Category: Євросоюз

French President Emmanuel Macron has used a visit to an ailing Whirlpool factory that had become a symbol of the battle for jobs as an opportunity to promote his economic policies. The dryer factory in Amiens, northern France, was during the presidential campaign in April the site of what became known as the “battle of Whirlpool.” At the time, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen had upstaged Macron with a surprise visit to the factory, which was threatened with closure. That prompted Macron to meet with angry workers: he was booed at first, but stood his ground, patiently debating about how …

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The European Union insisted Tuesday that Brexit negotiations with Britain will not move on to the question of future relations until enough progress has been made on divorce issues, such as how much the country’s exit bill should be. Britain desperately wants talks to move on to future trade and security arrangements but EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said that more needs to be done on the withdrawal issues first. Juncker told the European Parliament that “we have not made the sufficient progress needed” and the legislators backed him, approving a resolution underscoring the same point with a vote of …

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The new U.S. ambassador to Russia presented his diplomatic credentials to President Vladimir Putin at a ceremony in the Kremlin, a move that marks the formal start of Jon Huntsman’s work in Russia.   Huntsman, who has twice served as a U.S. ambassador, arrived in Moscow on Sunday to take over from John Tefft who left Russia two days earlier after serving in Russia for three years, a period that was marred by a deep and rapid deterioration of ties, unseen since the end of the Cold War. The relationship soured even further in recent months following a series of …

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Several thousand protesters gathered Tuesday outside the Barcelona headquarters of Spain’s National Police to protest alleged brutality by police during a disputed referendum on Catalonia’s secession that left hundreds of people injured. The crowd gathered in the Catalan capital, shouting slogans calling Spanish police an “occupying force” and urging them to leave the northeastern region.   The protest came as several small labor unions and grassroots pro-independence groups urged workers throughout Catalonia to go on partial or full-day strikes and as the region’s leaders ponder a possible declaration of independence, two days after the referendum that turned violent and that …

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Scientists Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne have won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in detecting gravitational waves. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the award Tuesday along with its $1.1 million prize. Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity predicted the existence of gravitational waves that are created anytime a mass accelerates, but it was not until recently that the waves were actually observed. Weiss, Barish and Thorne were key figures in the work done by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which measures tiny disturbances the waves make to space and time as they …

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Police in Las Vegas, Nevada say a man opened fire on a country music concert late Sunday, killing 59 people and wounding 527 others, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. An edited list of mass shootings that have taken place in other parts of the world: Paris, France November, 2015 Terrorists claiming allegiance to Islamic State carried out several coordinated attacks in the city, including shootings of pedestrians on the street and a mass shootings at the Bataclan theatre. One hundred and thirty people were killed in the combined attacks. Paris, France January, 2015 Islamist gunmen stormed …

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The Vatican’s secretary of state is headlining an international conference on protecting children from online sexual abuse and exploitation, weeks after he recalled one of his diplomats who was caught up in a U.S.-Canadian-Vatican investigation into child porn. Organizers say the arrest warrant issued for Monsignor Carlo Capella showed the need for the conference, which opens Tuesday and ends Friday, when participants bring a set of proposals to Pope Francis. Cardinal Pietro Parolin will deliver the keynote address, while panelists include leading researchers in public health and law enforcement as well as executives from Facebook and Microsoft — evidence of …

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British finance minister Philip Hammond defended capitalism as the only route to prosperity on Monday, in an attempt to counter the opposition Labour Party’s increasingly popular vision for a more centrally-controlled economy. In a speech to the ruling Conservative Party that contained only two new policy announcements, Hammond also said that the government’s immediate task was to deal with the uncertainty for citizens and businesses resulting from Brexit. Prime Minister Theresa May is grappling with deep divisions within her party over how to handle the Brexit talks and serious doubts about her leadership after her botched bet on a June …

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The U.S. Army’s commander in Europe is urging European nations to agree on special transport and border rules so that NATO forces can be quickly moved to deter potential aggressors like Russia. Lt. General Ben Hodges said Monday “the alliance needs to be able to move as quick, or quicker, than Russian Federation forces if we want our deterrent capability to be effective.” Hodges is calling for a “military Schengen,” a reference to Europe’s 26-nation Schengen area where people and goods can cross borders without ID checks. He said NATO needs to know how it can “get that speed within …

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Russia’s top domestic security agency says one Russian border guard has been killed in a shootout with two men who tried to cross into Ukraine.   The FSB said in a statement Monday the two men on Saturday opened fire when the officer who approached them in a Russian village that borders northeast Ukraine. One of the men blew himself up and the other was detained. The border guard died of gunshot wounds.   The FSB did not provide any other details on the attackers, although unnamed security sources told Russian news agencies the men were militants traveling from the …

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It took more than 24 hours before the European Commission spoke out about Sunday’s violence during an independence referendum in Spain’s northeast province of Catalonia, where a violent crackdown in a bludgeoning show of force, by Spain’s national police and Civil Guard, left more than 800 people injured. The statement Monday did not please Catalan separatists. “We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue,” Europe’s top body announced. “Violence can never be an instrument in politics,” it said. To the anger of secessionists, the commission added a supportive note for Spain’s embattled center-right …

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Muslim women in Austria were forced by police to remove their face coverings, as a law banning religious and other coverings came into effect Sunday. Under the ban, wearing a ski mask off the slopes, a surgical mask outside hospitals and party masks in public is now also prohibited. Those who defy the ban could face a fine of nearly $180.  Police are authorized to use force if people resist showing their faces. The government says the law, which says faces must be visible from the hairline to the chin, is about protecting Austrian values. Muslim groups have condemned the …

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They emerged early Sunday with helmets, masks and flak jackets from temporary overnight accommodation, cheap boarding houses and chartered cruise ships painted with huge Warner Bros. cartoon figures, Tweetie Pie and Daffy Duck, docked at Barcelona’s port. But as the day unfolded, Barcelona was far from being Disney World. Soon after polling stations opened, police, many drafted from outside Catalonia, moved in under orders from the national government in Madrid to block an independence referendum they and the country’s constitutional court said is illegal under the 1978 constitution that declares Spain indivisible. For Catalan separatists, Spain’s current constitution isn’t free …

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Catalonia’s government said early Monday that preliminary results show that 90 percent of voters in Sunday’s referendum want the region to declare its independence from Spain. Regional government spokesman Jordi Turull said 2.02 million of the 2.26 million votes cast were for independence. Catalan President Carles Puigdemont said earlier he would unilaterally declare independence from Spain if the outcome of showed more than 50 percent of voters want to secede. “We have gained the right to have a state constituted in the form of a republic,” Puigdemont said in a televised address after polls closed. The government of Spain, however, …

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Turkey no longer needs to join the European Union but will not unilaterally abandon the stalled EU accession talks, President Tayyip Erdogan told parliament on Sunday. “We will not be the side which gives up. To tell the truth, we don’t need EU membership any more,” Erdogan said. Turkey’s 12-year-long accession talks have ground to a halt, with the EU especially critical of Ankara’s crackdown following a failed coup last year. Tens of thousands of people including teachers and journalists have been detained. Erdogan’s government says EU states failed to appreciate the gravity of the threat which Turkey faced, and …

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Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an apparent terror attack in which two women were stabbed to death at a train station in Marseille, France, Sunday. The extremist group made the claim through its official news agency. A man shouting “Allahu Akbar,” (God is great) stabbed the two women before French soldiers gunned him down. Police shut down and sealed off the station and French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb immediately went to Marseille. French prosecutors have opened a counterterrorism probe, but Collomb has not yet formally declared it a terror attack. Police video is said to show the suspect stabbing …

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Poland lowers its retirement age Sunday, a costly election promise by the ruling conservatives that goes against a European trend of gradually increasing the pension age as people live longer and stay more healthy. Lowering the age to 60 for women and 65 for men is popular in particular among supporters of the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, and reverses an increase to 67 approved in 2012 by the former centrist government. It is seen as having a limited immediate impact on the economy, which is booming, but might put pressure on state budgets in the future. Unemployment …

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Catalans were defying rain and police orders to leave designated polling stations Sunday ahead of a banned referendum on the region’s secession that has challenged Spain’s political and institutional order. The country’s Constitutional Court has suspended the vote, and the Spanish central government says it’s illegal. Regional separatist leaders have pledged to hold it anyway and ballot boxes have begun arriving at polling stations. Catalonia is home to 5.3 million eligible voters. Voters line up before dawn Defiant crowds gathered before dawn Sunday in Barcelona and towns across Catalonia at schools and some of the other 2,315 facilities designated as …

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Turkey’s largest foreign military base in the world opened Saturday in Mogadishu, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Somali leaders, top Turkish military officials and diplomats. Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire and the head of the Turkish military, General Hulusi Akar have jointly inaugurated the 4 square kilometer (1.54 square mile) facility, which holds three military residential complexes, training venues, and sports courts. It had been under construction for the last two years. General Akar said the base is the biggest sign of how Turkey wants to help Somalia. “We are committed to help [the] Somali government, and this …

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Thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Barcelona to oppose Sunday’s referendum on Catalonian independence from Spain. Waving Spanish flags, the protesters filled the square in front of Barcelona’s regional government buildings Saturday. Madrid has declared the vote illegal, and authorities in Spain began sealing off polling stations and confiscating ballots. While the Spanish national government said there would be no Catalonian independence vote, Catalonia’s regional government continued preparations for it. Hundreds of people supporting the referendum camped out in schools in an attempt to keep them open for Sunday’s vote. Enric Millo, the highest-ranking Spanish security official in the northeastern …

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