Category: Євросоюз

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party is continuing to suffer from the financial and political fallout of this month’s loss of influence in Istanbul during local elections. A once-close ally and former prime minister has launched a scathing attack on the ruling AKP amid growing currency woes. “Our country cannot be left to the concerns for the future of a narrow and self-seeking group who are slaves to their ambitions,” wrote former AKP Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in an unprecedented assault on his party, following the surprise defeat in Istanbul that ended years of influence.  “It is extremely significant,” said …

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The leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said on Friday he had turned down an invitation to a state dinner which will be part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Britain in June. “Theresa May should not be rolling out the red carpet for a state visit to honor a president who rips up vital international treaties, backs climate change denial and uses racist and misogynist rhetoric,” Corbyn said in a statement. He said maintaining the relationship with the United States did not require “the pomp and ceremony of a state visit” and he said he would …

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Maria Butina, the Russian gun rights enthusiast accused of seeking to infiltrate conservative political circles in the United States, was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison.      Butina, a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and a former graduate student at American University in Washington, was arrested last July in the U.S. capital on charges of acting as an agent of a foreign official without notifying the attorney general.       The former Kremlin official, Alexander Torshin, allegedly directed Butina to use her gun rights activism to establish relationships with politically influential Americans and to open unofficial lines of communication between …

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German automaker Daimler, which makes armored limousines used by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, says it has no idea where he got them and has no business dealings with the North.      Kim has raised eyebrows by using Daimler-branded stretch limousines at several very high-profile summits, including his meeting this week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and both of his earlier summits with President Donald Trump.   The sale of luxury goods, including limousines, is banned under U. N. sanctions intended to put pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons.     Kim nevertheless had two …

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid his respects at a ceremony honoring the war dead Friday before wrapping up a brief and generally successful visit to the Russian Far East for his first summit with President Vladimir Putin. Kim left for Pyongyang Friday afternoon by his private train about 4 hours earlier than planned after his delegation requested to cut his visit short, Russian news agencies reported. Earlier in the day, Kim visited a park near the headquarters of the Russian navy’s Pacific Fleet for the wreath-laying ceremony that was held two hours later than expected. Wearing a black …

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Russia has condemned a new Ukrainian language law that enforces the use of Ukrainian over Russian in the public sphere. Ukraine has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, residing mostly in the country’s east, which is controlled by Moscow-backed rebels. For its part, Russia has angered Ukraine by making it easier for the residents of breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine to obtain a Russian passport. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports. …

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed they would work toward closer ties at a summit Thursday in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. But the meeting is not likely to have much effect on Kim’s deadlocked nuclear talks with the United States, as Bill Gallo reports from Seoul. …

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This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. Pete Cobus contributed reporting. KYIV, UKRAINE — Following Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s landslide victory this week, top U.S. and European Union officials were quick to offer kudos and vows of continued diplomatic support. But some Eastern European-based experts say Kyiv’s ties with the West aren’t likely to improve under the new administration. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Council President Donald Tusk issued a joint statement congratulating Zelenskiy on Kyiv’s “significant progress” since the 2014 Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, but warned that substantial work remains before realizing “the peaceful, …

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For the third time in four years Spaniards head to polling stations Sunday, and are likely to confirm a Europe-wide electoral pattern of voters moving away from traditional parties. With the emergence of new populist-based factions, European politics is becoming more fragmented, leading to minority governments, misshapen governing coalitions, more political deadlock and less predictability. That is likely to be the fate of Spain come Sunday, with some analysts forecasting another snap election may have to be called later in the year. The election will confirm the fragmentation of politics, according to Ivan Llamazares, a political scientist at Universidad de …

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Prince Harry has attended a service commemorating war dead from Australia and New Zealand as he and his wife Meghan await the birth of their first child.   Meghan is due to give birth soon, though the couple hasn’t revealed the due date or their birth plans.   Harry was a last-minute addition to Thursday’s Anzac Day service at Westminster Abbey, attending alongside his sister-in-law Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge. Prince William is visiting New Zealand, where he has met survivors of the Christchurch mosque attacks.   Harry’s attendance led bookies to shorten the odds on the baby being born …

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Facebook’s lead regulator in the European Union, Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, on Thursday said it had launched an inquiry into whether the company violated EU data rules by saving user passwords in plain text format on internal servers. The probe is the latest to be launched out of Dublin into the social network giant. The Irish regulator in February said it had seven statutory inquiries into Facebook and three more into Facebook-owned Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook in March announced that it has resolved a glitch that exposed passwords of millions of users stored in readable format within its internal systems …

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A new generation of young and media-savvy political leaders is vying to become Spain’s next prime minister in a general election Sunday. They are all men and less than 50. A deeply divided parliament is expected to emerge from the ballot, and whoever gets the most votes will likely need to sit down and negotiate a complicated governing alliance. Here’s a look at the main candidates vying to take office: PEDRO SÁNCHEZ Sánchez, the Socialist party leader and incumbent prime minister, is aiming to pull off yet another unexpected political turnaround. He was forced to call an early election when …

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French President Emmanuel Macron is set to unveil long-awaited plans Thursday to quell five months of yellow vest protests that have damaged his presidency. Macron will make a speech at the Elysee presidential palace based on three months of national debate aimed at addressing the protesters’ concerns through town hall meetings and collecting complaints online. He is expected to respond to concerns over sinking purchasing power with tax cuts for lower-income households and measures to boost pensions and help single parents. He may also make it easier for ordinary people to initiate local referendums. While his promises are expected to …

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France on Wednesday observed it first “national day of commemoration of the Armenian genocide” provoking a furious reaction from Turkey.  April 24, 1915, is considered the start of the World War I-era massacres of ten of thousands of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.  France was the first major European country to recognize the massacres as genocide in 2001.  Turkey disputes the description, saying the toll has been inflated and considers those killed to be victims of a civil war. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says nations who accuse Turkey of genocide should look at their own “bloody past.”  Erdogan has previously …

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British Prime Minister Theresa May’s job is safe, for now, after Conservative lawmakers decided against enabling a new challenge to her leadership. Graham Brady, chairman of a powerful party rules committee, said Wednesday the body had decided not to change the rule that a party leader can only face one no-confidence vote in a year. Pro-Brexit Conservatives are angry with May’s failure to take Britain out of the European Union, almost three years after voters backed leaving. They want her replaced with a more staunchly pro-Brexit leader. But May survived a Conservative no-confidence vote in December, leaving her safe for …

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia engaged in “sweeping and systematic” interference in the 2016 U.S. election  to help Donald Trump become president, but a new account says the issue is still too sensitive to discuss in front of Trump as it relates to what Moscow might do when he runs for re-election in 2020. Former Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen tried to focus the attention of top U.S. officials on combating Russian influence in next year’s election in the months before Trump forced her to resign in early April after protracted conflict over immigration policies, The New York …

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France’s government met Wednesday to draft a framework for donations to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. While more than $1 billion has been raised in response to last week’s massive blaze, many other historic monuments across France crumble for lack of funds to preserve them.  The 12th-century Senanque Abbey — also called Notre Dame — in southern France is gradually decaying. Massive cracks in the abbey’s structure have forced the Cistercian monks living there to close part of it to visitors, and there are not sufficient funds available to fully restore it. “We do not feel forgotten, but maybe …

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The Trump administration’s crackdown on business with Cuba’s communist government is causing unprecedented concern among European companies on the island, according to the European Union’s ambassador. “There’s enormous worry,” Ambassador Alberto Navarro told The Associated Press. “There are businesspeople who’ve been here 20, 30 years, who’ve made bets on investing their financial resources in Cuba to stimulate commerce, tourism, international exchange, and many of them tell me that they haven’t lived through a similar situation,” Navarro said in an interview at the EU embassy Tuesday afternoon. The Trump administration announced last week that it would allow Americans to sue foreign …

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The leading conservative candidate in next month’s European Parliament elections says he would like to see Britain stay in the European Union and warned populist parties in Europe that they would have no place in the EU’s largest political bloc unless they shared its vision of an “integrated and more ambitious Europe.”   Manfred Weber, the center-right European People’s Party candidate and front-runner to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, visited Greece on Tuesday to launch his campaign for the May 23-26 elections across the bloc.   His priorities include having tough controls on migration, creating an …

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The vice mayor of the Austrian town where Adolf Hitler was born resigned from his post and the far-right Freedom Party on Tuesday after provoking strong criticism with a poem in which he compared migrants with rats. Christian Schilcher left the Freedom Party (FPO) to avoid damaging the junior partner in a national coalition with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives, FPO chief Heinz Christian Strache told a news conference in Vienna.  Schilcher’s poem in a party newspaper was written under his pseudonym “the city rat” and told from the perspective of a rodent. “Just as we live down here, so must …

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