Category: Євросоюз

The United States is key to settling the ongoing conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said on Monday, pointing to the inability of major European countries to reach a unified position on the issue. The former Serb and predominantly ethnic Albanian republic of Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, almost a decade after a bloody war there. It won recognition from the United States and most EU countries, but not from Serbia or its big power patron Russia, and relations between Belgrade and Kosovo remain tense. “Without the U.S. we can never have any dialogue, negotiations or …

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Thousands protested around the Czech Republic on Monday against a justice minister nominee they fear might meddle with a criminal case involving the prime minister. President Milos Zeman will appoint Marie Benesova on Tuesday after the resignation of her predecessor, bringing opposition accusations of pressure on courts as Andrej Babis faces a potential fraud trial over European Union subsidies more than a decade ago. Babis, a billionaire media and chemicals businessman before entering politics, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the investigation a plot to force him out of politics. Czech police said on April 17 that Babis and …

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Spain’s ruling Socialist party has won Sunday’s general election with around 29% of the vote – and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is set to begin coalition talks to try to form a government. Meanwhile, for the first time since the regime of fascist dictator Francisco Franco ended in the mid-1970s, a far-right party will hold seats in the Spanish parliament. Henry Ridgwell reports. …

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Spain’s ruling Socialist party has won Sunday’s general election with around 29% of the vote. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is set to begin coalition talks to try to form a government. “The future has won, and the past has lost,” Sánchez told cheering supporters Monday. Following a deeply divisive election campaign, a far-right party will hold seats in the Spanish parliament for the first time since the regime of fascist dictator Francisco Franco ended in the mid-1970s. Meanwhile the center-right People’s Party, which held power until June last year, saw its vote share collapse amid a splintering of the right-wing …

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Spain’s third parliamentary election in less than four years did little to dispel uncertainty over the political future of the eurozone’s fourth largest economy. The center-left Socialist party won re-election in Sunday’s ballot, collecting nearly 29% of votes, and will try to form a government. It would be one of only a handful of socialist governments in the European Union. But with only 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies, Spain’s parliament, it needs to negotiate the support of smaller rival parties to pass legislation. “Forming a government will be far from straightforward,” Antonio Barroso, an analyst with the …

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It has been more than six years since the Russian government passed the Dima Yakovlev Law, banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children. The controversial measure was informally named after a Russian orphan who died of heat stroke after being left in a parked car by his American adoptive father. Critics say the law was a mere political response to U.S. sanctions on Russia. Adoptive parents and experts talked to VOA’s Igor Tsikhanenka in Moscow about how the law has changed their lives. …

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A village with a hotel settlement camp and another where tourists outnumber residents hosted this year’s Audi Nines snow-sport competition from April 22 to 27. Participants from all over the world took to the slopes and launched through the air making champions out of some and producing this awesome video from Austria. Arash Arabasadi has more. …

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Spain’s governing Socialist party won the most votes in elections held Sunday but fell short of an overall majority in a highly fragmented outcome in which the conservative vote split three ways. Surging far right and centrist groups seriously undercut what was until now the main opposition, the Popular Party. “The Socialist party has won the elections. The future has won and the past has lost,” Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told supporters outside his party headquarters in Madrid. He hinted at a possible governing arrangement with center-right parties, which have been bitter rivals leading up to the election. With 99% …

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A few months after he turned 17 — and more than two years before he was arrested — Vincent Vetromile recast himself as an online revolutionary. Offline, in this suburb of Rochester, New York, Vetromile was finishing requirements for promotion to Eagle Scout in a troop that met at a local church. He enrolled at Monroe Community College, taking classes to become a heating and air conditioning technician. On weekends, he spent hours in the driveway with his father, a Navy veteran, working on cars. On social media, though, the teenager spoke in world-worn tones about the need to “reclaim …

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Polls have closed in Spain’s national elections Sunday, but according to one opinion poll, there is no clear winner. Spain saw high voter turnout in elections that were believed to be wide open. The race pits the incumbent Socialist Party against four other main parties, including the new far-right Vox Party that is aligned with other far-right movements that have emerged across Europe. According to Spain’s Interior Ministry, roughly 60% of all eligible voters cast their ballots Sunday – about 9% higher than voter turnout in the 2016 election. A survey for public broadcaster RTVE and the GAD# poll both …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May is being urged by members of her own party and senior intelligence officials to reverse a provisional decision to allow the Chinese technology giant Huawei a role in building parts of Britain’s 5G mobile network. They fear giving Huawei even a limited role in developing the country’s fifth-generation wireless network risks imperiling Britain’s participation in the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing arrangement, the U.S.-led Anglophone intelligence pact linking Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain. The lobbying for a reversal of the decision is likely to intensify following the publication this week of a report co-authored by a Conservative …

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Ukraine’s President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy has told Moscow “not to waste time trying to lure Ukrainian citizens with Russian passports,” after Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow could ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to Ukrainians. Ukrainians understand that Russian citizenship means “the right to be arrested for peaceful protests,” and “the right not to have free and competitive elections,” Zelenskiy wrote in a Facebook post on April 27. “It’s the right to basically forget all rights and freedoms,” he wrote.  “Ukraine’s difference, in particular, is in the fact that we, Ukrainians, have freedom of speech in our country, …

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The outcome of talks between British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government and the opposition Labour Party to break the deadlock over Britain’s exit from the European Union could be known in the coming week, European Union’s chief negotiator said on Sunday. “This week will be very important. We will have the results of negotiations between the Labour Party and the Theresa May’s government. Are these talks going to yield something?,” Michel Barnier said on LCI television. A business spokeswoman for the Labour party said earlier on Sunday that the talks have been productive but the government needed to move on …

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A suitcase containing the decomposing remains of a woman and a concrete block was retrieved from the bottom of a man-made lake Sunday, the chief of Cyprus’ Criminal Investigation Department said. The body is believed to be that of one of the victims of a Cypriot military officer who has confessed to killing seven foreign women and girls.   Senior Inspector Neophytos Shailos said a coroner who examined the body at the scene said it was in an advanced stage of decomposition. He said a battery of tests and scientific examinations will be conducted to determine the woman’s identity.   …

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French police fired tear gas to push back protesters who tried to march toward the European Parliament building in Strasbourg on Saturday, the 24th consecutive weekend of protests against President Emmanuel  Macron’s policies.  The “yellow vest” protesters were back on the streets across France two days after the president outlined policy proposals including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros ($5.58 billion) in response to the protests.  Around 2,000 demonstrators gathered near European Union institutions in Strasbourg, with organizers hoping to make the protest international by marching to the parliament building a month ahead of EU-wide parliamentary elections.  Previous yellow vest protests in the eastern city have mostly been peaceful. But concerned about …

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The death toll from a coal mine blast in a separatist eastern region of Ukraine rose to 17 on Saturday, rebel authorities said. The gas blast on Thursday ripped through the mine in Yurievka village in the self-proclaimed republic of Luhansk, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 and is run by Moscow-backed rebels. “The tragedy took the life of 17 miners,” Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the unrecognized Luhansk republic, said on Twitter. He added that the bodies of all the miners that died have been recovered. Earlier the death toll accounted to 13, with another four people missing. …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin says his administration is considering a plan to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, not only those in war-torn parts of eastern Ukraine. Putin made the remark on April 27 at an infrastructure development summit in Beijing. On April 24, Putin announced a presidential decree that eases the process of granting Russian citizenship to anyone living in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are under the control of Russia-backed separatists. That decree drew a swift and angry response from Kyiv, the United States, Britain, the European Union, and the Organization …

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Hundreds of people turned up for a protest vigil outside Cyprus’ presidential palace Friday to mourn seven women and girls who police say a military officer confessed to killing and to question if authorities failed to adequately investigate when foreign workers were reported missing. The protest’s organizer used a bullhorn to read out the victims’ names as well as those of other missing women, and others at the memorial shouted “Where are they?” in response. Some participants held placards decrying “sexist, misogynist and racist” attitudes about women who work as housekeepers or in low-paying service jobs. ​‘What everybody wants is …

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In these days, when so much of the news is of fighting and mistrust, it’s nice to hear a story of care and compassion between two groups who are not known to be friends. Here’s Faith Lapidus. …

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Voters in Spain will go to the polls Sunday in national elections in which no one party is expected to win a majority in parliament. The race pits the incumbent Socialist Party against four others, including the new far-right Vox Party that is aligned with other far-right movements that have emerged across Europe.  Leaders on both the left and the center-right have urged voters to keep the far right at bay.  On Friday, incumbent Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, said he was open to the possibility of a coalition with the left-wing United We Can Party, raising the possibility of a …

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