Category: Євросоюз

Nearly a third of U.K. firms may shift operations abroad because of Britain’s pending departure from the European Union, a survey of 1,200 company directors suggested Friday, as political stalemate over a Brexit deal heightened jitters among businesses.   The survey by employers’ group the Institute of Directors found that 16 percent of businesses already had relocation plans while a further 13 percent were “actively considering” a move.   The group said that while headlines have focused on big companies, less notice has been given to smaller businesses and their moves to relocate.   Institute interim director Edwin Morgan said …

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The Trump administration is poised to announce Friday that it is withdrawing from a treaty that has been a centerpiece of superpower arms control since the Cold War and whose demise some analysts worry could fuel a new arms race. An American withdrawal, which has been expected for months, would follow years of unresolved dispute over Russian compliance with the pact, known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty. It was the first arms control measure to ban an entire class of weapons: ground-launched cruise missiles with a range between 500 kilometers (310 miles) and 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles). …

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French adventurer Jean-Jacques Savin is 36 days into his attempt to cross the Atlantic in a specially built orange barrel. With no engine, sails or paddles, the unusual craft relies on trade winds and currents to push him 4,800 kilometers from the Canary Islands to Caribbean in about three months. On Wednesday, he reported awaking to an early spring morning and clear sky with a beautiful crescent moon. However, he said there was not a lot of wind, which was slowing his travels. He described his journey as a “crossing during which man isn’t captain of his ship, but a …

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Greece will bring Macedonia’s NATO accession agreement to parliament for ratification “in the coming days,” the government spokesman said Thursday, which will bring into effect the change of the country’s name to North Macedonia. Once parliament ratifies the NATO protocol, Greece’s Foreign Ministry will inform Macedonia’s Foreign Ministry of the result, a move which will automatically bring into effect the name change, government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos said. He didn’t give a specific date.   The name change deal, dubbed the Prespa Agreement after the border lake where it was signed last year, ends a 27-year dispute between the two neighbors …

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At St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Dubai, an effort to transcribe the Bible in the native tongue of its flock saw the holy book presented in 52 languages — a sign of the cosmopolitan welcome awaiting Pope Francis’ upcoming visit to the United Arab Emirates. The diversity among its parishioners can be seen in its pews and heard in the sermons of St. Mary’s priests, who celebrate Mass and offer prayers in Arabic, English, French, Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu and other languages. The church, they say, offers an anchor for the Roman Catholics among the UAE’s vast foreign labor force, many …

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British banking giant Barclays has drawn up plans to shift more than $200 billion worth of assets from London to Dublin amid mounting business alarm that Britain is more likely now to leave the European Union without an exit deal. With Prime Minister Theresa May’s ruling Conservative government now backing away from a contentious withdrawal agreement negotiated in November and locked in a standoff with Brussels, Britain is heading for a scheduled March 29 departure without any kind of negotiated exit agreement. That means tariffs would have to be imposed on goods moving back and forth across the English Channel. …

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Activists from an anti-globalization group have staged a protest at Google’s Paris headquarters to criticize the company for paying little tax.   Attac members gathered at Google’s offices Thursday and set up a pulley to pass bags of fake money between the firm’s premises and a public finance center across the street.   According to Attac, Google’s French subsidiary reported revenue of 325 million euros ($371 million) in 2017 and paid 14 million euros ($16 million) in income tax. The group says Google France shifts more than 85 percent of its French revenue to countries with more favorable tax regimes. …

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Britain, France and Germany are launching a mechanism Thursday to ease non-dollar business deals with Iran, an effort aimed at circumventing U.S. trade sanctions against Tehran after President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 international pact to curtail Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The entity is registered in France with German governance and funding from all three countries. It will allow European Union companies to trade with Iran despite Washington’s sanctions. U.S. officials said they were monitoring the development, but rejected the idea that the special payment mechanism would undercut U.S. efforts to use the sanctions to undermine Tehran’s economy. A …

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Marie Toussaint has launched a climate petition in France that has attracted skyrocketing support. Ludovic Bayle splits his days between working at a restaurant and moonlighting as a climate activist. And in Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium, students are skipping school, demanding more action against what many Europeans consider one of the biggest threats to their future: climate change. “Climate is one of the main concerns” in Europe, said Neil Makaroff, European Union policy adviser for the NGO Climate Action Network France. “Citizens are more and more mobilized today. They are taking different actions like marches, petition, litigation.” Several hundred thousand …

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A state-funded Russian film that lionizes a Soviet World War II tank and its crew has become the second highest grossing home-grown production since the collapse of the Soviet Union, part of a Kremlin-backed drive to instill patriotism in young people. The Kremlin has long put the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany at the heart of a patriotic push to accompany what it casts as the country’s return to greatness under Vladimir Putin who has portrayed Russia as a fortress besieged by the West. The new film, “T-34,” has been praised by the defense ministry which has shown it to …

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Athens is aiming to ensure that all the goods and services the local government provides to its residents are free of forced labor, under a pilot project launched on Wednesday that officials and activists hope will set an example across Greece.    The Athens municipality plans to create a level playing field for its suppliers by working solely with companies that monitor their supply chains and take action to prevent modern slavery, several officials told an anti-trafficking conference.    As the world strives to meet a U.N. goal of ending slavery and forced labor by 2030, major companies face growing scrutiny and consumer pressure to …

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The U.N. nuclear watchdog policing Iran’s deal with major powers said on Wednesday that attempts to pressure it on inspections were “counter-productive and extremely harmful,” though it stopped short of naming those responsible. Israel, which vehemently opposes the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, has called on the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit what it says is a “secret atomic warehouse” and other locations in Iran. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has pulled his country out of the deal, has made similar calls. The IAEA has bristled at such calls but used only guarded language in public, saying …

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France’s energy regulator is proposing a 5.9 percent increase in regulated power prices but faces opposition from the government which had promised not to increase the cost after the “yellow vest” protests. Following the first wave of protests in November over the cost of living, the government scrapped fuel tax hikes planned for 2019. It also said last month that it would prevent utility EDF from raising power prices this winter. But capping regulated power prices is more complicated as these are set by the independent CRE energy regulator via a formula which includes the cost of generation, transport and …

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European Union leaders have ruled out British Prime Minister Theresa May’s attempt to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s exit from the bloc in March. The British parliament Tuesday approved May’s request to the EU to re-work the Irish border provision of the current Brexit deal. But the spokesman for European Council President Donald Tusk immediately ruled out any re-negotiation. “The Withdrawal Agreement is and remains the best and only way to ensure an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union,” the spokesman said. “We continue to urge the UK government to clarify its intentions with respect to …

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Even in the densely packed Soviet-era apartment blocks at the edge of this faded Siberian industrial hub, little redheaded Masha always seemed to stand out. “She was quite an unusual kid to some extent — physically quite tall in comparison with her peers, and she was in fact much more physically developed,” says her father, Valeriy Butin, a retired 55-year-old manufacturing engineer. “Since childhood she had the strongly marked characteristics of a leader,” he says. “She enjoyed giving commands, organizing her peers, her brother and her sister. She has always tried to carry herself as a leader. That was just …

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From Sweden to southern Spain, and the Netherlands to Hungary, populist forces have gained seats in recent elections and they now see a chance at power in Brussels itself. Europe is gearing up for EU parliament elections in May, a vote where the balance of power could shift decisively. The campaigns are getting under way amid the fevered atmosphere of street protests in France and many other EU states, alongside growing brinkmanship in the negotiations on Britain’s imminent withdrawal from the bloc. The 751 members of the European Parliament (or MEPs) are directly elected every five years, and they form …

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Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Tuesday five countries had come forward with offers to help end the stand-off over a rescue boat moored off Sicily with 47 migrants on board. The Sea Watch 3, run by a German humanitarian group, rescued the migrants from a rubber boat off the Libyan coast more than a week ago but Italy, which has closed its ports to charity ships, has refused to allow them ashore to request asylum. “I want to thank the friendly countries that have in the last few hours said they are willing to find a shared solution,” …

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A European Union official is urging leaders in Macedonia to focus on reforms necessary for the country to join the bloc, after Greece ratified a deal ending a nearly three-decade long dispute over use of the name “Macedonia.” Director-General for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Christian Danielsson said Tuesday that Macedonia must deliver results in reforming its judiciary and public administration and fight corruption if EU accession talks are to start this year. Macedonia has been granted EU candidate status since 2005, but a dispute over its name with Greece and slow progress in reforms has kept it out …

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The European Union has a message for Prime Minister Theresa May as she plots a path out of the Brexit impasse: Britain needs to decide what it really wants but the negotiated divorce deal will not be reopened. With less than nine weeks until Britain is due by law to leave the European Union on March 29, there is no agreement yet in London on how and even whether to leave the world’s biggest trading bloc. Parliament defeated May’s deal two weeks ago by a huge margin, with many Brexit-supporting rebels in her Conservative Party angry at the Irish “backstop,” …

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When Germany signed a deal last month to help Bolivia exploit its huge lithium reserves, it hailed the venture as a deepening of economic ties with the South American country. But it also gives Germany entry into the new “Great Game,” in which big powers like China are jostling across the globe for access to the prized electric battery metal. The signing of the deal in Berlin on Dec. 12 capped two years of intense lobbying by Germany as it sought to persuade President Evo Morales’ government that a small German family-run company was a better bet than its Chinese …

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