FILLON FAKE NEWS: French presidential hopeful François Fillon was on a roll on Sunday. Heâ™d threatened to quit if a last-minute rally at Parisâ™ fancy Place du Trocadéro was a flop. Thankfully, one of his allies, conservative Senator Bruno Retailleau, told the crowd âYou are 200,000!â Never mind that the square can squeeze in only about 50,000. According to police, between 30,000 and 45,000 attended the rally. Later that same day, Fillon told France 2 he was not âautisticâ (which led to French NGOs and charities asking for an apology) and attacked the media for saying his wife Penelope (who received hundreds of thousands of euros in public funds while Fillon was an MP) had attempted to kill herself. French media and POLITICO have checked, and no media outlet made such a claim. TRUMPISM AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT: There have been numerous attempts to work out if U.S. President Donald Trump has a coherent ideology or not. The latest comes from European Commission President Jean-Claude Junckerâ™s personal think tank, the European Political Strategy Centre. It says that âirrespective of their immediate anxieties, Europeans need to take a step back from the noiseâ â in essence, keep calm and carry on. The authors of its new report also have faith that things will turn out just fine. âThe workings of the Washington bureaucracy and the influence of the more experienced members of the new U.S. administration may help to restrain the most radical and unorthodox impulses of the presidential team and mitigate attempts to upend current policy fundamentals,â they write. âNonetheless, the EU ought to assume that President Trump will attempt to see through his revisionist campaign agenda.â Attempts to define âTrumpismâ focus on the presidentâ™s âAmerica Firstâ foreign policy, his âdistorted view of European integrationâ and âstrategic negligenceâ toward NATO. Three scenarios for the U.S. under Trump are laid out â Loud America, Walled America and, worryingly, Trouble America. âUnpredictability is likely to be the name of the game,â the think tankers write. Even so, Trumpâ™s election could be âthe opportunity that many Europeans have longed for … The EU has a chance to affirm itself on the global stage as a more autonomous political player.â The report ends with a section entitled âPrepare for the worst but relentlessly pursue a positive agenda.â [NUTELLA SHORTAGE POSSIBLE AS WEATHER IN TURKEY WIPES OUT 70 PERCENT OF HAZELNUT CROP]WHOSE NUTELLA IS BEST?: EU leaders will this week discuss sausages and Nutella. There’s been uproar in Central and Eastern Europe over revelations that companies selling branded products change the ingredients depending on which country they’re selling in. Nutella sold in Hungary, it has been discovered, is less smooth than that sold across the border in Austria, while up to half of products surveyed in Slovakia, including things like sausages, “contained differences that significantly impact their quality,” said the country’s Agriculture Minister Gabriela MateÄná. Only Milka chocolate has been shown to have the same quality across the EU. A WOMAN’S TOUCH: VÄra Jourová, European commissioner for justice, consumers and gender equality, told Playbook a few days before International Womenâ™s Day how important it is that there are women in the College of European Commissioners. âWe are talented for different things,â she said. âOften when my male colleagues want maybe quicker and more sharp solutions, we women say âwait a minute, letâ™s keep negotiating.â™â She pointed to the fact that in Hungary and Greece there are no female cabinet ministers, which could explain the tenor of political debate in those countries. STOP PAYING ASSISTANTS SO MUCH: Discussions about the European Parliamentâ™s â¬2 billion budget for 2018 began this week, with a series of cost-cutting measures outlined by Richard Ashworth, a British MEP on the Budgets Committee. He suggested a proposed hike in the amount of money each MEP has to spend on parliamentary assistants by around â¬1,500 a month was too steep. The current figure of â¬24,164 is âmore than adequate,â his report said. He also took aim at European political foundations, many of which have been embroiled in scandals in which EU funds have been âmisspent.â His proposal? Make them pay more of their own costs. FEUD OF THE WEEK: FAR-RIGHT MEP VERSUS ALL WOMEN: Last week, MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke caused uproar after saying in a debate about the gender pay gap: âOf course women must earn less than men because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent and they must earn less.â On Tuesday he was unlucky enough to find himself in a taxi from Brussels airport to the Parliament with three Finnish MEPs â Henna Virkkunen, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri and Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner. âI gave him feedback on his statement from last week, after which he took his bag and jumped off the van,â said Virkkunen in a Facebook post. âHe said he preferred to take the train instead.â [pb+1] QUOTE OF THE WEEK: âI regard [Jeremy] Corbyn as a disaster. His heart is in the right place and many of his policies are sound, but he has allowed himself to be portrayed as a left-wing extremist,â renowned physicist Stephen Hawking told the Times. GAFFES AND LAUGHS: RABBIT RIGHTS: €œOver 2,500 emails on rights for rabbits in past 24 hours…â Vicky Ford, chairwoman of the Parliamentâ™s Internal Market Committee, tweeted Tuesday. Her concerned constituents are demanding she and other MEPs vote next week for a proposal put forward by left-wing MEP Stefan Eck, to introduce legislation to protect farmed rabbits. âI like bunnies but there are other issues too,â noted Ford. [PHILIPPINES-INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY] BY THE NUMBERS: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY EDITION 170: Number of years to close the pay gap between men and women at current rates. 0: Number of female ministers in Hungary and Greece. 38%: Gap in pensions between men and women across Europe. 4: Number of EU countries that have at least 30 percent of women on the boards of large companies. WHO€™S UP JESSE KLAVER: The head of the Dutch Green Left party looks set to lead his party to many more seats in next weekâ™s elections. JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER: Thanks to his white paper and trying to force EU countries to stop their Berlaymont bashing, the Commission may have found a stronger narrative. WHO€™S DOWN MATTEO RENZI: A corruption investigation involving Renziâ™s father threatens to tarnish the former prime ministerâ™s reputation. FRENCH CENTER RIGHT: A week of drama over whether to back François Fillon has done nothing to stop his poll numbers falling.
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