Category Archives: European Union

Who is Robert Fico, the pro-Russian leader poised to head Slovakia’s coalition government?

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Leadership of populist three-time PM could have ramifications for Ukraine, EU and Slovakia’s rule of law

Slovakia’s president, Zuzana Caputova, on Monday handed the country’s former prime minister Robert Fico a mandate to start negotiations to form a coalition government after his Smer-SD party won almost 23% of the vote in weekend elections.

If he succeeds, the populist, pro-Russian leader’s fourth term as prime minister could have significant ramifications for Slovakia’s military support for Ukraine, EU unity and cohesion, and the rule of law in the central European country.

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Paris-Berlin relations slump is holding up key EU decisions, says German MEP

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Exclusive: Defence and trade affected by poor post-Merkel rapport, says chair of foreign affairs committee

Poor relations between France and Germany are slowing down key decisions in the EU including deals on defence in Ukraine and trade, an influential German MEP has claimed.

David McAllister, chair of the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a key figure in the opposition Christian Democrats party, says he is concerned that the lack of contact between the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is causing delays on key decisions on battle tanks and fighter jets, and a future trade deal with Latin America.

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Slovakia election 2023: exit poll shows Progressives in lead but Smer ahead in early counts – live

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Election could decide whether country sticks with liberal, pro-western line or begins to lean more towards Russia

Slovakia’s election day in pictures

“There is a real concern that after the vote Slovakia could become some sort of Trojan horse of Russia in the EU and NATO,” said Andrej Matisak, a journalist at Slovak daily Pravda.

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‘No turning back’: how the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU

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Russia’s invasion has had a major impact on the bloc’s security and energy policies – and even its very raison d’être

“The EU has changed. There is no turning back. We have turned out the lights behind us and there is basically only one way.”

The words of the Danish politician and EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a conference in May neatly reflect the mood among the Brussels elite, taken aback at their own ability to shed EU bureaucratic torpor, defend Ukraine, embrace enlargement and move closer to fulfilling Ursula von der Leyen’s ambition for the EU to become a “geopolitical force”.

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Germany and Italy clash over proposed changes to shakeup of migration laws

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Hopes fade of deal being struck, with one sticking point being right to occasionally breach detention centre standards

European Union member states have failed to reach an agreement on changes to the bloc’s migration laws after Germany and Italy clashed over key proposals relating to human rights guarantees in detention centres and the role of NGOs in facilitating migrant arrivals.

But, as hopes faded on Thursday of a deal being struck, ministers said they expected “fine tuning” in coming days to lead to a pact that would apply in the event of a sudden refugee crisis such as that of 2015 when more than 1 million people arrived from Syria and beyond.

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Greece and Turkey agree migration pact as EU members fail to seal wider deal in Brussels – as it happened

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Poland’s ambassador to the EU, Andrzej Sadoś, told the Guardian today that Warsaw “is refusing to accept any elements of mandatory relocation, the distribution of some mandatory quotas” and is also opposed “to any obligatory payment for not accepting migrants.”

EU countries, he wrote in response to a question, “should have full discretion in choosing between different type of solidarity measures.”

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‘It’s a torment’: refugee tells how his family died in desert on quest for a future in Europe

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Pato Crepin’s wife and six-year-old daughter were repeatedly pushed back by authorities in Tunisia, which has signed a €1bn deal with the EU

Pato Crepin had walked for three days through the desert and could not take it any more. Twice, he and his family tried to cross the border from Libya into Tunisia; twice, they had been pushed back. Crepin, who was recovering from an infection and had not had a drink for 24 hours, found he could not get up. In the blistering heat of the mid-July desert, his legs had given up.

His wife and six-year-old daughter, however, seemed stronger. Crepin, an asylum seeker from Cameroon, believed that if they left him behind they might yet make it to Tunisia and, from there, perhaps, on to Europe. He did not want to slow them down. “Go,” he told them. “I’ll catch up with you in Tunisia.”

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EU warns Elon Musk after Twitter found to have highest rate of disinformation

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Musk is told his platform, now known as X, must comply with new laws designed to combat fake news and Russian propaganda

The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk to comply with sweeping new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda, after X – formerly known as Twitter – was found to have the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms.

The report analysed the ratio of disinformation for a new report laying bare for the first time the scale of fake news on social media across the EU, with millions of fake accounts removed by TikTok and LinkedIn.

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Carmakers call on EU to delay 10% tariff on electric vehicle exports

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Manufacturers expect levy agreed in Brexit deal to hand chunk of market to global firms, including China

Car giants including Renault, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have called on EU leaders to “act now” and delay plans for a 10% tariff on electric car exports from Europe.

Renault’s chief, Luca de Meo, led the calls, saying that if the EU did not take action then policymakers would simply be “handing a chunk of the market to global manufacturers” including Chinese companies, which are making significant inroads.

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Kosovan PM Albin Kurti says talks with Serbia have reached dead end

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Kurti claims EU special envoy to talks has lost neutrality and there is ‘no moving further with this method’

EU-brokered talks between Kosovo and Serbia have become so one-sided that they have reached a dead end, Kosovo’s prime minister has said.

More than a decade of European-led mediation efforts, most recently in Moldova and Brussels, have failed to normalise relations between the two countries, and Belgrade still refuses to recognise Kosovo’s independence, declared in 2008 under a UN-sponsored plan.

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Keir Starmer: Labour in power would not ‘want to diverge’ from EU

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Party leader says he would not bring in lower environmental and food standards than in Europe or reduce workers’ rights

Keir Starmer has gone further than before in outlining his vision of a future UK relationship with the EU, saying Labour didn’t “want to diverge” – in comments that were immediately seized on by the Conservatives.

The Labour leader was speaking at an event in Canada bringing together liberal and centre-left politicians, where he said that “most of the conflict” since Brexit had arisen because the UK “wants to diverge and do different things to the rest of our EU partners”.

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UK could become an ‘EU lite’ member of bloc, suggests Franco-German report

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Blue-sky exercise envisages four levels of membership to allow for countries having looser ties to the union

A vision of a future EU with four types of membership – including an “EU lite” for countries such as the UK – has been tabled by a group of academics commissioned by France and Germany to consider future reforms.

The proposal comes as the UK’s opposition leader, Keir Starmer, told France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, that he wanted to build an “even stronger” relationship between the two countries if he wins power at a national election pencilled in for next year.

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EU states expressed ‘incomprehension’ at Tunisia migration pact, says Borrell

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Foreign affairs chief in clash with Ursula von der Leyen as he issues broadside against ‘unilateral action’

EU member states expressed “incomprehension” when the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, rushed into a migration pact with Tunisia, it has been revealed.

The concerns were raised in July both verbally and in writing, the EU’s chief diplomat responsible for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, wrote in a letter dated 7 September that has been seen by the Guardian.

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Italian PM warns migration an issue for all of Europe on Lampedusa visit

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Far-right Giorgia Meloni says crisis cannot be ‘just resolved within Italian borders’ on visit to island where 8,500 arrived in days

Italy’s prime minister has said that European countries must work together “to stop departures [from Africa]” and swiftly deport those turned down for asylum, who she said “threaten the future of Europe”, after thousands of people seeking refuge arrived on Lampedusa in the last week.

Giorgia Meloni toured the tiny Sicilian island, which for years has been the first port of call for people making the treacherous journey by sea from north Africa, on Sunday morning alongside Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

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Labour wants new EU links in a reset of British foreign policy

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Ties with Europe are a top priority, says shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, as he calls for Britain to play a lead role in world affairs

The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has proposed regular meetings between UK and European Union ministers, as part of a major reset of British foreign policy under a Labour government.

Lammy, who was attending a gathering of centre-left leaders in Montreal, Canada, with the Labour leader Keir Starmer, told the Observer it was high time the UK took up its place again, after Brexit, as a lead player in world affairs. “A UK that is isolated and missing is felt across the world. It is definitely the case that the international community want Britain back,” he said.

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Keir Starmer arrives in Canada to set out stall on immigration policy

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Diplomatic and media blitz for Labour leader will include appearances on Sunday morning political shows

Keir Starmer has arrived in Canada to set out his doctrine for tackling international threats at a gathering of world leaders, the latest step in the Labour leader’s move to flesh out policy in politically turbulent areas such as immigration.

Amid continued efforts by Starmer and his team to push back against the “nonsense” that closer cooperation with the EU would involve the UK having to accept 100,000 asylum-seekers a year, the Labour leader was in Montreal for the Global Progress Action Summit of centre-left politicians.

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TikTok fined €345m for breaking EU data law on children’s accounts

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Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches

TikTok has been fined €345m (£296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children’s accounts, including failing to shield underage users’ content from public view.

The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules.

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EU moves to cut dependency on China for battery and solar panel materials

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Parliament votes to cut mining red tape and diversify its supplies of raw materials such as lithium and silicon

The EU has voted in a plan to secure more of the critical materials needed to make solar panels, electric car batteries and other key elements of its green transition.

The European parliament agreed on Thursday to diversify its supplies of critical raw materials and cut red tape for mining companies. In an attempt to reduce its dependency on China, it plans to ensure that by 2030 it does not rely on a single country for more than 65% of its supply of any strategic raw material.

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UK, France and Germany refuse to lift sanctions on Iran under nuclear deal

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Tehran in ‘too serious a breach’ of 2015 deal to lift sanctions under clause that would allow ballistic missile trade

The UK, France and Germany will not lift sanctions on Iran in line with the timetable set out in the 2015 nuclear deal, the governments have announced in a move that will infuriate Tehran and put the continued viability of the deal at even greater risk.

Under the terms of the original deal, some UN sanctions were due to be lifted on 18 October 2023 as part of a sunset clause that would allow Iran to import and export ballistic missiles, including missiles and drones with a range of 300km (186 miles) or more.

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Sluggish eurozone economies will not welcome ECB’s interest rate rise

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Weak consumer spending as, people – especially in Germany, the EU’s largest economy – put more into savings

Interest rates went up again across the eurozone on Thursday – probably for the last time during this cycle of hikes that has become a familiar story in the single currency bloc, as it has in the UK and US.

The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its main deposit rate by a quarter of one per cent to 4% – the highest level in the euro’s history.

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