Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Monday he was organizing a conference to look for ways to stabilize Libya, a main departure point for migrants from North Africa trying to reach Europe.

“In agreement with President (Donald) Trump, I’m going to organize a conference on Libya,” Conte told reporters at the White House after meeting with the U.S. president.

“We would like to deal (with) and discuss all of the issues related to the Libyan people, involving all of the stakeholders, actors, protagonists in the whole of the Mediterranean,” said Conte, who took office last month promising a crackdown on immigration.

Italy has told its allies it wants to hold an international conference on Libya this autumn and Conte was eager to get Trump’s blessing for the gathering at their meeting on Monday.

Italy is competing with neighboring France over how best to deal with Libya, which has been wracked by violence for years.

Conte believes a conference in Rome, backed by the United States, will help Rome establish itself as the major interlocutor for Libya’s warring factions.

After their meeting, Conte said Trump had agreed Italy would become “a reference point in Europe and the main interlocutor for the main issues that need to be faced … with particular reference to Libya.”

“We are going to discuss economic aspects, but also social aspects: the need for protection of civil rights; the problem of constitutional process – of issuing and passing laws so as to enable Libya, in particular, to get to democratic elections in a condition of the utmost stability,” Conte said.
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Macedonia’s parliament has set September 30 as the date for a referendum on changing the country’s name to North Macedonia.

Macedonian lawmakers approved the measure with 68 votes in the 120-seat parliament. Opposition members boycotted the vote by leaving the room.

Greece has objected to its neighbor being called Macedonia, saying it implies territorial claims over its own province of the same name. It has blocked the former Yugoslav republic’s bid to join the European Union and NATO because of the naming disagreement.

Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who was elected in 2017, has pushed for an agreement with Greece to solve the dispute. In June, the two sides agreed on the name North Macedonia.

The referendum question that parliament approved Monday does not explicitly mention changing the country’s name. It says only: “Are you for EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between the Republic of Macedonia and the Republic of Greece?”

Macedonia’s nationalist opposition party, VMRO-DPMNE, criticized the wording of the referendum question. “It is manipulative,” said Igor Janusev, VMRO-DPMNE secretary general.
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Some European companies are rethinking their strategies to cushion the impact of trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the United States and China.

The focus will switch back to China after a truce on tariffs emerged from U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on July 25.

Trump and Juncker agreed to suspend any new tariffs on the European Union, including a proposed 25 percent levy on auto imports, and hold talks over duties on imports of European steel and aluminum. However, Trump retained the power to impose tariffs if no progress is made.

In the case of China, Trump threatened that he was ready to impose tariffs on an additional $500 billion of imports.

The United States has already imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports. In return, China has levied taxes on the same value of U.S. products.

Below are recent comments from European companies on trade tensions:

Russian steelmaker MMK has delayed the launch of a project in Turkey, which was expected to add $90-$100 million to its core earnings, due to uncertainty created by global trade wars, the company said.
Siemens Healthineers plans to cushion the impact of U.S.-China trade tensions by changing its supply routes to ship goods from its European factories. The firm expects tariffs to have a low single digit million euro impact on Healthineers' results this year, which could rise to a double-digit million euro effect next year.
German automaker BMW said it would increase suggested retail prices of the relatively high-margin X5 and X6 SUV models by 4 percent to 7 percent. The company has said that it would be unable to "completely absorb" a 25 percent Chinese tariff on imported U.S.-made models.
China-based car dealers said Mercedes maker Daimler moderately raised prices in the country of its GLE midsize SUV which is produced in Alabama. Daimler is looking at ways to mitigate the impact of the trade tensions, including reviewing whether to shift some U.S. production to Asia. The company blamed tariffs for a 30 percent drop in second-quarter profit.
Wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa warned that trade tensions would drive up U.S. costs by 2 to 4 percent, depending on the product and whether further tariffs are imposed. The company is working to reduce the impact on margins by optimizing its supply chains.
French electrical equipment company Schneider Electric foresees growth slowing in the second half of the year and expects the first extra costs linked to higher U.S. tariffs, which could reach 20 million euros.
"If the trade war escalates we are more concerned about the consequences that it can have on global macro environment," STMicro said, adding that the direct impact of trade war risks were currently negligible.
Fiat Chrysler cut its 2018 outlook, hurt by a weaker performance in China. Its operating profit for the second-quarter was negatively impacted by China import duty changes.
French mining group Eramet warned that current favorable markets could be hurt by trade rows.
Philips confirmed its sales growth target for this year but added that trade worries and the consequences of Brexit continued to cause uncertainty.
Finnish steel maker Outokumpu sees a double impact from the U.S. tariffs, with surging imports to Europe resulting in heavy price pressure, whilst in the Americas base prices have risen, benefiting local manufacturers itself.
Fellow Finnish company Valmet said tariff increases could derail the recovery and depress its medium-term growth prospects.
Chinese-owned Volvo Cars  said it was shifting production of its top-selling SUV production for the U.S. market to Europe from China to avoid Washington's new duties on Chinese imports.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, whose members include General Motors, Volkswagen AG and Toyota, also warned on the impact of the tariffs. A study released by a U.S. auto dealer group warned that the tariffs could cut U.S. auto sales by 2 million vehicles.
Sweden's Electrolux said U.S. tariffs announced in July would have an impact of $10 million plus this year. In the third quarter. It expects raw material costs to rise by 0.5 billion Swedish crowns.
Belgian steel wire maker Bekaert reported it sees underlying operating profit 20 percent below analysts' estimates in the first half, blaming wire rod costs partly driven up by tariffs.
Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy sees a further increase in steel prices in the second part of the year in the U.S., partly due to new import tariffs.
Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine said about a third of its U.S. sales would be impacted by import tariffs, adding it was talking to its customers about who would bear the cost.
Norway's REC Silicon booked an impairment charge of $340 million "due to the market disruption from the curtailment of solar incentives in China, as well as continued trade barriers that prevent access to primary markets inside China."

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Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of an Australian archbishop convicted in May for covering up child abuse.

An Australian magistrate said Archbishop Philip Wilson had shown no remorse for concealing the crimes of a pedophile priest who had attacked altar boys in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney in the 1970s. The court in the city of Newcastle said the archbishop’s “primary motive” at the time when he was a junior priest was to protect the reputation of the Catholic Church.

He had said he would only resign if his appeal against his conviction for covering up child abuse failed.

His defiant stance had been widely condemned. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said he was surprised the 67-year-old Catholic cleric had decided not to quit immediately, and urged him to do so.

There was also mounting pressure within the Catholic Church for Wilson to stand down from a position he has held for 18 years.

He is the most senior Catholic in the world to be convicted of concealing child sexual abuse.

He was given a maximum sentence of 12 months in custody, but is likely to avoid jail and serve his time in home detention.

Survivors of clergy abuse also said they were disappointed at the sentence. One had said that if the archbishop did not resign then the Catholic Church would become a “bigger laughing stock than it already is.”

The case is due to return to court on August 14 while Wilson is being assessed for home detention.

 
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Two-thirds of Britons now think the government will end up with a bad deal when Britain leaves the European Union early next year, and half want the chance to vote on what happens next, Sky News reported on Monday, citing its own poll.

With less than eight months until Britain is due to leave the EU, Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to find a proposal to maintain economic ties with the bloc that pleases both sides of her divided party and is acceptable to negotiators in Brussels.

The Sky poll said 65 percent of British voters thought the government would end up with a bad deal – an increase of 15 points from March – and half support a referendum to choose between leaving with a deal, leaving without a deal or staying in the EU. The poll indicated 40 percent opposed such a vote, while 10 percent did not know.

When asked to choose between three options – May’s deal, a no deal or staying in the EU – 48 percent said they would prefer to stay in the EU, 27 percent wanted to leave with no deal and 13 percent would opt for the government’s deal.

Sky Data interviewed a nationally representative sample of 1,466 Sky customers online between July 20 and 23. Data are weighted to the profile of the population.

The shift in public opinion comes as May has stepped up planning for a so called “no-deal” Brexit that would see the world’s fifth largest economy crash out of the EU on March 29, 2019 without a trade agreement.

A separate poll on Friday suggested that the proportion of voters who favor a referendum on the final terms of any Brexit deal had overtaken those who do not for the first time.

May has repeatedly ruled out holding another public vote on Brexit, saying the public spoke at a June 23, 2016, referendum, in which 51.9 percent of the votes cast backed leaving the EU while 48.1 percent backed staying.

Her main opponents in parliament, the Labour Party, are also not advocating a second referendum, meaning that, despite growing support and a vocal campaign for another vote, there is no obvious path for one to take place.

However, the potential for major political upheaval remains, with May’s minority government facing a series of make-or-break moments in the Brexit process over coming months.

She must find a way to strike a deal with the EU, which has already rejected her preferred plan on trade, then sell that deal to her deeply divided Conservative Party, before putting it to a vote in parliament. Failure at any of those three hurdles could cost May her job.

 BAD JOB The Sky poll found 78 percent of voters thought May’s government was doing a bad job of negotiating Brexit, up 23 percentage points from March. Just 10 percent thought the government was doing a good job.

Earlier this month, the government set out in detail for the first time what kind of trading arrangement it wants with the EU after leaving the bloc, triggering a political crisis in which two senior ministers resigned in protest, saying May was watering down Brexit.

Since March, the proportion of those satisfied with May’s performance has fallen to 24 percent, down 17 percentage points, the Sky poll showed.

Voters were split on whether Brexit would be good or bad for the country: 40 percent said it would be good and 51 percent said it would be bad.
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President Donald Trump will welcome new Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at the White House Monday.

The two leaders will have a private conversation in the Oval office, followed by an expanded bilateral meeting, with the White House saying the talks are aimed at deepening “cooperation in addressing global conflicts and promoting economic prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic” and at recognizing “the historical and cultural ties between the countries.”

Conte became Italy’s prime minister through a coalition deal reached by two anti-establishment political parties, the League and the Five Star Movement after Italy’s March 4 election.

These two parties garnered most votes, and had leaders who both aspired to become prime minister. As a compromise in forming a joint government, they chose Conte, a soft-spoken law professor with no previous political experience. The move made Conte the leader of Western Europe’s first fully populist government.

Since becoming Italy’s leader, Conte has emerged as Trump’s strongest supporter in Western Europe.

Trump has met Conte twice, at the recent G-7 and NATO summits, but the U.S. leader has already declared him “a really great guy” and said he “will do a great job — the people of Italy have got it right.” The two have at least one thing in common — populist administrations.

The meeting comes at a time of tension between the United States and Europe.

Conte backed Trump’s call in June for Moscow to re-enter the Group of Seven, a proposal flatly rejected at the summit by all the other members of the group of industrialized Western powers. Russia was ousted from the Group of Eight after its annexation of Crimea.

The two right-leaning parties in the Italian coalition government have long sought a re-evaluation of Rome’s relationship with Moscow, including a call for the lifting of EU sanctions. Italy has said European sanctions on Russia also hurt Italian firms. Conte has since said the sanctions should not be dropped quickly.

Trump has expressed support for the Italian government’s high-profile attempts to toughen the European Union’s asylum migration policy. He and Conte hold similar views on the issue of migrants.

The Italian government has said the talks between the two leaders on Monday will focus on the issues in the “Mediterranean, Iraq, Afghanistan” and the intensification of “cooperation between the two countries with the aim of economic growth for both countries.”

Washington wants to ensure Rome will continue its role in Afghanistan, especially after Italian Defense Minister Elisabetta Trenta recently said Italy’s troops serving there may have to be reduced.

Libya also is a significant issue of concern for Italy. Conte is likely to seek support from Trump as Rome tries to play a leading role in the rebuilding of Libya. For Italy, Tripoli is an important energy partner. It also wants Libya to be stabilized because of its role as a starting-off point for migrants trying to reach European Union countries.
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