Tag Archives: European Union

The European Union agreed on Monday to draft a framework for possible sanctions on Russian mercenaries who could be deployed to West Africa’s Sahel region, France’s foreign minister said. Reuters reported in September that Mali’s military junta was in discussions about deploying Russia’s Wagner Group in Mali, which France says …

The UK and the European Union inched away from a diplomatic cliff edge on Friday but remained miles apart in a post-Brexit spat that risks escalating into a cross-Channel trade war. Talks to resolve differences over Northern Ireland trade have dragged on for almost a month, with EU officials increasingly …

The European Union’s foreign policy chief warned the bloc on Wednesday that it must agree an ambitious doctrine as the basis for joint military action abroad, including with a deployable crisis force. Josep Borrell told reporters his first draft of the “Strategic Compass” – the closest thing the EU could …

The United States and European Union are expected to announce a deal to resolve a long-running trade dispute over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs this weekend, easing a major transatlantic trade irritant, five people familiar with the agreement said. Two of the sources said the agreement, details of which were …

The European Union’s top diplomat said on Thursday that Moscow was using natural gas to bully Moldova, as the prime minister of the ex-Soviet republic said the country could not afford the prices Russia was now offering. Moldova’s gas contract with Russia’s Gazprom expired at the end of September. Moldova’s …

Germany, along with other 11 European countries, urged Israel on Thursday to reverse its decision to advance plans to construct around 3,000 settlement units in the West Bank. In a joint statement by the foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, and …

European Union leaders made a fresh effort on Friday to overcome their differences on how to handle immigrants, but disagreed on the best way forward, with the head of the bloc’s executive saying there would be no EU funds for ‘barbed wire and walls’. While total immigration numbers are low …

European leaders paid warm tributes to Angela Merkel on Friday as they wound up an EU summit, her 107th as Germany’s chancellor over nearly 16 years and probably her last, with one hailing her as a “haven of calm” in the maelstrom of EU diplomacy. Before the leaders of the …

Hundreds of anti-vaccine protesters joined some political leaders in Sofia on Wednesday to demonstrate against Bulgaria’s decision to make a COVID-19 “Green Certificate” mandatory for access to restaurants, theatres, and shopping malls. The interim health ministry announced the move on Tuesday to try to slow a surge in infections and …

The European Commission’s chief executive warned Poland on Tuesday that its challenge to the supremacy of European Union law called into question the very foundations of the 27-nation bloc and could not go unpunished. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled last week that parts of EU law are incompatible with the Polish …

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told fellow European Union leaders in a letter Monday that the EU risked becoming a “centrally managed organism run by institutions deprived of democratic control”. Morawiecki said this was “a dangerous phenomenon that threatens the future of our union”. Poland’s populist right-wing government has been …

One in five people in the EU is at risk of poverty or social exclusion, the bloc’s statistical office reported on Friday. “In 2020, there were 75.3 million people at risk of poverty in the EU,” Eurostat said in a press release, adding that “27.6 million were severely materially and …

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have warned Western diplomats that insisting on sanctions as a means to pressure their governance could undermine security and trigger a wave of economic refugees. The acting foreign minister of the Taliban government, Amir Khan Muttaqi, told the US and European envoys during recent talks in Qatar …

Russian President Vladimir Putin has brushed off allegations that Moscow is using energy as a “weapon,” saying Europe’s gas shortage is largely caused by “systematic flaws” in the continent’s energy market. Speaking at a forum in the Russian capital, Moscow, the president blamed the “flaws” in the European energy market, …

British Brexit minister David Frost made an impassioned plea to the European Union on Tuesday to allow for “significant change” to post-Brexit rules governing trade with Northern Ireland, saying only that could draw the poison from their relations. A day before the EU is expected to present its proposals to …

France will launch a campaign for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty as part of its upcoming presidency of the European Union, President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday. A conference will be held in Paris gathering civil society groups from countries where the death penalty is in use or …

The German and French foreign ministers have issued a joint statement saying that Poland has both a moral and legal obligation to respect the common rules of the European Union, which is joined in 2004. Heiko Maas of Germany and Jean-Yves Le Drian of France published their statement late Friday …

NATO has expelled eight Russian diplomats over espionage allegations, with Moscow lambasting the extraordinary decision for undermining efforts to normalize ties between the US-led military alliance and the Kremlin. In a press conference on Thursday, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg announced that the military alliance withdrew the accreditation of eight Russian …

European Union leaders need to show “collective intelligence” when they consider a strategy to deal with China’s rise, the crisis in Afghanistan, and issues in Europe’s neighborhood, the bloc’s chairman Charles Michel said on Tuesday. “We have all observed what happened in Afghanistan, what happened in the Indo-Pacific, what happened …

The UK government on Monday said it stood ready to abandon a post-Brexit trading accord for Northern Ireland “soon” unless the EU agreed to wholesale changes. Addressing the annual conference of the ruling Conservative party, Brexit minister David Frost said: “The long bad dream of our EU membership is over. …