The EU approved the acquisition of Blackstone division of Thomson Reuters. The European Commission approved the purchase of the business of financial services and risk assessment by Thomson Reuters on behalf of the American investment company Blackstone Group LP.
The EC stated that “the proposed transaction raises no concerns about the reduction of competition given the limited market shares of the companies.”
Thus, the EU authorities approved the acquisition of a unit financial services and risk assessment by Thomson Reuters from Blackstone. The consortium company led Blackstone announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters in January 2018 as part of the deal, the consortium will receive 55% of the new company, 45% will be owned by Thomson Reuters.
Italy has blocked the final Declaration of the EU summit
Italy has blocked the adoption of a statement on the outcome of the EU summit on all topics of the official agenda due to disagreements about the decision of the migration crisis in Europe.
In an official statement of the Council of Europe noted: “as one member expressed an objection to the final statements at this stage, no statement had been made”.
Several media outlets have reported that the final statement on the economy, security, defense and several other areas was blocked by Italy. In particular,
according to an unnamed Reuters source in the delegation of one of the countries, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giuseppe Conte declared he would not sign any of the conclusions of the summit until you have reached agreement on the solution to the problem of migrants.
Merkel: immigrants should not choose the country
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that coming to Europe migrants should not independently choose a country to live in.
“Refugees should not decide in which country to stay,” – said the Chancellor on Friday at a press conference on the results of the EU summit in Brussels.
Among other decisions taken at the summit, she noted the strengthening of the Agency of border control FRONTEX EU countries. “We have made clear that we want to strengthen FRONTEX, namely to 2020,” – said the Chancellor of Germany.
Also during the meeting of the heads of States adopted a decision on allocation of the second tranche of Turkey.
In addition, it became known that the summit had agreed the creation of centres of disembarkation of migrants outside of the EU. “It was a long discussion, and in the EU there are still different approaches, but I’m glad that there are a lot of countries to agree to reduced flows to Europe. It is not only the Visegrad group, but also the Netherlands, Denmark, Bulgaria…. We are pleased that for the first time managed to provide the centers of discharge outside the EU. We have long required that such safety zones or landing centres existed outside of Europe, and this idea was realized”, – told reporters the Chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz.
EU leaders agreed on migration
The heads of state and government of the 28 EU countries have reached agreement on migration crisis. This was at the end of almost 15 hours of negotiations at a summit in Brussels said Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel.
“The deal for migration achieved”, – told reporters the Prime Minister of Luxembourg.
Information about what the summit participants still agreed, was confirmed by the Head of the European Council Donald Tusk. “The heads of 28 countries agreed on the conclusions of the summit, including migration”, – he wrote in his Twitter.
On the eve of the negotiations had serious disagreements. Italy has blocked the final Declaration of the EU summit, disagree with decisions about immigration policy.
Ahead of the summit the President of France Emmanuel macron emphasized on the fact that the migration crisis in Europe long ago became political.