Category: Євросоюз

Spain’s far-right Vox party has staked its claim to a place in the political mainstream, dropping its more extremist positions to help form a regional government in Andalusia as far-right parties build their influence across Europe. The anti-migrant, anti-feminist and euroskeptic party played kingmaker by supporting an alliance of the conservative Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party that is poised to end 36 years of center-left Socialist party rule in Spain’s most populated region. Vox initially demanded the deportation of 52,000 immigrants and the scrapping of tough laws protecting women from domestic abuse in return for its 12 votes …

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Japan’s Shinzo Abe is likely to urge British Prime Minister Theresa May on Thursday to do everything she can to avoid a disorderly Brexit that some of Japan’s leading companies have warned could be a disaster. Japanese firms have spent more than 46 billion pounds  ($59 billion) in Britain, encouraged by successive British governments since Margaret Thatcher promising them a business-friendly base from which to trade across Europe. Future unsure The future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain — with options ranging from a disorderly exit from the EU to another membership referendum — because British lawmakers are expected on Jan. …

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Macedonian lawmakers are in the final stretch of renaming their country North Macedonia as part of a deal with neighboring Greece in return for membership of NATO and potentially the European Union.  Speaking at the start of a debate on essential constitutional amendments that are part of the deal, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told lawmakers that by signing the agreement, the country is finally ending a decades-long dispute with a deal that recognizes Macedonian national identity and language. “This is a historic and patriotic choice. We can be the generation that has made a bold decision,” Zaev said.  The parliamentary …

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Italy and Poland should join forces to reshape Europe, Italy’s far-right Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said on Wednesday during a visit to Warsaw to drum up support for a euroskeptic alliance to contest May elections to the European Parliament. The euroskeptic governments in Rome and Warsaw are both keen to repatriate some EU powers from Brussels to national capitals and hope like-minded parties will do well in the May elections, which will follow Britain’s planned exit from the bloc in March. “Poland and Italy will be part of the new spring of Europe, the renaissance of European values,” he …

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A far-right party on Wednesday took a role in the formation of a regional government in Spain, for the first time since the Franco dictatorship ended in 1975. The far-right, anti-immigrant Vox agreed to support a Conservative/center-right coalition in the southern Andalusia region. It had become a potential kingmaker in Spain’s most populous region — a traditional Socialist Party stronghold — after 12 Vox lawmakers were unexpectedly elected to the regional parliament in December. “Today illegal immigration and corruption lose […] and the Andalusians, the defence of the family and a more pluralistic politics win,” Vox leader Javier Ortega told …

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Fears are mounting for Paul Whelan, the former U.S. Marine seized last month in a Moscow hotel after being accused of espionage. Western intelligence officers and analysts fear he may remain in detention in Russia for a long time and are casting doubt on the likelihood of a spy exchange. Kremlin officials are dismissing the idea he’d be a candidate for a prisoner swap. Their U.S. counterparts say there can’t be any kind of exchange, as he’s not a spy. Kremlin officials Wednesday dismissed a claim by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt that Russia might use the former Canadian-born U.S. …

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The United States downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union’s delegation in Washington last year without formally announcing the change or telling Brussels, according to EU officials. They say it only came to light when the bloc’s envoy in the U.S. capital, Irish diplomat David O’Sullivan, discovered he wasn’t being invited to certain events and was invited to the funeral of former U.S. President Herbert Walker Bush after national ambassadors, despite his seniority. Diplomacy is saturated with symbolism and double meanings – and the downgrade, which now has been temporarily reversed – has angered EU officials, who fear the …

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Labor rights campaigners warned against complacency as the European Union on Tuesday withdrew its threat to ban Thai fishing imports into the bloc, saying that the country has made progress in tackling illegal and unregulated fishing. The EU’s so-called “yellow card” on Thai fishing exports has been in place since April 2015 as a warning that the country was not sufficiently addressing the issues. “Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing damages global fish stocks, but it also hurts the people living from the sea, especially those already vulnerable to poverty,” Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for environment and fisheries said. “Today’s decision …

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The European Union on Tuesday froze the assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and two of its staff, as the Netherlands accused Iran of two killings on its soil and joined France and Denmark in alleging Tehran plotted other attacks in Europe. The move, although in part symbolic since one of the men is in prison in Belgium, marks the first time the EU has enacted sanctions on Iran since lifting a host of curbs on it three years ago following its 2015 nuclear pact with world powers. The decision, which includes designating the unit and the two Iranians as …

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French President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity ratings recovered in January, a survey showed on Tuesday, after a series of government concessions aimed at ending a wave of “yellow vest” protests against high living costs. The demonstrations shaking France since mid-November had further dented Macron’s standing at the end of last year, with his popularity dropping to record lows amid a backlash that started out as an outcry over planned fuel tax hikes. These were dropped in early December and Macron has since offered up further measures to appease protesters, including wage rises for the poorest workers. The 41-year-old’s approval ratings jumped …

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Heathrow airport officials in London said fights from the airport have resumed after being halted late Tuesday afternoon following reports of drone sightings in the area. The flights were suspended at Britain’s busiest airport several weeks after London’s Gatwick Airport was shutdown for parts of three consecutive days due to reports of drone sightings. It was the worst-ever drone-related disruption at an international airport, canceling or diverting some 1,000 flights and affecting about 140,000 passengers.  The Gatwick situation exposed a new vulnerability that air transportation officials and security forces around the world must address. Heathrow officials said earlier this month …

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France plans to crack down heavily on unauthorized protesters, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Monday, after an anti-government march over the weekend turned violent. “We need to preserve the right to demonstrate in France, and we must sanction those who break the law,” Philippe told French television, saying they include “those who take part in undeclared protests, those who arrive at protests with balaclavas (face masks).” Philippe said proposed laws would ban troublemakers from marches the same way hooligans and thugs are stopped from entering football stadiums. He also said marchers would be forced to pay for damages to vandalized …

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The ranks of prominent citizens opposed to a new Italian law cracking down on asylum-seekers swelled on Monday, with more governors announcing court challenges to the populist government’s measure. The law, approved first in the form of a government decree and later by Parliament late last year, tightens criteria for migrants receiving humanitarian protection, granting that status only to victims of labor exploitation, human trafficking, domestic violence, natural calamities and a few other limited situations. Previously, many asylum-seekers who failed to qualify for full asylum were accorded humanitarian protection, with Italy allowing them to stay for a fixed term and …

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Slovakia’s dominant political figure Robert Fico will run to become a Constitutional Court judge this month, seeking to quit party politics less than a year after he was pushed out of prime minister’s office in the furor over the murder of a journalist. The murder of Jan Kuciak, who investigated political corruption and EU subsidy fraud, and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova triggered the biggest protests since the 1989 fall of communism against the sleaze in politics. Fico resigned in March after being in power for almost a decade, but remains chairman of the ruling Smer party and is seen as …

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Britain’s embattled Theresa May will make a push this week to persuade rebel lawmakers in her ruling Conservative party to back her contentious Brexit withdrawal agreement. But little has changed since she delayed before Christmas a House of Commons vote on the proposed deal and few observers believe she’ll be successful as many rebel lawmakers are locked into their opposition because of public promises they’ve made to their constituency parties. Meanwhile, political pressure is mounting on the prime minister, who insists she can win the vote, to delay Britain’s scheduled March 29 exit from the European Union.  Two former ministers …

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The Russian Foreign Ministry says Paul Whelan, the American detained in Moscow on suspicion of spying, may receive visits from diplomats from the three other countries whose citizenship he holds. When Whelan was arrested in late December, he was identified only as an American. Last week, it emerged that he also holds British, Irish and Canadian citizenship. U.S. Ambassador Jon Hunstman Jr. visited him in prison last week. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the state news agency RIA-Novosti that the other countries have applied for consular visits and “if the arrestee confirms that he wants these visits they will …

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Lyon’s archbishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin and five other figures are on trial on charges of failing to act against sexual abuse allegations targeting a priest in his diocese. This is the latest pedophilia scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church before a key Vatican conference on sexual abuse. The sexual abuse allegations date back to the 1980s and 1990s. They involve Father Bernard Preynat, a priest in France’s Lyon diocese, who has admitted to wrongdoing and is due to go on trial later this year. But one of country’s most prominent clerics, Lyon’s archbishop Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, is accused of covering …

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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says the establishment of an Orthodox Church independent of the Russian Church is a major step toward moving out of Russia’s shadow. On Christmas Day, which Ukrainian Orthodox believers celebrated on Monday, Poroshenko attended services in the capital’s St. Sophia Cathedral. The service came a day after the leader of the world’s Orthodox, Ecumenical Partriarch Bartholomew I, presented a decree recognizing the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Previously, the Ukrainian Church that was tied to the Moscow Patriarchate was considered canonical, or legitimate. “This is the foundation of our spiritual freedom. We have torn off the …

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Pope Francis addressed many serious global concerns in his address to diplomats at the Vatican Monday, singling out growing nationalism, immigration, the vulnerable in society, the arms trade and sexual abuse. In his annual State of the World address to diplomats from 183 countries accredited to the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke of his concern about the resurgence of nationalist and populist movements and warned against adopting unilateral solutions to resolve the migration issue. Francis said he realized “the waves of migration in recent years have caused diffidence and concern among people in many countries, particularly in Europe and North America, …

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The brother of an American man being held in Moscow on suspicion of spying is raising the possibility that his sibling is being used as a pawn in a potential exchange for a Russian woman behind bars in the U.S. Paul Whelan’s brother told The Associated Press that he can’t help but question if the events are connected. “You look at what’s going on and you wonder if this is just a large game of pieces being moved around,” David Whelan told the AP via Skype from Newmarket, Ontario. “You start to wonder if all of these things are connected. …

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