Brussels Edition: Watching Westminster Again

(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

What will become of Brexit? Before an emergency summit on April 10 to answer that question, Prime Minister Theresa May could call a snap general election, resign, sign up to a customs union with the EU, notify her intention to keep the U.K. in the bloc for many more months — or set wheels in motion for Britain to crash out on April 12. Brussels will watch today as the British Parliament makes another attempt to vote for what it wants, after countless rounds of voting against what it doesn’t. But it remains to be seen whether May and her bitterly divided cabinet will take the outcome into account.

What’s Happening

Brexit Victims | Among the unsung casualties of Brexit are British mandarins working for EU institutions. Many of them have  sought a Luxembourg passport as a contingency measure, Stephanie Bodoni reports from the Grand Duchy. Even so, getting dual nationality hasn’t been a career-saver. 

When In Rome | Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hosts European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for talks in Rome, with Conte expected to highlight his government’s efforts to boost economic growth, amid dismal forecasts from the Commission and pretty much everyone else. Conte is also expected to lobby Juncker on reviewing an Alpine rail project which has Italy’s coalition partners at loggerheads.

Competition Policy | Back in Brussels, EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager will debate the future of EU’s industrial policy with German economy minister Peter Altmaier. After Vestager refused to bow to Franco-German pressure to allow the mega-merger between Siemens and Alstom, EU leaders mandated the Commission to recommend “updates” in the bloc’s industrial policy this year. Vestager will probably reiterate that it’s not size that makes champions. 

Birthday Bash | NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg today will preview the alliance’s 70th birthday celebration in Washington this week. While the April 3-4 meeting of NATO foreign ministers risks sparking fresh questions about President Donald Trump's support of allies whose defense spending he has bluntly criticized as too low, the occasion will highlight the commitment of the U.S. establishment to the alliance by including an address by Stoltenberg to a joint session of Congress.

In Case You Missed It

Turkish Results | President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party lost ground in Turkey’s capital and cities along the Mediterranean coast in Sunday’s municipal elections. But the party largely stood its ground across much of the country’s rural interior. The fate of Istanbul has yet to be decided.

No Joke | A TV comedian with no political experience took a big step toward defeating Ukraine’s incumbent leader. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who’s tapped into anger at the former Soviet republic’s lack of progress since a pro-European revolution five years ago, won about 30 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. He joins other successful comics-turned-politicians including Italy’s Beppe Grillo and Slovenia’s Marjan Sarec.

Slovakia’s Winner | A pro-EU anti-corruption lawyer won a landslide victory in Slovakia’s presidential election, delivering a rebuke to the populist, euroskeptic politics that’s sweeping much of the bloc’s ex-communist wing. Zuzana Caputova won on an agenda that includes support for gay rights and multicultural ideas, only a day after the country’s parliament asked the government to pull out from an international agreement on tackling violence against women.

Finnish Security | And since we are on the subject of elections, there’s one EU country which is worried a lot about the security of its own ballot. Finland, which shares a bigger border with Russia than the rest of the EU combined, is ramping up its defenses against the threat of foreign meddling in its April 14 election.

Chart of the Day

March readings for euro-area inflation are due today, with economists predicting both core and headline inflation remained stuck at February’s levels.  Yet a gradual acceleration in supercore inflation — a measure by Bloomberg Economics that focuses on items that have the strongest connection to the spare capacity in the economy — “provides reassuring signals that higher wage growth is starting to feed into prices.”

Today’s Agenda

All times CET.

• 11 a.m. Eurostat to release March inflation and February unemployment readings 
• 12:10 p.m. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker addresses the Landtag of Saarland in Saarbrücken, Germany, and holds a press point
• 1:30 p.m. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefs the press in Brussels ahead of a meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers in Washington D.C.
• 2 p.m. U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison briefs the media in Brussels 
• 3 p.m. European Parliament’s ECON committee holds a public hearing with ECB Vice President Luis De Guindos
• 6:30 p.m. European Policy Centre hosts a policy dialogue in Brussels with Peter Altmaier, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, and Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition 
• House of Commons votes on "motions relating to the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from and future relationship with the European Union’’
• EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker meets Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome

--With assistance from John Follain.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Heather Harris at hharris5@bloomberg.net, Andrew Blackman

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