Category: Євросоюз

British Prime Minister Theresa May has tried to reassure millions of Europeans living in Britain that their lives and those of their families will not be disrupted when London leaves the European Union in 2019. May’s post-Brexit residency proposals offer EU nationals “settled status” in Britain with broadly the same rights as native-born English, Scots and Welsh, and the same access to health care, education, welfare and pensions. EU “settlers” would be subject to British law without recourse to the European Court of Justice. “We want you to stay,” May said in a message to the estimated 3.2 million European …

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The list of high-rise apartment towers in Britain that have failed fire safety tests grew to 60, officials said Sunday, revealing the mounting challenge the government faces in the aftermath of London’s Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. All of the buildings for which external cladding samples were so far submitted failed combustibility tests, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said. As of late Sunday, that includes 60 towers from 25 different areas of the country_ double the figure given a day earlier. The number of buildings at risk is likely to grow as owners and local officials provide more samples for safety tests. …

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Italy’s center-right parties were the big winners in mayoral elections on Sunday, partial results showed, in a vote likely to put pressure on the center-left government ahead of national elections due in less than a year. In the most closely watched contest, the northern port city of Genoa – a traditional left-wing stronghold – seemed certain to pass to the center-right for the first time in more than 50 years. The candidate backed by the anti-immigrant Northern League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party will get around 54 percent of the vote, compared with 46 percent for the candidate backed …

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Albanians voted in parliamentary elections Sunday as the country looks to bolster its democratic credentials ahead of potential European Union membership talks. After polls closed, officials said preliminary turnout was just over 45 percent based on data from more than half of the polling stations, compared to 53.5 percent four years ago.  Preliminary election results are not expected until Monday.   The ruling Socialists and the rival Democrats are the leading parties looking to gain an outright majority in the parliament of the NATO-member country of 2.9 million people. The country gained EU candidate status in 2014, but movement has …

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A forest fire in southern Spain forced the evacuation of at least 1,000 people and threatened a national park famous for its biodiversity and endangered species, authorities said Sunday. The fire started on Saturday night on Spain’s southern coast, then advanced east to reach the Donana Nature Reserve, one of the country’s most important wildlife sanctuaries and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1994. “The fire has entered in the limits of the reserve, and that is where we are focusing our efforts,” Jose Gregorio Fiscal Lopez from the regional Andalusian authority in charge of the environment told Spanish national …

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Turkish police stopped protesters and attempted to disperse those marching for LGBT rights in Istanbul Sunday, a day after the governor banned the march. The French press agency, AFP, reported rubber bullets being fired to break up the crowds. Organizers of the march had vowed to gather in Taksim square despite the event being banned by the Turkish government for the third year in a row. “We are here again to show that we will fight in a determined fashion for our pride,” the Pride Committee said in a statement Sunday. On Saturday, the governor’s office announced it would not …

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The jihadis’ targets in Europe are depressingly repetitive: the Brussels metro, the Champs-Elysees in Paris twice, tourist-filled bridges in London twice and a U.K. rock concert. And that’s just the past few months. The steady stream of attacks on centers of daily life have drawn pledges from Europeans not to let terrorists change how they live, but in ways large and small they already have. There is a heightened awareness and quicker reactions, especially in the hardest-hit countries of France, Britain and Belgium, that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. In Brussels on Tuesday, a 36-year-old Moroccan …

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Six people, including three children, were injured Sunday after a car ran into pedestrians outside a sports center in the northern English city of Newcastle where people gathered to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Police said the incident was not believed to be terror-related.   Northumbria Police said they arrested a 42-year-old woman, who remained in police custody. The force said it was not looking for other suspects in the incident outside Westgate Sports Center on Sunday morning.   They say a full investigation was underway to determine what happened, but “there is nothing to suggest that this …

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Albanians were voting Sunday in a general election that follows a landmark agreement between the country’s two biggest political parties to look past their bitter differences and back efforts for Albania to eventually join the European Union.   Holding a free and fair election is key to launching EU membership talks for the nation of 2.9 million, which is already a NATO member. After earning EU candidate status in 2014, Tirana has struggled to pass important reforms vital for its bid to advance to EU — namely deeply reforming its corrupted justice system.   Eighteen political parties are running for 140 …

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Hundreds marched in Warsaw on Saturday to protest widespread logging in Europe’s last primeval forest, a project undertaken by Poland’s conservative government. The ruling Law and Justice party has allowed increased logging in the Bialowieza Forest, a vast woodland that straddles Poland and Belarus, alarming environmentalists who say it threatens a natural treasure. The forest has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. The government says it has increased logging to fight an outbreak of bark beetle, which has infected many spruce trees. But ecologists see that as a pretext to increase timber production for profit, saying authorities have been …

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Britain’s Parliament was investigating a “sustained and determined” cyberattack on its email user accounts Saturday. Parliamentary officials said the attack seemed designed to identify weak email passwords. As a precaution, remote email access for MPs was disabled, said a statement released by the House of Commons. “Earlier this morning we discovered unusual activity and evidence of an attempted cyberattack on our computer network,” an email sent by parliamentary officials to those affected said. “Closer investigation by our team confirmed that hackers were carrying out a sustained and determined attack on all parliamentary user accounts in an attempt to identify weak …

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The Ukrainian military has said that two soldiers were killed and two wounded in the eastern part of the country despite a cease-fire that began Friday. In a statement posted on Facebook on Saturday, the military accused anti-government rebels of firing artillery rounds in both the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. The statement did not provide details about the casualties. The two sides and representatives of Moscow and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed on the cease-fire on June 21. It is intended to last until August 31 to allow locals to harvest crops. Representatives of the …

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Istanbul’s governor has banned a gay pride parade in the city for the second straight year, citing threats from conservative Muslim groups. Last week, the ultra-nationalist Alperen Hearths group said it would stop the march from happening Sunday in Taksim Square if authorities took no action to cancel the parade. On Saturday, the governor’s office announced it would not give permission to the parade organizers out of concern for the safety of the marchers and tourists in the city. It said a number of groups had “serious reactions” to the march, which was planned to coincide with the first day …

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With snipers on the roof and armored vehicles surrounding the Council building, Europe’s leaders met in Brussels with security topping the summit agenda. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said leaders had agreed on greater cooperation in intelligence sharing and defense spending. “We are spending half of the military budget of the U.S. but our efficiency is 15 percent. So there is room for improvement and that’s exactly what we decided today,” Juncker said. Migrants issue Outside a band of refugees called “Syrians Got Talent” aimed to send a musical message to EU leaders — that they should stand up for …

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European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have agreed to greater cooperation on defense and intelligence as the continent grapples with a series of terror attacks. But little progress was made on Brexit and the migration crisis. The latest numbers show 81,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe so far in 2017, with more poised to make the challenging journey. Henry Ridgwell reports from London. …

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The Muslim leader in Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska says security is improving for his followers, although harsh poverty remains an intractable issue as they prepare to observe Eid al-Fitr, the religious holiday marking the end of Ramadan. “There is no more desecration of the Muslim tombstones, which used to happen often after the war,” Mufti Osman Kozlic told VOA’s Bosnian Service in an exclusive interview. However, if Muslim youths remain impoverished, he said, they’ll be increasingly vulnerable to extremist ideologies and recruitment by radical groups such as the Islamic State (IS). ​Hundreds had gone to Syria In previous years, IS leaders …

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Albania holds parliamentary elections Sunday after the country’s two largest political parties set aside decades of bitter rivalry and reached a landmark agreement aimed at furthering efforts to eventually join the European Union. The country of 2.9 million people, slightly smaller than Belgium, joined NATO in 2009 and earned EU candidate status in 2014 but has struggled with key reforms vital for the bid to advance — with the election process at the top of the list.   Seeking a second term, 52-year-old Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama argues that Sunday’s vote — closely watched by international observers — could …

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Several residential high-rise buildings in London are being evacuated because of fire safety concerns following a huge blaze at an apartment building that killed at least 79 people last week. The London borough of Camden said it was providing hotel rooms for residents of 800 apartments in high-rise buildings in the area known as Swiss Cottage, after fire authorities said they would be unsafe in case of fire. The buildings evacuated Friday are all part of government-run, low-cost public housing developments, as was the one that burned last week. The Camden buildings have the same combustible exterior insulation that was …

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Soaring temperatures and a lack of rainfall across Italy have cost farmers 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) so far this year, the national agricultural association said on Friday. The government declared a state of emergency in the gastronomic heartland around the northern cities of Parma and Piacenza, a usually lush valley that produces tomatoes, cheese, and high-quality ham. Wine grapes growing near Venice will be harvested early, mozzarella makers near Naples have been thrown into crisis, and Sardinian shepherds have taken tractors onto main roads to call for help to save their livelihoods, the Coldiretti group said. The group’s chairman, …

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In preparation for a 2024 Olympic bid, Paris transformed the area around the river Seine into an Olympic park, hosting events on Friday and Saturday to make one final push for the rights to host the games. The last time the French capital hosted the event would be 100 years earlier, in 1924. Paris and Los Angeles are the only two cities competing to host the games. Los Angeles last hosted the event in 1984. With the Eiffel Tower in view, Paris residents and Mayor Anne Hidalgo took to the water in canoes and kayaks to showcase what the 2024 …

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