainability laws to ease the burden on businesses.
Over the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India’s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.
Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defense and technology ties, U.S. prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil.
Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges against India’s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power.
Still, the relationship has held. After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing U.S. ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.
“I don’t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of the U.S.-India relations,” Mr. Garcetti said on Saturday in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Biden leaves office and Donald J. Trump is sworn in as his successor.
“This is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,” Mr. Garcetti added. “It’s really the pace and the progress that’s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.”
The Biden administration’s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with U.S. sanctions on India’s nuclear program in 1998.
Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Already the world’s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023. India’s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.
Now comes Mr. Trump’s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.
S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said India enjoyed “a positive political relationship with Trump” that it hopes will only deepen. As he attended the opening of a U.S. Consulate on Friday in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Mr. Jaishankar quoted Mr. Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming “the hesitations of history.”
Mr. Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Mr. Trump, an important factor because of the incoming president’s personal approach to international relations. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora — an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.
But some analysts cautioned that Mr. Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.
Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon. During the campaign, Mr. Trump criticized India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs. And India could be swept up in the controversy if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.
Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. If Mr. Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Mr. Modi.
Amita Batra, a New Delhi-based economist and trade expert, said that India should see warning signs in Mr. Trump’s threat of higher tariffs even against America’s traditional allies, as well as his stated willingness to unravel deals with countries like Mexico and Canada that his own first administration had put in place.
“You may say we are on great terms with Trump, we have an easy relation with the United States, but how Trump views that at a particular time is a different question altogether,” Dr. Batra said at an event at the Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. “India has to be very cautiously approaching Trump 2.0.”
During the interview, Mr. Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as “the most compelling, challenging and consequential” for both countries.
A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.
He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.
He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programs. Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for the jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.
But by the time Mr. Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.
In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the U.S. allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate an American citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, the business mogul, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India’s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.
The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point.
“On Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,” Mr. Garcetti said of the assassination case. “It didn’t pause the momentum — you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.”
Mr. Garcetti said that the Biden administration had been reassured by India’s response. New Delhi had accepted the U.S. demand, he said, “not just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again.”
An Indian government inquiry that concluded last week recommended legal action against an unnamed person with “earlier criminal links.” It said that the action “must be completed expeditiously,” in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.
“If we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, et cetera, trust is the basis of everything,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But I’ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.”
One question hovering over the deepening ties between the two countries is whether India can truly emerge as an alternative to China in global supply chains — something that Mr. Garcetti also wondered.
India has reaped only a small part of the windfall from the moves away from China, with businesses preferring places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it is easier to set up operations and where tariffs are lower.
Mr. Garcetti said India had made dramatic leaps after opening up its economy only in the 1990s, years after China. He picked up his iPhone to illustrate a widely highlighted recent success: About 15 percent of iPhone manufacturing now happens in India, a figure that could continue growing rapidly, he said.
More broadly, though, India still struggles to attract foreign investment, despite improvements in infrastructure and some streamlining of regulations. Manufacturing is not growing quickly enough to bring India the jobs it desperately needs.
“Where India’s leaving a lot of progress and jobs and growth on the table is figuring out a better way to make it seamless and frictionless to invest here for export,” Mr. Garcetti said. “Because it’s still, you know, for so many components of manufacturing, one of, if not the, highest tariffed economies.”
“They’re not wrong to look and say it used to be 95 percent worse,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But if that 5 percent is still double your competitor or 10 times your competitor — companies, you know, are like water. They flow where gravity takes them.”
After the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas goes into effect Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. local time in Israel, which is 1:30 a.m. ET, three female hostages are the first expected to be released.
As of Saturday, at 8 p.m. ET, Israel was still waiting on the list of which hostages would be released first.
Israel’s Cabinet approved the deal early Saturday morning for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages captured after Hamas’ unprovoked attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Phase One of the deal starts on Sunday with the release of the first three hostages and lasts 42 days.
ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES WILL RECEIVE HOSTAGES SUNDAY WITH EQUIPPED CAMPER TRAILERS AND COMFORTING SUPPLIES
After the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas goes into effect Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. local time, which is 1:30 a.m. ET, three female hostages are the first expected to be released. (Maya Alleruzzo/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
During that time, a total of 33 hostages will be released, with children, women, female soldiers, people over 50, and sick or injured men being prioritized. More than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners will be sent back to Gaza as well.
Most of the Israeli hostages are believed to still be alive, but their identities won’t be revealed until closer to when they’re released.
Another four hostages will be released on day seven and three more will be released on day 14, with a priority given to women.
Three more hostages will also be released on day 28 and again on day 35.
Between days 35 and 42, hostages Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who have both been held in Gaza since 2014 and 2015, will be released.
ISRAEL-HAMAS CEASE-FIRE: ISRAELI GOVERNMENT APPROVES DEAL SIGNED BY NEGOTIATORS
In the last week of phase one, 12 hostages will be released.
Hundreds of people gathered in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday to demand the immediate return of hostages to their homes after the ceasefire came into effect. (Nir Keidar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
On the 16th day of Phase One, negotiations will begin for Phase Two, which is expected to include the release of all remaining Israeli hostages, including young men, soldiers, and fallen soldiers.
Phase Two will start on day 43 and last another 42 days.
The Israeli government decided that the Israel Defense Force will remain in Gaza until the last hostage is freed, but they will move back to a security zone along the Gaza border that provides security for residents living there.
Netanyahu and his Cabinet discuss the hostages for a cease-fire deal at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem on Friday. (Courtesy: GPO)
The plan is a new defense approach and is still being finalized under the IDF’s Southern Command.
The Justice Department’s statement of interest criticizing the NCAA’s preliminarily approved settlement to resolve the House, Carter and Hubbard antitrust litigations is off the mark, attorney Jeffrey Kessler told Sportico in a phone interview on Saturday.
The DOJ’s court filing was made in a California federal district court late Friday. Among other critiques, the DOJ objects to colleges paying athletes 22% of a defined formula for averaged shared revenue. The DOJ finds this arrangement inadequate because the “cap” has not been collectively bargained with a union (there is no union for college athletes since they are not employees and unions consist only of employees).
The cap, the DOJ highlights, means D-1 schools won’t be able to compete for college athletes by offering them “additional value beyond that limit for use of their [NIL].” The DOJ finds it problematic that an NCAA member school “is not permitted to spend what it wants … to compete for the services of college athletes.” While the new amount (around $21 million a year for a school’s athletes) is dramatically greater than the old amount ($0), it is “still fixed by agreement” among competing businesses. Price fixing by competitors is generally disfavored under antitrust law.
The DOJ is also worried that the NCAA and power conferences can use the settlement, which is set to last 10 years, as a defense in future antitrust cases. As the DOJ sees it, the NCAA might “attempt to use a private, negotiated settlement as a shield in future litigation.” To corroborate that concern, the DOJ references an email from NCAA and power conferences attorney Rakesh Kilaru sent to DOJ attorneys in which Kilaru noted his clients “retain all rights” to rely on the settlement.
Kessler, a partner at Winston & Strawn and a lead attorney in several historic sports litigations, stressed the settlement, if granted final approval by U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken following a hearing on April 7, will lead to college players being paid “billions of dollars.” He also underscored the settlement will change longstanding NCAA rules that have denied players any compensation.
A settlement is also just that—a settlement—meaning it reflects the give-and-take of a deal. Both sides, including the NCAA, need to find the prospect of settling better than continuing to litigate. The players and the NCAA (and power conferences) could have kept litigating and rolled the dice. They would have also had to accept spending many years in court since federal appeals in antitrust cases can last a long time. They instead opted to cut a deal. Wilken is not charged with determining if the settlement is ideal or optimal for the players. She must assess if it satisfies a lower bar: The settlement must be fair, reasonable and adequate for class members and adequately resolve the alleged antitrust problems.
As to the possibility of the settlement being used as a defense, Kessler emphasized “there is no release of antitrust claims,” either by the Justice Department—which is not a party to the litigation—or future players.
If elite athletes who are currently 12 years old wish to challenge NCAA rules on antitrust grounds in five years, the athletes can do so. The settlement doesn’t release future claims. The two sides expect the 12-year-olds won’t bring a lawsuit and will instead accept the compensation figures that have been set in the House settlement, but if the 12-year-olds want to sue, they can.
The NCAA can use the settlement as a legal defense, but a defense is only as persuasive as found by a court. A defense is not an antitrust immunity or exemption. It’s also not as if the House settlement has dissuaded the filing of antitrust lawsuits. Since Wilken granted preliminary approval last October, Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia has challenged NCAA eligibility restrictions on JUCO transfers on antitrust grounds and Southern Mississippi basketball player John Wade III has challenged the NCAA’s five-year eligibility period on antitrust grounds.
The timing of the DOJ’s filing is important for at least a few reasons.
First, the filing was made with less than three days to go before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. Trump, his nominee for U.S. attorney general, Pam Bondi, and incoming attorneys for the DOJ’s antitrust division might not agree with the DOJ’s position as expressed in Friday’s statement and could withdraw or amend the statement.
Trump’s DOJ, including its antitrust division, will also take months to fill out. The U.S. Senate must confirm Trump’s nominee for the assistant AG of the antitrust division (Gail Slater) and positions in that department will gradually be filled. Time is of the essence: Wilken is set to decide on final approval after a hearing 11 weeks from now. Trump’s DOJ might not be ready to express a viewpoint by then. This could create an uncertain landscape for Wilken to know the DOJ’s position, which could make the DOJ’s filing on Friday seem less authoritative.
Second, the timing of the DOJ’s statement could deflate its legal arguments. The DOJ could have raised these same points last year, including before Wilken granted preliminary approval in October, but waited until the final hours of the Biden administration. Those points were also already raised by seven former and current D-I athletes in their court filing last October, which might have been a better time for the DOJ to weigh in. Rushing to file the statement before Trump takes office could be interpreted as the DOJ, under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland, believing Trump and Bondi hold different views.
Lastly, it’s telling that while the DOJ opines the House settlement doesn’t do enough for college athletes because of underlying antitrust concerns, the DOJ hasn’t sued the NCAA over those concerns. The DOJ, while under the leadership of Democratic and Republican presidents, could have challenged these rules at various points over the last 70 years. In fairness to the current DOJ, it did join a lawsuit (Ohio v. NCAA) last year over NCAA transfer rules. And in 1998, the DOJ sued the NCAA under the Americans with Disabilities Act over treatment of college athletes with learning disabilities. But the DOJ could have, and didn’t, challenge numerous other NCAA rules in recent decades as the same college athletes at “big time” programs generated massive revenues for their schools and weren’t paid.
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