Your weekly filling of European news; updates in Europe from over the weekend. This week, we have abandoning of British pension reforms, and continuing of the political deadlock in Madrid, French opposition to Labour market reforms and the outcome of the Slovak national elections. Summaries only with Dimokratía.

Slovak elections leave Fico without a majority: The Slovak national elections held over the weekend left incumbent Prime Minister Robert Fico and his centre-left, Smer–sociálna demokracia party (Smer-SD) with the largest share of the vote, but overall another fractured parliament, reports POLITICO. Slovakia now joins a long line of European states who have witnessed inconclusive elections and divided parliaments following their general elections, and will now have to enter . POLITICO reported on Sunday that Fico’s Smer-SD won 28.3% of the vote, leaving it still the largest party, however this is a far cry from the 44% it won in the 2012 elections, allowing the party to rule independently, with an absolute majority and 83-seats in the Národná rada, the unicameral Slovak assembly. Meanwhile, other mainstream parties fared incredibly badly this time round, with the Kresťanskodemokratické hnutie (KDH) and Slovenská demokratická a kresťanská únia (SKDÚ) not making it into parliament, Most–Híd barely scraping into parliament, and other centrist parties gaining poor shares of the vote, the best being the Sloboda a Solidarita (SaS) with 12.1%. Prime Minister Fico based his campaign most critically on the subject of refugees, and has actively resisted EU attempts to impose migrant quotas on member-states, warning his fellow Slovaks of the danger posed by Muslims, and using the campaign slogan “We Protect Slovakia”. POLITICO suggested that this could have some link to the rise of right-wing nationalist parties in Slovakia, which did well in the election. 2 ultra-nationalist parties, Ľudová strana – Naše Slovensko (L’SNS) and Sme Rodina (SR), made it into the parliament, winning 25 seats altogether, and the Slovenská národná strana (SNS) winning 15 seats and 8.6% of the vote. Despite framing the debate around migration, the last months of the election debate focussed around social services, with teachers and nurses striking – these being areas where Fico’s party does poorly. Michal Havran, a Slovak philosopher and television host, said “The main problem in Slovakia is standard of living. In Western countries, all political campaigns depend on that. Here people are fixated on symbolic politics.” This divided parliament comes at potentially the worst time for Slovakia, with the EU Council’s rotating presidency going to be held by the Slovak government as of July. With this in mind, it is likely Slovakia’s President, Andrej Kiska, will appoint a Unity government to ensure stability, and which will last until the end of the Slovak presidency in 2017.

Turkish government raids newspaper headquarters: The FAZ reported that Turkish police raided the headquarters of Zeman on Friday, a newspaper critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. In a clear breach of the Freedom of the Press, during the seizing of the paper’s headquarters, the Turkish police used teargas and water-cannon to quell demonstrations against the government raid. Several police occupied the building afterwards. It was known that the Erdoğan government had been wanting to take control of the papers critical of them, and the raid on Zeman is the last in a series of attacks by the Turkish government on Press Freedom. The English-language sister paper of Zeman the Deutschen Presse-Agentur (DPA) that “it seems as if the independent media will die” in Turkey. Last month, after 3 months of being interred by the Erdoğan government, 2 Cumhuriyet (another newspaper critical of the government) journalists were finally released from prison, with the charges of undermining state security being dropped after President Erdoğan received criticism from the international community. In December the chief editor of Zeman was arrested by state police, and prior to the November elections last year, the Koza Ipek group, which published 2 papers and a TV show criticising the Erdoğan government, had its assets seized, and its output turned pro-government. This recent assault on press freedom comes just days before an EU-Turkish summit on the refugee crisis; the Turkish government has already received €3bn in order to help it deal with the 2.5m refugees within its borders, and the last discussions mentioned a potential acceleration of Turkey’s EU-membership accession. However stark criticism has come from all sides, with the European Parliament President, Martin Schulz (S&D Group) saying that it was an attack on press freedom and that “Turkey could squander its historic chance”. Criticism also came from the Leader of the ALDE Group in the parliament, Guy Verhofstadt on Facebook “[Erdoğan] systematically disregards one of the critical pillars, the media freedom, by imprisoning journalists and putting critical media under government’s control.” Meanwhile, the FAZ reported German Interior Minister, Thomas de Mazière (CDU) said that Turkey should nonetheless be commended for housing 2.5m of its own refugees, and that Europe “should not be a referee on human rights”.

George Osborne abandons British pension reforms: After a major backlash from Conservative MPs in the House of Commons, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has dropped his plans to overhaul Britain’s pensions system, reports the FT. Chancellor Osborne planned to include either a flat rate of tax relief on pensions, or even more radically, a “pension ISA”, which would end tax relief on pensions but would allow savers to draw their income tax free. This would have been included in the Chancellor’s 2016 budget, however Conservative MPs in the Commons, along with the pensions industry and the Daily Mail all showed resistance to the idea, and the plans risked provoking a rebellion in the chamber. Parliamentarians were concerned of the financial impact of such a reform on their constituents, and it was pointed out by some that the suggested flat-rate would hit higher-rate payers hardest. Chancellor Osborne has already overhauled the British pension system to some degree in previous budgets, effectively obliging them to take out an annuity at retirement. Huw Evans, director-general of the Association of British Insurers said “The current system works…and delivers valuable incentives to save for retirement”, before continuing that the current system of tax relief “does its job in encouraging people to save more for their retirement.” The FT reported in its article on Friday that the decision to not risk a rebellion in the Commons was taken to not further antagonise Conservative back-benchers in the run-up to the referendum on the EU. Other proposed bills by the Cameron government have also been postponed, such as the review of the BBC, a ‘British Bill of Rights’ to the replace the European Convention on Human Rights, and the approval of a third runway at Heathrow Airport. The 1922 Committee – an influential group of Conservative back-benchers – warned that the pension reforms would provoke a backlash from Conservative MPs. The Chancellor has already been forced to scrap plans this parliament – last year the planned tax-credit overhaul failed to receive approval in the Lords and faced criticism from both sides of the House in the Commons. Executives in the Pension industry had been lobbying since July against the most radical pension reform – the ‘pension ISA’ – which it warned would be deeply damaging to retirement saving. Nevertheless, most do support a flat-rate of tax relief, however this would prompt a backlash from MPs.

Pedro Sánchez fails for the second time to form a Spanish government: On Friday a second attempt by the leader of the Spanish socialists, Pedro Sánchez, to get confirmed by the Congreso de los Diputatos failed, leaving Spain still without a government. El País reported that this was the expected result after having failed in the first investiture vote on Wednesday, and will leave Spain with two further months of uncertainty as the parties are given more time to carry out coalition discussions. In the chamber, in which Sánchez’s own party, the PSOE, holds on 90 out of 350 seats, only the PSOE and their allies Cuidadanos (Cs) supported the socialist bid to form a government. Cs and PSOE have formed a block in the Congreso after signing a policy agreement the previous week, leading to the bid for a minority government last week. Against him, 219 votes opposed the PSOE’s bid for government – Sánchez requires 176 votes to be confirmed. El País reports that despite the socialist only requiring a simple majority on Friday, he failed to gain any support from outside Cs and PSOE, a sign of the remaining hostility and divisions in Spanish politics. The Wednesday vote saw an entire day’s debate on the PSOE-Cs plan for government, and was harshly criticised from their opponents, including the the anti-austerity, leftist Podemos movement; the third largest in the chamber. On Friday Sánchez had only 10 minutes to lay out his plans for government, in which he mentioned tackling corruption, which he described as “the venom that weakens democracy”, as well as constitutional reform. He then said that the other parties would have to think of “the general interest”, and put it above party-politics. Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy however attacked his plan however, saying “You have not come here with a real programme, one that would have secured you the support you need”. Meanwhile, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias reminded the PSOE leader that he could return with a more leftist programme to gain the support of his party, and reminded the chamber that working together and compromise was necessary to move forward.

Resistance to French labour reforms grows with petition receiving 1m signatures: Plans by the French Labour Minister, Myriam El Khomri, have faced serious resitance from Socialist parliamentarians, the public and Trade Unionists, reports Le Monde. The Labour Minister met on Thursday with the leader of the largest French business federation, MEDEF (Mouvement des entreprises de France), and the French Trade Union federation, the CGT (Confédération générale du travail), to discuss reforms to the Labour Code. According to Le Monde, the government was willing to consider certain amendments to the bill, but not the overall thrust of it. The Labour reforms intend to allow companies to directly negotiate with their workers with regards to over-time pay and maximum hours, instead of having to go through negotiate with the Unions, as well as make it easier for workers to be laid off by their companies. The French government has defended these reforms by saying they will make France more competitive and tackle record unemployment persisting in the country. However, it has come under heavy fire. The CGT said that the draft bill was “unacceptable”, and further elaborated that “the text is not signable. it is too vague and interpretable as one wishes”. In a joint statement with other Union groups, the CGT said the bill”must not only be adjusted, but absolutely fundamentally changed, so the balance is in favor of employees”. Demonstrations have been planned by French trade union groups on 9th March over the issue. Meanwhile, Student Unions have also criticised the government plans, planning to demonstrate alongside workers on 9th March, and taking part in their joint meeting on the issue, shortly after the draft bill was released. The UNEF (Union Nationale des Étudiants de France) called for “the full and total withdrawal of the bill”. Meanwhile, Labour Minister EL Khomri criticised the student resistance, saying “this law is for the young…to be able to enter more easily the labour market”. Parliamentarians on the left of the governing Parti Socialiste (PS) have also mobilised against the bill with some, such as Christian Paul, declaring their support and participation in the 9th March demonstration. According to Le Monde, this resistance to the bill goes beyond the usual rebels in the party. Socialist Mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry, wrote a letter to the paper earlier this month declaring that a socialist government should not undertake such actions, writing “Not that, not us, not the left”. Meanwhile an online petition criticising the bill reached 1 million signatures on Friday, a record in the country.

Sources: Le Monde, FT, FAZ, POLITICO Europe, El País