Category: Євросоюз

Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks expected to focus on the situation in Syria. Greeting Netanyahu at the start of their talks, Putin emphasized a high level of trust between them.   Netanyahu hailed Russia’s role in fighting the Islamic State group and other radical militants in Syria. At the same time, he warned of the danger posed by radical Shiite groups, an apparent reference to the Hezbollah movement.   Russia has sided with Iran and Hezbollah in helping support Syrian President Bashar Assad, but at the same time it has maintained warm …

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The Kremlin on Thursday rejected U.S. claims of Russian violations of a landmark nuclear arms treaty, saying it has respected the pact and will continue to do so.   The controversy over the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty adds another thorn in the side for U.S. President Donald Trump’s declared goal of improving ties with Moscow, coming at a time when his administration is facing questions over alleged contacts with Russia during the U.S. election campaign.   Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Wednesday accused Russia of deploying a land-based cruise missile in …

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European Union leaders on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Donald Tusk president of the bloc. Tusk’s home country of Poland was the only one of the 28 member states to vote against his reappointment. Following the vote, Beata Mazurek, a spokeswoman for Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, questioned the unity of the EU in light of Tusk’s re-election. Poland had earlier threatened to derail the EU summit if the vote went through as planned, though that didn’t happen. Following his re-election, Tusk said on Twitter he hoped to “make the EU better,” despite Poland’s opposition. “Grateful for trust & …

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Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron thinks he has the magic tool for liberating France’s blighted suburbs from poverty, violence and discrimination: turn jobless youth and drug dealers into legitimate entrepreneurs. The hurdles are high. Disillusioned residents of housing projects in towns like Les Mureaux, west of Paris, are deeply skeptical of campaign promises and the political elite. French presidents have tried for decades to fix the suburbs, and repeatedly failed. But that’s not deterring Macron, increasingly labeled by polls as the front-runner in France’s two-round April 23-May 7 election. He played with schoolchildren and huddled with community activists this week in …

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A leader of an ethnic Albanian party in Macedonia said the political crisis in the country could drag on for years and could be used by some politicians to ignite an ethnic conflict. The president has refused to back a coalition of the Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian parties after an election in December, arguing its pledge to allow wider official use of the Albanian language amounted to foreign interference in Macedonia’s affairs. Their coalition agreement triggered street protests in several cities in which nationalists marched and waved Macedonian flags. Ethnic Albanians make a third of the population in the …

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Hungary’s parliament has passed a law allowing the detention of all asylum seekers in border camps and the summary return of any illegal migrants back to the country from which they entered. The United Nations’ refugee agency, along with several human rights groups, say the policy breaks international and European Union laws, The new policy will be enforced by special personnel. A graduation ceremony was held Tuesday for 3,000 new recruits, which the government calls ‘border hunters.’ Armed with pistols and pepper spray, they will patrol Hungary’s frontiers alongside the police and army. Prime Minister Viktor Orban attended the ceremony, …

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A rock structure in the form of an arch which had featured in countless Malta tourism brochures collapsed into the sea on Wednesday in what Prime Minister Joseph Muscat described as a “heartbreaking event”. Geologists had long warned that the structure, on the north-western coast of the small island of Gozo, was eroding fast and the authorities had banned visitors from walking on top of it. The structure, known as the Azure Window because it arched over blue seas popular with divers, collapsed as Malta was hit by rough seas and stormy weather. (Click the image to view before and …

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More than a quarter-century after Georgia gained its independence from the Soviet Union, civil-society advocates there are still fighting for the kind of press freedoms enjoyed by residents of the EU and NATO nations.  On Tuesday, they claimed a small victory when Europe’s top human-rights court confirmed its suspension of an effort by authorities in Tbilisi to place Rustavi2, Georgia’s largest independent television station, under control of the station’s former co-owner, businessman Kibar Khalvashi, who is seen as a close ally of the government. The European Court of Human Rights first stepped into the case last week, blocking a ruling …

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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin says U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has assured him that Washington will continue to support Kyiv in its standoff with Russia. Klimkin spoke to reporters after meeting at the State Department Tuesday with Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO who now serves as President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. Their meeting came amid ongoing concerns in Ukraine, and among its supporters in the West, that Trump could soften the U.S. line on Russia, given his stated desire to repair relations with Moscow. Trump’s new administration, however, has so far publicly supported the continuation of sanctions imposed …

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Swiss firms from food and beverage giant Nestle to banking groups UBS and Credit Suisse pledged new goals on Tuesday for supporting and promoting women. While Switzerland has Europe’s second-highest proportion of women in the workforce, it trails global standards on gender diversity in boardrooms and in management positions. Consultancies EY, Deloitte and PwC and staffing agency Adecco all committed to increase female leadership in their Swiss businesses to between 20 and 35 percent by 2020. This follows a recent survey by EY that found Swiss firms with at least 20 percent women in top management rated their financial situation …

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Macedonia’s president appealed Tuesday to international leaders to condemn demands by minority ethnic Albanians for enhanced constitutional rights that he says threaten his country’s existence. President Gjorge Ivanov argued that a common platform signed in Albania in January by three of his country’s ethnic Albanian parties endangers Macedonia’s sovereignty and independence. The platform “implies changes to the constitution of the Republic of Macedonia that would jeopardize the unitary character of the state,” he said in a letter to the European Council, NATO and the U.S. and Turkish presidents. Macedonia is in a deepening political crisis, sparked by a massive wiretap …

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A former British spy who compiled an explosive and unproven dossier on President Donald Trump’s purported activities in Russia has returned to work. Christopher Steele said Tuesday he is “really pleased” to be back in his London office after a prolonged period out of public view. He went into hiding in January after his name was published in connection with the dossier. The 52-year-old runs London-based Orbis Business Intelligence, a private security firm. He made a statement outside the firm’s central London office. “I’m now going to be focusing my efforts on supporting the broader interests of our company here,” …

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Migration is the “Trojan wooden horse” of terrorism and the current lull in the migrant flow is only temporary, Hungary’s prime minister said Tuesday. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an early supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, has ordered the reinforcement of fences on Hungary’s southern borders to keep out migrants. Orban says the migrants, many of whom are Muslims, are a threat to Europe’s Christian identity and culture.   Orban said the migration issue would remain as long as its causes in the countries of origin were not dealt with and its potential risks were not recognized. “Migration is the …

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A Kyiv court set bail Monday for the former head of Ukraine’s tax service who had recently been named a suspect in a major corruption case involving the embezzlement of approximately $74 million. The case against Roman Nasirov is seen by some as the first real test of the country’s new National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU).Nasirov’s bail has been set at $3.7 million.If he doessn’t pay he’ll be held in pre-trial detention for two months.  “The case is unique as it is first time since independence of Ukraine when such a high official in office is being charged for corruption,” said …

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French authorities say there are no fatalities in an avalanche in the Tignes ski resort in the Alps, and a large search and rescue operation is over.    An official with the regional administration, or prefecture, says that the operation has been called off.    The avalanche struck at 9:50 a.m. (0850 GMT; 3:50 a.m. EST) Tuesday on the La Carline ski slope, prompting the resort to shut down. French media earlier reported that several skiers were caught in the sudden snowfall.   Four snowboarders died last month in Tignes in another avalanche near the resort. …

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Last week, just days after the southern Caucasus nation of Georgia celebrated its newly awarded visa-free travel access to 30 EU countries, Russian news outlets began reporting a different story. Georgia’s visa liberalization wasn’t the result of Tblisi’s successful, long-planned reforms targeting European integration, Russian outlets said, but part of a seedy quid pro quo that would require the former Soviet republic to build camps for displaced Syrian refugees on its own soil. The Russian news outlets, along with their pro-Russian counterparts in Georgia, based their claims on one source: German newspaper Bild’s interview with Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, …

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The trauma of a perilous boat journey to Greece still fresh in her mind, Tolay performed a ritual she’d felt too unsafe to undertake for the previous three months. “When I put on my makeup, I was crying,” Tolay, said a transgender woman from Iraq in one of her first acts on European soil to reclaim her identity. “It was like I was dreaming.” For the 26-year-old, as for many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex refugees and migrants who have found themselves in Greece, the promise of Europe is not just of safety, but acceptance, amid the challenges …

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European leaders are pursuing a new tack in their bid to dissuade the Trump administration from pulling out of the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change. Withdraw and miss out on economic and commercial opportunities in clean growth, the Europeans are warning Washington policy makers. In back channel discussions, the Europeans are emphasizing a lower carbon future is now inevitable and a United States that’s not fully on board will lose out in terms of energy innovation and clean energy job creation. Others are dangling the prospects to American energy innovators and climate researchers of tax advantages and government subsidies, …

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A United Nations court has referred Turkey to the Security Council for failing to release a judge imprisoned for suspected involvement in last year’s failed coup. The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) had given Turkey until February 14 to release Aydin Sefa Akay, a Turkish national who was due to hear a request for the case of a Rwandan genocide convict to be reopened. “The government of Turkey has failed to comply with its obligations,” Judge Theodor Meron said in a written ruling Monday. “This matter shall be reported to the United Nations Security Council.” Akay was one of …

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The Netherlands faces political disarray after the March 15 election as mainstream parties, diminished by losses of voters to nationalist leader Geert Wilders but refusing to work with him, struggle to forge a viable coalition. Wilders, the anti-Islam, anti-EU firebrand running almost neck-and-neck with conservative Prime Minister Mark Rutte, stands to double his seat total in parliament while the two coalition parties’ share is cut almost in half. The political landscape is fragmenting after decades of stable consensus. Seven major parties will jostle for power and toil to find common ground on hot-button issues such as Muslim immigration, national identity …

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