Europe

A human wave of refugees is supposedly setting off for Europe from North Africa. But what are the real figures? The first thing to note that refugees from North Africa come at a time when there has been a sharp decrease in the number of asylum applicants in the 27 EU member-states. Eurostat says that in 1992 there were 670,000 applications in the EU-15 and in 2001 there were 424,500 applications in the expanded EU-27. But according to the UN, the 27 EU member-states registered only 247,300 asylum claims in 2009 and 235,900 in 2010, a 5 per cent annual decrease.

From the Number 10 website: The Prime Minister is pleased to confirm the following senior appointments: Sir Peter Ricketts, currently the Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor, to become HM Ambassador to France; Sir Jon Cunliffe, currently the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Europe and Global Issues, to become the UK’s Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels; Sir Kim Darroch, currently the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU, to become the Prime Minister’s National Security Adviser; and Sir Peter Westmacott, currently HM Ambassador France, to become HM Ambassador to Washington. These changes will take effect from January 2012.

At a time when the Euro is looking so weak, it is a wonder that so many countries are still queuing up to join. Estonia has recently joined, while Hungary and Bulgaria are keen as mustard to join as well. Make no mistake, these countries want to join. They go to lengths to stay for two years in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, while keeping inflation inline with the EU average. At a meeting this morning, the Hungarian foreign minister capped off his country¹s EU Presidency by declaring that Hungary is still focused on joining. But, even if these countries did not want to join the Euro, or felt perhaps that the Greek crisis was a reason to postpone membership, they would have no choice.

The toughening-up effort continued with David Cameron's press conference just now. There he was, at the prime ministerial lectern, not just announcing a stricter sentencing system than Ken Clarke broached a few weeks ago, but explaining why the government's change of mind was actually "a sign of strength". Out are the 50 per cent sentence reductions for those who plead guilty early. In is a commtiment to jail those caught using a knife threateningly, as well as a bundle of tougher measures all round. "Being strong is about being prepared to admit that you didn't get everything right the first time around," said Mr Cameron, again and again.

With events in Greece moving at pace, next week’s European Council meeting (which was scheduled to be a low-key affair) could be the place where attempts to resolve the crisis in the eurozone take place. I’m told that Number 10 has now woken up to this possibility and is doing some preparatory work on the matter.   But, frustratingly, there’s still no strategy for how David Cameron could use this crisis to advance the British national interest. As I wrote last week, if the eurozone countries decide that a solution will require a treaty change, then Britain has a veto over that — and could use the negotiations to secure various things that Britain wants from the EU.

It seems that everyone won the election that was held in Turkey this weekend. Prime Minister Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) officially won, taking some 50 per cent of the vote, which is enough to secure him a third term in office, but not sufficient to enable his party to make changes to the constitution. As the BBC's Gavin Hewitt notes, ‘Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey stands out. He is genuinely popular. He is socially conservative, but he has tapped into the aspirational mood of Turkey’s middle class.’ But although the opposition party, Republican People's Party (CHP), lost the election they actually polled about a quarter of the votes, the best result it has had for three decades.

To an extent, British politics is still determined by whether or not you agree with Tony Blair. For more than a year, the coalition and the opposition have been debating whether to continue Blair’s public service reforms; this is a testament to his failure as Prime Minister as much as it to his success. Today, has given an interview to the Times (£), coinciding with the release of his memoirs in paperback. He uses it to question the Labour party’s current journey back into “nostalgia”. He says: “The attraction of a concept like Blue Labour is it allows you to say that there’s a group of voters out there we can’t reach at the moment, so what we should do is really empathise with their plight.