Category: Євросоюз

President Emmanuel Macron says the French government itself fueled homegrown Islamic extremism by abandoning its poorest neighborhoods — and he’s promising tough and “sometimes authoritarian” new measures to combat radicalization. Macron unveiled a multibillion-euro plan Tuesday to help France’s troubled banlieues — suburban regions where crime flourishes and job opportunities are scant, especially for minorities with origins in former French colonies. More than 5 million people live in France’s poorest neighborhoods, where unemployment is 25 percent — well above the nearly 10 percent national average. For those under 30, the prospects are even worse — more than a third are …

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When exactly will Britain leave the European Union? Parliament started hours of debate Tuesday by arguing over when the two-year negotiating period for Brexit should end and whether there should be a fixed time at all. It was just the first day of what promises to be a lengthy set of debates in Parliament on Prime Minister Theresa May’s blueprint for leaving the EU — debates that will challenge her diminished authority and could force changes to her Brexit plan. Her absence Tuesday on another engagement suggested she was not unduly worried by the initial discussion. But the debate’s ill-tempered …

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The European Union has called very publicly for Malta to bring to justice the killers of a journalist who accused the Mediterranean island’s leaders of profiting from global corruption. But it has for years been much less vocal — and had little success — in ensuring Malta act to prevent money laundering, according to sources familiar with the work of the Maltese authorities and a Reuters review of EU and Maltese data. The data show the smallest EU state has been slow to apply international guidelines on naming firms that do not take action against dubious practices, and the number …

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Bosnia meets the military conditions needed to take the next step toward its eventual goal of NATO membership but it remains unclear whether it can satisfy the political requirements, the head of the alliance’s military committee said Tuesday. Bosnia wants to activate its Membership Action Plan (MAP), a formal step toward joining NATO, but must first complete full registration of all military assets in its two constituent, ethnically-based regions, the Bosniak-Croat Federation and the Serb Republic. Complicating Bosnia’s membership drive is the stance of the Serb Republic, which remains wary of a military alliance that bombed Serbs in Bosnia and …

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France’s domestic intelligence chief says nearly 18,000 people are on French watch lists for radicalism, a growing figure. Laurent Nunez, head of the DGSI agency, is also warning that the Islamic State group’s retreat in the Middle East “doesn’t weaken the level of threat” or diminish the extremists’ ability to inspire violent attacks in the West via propaganda. Speaking on RTL radio Tuesday, he said “the wish of the Islamic State group and al-Qaida to launch an attack is intact,” though the current risk to France comes from homegrown extremists instead of those who come from foreign war zones. Nunez …

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Twenty-three member states of the European Union have signed a historic deal to cooperate more closely on defense. The deal – known as Permanent Structured Cooperation or PESCO – legally binds its signatories into joint defense projects and increased spending. Britain, one of the bloc’s biggest military powers, has long resisted such moves, but its departure from the bloc has persuaded other members to press ahead. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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Madrid believes Russian-based groups used online social media to heavily promote Catalonia’s independence referendum last month in an attempt to destabilize Spain, Spanish ministers said Monday. Spain’s defense and foreign ministers said they had evidence that state and private-sector Russian groups, as well as groups in Venezuela, used Twitter, Facebook and other Internet sites to massively publicize the separatist cause and swing public opinion behind it in the run-up to the Oct. 1 referendum. Catalonia’s separatist leaders have denied that Russian interference helped them in the vote. “What we know today is that much of this came from Russian territory,” …

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The United States said Monday it would fund rural media outlets in Hungary to help train and equip journalists in defense of an independent media it sees subject to growing pressure and intimidation. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has increased media control by legal changes, regulatory steps and takeovers of outlets by business sector associates. The moves have alarmed Western partners with the approach of elections, due in April 2018, which he is widely expected to win comfortably. The trend was especially strong in rural Hungary, where government-controlled public media and a handful of outlets friendly to the ruling Fidesz …

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European and African ministers agreed on Monday to try to improve conditions for migrants in Libya and seek paths such as scholarships for Africans to reach Europe legally, to cut the death toll from smuggling across the Sahara and Mediterranean. The deadly trek across the desert from sub-Saharan Africa through Libya and over sea to Italy is now the main route used by refugees and other vulnerable migrants heading to Europe, after Turkey closed the other main route via Greece that brought in nearly a million people in 2015. Almost 115,000 migrants have landed on Italian shores so far this …

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The next World Economic Forum of world leaders and CEOs in Davos will be chaired by women including International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and IBM’s chief executive Ginni Rometty. The seven co-chairs for the four-day event in January were announced in the face of criticism that the conference has in the past lacked female representation. “Co-chairs… were chosen to reflect global stakeholders,” said a spokeswoman for WEF, adding the co-chairs were all leaders in their fields. The co-chairs shape the program and lead discussions and panels. The theme of the 48th conference is to …

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The United States is participating in the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP-23) of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, despite President Donald Trump’s announcement it will be leaving the Paris Climate Accords. The State Department says a U.S. delegation is participating in the conference in Bonn, Germany. A State Department statement Monday said, “The United States remains a Party in good standing to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and is participating in ongoing negotiations under the Framework Convention as well as the Paris Agreement, in order to ensure a level playing field that benefits and protects …

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Irish musician and anti-poverty activist Bob Geldof returned his “Freedom of the City of Dublin” award to his hometown Monday, saying he cannot hold an honor also given to Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi. “I am a very proud Dubliner but cannot in all conscience continue to be one of the honored few to have received this great tribute whilst Aung San Suu Kyi remains amongst that number,” Geldof said in a statement. “In short, I do not wish to be associated in any way with an individual currently engaged in the mass ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people of …

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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Monday with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, the fourth encounter between the two leaders this year and part of a warming of relations in the wake of tensions following Turkey’s 2015 downing of a Russian warplane operating from a Syrian air base.   But analysts say despite recent images of smiles and warm handshakes between the two leaders, cracks in that rapprochement are starting to show and signs of tension remain. “Putin and Erdogan, they don’t trust each other, particularly true on the part of Putin. He sees …

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European Union foreign and defense ministers from 23 of the 28 member countries, signed a landmark defense agreement Monday in Brussels aimed to boost post-Brexit cooperation within the bloc and to counter Russian pressure. To become EU law, leaders of the bloc must endorse it in December. The agreement envisions a Permanent Structured Cooperation, or PESCO, which is intended to give the European Union a more coherent role in tackling international crises, follows the announcement of a $6.4-billion European Defense Fund last June. It pledges that countries will provide “substantial support” in such areas as personnel, equipment, training, and infrastructure …

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Two former U.S. intelligence officials slammed President Trump Sunday for saying believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin “feels that he and Russia did not meddle” in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Former CIA director John Brennan, in an appearance on CNN with James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said Trump’s initial indication that he believed Putin shows “that Donald Trump can be played by foreign leaders who are going to appeal to his ego and try to play upon his insecurities, which is very, very worrisome from a national security standpoint.” Clapper said Russia poses and obvious threat …

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Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives has fallen to the lowest level in more than six years, according to a poll on Sunday, as they prepare for more talks on a coalition deal with the environmentalist Greens and a pro-business party. The weekly Emnid survey for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed only 30 percent would vote for Merkel’s CDU/CSU bloc if there were a federal election this Sunday, down 1 percentage point. This is the lowest reading for the conservatives in this survey since October 2011 and marks a slump in support since the Sept. 24 election, in which Merkel’s …

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The Kremlin said on Sunday that inflexibility on the part of the United States was to blame for the lack of a bilateral meeting between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump during a summit in Vietnam. Trump and Putin met briefly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam on Saturday and agreed on a joint statement supporting a political solution for Syria, but did not hold substantive bilateral talks. “Unfortunately the American side did not offer any alternatives despite all efforts of our Russian colleagues. There was only one time offered that was …

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Israel signaled on Sunday that it would keep up military strikes across its frontier with Syria to prevent any encroachment by Iranian-allied forces, even as the United States and Russia try to build up a cease-fire in the area. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday affirmed joint efforts to stabilize Syria as its civil war wanes, including with the expansion of a July 7 truce in the southwestern triangle bordering Israel and Jordan. A U.S. State Department official said Russia had agreed “to work with the Syrian regime to remove Iranian-backed forces a defined distance” …

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In his first visit to Catalonia since imposing direct rule, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called for a strong turnout in the December 21 Catalan elections. “We want to bring back the Catalonia that belongs to everyone with democracy and freedom, we will achieve this if the silent majority turns its voice into a vote,” he said Sunday. His visit to Barcelona comes one day after Catalonia’s battered independence movement staged a massive protest in the city, demanding the release of jailed leaders and recognition of a separate Catalan Republic. Rajoy is expected to make a campaign appearance in Barcelona …

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Iran’s nuclear deal is “not negotiable,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bassam Ghassemi said Saturday in response to remarks by the French president. Emmanuel Macron called for vigilance toward Tehran over its ballistic missile program and regional activities, in an interview published Wednesday by the Emirati daily Al-Ittihad. “We have told French leaders on several occasions that the Iran nuclear deal is not negotiable and that no other issues can be included in the text” of the 2015 agreement, state news agency IRNA quoted Ghassemi as saying. France, the Foreign Ministry speaker said, is “fully aware of our country’s intangible position …

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