Weekend Euro News update with Dimokratía, with stories from across the Union. This week we have stories discussing political developments from across the Union, including Madrid, Munich, Athens & Warsaw.

Beata Szydło claims the rule of law is upheld in Poland: In a visit to Berlin on Friday, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło defended her PiS government’s controversial reforms to the Judiciary and Media in Poland. Les Echos made a report on Friday detailing the defence of laws that have triggered an unprecedented investigation by the European Commission into the state of the rule of law in Poland. Prime Minister Szydło asked for respect for her country, and continued that many European countries have similar laws and that we should not linger on the Polish case. Last year reforms to the Media and the Judiciary have prompted arguments that PiS have undermined checks and balances against the Polish government, including the undermining of the rule of law. However speaking after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prime Minister Szydło said that “Poland is a state of law, a democratic state”. She continued that “These are internal problems of Poland, she insisted. This is a decision of the Polish parliament. These are not topics that deserve the attention of European policy.” Nevertheless, in January the Commission initiated a preliminary investigation into the state of the rule of law in Poland, a move supported by a series of German officials. President of the European Parliament described changes made by PiS as the ‘putinisation’ of Polish politics, in a statement condemned by many PiS Ministers. The Polish PM asked for “mutual respect” from her German neighbour, saying that the two countries have enjoyed 25 years of the Treaty of Good Neighbourhood, and that they have benefited from eastern-enlargement of the EU. However she stressed that Germany and Poland were “partners equal in rights”. She encouraged the EU to look at “where we have made mistakes”, and encouraged a turning point in refugee policy. Both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor agreed at the press conference that the Refugee Crisis was one of Europe’s biggest challenges to date.

Greek farmers take to the streets to protest: On Saturday, thousands of protesters gathered in the streets of Athens in sign of solidarity with Greek farmers, reports Kathimerini. Farmers have been protesting the planed pension reforms, proposed by the SYRIZA government, by blocking major roads and border crossings. According to Kathimerini, an estimated 12,000 people gathered in Syntagma Square, outside the Hellenic Parliament, to demonstrate support with farmers, who arrived from other parts of Greece to demonstrate in the capital on Friday. According to reports, over half the demonstrators on Saturday were members of the far-left leaning PAME Trade Union. On Friday, around 10,000 people including many farmers marched through Athens, behind tractors blaring their horns in protest. Protests also took place in front of the Agriculture Ministry and outside the city. As part of the planned pension reform, social welfare contributions will be increased; these reforms were forced on Greece last year as part of a €86bn bailout package with Greece’s Troika of debtors. Demonstrations in Greece have not just included blue-collar workers and farmers, but also professionals and white-collar workers in the weeks since the pension reforms were announced in December.

Secretary of State Kerry says Britain should stay in the EU: US Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement on Saturday that a “strong UK” should remain in a “strong EU”, reports POLITICO Europe. Speaking at the security conference in Munich, the US Secretary of state said “the United States has a profound interest in your success”, referring to the European Union. This is not the first US official to have clearly shown a preference for the UK remaining in the Union; a US trade official made an announcement last October saying that US is less interested in bilateral trade deals (e.g. between the US and the UK), but in multilateral ones spanning many countries, suggesting that Britain would not get any special treatment outside of the EU. Prior to that, President Obama himself has said that he wants the UK to remain in a united Europe. The Press Association reporting on Saturday said that the US President may make a “big, public reach-out” to voters during the referendum campaign, in order to bolster the efforts of the ‘In’ Campaign. Speaking on the subject of US interventions, Leave.EU spokesman Jack Montgomery said that it might be good for the US for Britain to be in the EU, but that doesn’t mean it would be good for Britain. “Imagine if Kerry proposed a pan-American union in which an unelected commission would control United States immigration policy, trade policy and regulations, among a host of other important matters. He would be run out of Washington DC on a rail.” Prime Minister Cameron is now in the process of finalising the conclusions of his negotiations with the EU on Britain’s position in the Union, which will be agreed at a summit on 18th February.

Poland and France reject the concept of a ‘mini-Schengen’ at Munich Conference: Rzeczpospolita reported on Saturday that the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Polish President, Andrzej Duda, together rejected the creation of a ‘mini-Schengen Area’, in a statement put out by the Polish Presidential Chancellery. The statement said that the two leaders had agreed that countries should not be excluded for any political reasons, even if they are unable to effectively protect the EU’s external border. “Either we save the Schengen zone together, or it will become a dream”, Rzeczpospolita reports. The Polish Chancellery also admitted that a whole range of other issues, including the involvement in French industry in the Polish army, were discussed. Whilst the PiS government wants to modernise Poland’s military capability, it also aims to improve the Polish weapons-manufacturing industry, which President Duda said of the two objectives, that they were closely linked. However, the discussion on Saturday was not focussed on this, the topic was only discussed alongside others. The President also made clear on Saturday that he was a supporter of new countries such as Montenegro joining NATO – PiS is wary of Russian belligerence, being so close to Poland, and has called for the increasing of Europe’s military capability before.

Series of policy differences prevents Spanish parties from forming a coalition: On Friday, El País reported that a series of policy differences, including on corruption, constitutional reform and a referendum on Catalan independence are proving to be the major roadblocks in Spain’s political parties forming a coalition.  Coalition negotiations have been taking place since the elections in December resulted in the most fragmented parliament in the history of Spanish democracy. On the one hand the Partido Popular (PP) and the recently emerged liberal Cuidadanos (Cs) party are staunch defenders of national unity and oppose a referendum in Catalonia, whereas the other rising star in Spanish politics, Podemos, are in favour on a referendum to decide the Catalan question. The Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) also reject a referendum, but have not got concrete plans to deal with separatism in the northern region, beyond as yet unclear changes to the structure of the Spanish state. On a different issue, PSOE and Cs both have detailed policy proposals to deal with corruption in the Spanish state, however the PP has almost no mention of any such measures in their own documents. The Socialists and Cs have agreed that the 1978 constitution needs tweaking for modern-day Spain, however conservative PP has been stalling on the matter. Podemos has also said that it will not work with the Cs, and its leader Pablo Iglesias has said that in any coalition with the Socialists he wants the position of deputy PM. Seeing it was left out of recent talks however, Podemos has shifted its stance to allow Ciudadanos into a potential coalition, with its policy areas being focussed on social policy, where it has common ground with PSOE. Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rejected last month the opportunity to form a government after admitting he would not be able to win the approval of the Congreso de los Diputados, the first chamber of the Cortes Generales. Earlier in February, King Felipe VI then offered the position to the Socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez, who has since then been unable to form a workable coalition government. Early March is when the investiture session of the next Spanish Prime Minister is scheduled; if no viable candidate emerges, the elections will have to be called again this year.

French PM Valls rejects the partitioning up of refugees: At the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told the delegates that the EU should send out the message “we can’t take any more refugees”. Die Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Saturday that the French Prime Minister ruled out the possibility of establishing further EU-wide quotas for accepting refugees, which German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been advocating for since the crisis began at the end of last summer. Prime Minister Valls did accept however that the previously agreed number to be partitioned – 160,000 – should be kept to. Of these, 30,000 refugees would be taken by France, according to the agreement. Chancellor Merkel however stuck by her position, saying that alongside strengthening of the EU’s external borders had to be a partitioning of those refugees and migrants who had already arrived, in order to control the influx of people. PM Valls had already made his position clear – that the EU cannot take any more refugees – last November, in another article published in Die Süddeutsche Zeitung. At that time, he told journalists “We are not supporting an everlasting redistribution mechanism”, as well as that border controls and hotspots had to be implemented. On Saturday, PM Valls pointed out that France had begun receiving some of its 30,000 refugees. However the EU overall has been struggling to implement the redistribution of the agreed 160,000 refugees, which was decided last year to take the burden off Italy and Greece. Other voices have rejected the prospect of a redistribution mechanism, including Slovakian Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák, who told German journalists that “Quotas only raise the incentives for migration”. The newly installed PiS government in Warsaw also chose to pull out of the refugees the previous PO government had agreed to, in the wake of the 13th November attacks in Paris. Together with their Visegrád partners, Slovakia advocates for the closure of the Western Balkans route, a proposal which angered the SPD part of the German government, including Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel. Together they sent out a letter to their social democrat allies across the continent, warning against suggesting such a proposal. Together with the Brexit negotiations, will the refugee crisis be discussed at the European Council summit on 18th February.

Sources: Les Echos, Die Süddeutsche Zeitung, Rzeczpospolita, El País, POLITICO Europe, PA, Kathimerini