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By Joseph J. Schatz and Benjamin Oreskes | 01/27/2016 02:00 PM EDT It's Wednesday Afternoon, and Time for POLITICO Pro's Europe

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By Joseph J. Schatz and Benjamin Oreskes | 01/27/2016 02:00 PM EDT It's Wednesday Afternoon, and Time for POLITICO Pro's Europe By Joseph J. Schatz and Benjamin Oreskes | 01/27/2016 02:00 PM EDT It's Wednesday afternoon, and time for POLITICO Pro's Europe Brief! We're bringing Europe to the banks of the Potomac, making sense of European policy and political news for POLITICO's American audience. We want to hear from you - give us a shout at [email protected] (@jjschatz) and [email protected] ( @boreskes). Europe Brief is on the ground in Europe this week: Joe said auf wiedersehen to Berlin last night - and today he's making the rounds in Brussels, working from POLITICO Europe's growing office on la Rue de la Loi. Today in Europe Brief: The European Commission goes after the car industry on emissions, Europe's pension programs are found to be vulnerable, auditors say the European Commission flubbed the bailout, Canada normalizes relations with Iran, Brexit opponents fear the ignorance of U.S. firms, Donald Trump calls out Brussels, a top U.S. trade official says Obama wants TTIP done this year and politicians push back against Google's tax deal with the U.K. But first... EUROPE BRIEF TECHNOLOGY FILE SAFE HARBOR DEADLINE COUNTDOWN: 4 DAYS EXCLUSIVE: The U.S. ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, tells Europe Brief that he's pushing Angela Merkel's government "very hard" on the need for a new U.S.-EU Safe Harbor data accord. He's warning that if U.S. negotiators and European Union officials in Brussels fail to strike a new deal data transfer deal, it would impede the German government's efforts to boost the start-up technology culture back in Berlin and other German cities. "It's going to make it hard for the small start-up company who doesn't have the funds to figure out a workaround to get up and going when they have to jump through all sort of hoops in order to play in different marketplaces - digital hoops - so that's something else that we stress when we talk about this," he said. The talks are at the EU level, but Germany, with the EU's strongest economy, and other major European governments obviously hold sway. Emerson, who sat down with Europe Brief at the American Embassy in Berlin this week, said that Merkel and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel understand the need for a deal. But Emerson, a former Bill Clinton campaign operative who then served in the Clinton White House, said the German public needs to be given a better explanation of how Safe Harbor is needed to allow businesses to function on a daily basis. Germans, of course, remain wary of anything that smacks of government spying, given the history of the Third Reich and the East German Stasi - and Emerson cites Google Street View as an example of the complicated views. "You talk to the guys at Google and the biggest problem they have in Germany is people who see their house on Google Street View and [say] 'How can they do that?' and they go and ask for it to be pixelated - and there is pixelation after pixelation if you look at German Google Street View. In the United States, the biggest problem they have is people calling up trying to find out when the truck is coming down to their house so they can come out and wave," Emerson tells Europe Brief. We'll have more from Europe Brief's exclusive sit-down with Emerson in the coming week. EUROPE BRIEF TRADE FILE PUNKE: WE WANT TTIP DONE THIS YEAR: Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Michael Punke said Tuesday President Barack Obama is "completely committed" to finishing TTIP in 2016. Punke was in Brussels and told a group skeptical of the trade deal: "We are completely committed to completing negotiations in 2016. Those are the directions we have from the president." POLITICO Europe's Hans von der Burchard writes : "The TTIP talks were thrown off track over the summer after campaigners and left-leaning EU lawmakers called into question what became for a time the most controversial element of the deal: an investor court that would arbitrate disputes between companies and governments. Punke, who is also U.S. ambassador to the World Trade Organization, acknowledged the two sides would have to be 'extremely effective and efficient' this year to actually finish the talks, which have moved at a slow pace since being launched in July 2013." More here: http://politi.co/1QC5pJ4 EUROPE BRIEF TAX FILE TAX TRIANGLE: U.K., ITALY AND GOOGLE. The United Kingdom's deal with Google last week, under which the company will pay nearly $190 million in back taxes, is getting huge flak in both London and Brussels. Seen in some quarters as progress in the fight against corporate tax avoidance, it's now getting slammed as a "sweetheart deal" in its own right. Members of the U.K. opposition are calling it "paltry," but Treasury Secretary David Gauke said her majesty's government does not offer "sweetheart deals" to anyone. More in the Guardian (http://bit.ly/1VnLTPN) and Bloomberg ( http://bloom.bg/1RLD2cM) Those criticisms are rapidly ramping up following reports that Italy "is poised to strike a far tougher tax deal with Google than the one secured by Britain. The internet giant is preparing to hand over [$163 million] in back taxes to the Italian government, equating to 15 per cent of its [almost $1.1 billion] revenues in the country. (http://thetim.es/1TmoMGM) U.K. FACEBOOK TAX: Plus, the Financial Times is reporting that Facebook is resisting attempts by Britain's tax authorities to reclaim back-taxes: http://on.ft.com/1ZR7t0n THE DONALD CALLS OUT BRUSSELS: Europe Brief would be remiss of if we didn't mention the man at the center of the U.S. political world right now - Donald Trump - and his recent slap-down of Brussels. Yesterday on the Fox Business Network, the Republican presidential hopeful was asked about his plan to ban Muslims from America, and in some roundabout way he got to talking about Brussels. "I was in Brussels a long time ago, 20 years ago, so beautiful, everything is so beautiful - it's like living in a hellhole right now," he said. This prompted an onslaught of response on social media with both #hellhole and Donald Trump trending in Belgium. After the Paris attacks, the country's tourist board launched a campaign to improve the city's image, and the country is making an effort to show its open for business. POLITICO Europe's Laurens Cerulus has more: http://politi.co/1NAJmvW HERE AT POLITICO Pro's Europe Brief, our goal is to cut through the clutter to give you smart, exclusive insights and breaking news through an American lens, courtesy of our U.S. and European- based POLITICO Pro European teams. Working closely with POLITICO Europe in Brussels, we're tracking and analyzing developments across the continent on technology, taxes, trade, mergers and acquisitions, energy, financial services, sanctions, agriculture and more. We want to hear from you: What do you want more of? What are the smart questions you need in hand before you fly to Brussels, London or Berlin? Give us a shout at [email protected] and [email protected] your tips, insights and questions. BREXIT OPPONENTS' FEAR: U.S. FIRMS DON'T GET IT. British Prime Minister David Cameron's effort to renegotiate his country's position within the EU is heating up ahead of a mid-February summit of European leaders, with a national "Brexit" referendum possible as early as June. The uncertainty over the U.K.'s standing in the EU already has transatlantic business leaders worried. Last week, a number of massive U.S.-based financial services institutions said the U.K. must stay in the Union. But Emanuel Adam, the head of policy and trade at BritishAmerican Business -a network of business executives on both sides of the Atlantic - told Europe Brief there's a real lack of understanding among members of what a "Brexit" would mean for their business. He also said the clock is ticking, and his organization must do its best to educate business leaders even though the practical effects of Britain leaving are far from clear. QUOTE OF NOTE: "There not much of an understanding of what the consequences of England leaving would be [among business leaders]," Adam said. "There's not enough knowledge among the members and more needs to be done to give them basic information about this." TURMOIL IN MERKEL'S COALITION: Angela Merkel's political calculus just got more complicated. POLITICO Europe's Matthew Karnitschnig reports: "A simmering revolt in Merkel's coalition took a dramatic turn Tuesday as a key conservative ally threatened to contest the chancellor's refugee policy in front of Germany's constitutional court unless she agreed to change course. Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union, sister party to Merkel's conservatives, made the threat in a letter sent to Merkel on Tuesday. ... The letter marks a significant escalation of the dispute within the government over refugee policy and suggests that Merkel's recent efforts to quell the uprising within the CSU have fallen flat." WHY THIS MATTERS: Germany's post-Cold War emergence as the political and economic leader of Europe has been aided by the stability of its coalition government. The migration debate may be putting that coalition at risk as the CSU, under pressure from immigrant opponents, takes a more confrontational stance. "This is a declaration of a break with the coalition," said Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, who govern alongside the conservatives in a grand coalition.
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