Category: Євросоюз

Hungary’s prime minister says that a ruling by the European Union’s top court upholding the relocation of asylum-seekers opens the way to a “mixed culture and population” on the continent.  Prime Minister Viktor Orban says Hungary, which is refusing to take part in the EU scheme to temporarily relocate refugees from Greece and Italy, is not an “immigrant country” nor does it want to be one.   Orban has kept immigration on top of his political agenda since 2015. He said Friday on state radio that he “took note” of the European Court of Justice ruling which rejected legal arguments …

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Spain’s Constitutional Court on Thursday blocked the prosperous Catalan region’s plan to vote on independence from Spain. The ruling was expected after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy vowed earlier in the day to “stop at nothing” to prevent the independence referendum called by the regional leaders from taking place. According to court regulations, the suspension lasts five months while judges come up with a ruling. The pro-independence coalition ruling Catalonia claims that the universal right to self-determination overrules Spain’s laws. The regional parliament on Wednesday approved a law to legitimize the independence vote and set an October 1 date for it. …

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Germany said on Thursday that Russia was planning to send more than 100,000 troops to war games on NATO’s eastern flank this month, disputing Moscow’s version that only 13,000 Russian and Belarussian servicemen would participate. The Sept. 14-20 exercises known as Zapad, or “West,” in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are stirring unease in NATO despite Moscow’s assurances troops would rehearse a purely defensive scenario. “It is undisputed that we are seeing a demonstration of capabilities and power of the Russians,” German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at an EU …

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Forensic experts began searching a ravine in central Bosnia on Thursday for the remains of around 60 Bosnian Muslims and Croats killed by Serb forces early in the 1992-95 war. The search began hours after the Bosnian war crimes court ordered the exhumations at Mount Vlasic where between 160 and 220 prisoners of war were shot dead on August 21, 1992. Bosnian Serbs told the prisoners from detention camps for non-Serbs near the town of Prijedor that they would be released in a prisoner exchange but instead drove them away by bus, lined them up by the edge of a …

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French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the International Monetary Fund should step back from its role in European bailouts – breaking with a widely accepted policy adopted when Greece sought international help seven years ago. On a two-day visit to Athens, Macron said the eurozone rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, should play the lead role in financial rescue within the currency zone.   France, Europe’s No. 2 economy, had previously backed Germany’s insistence in involving the IMF to enforce austerity measures that came with bailout programs in Greece and other rescued economies including Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus.   …

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Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla fighter who has twice stood trial for war crimes, was chosen Thursday to form a new government in Kosovo, ending a political deadlock that has persisted since elections on June 11. President Hashim Thaci gave Haradinaj the mandate after his coalition struck an agreement with a smaller party that paved the way for them to take power. Haradinaj’s PAN coalition comprises his AAK party and others made up of former guerrillas who fought Serbian forces in 1998 and 1999. That campaign led to accusations of war crimes against him, but he was acquitted twice by …

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Parliament in Spain’s prosperous Catalonia region has approved an independence vote for October 1, which Madrid has vowed to stop. Separatist parties, which hold a slim majority, backed the referendum legislation and legal framework needed to set up an independent state. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy ordered government lawyers to file a complaint with the country’s constitutional court in hopes of annulling the referendum. Polls in the northeastern region show support for self-rule waning as Spain’s economy improves. But the majority of Catalans say they do want the opportunity to vote on whether to split from Spain. The vote will …

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The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, has defended the expulsion of Russian diplomats from seized consular property in the United States amid an increasing strain in diplomatic ties. In a joint interview Wednesday in Moscow with the Russian services of VOA News and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Tefft rejected statements in Russian media that the seizing of diplomatic property in San Francisco, New York and Washington was done in what Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “boorish and unprecedented” fashion. Putin accused U.S. authorities of threatening to “break down the entrance door” of the Russian Consulate in San …

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DNA tests done on the remains of Spanish surreal artist Salvador Dali revealed he is not the father of a Spanish psychic who claimed to be his only child and heir. The Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation said in a statement released Wednesday that the results showed “the exclusion of Salvador Dali as the biological father of María Pilar Abel Martínez.” In June, a court in Madrid ordered the artist’s body to be exhumed after previous attempts to determine paternity had failed. A month later, experts entered the crypt beneath the museum Dali designed for himself in his home town of Figueres …

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Judges at the European Court of Justice on Wednesday rejected an attempt by Hungary and Slovakia to block mandatory quotas of refugees, which the bloc wants to resettle from Greece and Italy. VOA’s Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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Catalan lawmakers were voting Wednesday on a bill that will allow regional authorities to officially call an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain, making concrete a years-long defiance of central authorities, who insist the referendum as illegal. In an effort to rein in one of the country’s deepest political crises in recent years, Spain’s conservative government threatened to challenge the Catalan parliament’s decision to allow the vote at the country’s top court. The public prosecutor’s office also said it was preparing a lawsuit to punish the Catalan speakers’ committee for disobeying previous court orders and for abusing power. …

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The European Union’s top court ruled Wednesday that member states can be forced to take in asylum seekers, rejecting challenges by Hungary and Slovakia to stay out of the system the EU began two years ago. The European Council approved the resettlement plan over the objection of some eastern European nations. The system was meant to relocate 160,000 refugees who have fled to Greece and Italy in order to help prevent those countries from being overwhelmed. So far only about 24,000 people have been resettled. The European Court of Justice said Wednesday that the council was not required to unanimously …

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France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term. France has six Reapers France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger’s capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism operation in Africa, …

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Spain is pushing for the European Union to adopt restrictive measures against members of the Venezuelan government as a way of encouraging a return to constitutional order in the crisis-hit country, the Spanish foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The head of Venezuela’s opposition-led congress, Julio Borges, visited Spain on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as part of a European tour seeking support against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Maduro’s government has been criticized by the United Nations, Washington and other governments for failing to allow the entry of foreign aid to ease an economic crisis, while it overrides congress …

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A Spanish audit office has demanded the former leader of Catalonia and other politicians from the region pay 5 million euros ($5.96 million) for holding a consultative independence ballot in 2014, El Pais newspaper said on Tuesday. The report, which cited judicial sources, came a day before Catalonia is expected to approve plans to hold an Oct. 1 referendum on a split from Spain. The 2014 vote was non-binding, a symbolic ballot by pro-independence campaigners that was declared illegal by Spain’s Constitutional Court. Catalonia, along with Britain’s Scotland and Belgium’s Flanders, has one of the most active independence movements in …

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France’s financial prosecutor said Tuesday the son of the president of track and field’s global governing body was at the center of large corruption investigations. “The investigations revealed a large-scale system of corruption around Papa Massata Diack, son of Lamine Diack, former IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) president and influential members of the International Olympic Committee,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The IAAF has regulatory and sanctions authority over IAAF competitions. The prosecutor’s office said it has evidence showing that payments were made in exchange for votes of IAAF and International Olympic Committee members over the selection …

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Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference in China on Tuesday, but said a decision to shutter Russian diplomatic outposts in the U.S. was poorly handled. Speaking at a news conference during a summit in China on Tuesday, Putin dismissed as “naive” a question about whether he was disappointed in Trump. In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Putin said Trump is “not my bride, and I’m not his groom.” Asked how Russia would feel if Trump were impeached, Putin said it would be “absolutely wrong” for Russia to discuss domestic U.S. …

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A string of Western politicians have visited Libya in recent weeks, the latest being French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian, who arrived Monday in Tripoli for talks with the strife-torn county’s rival politicians and militia leaders. With the warlord Khalifa Haftar consolidating his position in the eastern part of the oil-producing nation and Fayez al-Seraj strengthening his internationally-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in the west, European diplomats say a fragile balance of power is beginning to emerge between two of the chief rivals for power. And that’s increasing, they argue, the opportunities for sealing a breakthrough agreement reconciling …

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British police have arrested four army soldiers on suspicion of being members of an outlawed neo-Nazi group and planning terrorist acts. The Ministry of Defense confirmed the men were army members. Authorities allege the men belong to National Action, a neo-Nazi group that was banned in Britain last December after it praised the murder of parliament member Jo Cox, who died at the hands of a far-right nationalist. Police say the arrests were made in the cities of Birmingham, Ipswich, Northampton in England and in Powys, Wales. They also say the suspects, whose names have not been disclosed, are between …

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Russia will ask the U.N. Security Council to send peacekeepers to patrol the front line in eastern Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, a development greeted by Germany as a new opportunity for detente.   Fighting between Ukrainian troops and Russia-backed separatists in the region has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014. A 2015 peace deal brokered by Germany and France helped reduce the scale of fighting, but regular clashes have continued.   The separatists have opposed Ukraine’s suggestion to deploy peacekeepers in the war zone.   Putin told reporters Tuesday that peacekeepers could help ensure safety for international …

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