05/02/2016 Politics Europe

But first on BBC News, Politics Europe.

Hello, and welcome to Politics Europe,

your regular guide to the top stories in Brussels and Strasbourg.

The EU has pledged billions of taxpayers' money

to help Syrian refugees, but with peace talks stalled and

fighting escalating, will they do anything to ease the suffering

David Cameron's back on the road selling his deal

Will he be able to convince sceptical governments to

The border guards are back, with more than a million migrants

Is the dream of a border-free Europe dead?

And is this Europe's most serious faultline?

We visit the border that separates the two halves of Belgium.

On this side, we are in a Flemish town

and that side is a Walloon town.

So all of that and more in the next half-hour.

First, our guide to the latest from Europe in just 60 seconds.

A deal has finally been struck between member states

in the European Commission to fund humanitarian aid for refugees

The UK will be the second-biggest contributor.

The European Union and USA have agreed new rules to

allow companies like Google or Facebook to process personal data

In Rome, officials met to review the fight against so-called

Islamic State amid warnings the group were threatening Libya.

But IS have lost a significant amount of territory recently.

But more recently, more ups than downs.

German border police should shoot at refugees entering

the country illegally, according to the far-right AFD party.

But the remarks were roundly condemned.

And the European Parliament will allow diesel cars to emit double

the legal emission limit of nitrogen oxide until 2020.

Extra leeway is being given because emissions were four times

With this us for next 30 minutes, I am joined by Labour MEP Richard

Let's talk first about the ?7 billion worth of aid

that has been pledged to help Syrian refugees in the Middle East region.

2.3 billion of it coming from the European Union, a big chunk

Richard, hundreds of millions have already been spent on refugees

in the region, and the flow of migrants is still increasing.

Why would more money make any difference?

It would make more difference if you were a Syrian refugee sitting

in a camp and your food rations are $19 a day.

I was at the camps in Lebanon, $19 a month, not enough for a loaf

I understand the humanitarian reasons, but these are vast sums

of money of which Britain is a big part, but it is being sold to us as

money well spent not just because it helps people to survive, but that it

There is no evidence that is the case.

I partly accept that, but it is a pretty dirty deal if the only reason

Britain or Europe would give money to Turkey and Lebanon and Jordan to

help refugees is only to stop refugees coming here, and what we

have to do first and foremost is yes, manage the refugee crisis,

I am involved in a lot of activity at the European level.

As the deal was being done in London less than half a mile

from here, Russian aircraft and Assad ground troops were pummelling

Everybody needs to take a compassionate approach to this,

but if we look at what was said by the National Audit Office,

so much of the aid has not been reaching where it should be going.

If you look, the Department for International

Development have huge concerns over whether the aid is actually reaching

We will keep an eye on it, because the situation as you say is terrible

Just to say, we have been working painstakingly

to get Iran and Saudi Arabia to the table, the talks did nothing and the

alternative is to do nothing, but after five years of war in Syria,

Earlier this week, the draft on the EU reforms was published.

David Cameron says there will be plenty of negotiations to follow

But just to get this far has been a hard trek for the Prime Minister.

Setting off on his Europe reform journey before

the election, David Cameron said he wanted to ban EU migrants from

That has proved to be a steep challenge.

The draft suggests only graduated access to benefits

from initial complete exclusion, then increases over the four-year

Then child benefits linked to the standard of living

in the country where the child lives,

The UK can also apply for an emergency brake on welfare,

but it is not completely clear how that brake is pulled,

who does the pulling, and for how long it will last?

The Prime Minister has also set a milestone of protection

for economies which have not adopted the euro.

And unless the draft does deliver, prohibiting discrimination

Another aim of David Cameron's expedition was to get Britain out

of ever closer union with the European Union.

And the draft recognises that the UK is not committed to further

political integration into the European Union.

The Prime Minister also called for sovereignty of national parliaments

to be bolstered, but this looks like it is set to be an uphill slog

for the PM, with confusion over what his red card realistically means in

terms of giving national parliaments greater powers to club together

It is also unclear what powers MEPs might have to reject

Limit child benefits, and a ban on so-called sham

marriages, all of which could leave the British Prime Minister with more

We're joined now from Brussels by the Conservative MEP Kay Swinburne.

Are you broadly happy with what the Prime Minster has achieved?

I think the Prime Minister set out his clear agenda and has obviously

been in and got support from all of the other member states so far.

It has the final leg to go in the last stages of negotiations.

Yes, I'm happy he set his priorities, he has got what he

has aimed for in all four areas, and I'm hoping he can deliver

in that final set of negotiations in the middle of this month.

In what way has UK sovereignty been enhanced by this settlement?

There are several things within that, and it is very important that

we were excluded from the ever closer union, especially

as those eurozone countries decide to get closer in terms of

For us, it was important we were differentiated outside of that

But we are outside of it - that is really just reinforcing

There are some big issues here in terms of what they will need to

do going forwards, and to make sure we are well outside

For us, it is also important that we have this new red card system, that

we have a system whereby if there is a piece of legislation that actually

does not suit us for whatever reason and it is impacting on our economy,

we would be able to, with others, say that it is not acceptable.

That does not enhance British sovereignty, that involves getting

together 15 other parliaments within a 12-week period.

It would involve some of these other parliaments rebelling and voting

against the stated position of their elected governments.

That is a mechanism, nothing to do with British sovereignty.

In terms of member states actually having more say over the

legislation, a key part of that part of the document is that actually

member states will have more of their regulation done at national

That is something that not just the UK is calling for

In terms of sovereignty, what can be done at national level will be

That is an important part of that section that has been overlooked.

I want to bring in our guests in London.

Could this settlement run into trouble in the European Parliament?

We have three shepherds of the parliament representatives

There is a strong will there to help Britain stay in the European Union.

This is a message that the British electorate should hear, that our

fellow countries, despite all of their frustrations and irritations,

they don't want Britain to leave, and I have sat in internal meetings

listening Francois Hollande, a big critic of David Cameron,

and he has said he could be part of the compromise.

Will the European Parliament be a thorn in the British side

Quite frankly, the three representatives of the European

Parliament are MEPs from the three groups, not representatives

from my group or Kay's group or two other groups, but they have a very

different approach to the direction the European Union should be going.

If elements of this deal come before the European Parliament,

I see Britain's future outside the European Union.

This is much further than hashing a debate on what is conceivable or

What this is about is what is not in this re-negotiation.

The fact that the supremacy of the British Parliament, the supremacy

of the European courts, I can go on and on in so many different areas.

He has not achieved anything, not just what he has wished,

but what David Cameron put to the British people

It shows how little power we have in the European Union.

Coming back to Kay Swinburne, if this was watered down further in the

process before we get to the summit, if some of it is taken back a bit,

given so many of your colleagues in London and the European Parliament

think it is a pretty watered-down document anyway, it couldn't survive

I have to restate there is a large number of us who fully support

the Prime Minister's negotiations as they currently stand, and think

But what if it's watered down further?

In terms of watering it down, this is a negotiation.

These are things on the table at the moment.

I'm asking you what would happen if it is watered down further, though?

I have full faith the Prime Minister will get his negotiation at the

level he is anticipating, and that we will be able to therefore support

For me, it is very much a case of we have goodwill, and we will be

Now, is the dream of a borderless Europe about to end?

The arrival of over a million migrants over the last

year has prompted many EU countries formally in the borderless Schengen

We have visited the famous Denmark-Sweden border, where

crossing the Oresund Bridge between the two countries, you may have seen

the TV detective series based on it, has been made a lot more difficult.

Security checks at the last station in Denmark before crossing into

Sweden over the Oresund Bridge. This new border control is disrupting the

journeys of thousands of commuters who used to travel freely to in the

two countries. Some of the passengers have said this is a new

Iron Curtain. We have had no border, and suddenly we get a

boarder at this station. People are really shocked and disappointed

because they think they have not expected they have to show a

passport to go home from work. Good morning. The border checks have been

introduced as a result of a new Swedish law to deal with the

unprecedented flow of migrants travelling through Denmark and into

Sweden. Thank you. Have a nice day. Just this week, Sweden's migration

minister travel to Copenhagen to meet his Danish counterpart and

justified the new controls. In four months, September-December, there

arrived 114,000 people to Sweden. In the whole year, 2015, there arrived

163,000 people to Sweden. That is 1.6% of our population. It is his if

in the UK would have come 1 million people in

one year. There's no doubt the new law has

slowed down the daily commute. But is it also the end

of the line for this corner The Oresund Bridge is

so much more than just It's a symbol

of open borders that has powered Now there are fears that

vision is fading away. I'm optimistic that we will find

a better way to manage the ID control because we can't live with

a Checkpoint Charlie in Copenhagen Airport between Denmark

and Sweden, so we have to find a way of making it more manageable

for the commuters. So I've arrived in Sweden and here

are the police again, something you So we've stopped just before Malmo

and ID is checked again. Sweden is facing

a new political challenge as attitudes harden in the wake

of the migrant crisis, something that worries the political editor

of the regional paper in Malmo. We've gone from being extremely

liberal and a very unusual approach for Europe to approaching almost

a Hungarian style policy. It was a panic reaction

and it was assumed that nothing we have previously believed will work

for this particular situation, and to me that is a lack of faith

in your own policies that make me It's not just in Sweden where

the political weather is changing. Back in Copenhagen, the Danish

parliament recently passed a law giving authorities the power to

seize the assets of asylum seekers. A move that's been

widely criticised. It's quite reasonable that

if you have to pay for your stay in Denmark and your family's stay

in Denmark, then you should pay, why should Danish taxpayers pay

for your stay in Denmark? My family, the Danish People's

Party, think that this piece of legislation is a step in the right

direction and we will continue to work for even more tighter rules on

refugee issues and migration rules, because we believe the number coming

to Denmark, for instance from the The refugee crisis is challenging

the whole idea of European integration and will continue to

haunt its institutions Jo Co on the bride,

she'll be in Borgen next. Schengen's on life support,

isn't it? It is de facto,

it's just not operating now. There's going to be a big Nordic

noir vote in the EU referendum, and Jo is obviously a fan

of the programme. But yes, there are intense

pressures at the moment and there One, it really makes

the point that Britain has opted out of Schengen, of borderless travel,

we've opted out of immigration When Eurosceptics want to sort

of make the debate in Britain about how we've got open borders,

look, it's just not true. Were we right not to go

into Schengen? I would like us to manage

our migration in Europe better, I would like us for example to be

part of the EU relocation scheme. I asked whether it was

a sensible decision, because many people think it would not to have

participated in Schengen. We're an island nation

and we have different opportunities to defend our borders,

and what's wrong with that? The second question,

is Schengen in trouble? Of course it is, of course it is,

because we've seen unprecedented numbers crossing our borders

and this year by the way we will see people coming

from Afghanistan, and that's going So we do have to do find common

ways of dealing with it. The idea that one country

on its own can solve these big Britain outside the European Union

can decide properly what our borders should be without this

The issue is the free movement of people.

Schengen that we don't have this problem.

What is happening on the bridge where Jo was reporting from, we

already have, that is our situation, that's the situation whether its

already have, that is our situation, that's the situation whether it's

But we have the free movement of the workforce.

With the changes coming in with regards to the living wage,

The average living wage will be ?9 70.

Someone working a 40-hour week will be earning ?14,000 a year in the UK.

If you work on local figures in Rumania, they would be on

If you work on local figures in Romania, they would be on

We've got a situation where it will remain

It's not just about controlling your border,

it's about having the ability to decide who comes to live in the UK.

Wasn't the weakness of Schengen that it was always going to be as strong

And since the borders of southern Italy and Greece have proved to be

very weak indeed, it was inevitable that Schengen couldn't survive.

And after the Paris attacks, reports in the Wall Street Journal

this morning that the leader of the Islamic State attack on Paris

says he slipped in among EU refugees from Syria.

That's the end of Schengen as long as that's pertaining.

But I met the counterterrorism police in my own constituency

in the east of England and yes, they are shocked on the external border

that there wasn't the basic check of the passport against the terrorist

database that would be natural on the British border.

Then I went back to the European Parliament to press

But for everyone watching, of course we need robust,

But to people who want to go on holiday to Spain or send their kids

on a school exchange to Germany, or somebody whose husband or wife gets

a job in Italy, do they want to have to go down to an embassy in

London, line up, get a visa, possibly be refused?

Your party wants us to go back to

You have international agreements, that is ridiculous.

What this is about, this is about a situation...

You want free movement still, do you?

I want a British government that can decide policy without

What bit of "I have to stop you" did you not get?

Of all countries in the European Union, the Belgians are perhaps

Belgium is home to many EU institutions of course

But as Adam Fleming discovered, the country itself is really two

The author Brigitte Raskin lives on the fault line that runs through

On this side we are in a Flemish town.

It is called one thing on one side and another on the other.

Here we are in the Flemish community, that is the French

This is the Flemish region, and this is Wallonia.

The Flanders side of the street is also richer, better

educated and has lower unemployment than the well only in sight.

educated and has lower unemployment than the Wallonian side.

She has written a book about the dispute which has

complicated historical origins but very modern consequences.

One day there was a man who had an accident on a bike.

the other man was on the Wallonian side.

And did I mention in the east there is a community that speaks German.

It means an alphabet soup of multiple levels of government,

which I discovered at the Royal Palace.

The king was hosting a New Year's reception for all of them.

Well, if you're into Belgian politics, as

On the section line, the Prime Minister, who runs

the federal government, which looks after the big stuff, along with

the minister president of Flanders, his equivalent from Wallonia and

separate leaders representing the French, Dutch and German

language communities, which all have their own parliaments too.

The boss of Brussels capital region was there as well,

but I'm not sure how many of the city's 19 mayors could make it.

Even the local journalists need a list.

Some Dutch, some French,

Critics say that the spate of terrorist attacks allegedly planned

in Belgium recently is a result of a weak central government.

Others like Mark from the New Flemish Alliance thinks

Do you think in ten years Belgium will exist as a country?

I am a strong believer of the fact that powers will shift.

More and more powers will go to the regional level

and other powers, where there is an added value to work together,

But this larger scale will not be manageable because it's too small.

At least you can guarantee some national unity this summer.

Soon it is Euro 2016 and Belgium's football team is the best

Do you get a sense of evaporation when you're in Brussels?

Brussels is a third part, it is a capital city not like London

which relies entirely on public funds, because of

Whether it is Belgium, the Basque country or Ireland,

Europe has being a unifying force that has enabled past division to